This is kind of a spin off of a topic that came up on my board, IntenseMuscle.com, earlier today and I thought it would be a good idea to touch on here.
If you have spent any time in the gym you have almost certainly encountered the Jersey Shore guys that don’t know what the fuck they are doing. They might be benching or curling or super-setting both, but they are hardly going to be training legs or doing deads. I think it is an unwritten rule that after seeing this, most of us feel compelled to get together and make fun of them by pointing out the stupid shit they were doing and how they have their heads up their asses, etc.. After a lengthy conversation amongst our super-knowledgeable friends that NEVER have been in that situation before, we just kind of laugh it off and shake our heads – as if they are such sillies. They must envy the rest of us because we obviously have all of the answers about how to train, get big, get ripped, etc..
Some of the things that they need to be picked on for are things like curling in the squat rack and doing too many cable movements while avoiding the heavy basics. Doing countless sets of bench press and curls but only training legs with a couple sets of leg curls and leg extensions warrants being berated, as well.
And God forbid they ask you a question about training or diet. I mean, who in THE FUCK do THEY think THEY are talking to, ANYWAY???? BITCH, I AM TRYING TO TRAIN HERE!!! I AM AN ANIMAL AND ANIMALS DON’T FUCKING TALK WHILE THEY TRAIN!!! Of course, these comments are never actually spoken but rather these are the responses that are retold over and over when the story is repeated for their brends (bro friends) later in the day. Yes, I combined two words into one trying to be funny and it didn’t work. Hey, they can’t all be gems, alright? My point is that rarely does anyone tell someone else to fuck off when they get asked a question in a nice way no matter how hardcore that person pretends to be so keep your stupid stories to yourself. Not impressed.
Here is the bitch of the irony here people: You are laughing at the Jersey Shore guys and shaking your heads but …. let’s be real here: They are likely nowhere near as dysfunctional as you are, laughing at them. See, they don’t live for the gym and they don’t stress over the exact exercise to do and the exact rep range and follow it up with a stretch while counting breaths, etc.. They don’t race through traffic to be on time for a meal and they aren’t going to pass on fucking their girlfriend for fear they might “go catabolic” from the added cardio. And please, please read this one as it is pretty important: They are likely pulling far more ass than you are. Now, this is where you kind of laugh and deny this but I say it is true most of the time. Those kids have fun in the gym and even though they don’t know what they are doing, they don’t care to. If they did, they would research it, talk to people, get a plan and do it in the very OCD way that the rest of us do it and you would give the meathead nod to them as you pass – still not speaking any words because that isn’t hardcore. No, they are going to get a little pump in the chest and bis and when they go out with their girl for dinner they aren’t going to count calories and they aren’t going to have to hold back a vicious fart while having sex, either. They are NORMAL people. Normal people don’t do what we do so picking on them doesn’t make any sense.
So, my advice to anyone that wants to pick on others in the gym? Ask yourself why you aren’t paying more attention to your own training, first. Second, remind yourself that you are half fucking nuts to live this lifestyle, anyway, and that not everyone cares to be like you no matter how much you think so. And third, if you are asked a question by someone that wants your advice take it as a compliment. No one started out in this game knowing it all. I damned sure didn’t. I stumbled through the gym doing stupid shit – putting myself in harms way and asking every question I could ask of anyone that I thought was big and had something to offer me in the way of wisdom. Lucky for me I wasn’t shot down very often as people back then seemed to want to help so much more than they do today. Not sure where the attitudes changed, either, because in the gym I train in you can get someone’s advice all the time and I don’t train in just any gym, I train at Armbrust Gym in Denver which is arguably the mecca of the midwest. Phil Heath will talk to you for 30 minutes if you get him going and that is DURING his training. I always answer any question that is posed to me unless I am wrapped and getting under the squat bar or something. Otherwise, I will always help when I can because people did that for me when I was starting out.
If you are that douchebag that thinks you are too hardcore to talk to someone while training then I am laughing at you. You are likely kidding yourself and only trying to convince you, and everyone around you, how “hardcore” you are. Bitch is, I think you are the only one that believes it.

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Well, we will just call that a little “hiatus”. Figured I have so much on my brain and so much on my plate that I at least better get in here and update a bunch of things for the people that actually do read my drivel. No, I don’t have anything profound to post this time but things are finally slowing down enough to the point that I will be back in here on a regular basis to give my unsolicited opinions and advice. Thank me later.
First, anyone that owns a legitimate business in this industry knows how tough this time of the year can be. I say “legitimate” because most just pretend to own one – make up a stupid name and then proceed to pretend it is a real business entity. Taxes are very time consuming so to finally get them out of the way for this year is a blessing. Tax note: Obama isn’t big on capitalism. That is all I will say at least publicly.
Second, Jimmy Kennedy arrived last Sunday to train here in Denver with me for 8 weeks. After destroying a Snooze breakfast and moving into his apartment with the company Sissy works for, we are off and running and things are going well aside from the gay waiter singing to him when he served us our pancakes. Jimmy says he didn’t look the waiter in the eye but Jimmy was blushing so …. you make the call. There is nothing more precious than a 110 pound gay man, gayly singing a pancake song to a 6′5″, 330 pound defensive tackle that gets paid to rip your fucking head off and then dance about it. He was a good sport and admittedly, we laughed long and hard (ouch, that didn’t didn’t sound right). I should also note that when the line to be seated at Snooze is around the building it is a really good thing to be an NFL player. It took us about 3 minutes to be seated and the look on the faces of the others that were waiting was not one saying “can I have your autograph”. Secretly, I admit that I was hoping they couldn’t figure out which black guy was the important one.
Third, the DVD is moving along well with test footage out of the way and training footage will start filming in about 5 weeks. We plan to film the training footage for all workouts over a 2 week period. I was holding off and waiting for Jimmy to get to town because most of the training footage will be training with him at Armbrust Gym here in Wheat Ridge, a suburb of Denver. For those that haven’t heard I will be putting out a training and nutrition DVD that will focus on the theme of longevity in this sport. How to train well into your 40s and compete while remaining as injury free as possible, how to work through or around injuries, nutrition and supplementation, advances that I have been working on with skiploading and shitloading as I have gone back to using both instead of just skiploading, etc.. We will be filming the training footage over the last 2 weeks that Jimmy will be here in Denver because he doesn’t want to look like a fat pig in the DVD. I am paraphrasing but you get my point and I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention that little “fat pig” comment if you see him. Remind yourself of your loyalties, here.
Lastly, a “small world” story that I have to throw in here for your entertainment/pleasure: My youngest daughter needed to go to the ER with a pretty bad cut on her thigh last Monday. It was a pretty rough situation and after declining the ambulance I drove her to the hospital, myself. After getting a quick check in we were taken back to a room and the Doctor came in a few minutes later. Nice guy and I told my daughter, Reese, that he looked like he worked out too. The Doctor kind of scoffed, playfully, and said that he “lifted a little”. While he was sewing her leg up we got to chit chatting and he asked what I did and I told him. He looked up kind of quick and said that he had a bunch of certs and yet felt that handing his nutrition and training over to someone else was a Godsend and he asked me if I knew Layne. I said “Layne Norton?” and he said yes. I told him who I was and that I owned IntenseMuscle.com and we both got a laugh out of it. I went on to tell him how much of a steroid and nubain user Layne was but he didn’t seem to care. I even told him he was gay but that didn’t seem to affect him, either. Loyalty can be a bitch, sometimes. My point? Shit, I don’t know. I guess that it is a small world. Either that or I am just REALLY famous – yeah, that must be it.
Lastly, I will be heading to the Colorado Season opener: The Northern Colorado, this Saturday with Jimmy to check that out. Always a good show and he wants to see what a show entails so it should be fun. I always like to see the good peole of the sport but, of course, with the good come the douches. I am sure that I will have to bite my tongue on more than one occasion this weekend. If you are in Boulder this weekend for the show and you see a big, good looking, black man…. it’s me. Jimmy should be close behind, though.
Ahhhh… It’s good to be back…..

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I was speaking with a client earlier today and the topic of genetics came up, yet again. I say “yet again” because the topic has permeated so many conversations, lately, that I figured I might as well hit it again here in my blog. I realize that I have discussed this before but I think that it begs to be discussed again and again so that people get it. I think that most times that genetics are discussed in bodybuilding or weight lifting, it gets shrugged off for whatever reason. Maybe it is simply denial. I don’t really know but it gets frustrating when I try to give someone advice and time after time, when it has to do with genetics, it is discarded with little to no attention paid to it.
I am going to approach it from a different angle….
First and foremost, your genetic potential is predetermined. I don’t care if you want to believe it or not, I am telling you that it is a matter of fact. You will not somehow take some magical supplement or train some new way and surpass your genetic potential. Taking extra things like steroids or other hormones or training efficiently and mastering your nutrition will simply get you to your genetic potential quicker. That being said, as with all things in life, we are all dealt cards that we must play.
If you are familiar with Texas Hold Em you know that everyone is dealt 2 cards, to start. You take a look at those 2 cards and decide if you want to stay in or bail. Sometimes your 2 cards can be obvious to you that it is a great hand and other times you have to take a look at those cards and then take into consideration other factors like how your cards might stack up based on position on the table, what you have to bet, etc.. So, the guy sitting next to you could have a pair of Kings and you have suited connectors. You aren’t beaten by the Kings even though the Kings are a pretty big advantage. You must keep in mind that THERE ARE MORE CARDS STILL TO BE DEALT. You see where I am going here? You should and if you don’t you are one dumb mother fucker.
We all start out on this journey of getting huge, competing, etc, by essentially being dealt 2 cards. I have always considered my starting hand to be about a pair of sixes. In the game of Hold Em, that is only a good hand if you are playing someone straight up. When there are a lot of people at the table, say something like 10 million in gyms all over the country, that pair of sixes ain’t terribly impressive. I say I had a pair of sixes because I did start out young in the gym and came from a sports background so coordination wasn’t too hard to come by in learning how to train and I seemed to grow pretty well from the start but nothing that was going to give me big, purple stretch marks. I was known as the “workout guy” in school. Not too bad but not heading to the Olympia just yet, either.
On the other hand, I think most can relate to the guys that are seen in the gyms that are dealt an A/K suited or even top pair. They don’t have to work too hard and they don’t have to train for long before most people that see them in the gym wish they looked like they do. Bitch is, in the game of Hold Em just as in the game of bodybuilding, you can get your ass handed to you after being dealt top pair by someone that came out of nowhere to put together a hand with 5 more cards.
After you get a chance to look at your 2 cards and decide whether to stay in the game or go home, you get dealt 3 cards all at once called “the flop”. This gives you a MUCH better idea of what your hand is going to be by the end of this game even though the game is far from finished at this point. You now can take the 2 cards you were dealt and then add the other 3 cards to form your 5 card hand.
If the first 2 cards that are dealt are considered your starting hand in this game, then the flop is metaphorically something like the next 5 years in this game or sport we call bodybuilding. The first 5 years of this sport are going to give you a damned good perspective on what your finished hand is going to look like. It isn’t going to tell you EXACTLY what it will look like but it will give you a very good idea of whether you want to stay in, maybe hedge a few bets (most will put this one together) and take a chance on winning it all or simply bow out. Remember, there is also recreational poker to be had. It doesn’t have to always be a huge payout tournament that you play in.
After the flop you will get another card to add to your hand and this is called the Turn Card. How very appropriately this card is named. If you don’t see your position in this game by the turn card, you are holding on for what most consider a chance shot at luck that the last card, the River Card, is going to save your game. It can happen but it doesn’t happen often and is considered relatively rare and lucky. Not many people bet big that the River Card is going to change the game around for them.
In the end, you still have the guys that were dealt the best hands from the start, most likely still in the game with a statistically better chance than everyone else of winning. The numbers don’t lie. However, a well played hand can still win and will quite often. It just depends on how well that person plays that hand, what the flop looks like and whether that person decides to “put it all on the the line” to try to beat the guy with the great starting hand. It is funny, too, because the flop, turn and river cards are all considered “community cards” in Hold Em and that applies to bodybuilding, as well. Everyone has a chance to see what the first 5 years does to their physique and whether continuing is even worth it or logical. Hell, some stay in the game just out of curiosity to see if they can pull it off even when the odds are against them. The difference, here, is that people react differently to the outcome. Some will be pissed that they got beat and didn’t end up with the best hand and others will smile and be content with the fact that they played their hand the very best they could and enjoyed the game. I mean, it isn’t all about winning and losing, is it? Sometimes, people just enjoy playing the game, right?
I was dealt a pair of sixes and I am glad I stayed in the game. I expected 3 more sixes on the flop because I was a dumbass, disillusioned teenager and I was pissed when I saw that the flop was not at all what I expected it to be. In complete honesty, I actually did benefit from the turn card as I got serious only after I saw that Mr Muscleguy in high school wasn’t going to be turning pro training like a giant douche and eating like a kid with a bulging stomach and flies on his eyes waiting for rice to fall from a plane in the sky. (Oh, shut up. It’s my blog and I can be offensive if I want to). My point is that I felt that I had to stay ripped all the time and so my flop turned out shitty. By the time I figured it out my turn card was much more impressive and, arguably, my River Card, as well. Of course, I would like to think I still haven’t been dealt my River Card but … that would just be me denying that I turn 40 in 3 weeks. The River Card has been dealt whether I want to admit it or not.
My advice? Pay attention to the flop and be true to yourself and honest with yourself. You don’t have to have the best hand but you DO have to know the hand you are playing so that you can play it the very best that you can.

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I am going to commit to keeping my blog updated on a regular basis for the next few months even though I have a ton of stuff on my plate from a business standpoint.
Spoke with Jimmy a few days ago and he is slated to be out here to train with me in Denver around the 26th of March and he will plan to be here at least through the end of the first week of May. Obviously, that time can be cut short due to his free agency and where he may travel if other teams are interested, etc.. However, he is pushing to stay in Minnesota and feels he will be playing there again next year. I am looking forward to getting after it again and he is resting and recovering from his broken thumb suffered in the game before the NFC Championship game against the Saints.

I am also excited to report that we are approaching the start date for the filming of the training DVD. This is a huge undertaking for me so to see it start to come together is very exciting. If all goes according to plan we will start filming by the end of March and, of course, get training footage while Jimmy is here (some but not all training footage), probably shooting some of the training footage the last couple weeks of April. All training footage will be shot at Armbrust Pro Gym here in Denver.

Sissy is going to be competing this year so I am excited about that, as well. Due to back/spine issues last year she trained very little in 2009 until getting the ok from her Doctor to start training again late in December. It is good timing, too, because I can’t have a fatty in my training video. She should be in hot-bitch mode by the time we start filming.

Speaking of fatties, I am sitting at about 223 or so, right now, and plan to be about 208-210 when filming starts. I am relatively injury free right now with only minor pings here and there. I am being very cautious and cruising often to make sure that I stay safe and yet still train hard as hell. So far, so good.

If you are on facebook, please visit the TEAM SKIP page and become a fan. It is the fastest way to impress your friends and become really, really cool.

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I have a friend. When we were younger we played baseball together. Now, I should probably define the word “together” as meaning I would play and he would sit on the bench and do nothing. However, we wore the same uniform and so we were on the same team so we played “together”. He was a nice kid and was at every practice and every game but he rarely played more than a few innings here and there and was not ever going to have someone watch him play and say or think, “Damn, that kid is going to be a damned good ball player one day”. From game to game and year to year he really didn’t improve much…. but he kept playing. For whatever reason he loved the sport. You might say he was passionate about it.

I, on the other hand, had a genuine love for baseball when it wasn’t basketball or football season but wasn’t going to work too hard on the drills or working the fundamentals on a repetitive basis. I figured it was just a bit too damned boring. Plus, I was pretty damned good. In fact, as arrogant as it sounds, I was actually pretty good at most everything that I did that was athletic. Even if I found something I wasn’t terribly good at, I would pick it up pretty quick and GET good at it. In baseball, I was told when I was young (or would overhear coaches talking about me) that I was so good that I might go somewhere with it later in my life. Hearing things like that doesn’t typically make a 10 or 12 year old work much harder if they are already not working very hard and hearing they can play big league ball one day. Oh, I was sure that the only thing I had to do was pick what team I wanted to play for. Getting there was almost a formality to me. Again, it may sound arrogant but remember that I was being told this quite a bit by adults around me and “in the know” when I was very young.

So, we have my friend that pretty much sucks at baseball and then you have me who it comes incredibly easy to. I was a catcher and I remember the first ball I caught behind the plate and the first pop up that I caught after diving for, near the 1st base bench. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had a strong bat with a propensity to hit on 0-2 and 1-2 counts for probably 90% of my hits over the years. Defensively behind the plate, I was a standout, as well. The only thing I would have had to really work on was my arm. I was accurate and had a quick release but the arm power wasn’t there. This would be something that if I was going to go a long way in the sport I needed to work on but it was more than doable.

My friend would come over to our house and we would play everything from hot-box (pickle to some) or mock games or just whatever we wanted to do. I lived 7 houses from a massive baseball park so sometimes we would go down and pick out a ball diamond and just hit for the fun of it. We played quite a bit but nothing very structured where you practice over and over to make a weakness stronger. We just played and had fun.

Over the years I drifted away from baseball in favor of the much more lucrative sport of bodybuilding. I mean, once you are told how great you are and how far you will go, it seems almost anticlimactic to actually continue on that road, right? My buddy? He stuck with it but I didn’t know at that time. I moved away and he moved away and years later I heard someone say what he was doing for living. I actually laughed out loud when I heard it said that he was playing baseball for the White Sox farm team. I thought to myself: How in the fuck did this guy get to the point of wearing a White Sox uniform? Are they stupid? Don’t they know this kid sucks at baseball? Apparently, he was quite good I later found out. He played for 7 seasons though he never made it to the major leagues. I haven’t given it much thought but the other day I got to thinking about genetics and potential and all of those cliche words that get thrown around so much in the sport of bodybuilding. It occurred to me that genetics obviously were not only a part of bodybuilding but a part of baseball, among other sports, as well.

My friend, Greg, sucked as a kid because he likely wasn’t born with a gift of great hand-eye coordination as he really didn’t excel at any sports that I recall yet he played basketball and football, too. We have all seen the young kids that just make it look so easy and effortless and have what we call a gift. That was me. I think the gift is simply a genetic predisposition at being very good at something. If someone can throw a ball faster than anyone else they may have tighter or shorter tendons in their wrists and forearms allowing a different or quicker or more powerful flick of their wrist. I am obviously stronger than a lot of pitchers or catchers out there in the majors and yet I can’t possibly throw as fast as they do. This is a genetic component. I remember not having to EVER watch the ball into the bat or watch a ball into my glove and I rarely ever missed gloving a ball. Again, another genetic component.

Now, some would argue that Greg went off to college and mastered the art of hitting (he would end up being a designated hitter for many of those years) which is one of the most difficult things to do in sport today. Practice can damned sure make you better at something. Just like someone that does workout after workout over weeks and months and years to get bigger and stronger, the baseball player would do essentially the same thing by practicing his stance, timing, follow through, bat speed, etc.. Over the years Greg obviously got better the more he practiced because he damned sure wasn’t born with what anyone would consider a gift. He worked hard, no doubt, on getting better and better and I am sure that after being taught proper form and technique that this helped him to excel, as well. However, in the end, he didn’t get to the majors because of …. his genetic limitations. It wasn’t that he didn’t work hard enough. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have the best teachers in the sport – he damned sure did. He worked his ass off and still came up short of making the majors. He was PAID to practice and yet still couldn’t do it. Sound familiar (minus the getting paid part)??

All too many people think that hard work will get you to whatever your goal is. No, it won’t. If you think so you are not at all being realistic. Will hard work get you MUCH farther than not working hard? Duh. Will it take hard work to master anything or be better than anyone else at the same task? Bet your ass. But don’t think for a second that hard work trumps genetic potential because it doesn’t and it never will. No baseball player or bodybuilder has EVER overcome his genetic potential from sheer hard work and/or determination. Just like in bodybuilding you can’t change the shape of a muscle or your structure. You aren’t going to all of a sudden practice yourself into a hitting champion in the majors, either, if you don’t have the genetic potential to do so. You can train until you are blue in the face, liver falling out from too much drug use, wife leaving you for someone that is “normal” and your kids hating you for eating fruity pebbles in front of them after your workout and making them eat the “healthy” cheerios and you still won’t be a pro if that is not coded into your genetic blueprint.

Now, there will be plenty that will argue this. Some will take my words and twist them and say that I said that hard work means nothing, blah, blah, blah. Say what you want and the loudest ones running their mouths will be the ones that don’t have the genetic potential and yet don’t want to admit it. Oh, they know it but they don’t dare admit it. These are the people that are convinced that if they work hard enough, they will get there even though everyone around them knows better. To them I say: go for it. You won’t know until you give it all of what you have but just take this advice, please: Be smart enough to know when you have given your all and see the writing on the wall for what it is. If your goal is to be competitive and win some shows, no one would ever hold that against you. However, I will hold it against you, personally, if you see you aren’t going to be a pro and yet still continue to chase that warped dream at the expense of other things in your life and other people in your life.

Greg was smart. Along the way he walked away with a college education and the work ethic of someone that will always do the very best no matter what he takes on in life. He also doesn’t bitch, piss and moan about not making the majors. He is good with the effort that he gave to his dream and he knows he went as far as he could go with baseball – maybe even further than he ever thought he could go. I have a lot of respect for Greg and not because he played ball for the White Sox but because he worked his ass off, followed his dream and when he couldn’t work any harder, he knew when to call it a day.

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I have thought about this blog for a while but with the Holidays there just never seems to be enough time to get everything done. Hell, it gets so bad that I usually make it to about the second week of the month and then just chuck the training and diet so that I can get everything else done and actually enjoy the Holidays. Otherwise, if I just try to push through and get all of my training and meals cooked it ends up being just another stress. So, I did finally manage to get to this blog even though it is coming up on 2am and I have to be up to take the family snowmobiling at 6am. You can bet this blog won’t be short, either, as most of you know I am terribly long-winded. Hey, we all have our shit and my being long-winded is not one of my worst traits, trust me.

So … you can consider the premise of this blog as thinking outside of the box and simply questioning what you know and what you have been told, taught, thought was written in stone, etc.. I am sure this will surprise some people but … I am simply going to think out loud and put my thoughts to text. I am not even going to say that I believe what I am about to write but that I am merely thinking … outside … of the … box. Why? Because only a fool would think he has it all figured out and I didn’t get to where I am by listening to other people. Rather, I got to where I am by questioning EVERYTHING. I encourage you all to do the same. Here goes …..

What if getting bigger had everything to do with your genetics and nothing to do with how you train? What if training your ass off was actually keeping you overtrained and not growing as well as if you trained like a pussy? What if strength progression had nothing to do with muscular growth? Or maybe it is related but …. nowhere near the end-all-be-all that we think it is? What if form had little to do with progress in the gym? Oh, my mind can be a fucked up place, sometimes. Let me break it down to a more simple context so that I can keep my thoughts as simple as possible.

We all know that genetics plays a huge roll in how tall you will get, how muscular you will get, how lean you can get, how well your structure allows for you to bodybuild, etc.. What if how you trained played little to no role in how efficiently you grew? Think about it: We have all seen a pro at some point train like shit and …. he is huge. Yet, we have all seen hundreds if not thousands of people train with great form and never look terribly impressive. Haven’t you seen a guy with huge legs, be it a pro or not, that doesn’t squat to parallel or below? I have seen skinny dudes squat their asses off and still have skinny legs. I have seen guys that squat twice what I squat and their legs suck yet mine are pretty damned good and my numbers would seem, by most, to be pretty sad. I will also add that steroids are on both sides of this equation as I have seen guys loaded to the gills on gear and they still suck while some of the best pros in the world are on less than most guys at your average state show. The steroid card can’t be played here.

Genetically speaking, haven’t you seen someone that can eat pretty much whatever they want to and stay lean yet someone else can damned near starve themselves and never even come close to being ripped? Women are almost always able to get ripped abs and a ripped back but their hamstrings and glutes can still be soft. How much does your genetic potential play into how lean you are going to get no matter the diet??

Isn’t it possible that form means very little in as far as results or growth are concerned? I think we can all agree that good form is the best proactive way to stay injury free but …. that has little to do with growth. When I say form I am also talking about rep speed, balance from left to right, bouncing, loose form, etc.. Think it’s possible? What about dieting? What if there is no difference in whether you go low carb, low fat or even low protein? We all believe that protein is an essential nutrient for growth and that protein needs to be high. What if it doesn’t need to be? I have seen people grow on very low amounts of protein. I remember competing as a natural middleweight when I was 22 and only eating 25g of protein per meal for 5 meals a day (along with carbs and some fat) and was in great shape. Dave Palumbo gets people ripped on low carbs and Chris Aceto gets guys ripped on low fat. I get people ripped after eating a day’s worth of waffles every week. What if it was more genetically related than it was the actual dieting protocol that you are using? Just sayin’.

I see guys train hard all the time and I have seen this for years. I have also observed that some of these guys are pretty big and, yet, some look the same year after year. In fact, some of the hardest training people I have seen were nowhere near the national level let alone a pro. When I say that I want to reiterate that the majority of guys that train balls out are nobodies when it comes to competing. At the same time, a HIGH percentage of the guys that I know that don’t train hard, at all, are huge and strong as hell. Seems odd to me so I wonder why? Do the guys that train harder than everyone else overtrain more or are most times in an overtrained state? That would explain them not growing much, right? At the same time, that same ideology would explain why the big guys are growing like crazy – they don’t have recovery issues because they are hardly ever overtrained. Maybe training like a pussy actually pays off. Wouldn’t that be a bitch? It might suck but …. isn’t it at least POSSIBLE? Speaking for myself I would say that my arms took off with new growth when I decided that I would train them less because they were a strong point and I wanted to give other body parts more of my recovery time and leave my arms to only a few sets at the end of my workouts. They inexplicably grew to the point that I was getting compliments on my arms all the time. When people asked me what I did for them I would just smile and say “you wouldn’t believe me if I told you”. I wouldn’t tell them, either. Why? They would have instantly had me pegged as an “easy gainer” and that was about as far from the truth as possible. Training less and growing more… hmmm…..

What about progression? What part does that play? Maybe progression doesn’t do shit, either, and is highly overrated. I mean, I have added 100 pounds to my bench and my chest still sucks. At the same time, those damned arms haven’t curled over a 100 pound barbell in 4 years and yet have grown tremendously. I was going over old log books this month and noticed that some of my biggest poundages were all the way back in 2001. Umm… I have grown quite a bit since 2001 and yet some of my weights aren’t anywhere near what they were that year. A few are but the large majority haven’t ever been what they were that year. I was curling 135 for some cheat reps in 1996 at a fat 200 pounds. I now compete at 198 and it is all I can do to get to that weight to compete and I can’t curl anywhere near that right now. My arms are likely over 2 inches bigger now than they were then. What gives? Kinda blows the progression idea out of the water, at least for me. I use myself as an example but ask yourself about your weights and how long you have been training? Does my situation apply to you, as well? I know MANY seasoned competitors that this is their story, as well. Just sayin’.

What if time under tension played a huge roll or a bigger roll than progression? What if none of it mattered but as long as you trained and used those muscles consistently and let them recover you would keep growing? Does a barbell really make you bigger than a machine? I could tell you of one pro that did pretty much 95% of his contest prep training on nothing but machines. Yeah, yeah, he’s a pro. That just backs up my point, though, so thank you.

I ask you to ask these questions because I am not sure that the little things matter as much as we may think they do. We tend to over-complicate things that don’t need to be over-complicated. This game may be incredibly simple: use your muscles, let them rest, grow and repeat. Instead, we are doing muscle biopsies to see if leg extensions work the fibers harder than a squat. Really? Why not just do them both? My point isn’t even to think out of the box, really. It is just to think for YOURSELF. Come to your own conclusions as you try to figure out what works for you and what doesn’t. Don’t hold onto something because someone said “that is the way to do it”. I tell my clients all the time to question me and never to feel as if they can’t ask me why. Paying someone doesn’t mean you do what they say without asking why or questioning them. Quite the opposite, really: You are paying them so they damned sure better explain things to you and because they are getting paid they should listen to your questions and answer them. Again, I am not using this blog to throw my opinions out there on what I just blogged about. I’m …… just sayin’.

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I am supposed to be getting caught up on my client work after a long weekend but I just have too much on my mind and figured I would vomit my thoughts onto my blog so that one of two things can happen: 1. I can clear my mind and get back to work before having to get into bed or … 2. I can make sense of what happened this last week and move forward. If I am lucky, I can accomplish both. As I usually warn everyone ahead of time ….. this is not going to be terribly structured. I plan to do what I always do and just type what I am thinking….

If you did not know Rick Courchene, I am sorry. Of all the things that were said at his memorial service on Saturday from all of the people that spoke, the one thing that stuck with me and stood out the most was when someone said, “I am a better person for having known Rick”. I was moved by that statement (I was moved by a lot this week and struggled more than I have admitted to this point), as cliche as it sounds, and though there were many things said that were very heartfelt and sincere, I don’t know … that one stuck with me. Funny, too, because you might obviously be thinking that I am simply saying that I feel the same way and that comment summed up my feelings, as well. However, it isn’t just that. Obviously I feel that way but I was moved by that statement because it occurred to me that if anything that had been said at his service that I wanted to be said of me when I pass, it was that. Which brings me to this blog.

I am not going to get into how great of a guy Rick was with this blog. If you knew Rick it was no secret what kind of person he was and it was damned sure no secret to all that attended the service on Saturday to celebrate his life. If you didn’t know him, explaining how great of a person he was isn’t going to do him justice, anyway, and quite frankly you don’t have the time to read everything I would have to say. I am writing this blog because I want to share how profound this last week was to me and how it has affected me. If I can articulate even 10% of this, I will consider it a success because I am truly bothered with my feelings and emotions after Rick’s passing.

I lost my sister 2 years ago, as some of you reading this already know. She passed in May of 07 at only 29 years of age and she passed in the house we grew up in, in Michigan, ironically enough. She feel asleep one night on the couch in the living room and never woke up. Her heart simply stopped at some point early that morning. Why? Because. She wasn’t terribly healthy as she smoked, didn’t eat terribly well and was overweight most of her life. However, I think we all can name several people that fit that description that are 50 or 60 years old and are still living. I am considered “healthy” by most but I chewed tobacco for 14 years (until 04), I have tanned every year for 20 years and I have done other things that I won’t mention that the media says I should have been dead 20 years ago. I don’t know why she didn’t wake up and obviously it was very hard to deal with. I had a strained relationship for several years with her and we had only recently reconciled before she passed and thank God we did, for my sake. However, even though I struggled with my sisters death and the tragic death of my 7 year old nephew, Brady, in 2005, Rick’s death was different. It was different because as much as I felt the pain of losing my sister unexpectedly and the traumatic and tragic loss of my brother’s son, with Rick it was different and it took me all week to figure it out. It hit me at the service on Saturday: I saw my own memorial service.

Before I go any further I have to be VERY clear for the few douchebags that hate my guts out there but insist on reading my blogs, following my posts on IntenseMuscle.com (even though they don’t sign in or admit to reading IM), pay attention to me at shows, etc: I am not saying that I am Rick or I am “exactly like Rick”. I am also not saying that I have even a fraction of the people love me that loved Rick or that the turnout to my service when I pass will be anything of what Rick’s was. What I am going to explain are my feelings as they pertain to my thoughts and emotions around Rick’s passing this last week. I ask the douchebags to keep it in perspective.

Rick was fortunate to have a lot of people that loved him and a lot of people that liked him and respected him. Are there people out there that didn’t like him? I am sure there were but they were very few and far between. He was a very outgoing and funny guy that always was smiling and always would talk to you and ask you how you were doing instead of blowing you off or ever being standoffish with you. He was a bodybuilder since high school and he did well competing but nothing that was going to threaten a win at the national level. He was well known in his home state of Colorado in the bodybuilding world and was an NPC Judge for a long time. Though some would consider him arrogant, that might not know him that well and understand his sense of humor, if you knew him you knew full well he was not at all arrogant. He also was very quiet about his sickness that he dealt with for quite a long time – if my memory serves me correct it was approximately since 03 that he had battled on and off with what he told me was essentially leukemia but that he was never technically diagnosed and he explained it as if you had to have 20 symptoms to be diagnosed but he only had 15 so they wouldn’t diagnose him with it. I have had conversations with my wife where she gets very angry when I tell her that if I was diagnosed with something like cancer or something terminal I might not want to tell anyone about it – including her. Rick kept a lot of these things to himself and I can only speculate it was because of the reasons that I would want it kept quiet: so that people didn’t treat me any differently because they knew I was sick or dying and so that I could continue to just live and enjoy my life without everyone around me constantly worrying or being upset for me. It was the parallels between Rick and I that hit me so hard on Saturday. We had so many things in common including our ages (he passed at 41 and I will turn 40 in the Spring) that my mind started to wander.

As I sat there watching the video-slide shows of his life and his very funny interview at the fire station where he was just being Rick from a couple years ago, I just…. saw myself. If I were on a tape like that I would try to be funny, as well. Our personalities are very similar. Now, this part gets rough for me as I take my time typing this out …. I saw my wife and my children sitting there and how they may be affected. I thought about my mother and my father and how it would impact them. I thought about the music or the song that I would want played during a slide show of my life. I looked around the room, physically turned and looked around the room, to see the very friends that would be sitting there if it were actually MY service. The person that did most of the speaking would refer several times to “Rick’s bodybuilding friends” after referring to his family and his Firefighter friends. There was a large group of people from the local gyms and I recognized and knew most all of them. The more I thought about all of this the more painful it was. I actually had to force myself to remember that I was there to remember Rick, not to torture myself about my own mortality and continue to run down the scenario of the day when I will be memorialized. I even struggled with whether my thoughts were somehow selfish in that I was thinking about “me” at a time that I should only have been focused on my friend. I also pondered the thought of whether I was simply distracting my mind from the painful loss of my friend by changing the focus to myself. I then decided that I shouldn’t overthink it so much and simply enjoy the service. After all, I could of course, figure all of that out later.

I think it is safe to say that people simply grieve differently. After much thought I am ok with my thoughts wandering and I don’t think I was selfish, at all. Rick impacted me and my life off and on for about 10 years. He was always positive and supportive and I doubt there was even ONE time that I interacted with him in those 10 years that we didn’t laugh and laugh hard. However, as much as he impacted me in life, it was his passing that profoundly impacted me. It made me look into myself and ask myself how I will be eulogized, who will show up to my memorial and will people have as kind of things to say about me as they did about Rick? I am a good person, a good friend, a good husband, a good father and I am incredible in bed but I can’t help but want to check myself to make sure that I am living the way I truly want to live and to be remembered. I love what I do for a living and I recognize and remind myself almost daily how blessed I am on many levels. I find myself going to Rick’s page when I log onto facebook and I just stare at his picture and tonight I was doing just that and I thought to myself: It isn’t what you accomplish in this life, really, that is important and yet we stress about the promotions and the recognition that we want from our jobs. It isn’t important whether you got an A or a C in math class or whether you make 80k or 180k yet most of us stress about chasing the next dollar, getting a bigger house and having a nicer car than the next guy. When push comes to shove and you leave this earth be it at 41 or 81, I am convinced that what truly matters is the impact that you had on the people around you during your life and when I say people I am saying your family and friends but also the people that you don’t know but that may know you, as well. In the end, Rick wasn’t remembered for how much he made, how big his house was and as long as I knew him I can’t tell you what he drove. No one mentioned that on Saturday, either. They only spoke about the positive impact that he had on them. I truly hope that I am remembered like that when I go.

Rick, thank you very much and say hi to my sister for me and tell her that I think about her often.

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I have been getting a lot of questions from clients, on the board and even friends asking me my perspective on the Holidays as it relates to their training and nutrition. So, I figured it would be a nice topic for another blog entry as I am short on ideas lately, it seems.

I used to be that guy that wouldn’t eat a bite of anything bad or miss a workout between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I remember getting pissed that the gym would close early on Christmas Eve and that it was closed all day Thanksgiving. Of course, in my mind everyone was a bodybuilder so it made little sense to me. As I grew up my perspective changed and evolved into a more logical approach to such an important time of the year.

As far as I am concerned the Holidays are a time to spend with family where you actually get a chance to slow down and just sit around doing nothing more than being with the people that are important to you. The Holidays traditionally involve the three F’s – a lot of tasty FOOD, FOOTBALL and FAMILY – not necessarily in that order. There are few days during the year where it is ok to throw out your training and diet but the Holidays are the exception. If you are not doing a show and you are worried more about your training and diet than simply spending time with loved ones and enjoying a nice meal, your priorities are out of whack. I think it is commendable that you may want to stay with your routine and stay “on track” but throwing a day or two for Thanksgiving and a couple days for Christmas is hardly going to ruin anyone’s condition or have you detrained any time soon.

I give my clients that aren’t prepping (and very few are at this time of the year, anyway) permission to not even think about their diet for these days. Eat what you want and enjoy the food including desserts. I won’t give up my pecan pie for ANYTHING. If I still want to get my workouts in then I simply change my schedule around for that week to accommodate the extra workout but there are times I won’t even do that and just simply skip the workout.

You can do what you want to but I am here to tell you that I will be loading up my plate with a lot of things from brown sugar-covered sweet potatoes to green bean casserole, ham and pecan pie. We do ham instead of turkey. Why? Because turkey is too damned lean. It is the Holidays and, dammit, I want some fat-assed ham so that I can make ham sandwiches the day after and maybe even put ham in an omelet if I feel like it. Come the first week of January it is game on again and everything can be 100% at that point. It took me a long time but my priorities are straight and nothing matters more to me than spending time with my family during the Holidays and enjoying myself. There are eleven other months to focus on training and diet. I hope you feel the same way, too. Happy Holidays!

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Something struck me as I was thumbing through the latest issue of NPC Newsonline. It is my toilet reading along with things like Men’s Health and 5280 (5280 is the elevation of Denver and the name of the city’s magazine that reviews restaurants, doctors and things of that nature). I pay special attention to Isaac Hinds’ spontaneous photography shots primarily because I know him from here in Denver and he can get some funny shots. I think he was covering the Arnold show from earlier in the year and as I was looking at the pictures I couldn’t help but shake my head as I noticed, what is to me, one of the lamest things that bodybuilders do when they take a photo. It doesn’t matter if it is on Facebook, a pic for a magazine or a pic with their buddies – and it is important to note that the females don’t do it. Nope, we look like complete morons unto ourselves.
Now, you can’t make an excuse for this so don’t try to justify it. If you do it, don’t even TRY to deny it, just laugh at yourself and know it is true. I bet at least a few of you see it coming but I am going to throw it at you, anyway: It is the old tradition of flexing the arm while making some stupid sign with your hand or fingers. We are WAY too cool to just shake someone’s hand and flex our arm for the camera, no, we have to do what I like to refer as the “meathead gang sign”.
It seems there are different gangs due to all of the signs that get thrown.
We have the “V gang” which is simply the first two fingers formed in a V. Another that comes to mind is the “1 gang” which is just the first finger, I think, referring somehow to being number one or something. I can’t forget the “fisted gang” which is simply a clenched fist and there is, of course, the one that I think is some Hawaii sign for surfers but to me looks more like when you signal to someone from across the room to “call me” like you are using a cell phone.
Now, the gang that you belong to isn’t that important. What is important is that you flex the arm so hard that until the picture provides a still image, you were shaking like an epileptic on clen.
I ask you who are reading this: Why is it that we feel we have to do this? Is it some unwritten rule? Do we need to show that we are part of this club or gang? I have never once seen a picture of Kobe Bryant acting like he is shooting an invisible basketball while taking a picture with a fan. I have yet to see A Rod act like he is swinging a bat in a picture nor have I seen a race car driver acting as if he is driving a car. It makes little sense, really. What does it say? Are we saying: You might not know that I am a bodybuilder so I must prove it in this picture? Do we expect that the person who asked to take the picture expects or wants us to do this? I wonder if it is simply because, God forbid, we take a picture with a fan or friend and …. have our arm look….. small. *GASP* The thought of it. I can’t stand the thought of a picture existing that would not show my arm in the best light and looking completely flexed and hard. I certainly don’t want anyone to think that my muscles aren’t always hard and flexed, right? Hell no, can’t have that.
So, the next time you are thumbing through something like the NPC news, see if you don’t notice the same things I do. The next time you take a picture with a pro and they start to flex their arm in some moronic sign, politely tell them that you paid well for the photo op and you don’t want to have your picture taken with a retard. A really BIG retard, at that. There are retards all over the place that would smile from ear to ear (and probably drool) to have you take a picture with them. And if you ever take a picture with me and I do that? Smack the fucking shit out of me. I will understand and I will appreciate it.

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I am a bit hesitant to put this out there but I am pretty excited at the same time so …. I am not going to keep this too hush hush. I am in the process of planning a DVD that will be released sometime in the late Spring of 2010. It will focus on training, nutrition, supplementation for longevity in the sport of bodybuilding. This won’t be the average DVD because I don’t push huge weights, have pro size and I won’t be dressing in flannel to train. We figured that had been done before so we were going to take a different approach and focus on what it takes to train for almost thirty years, remain healthy, as injury free as possible and still continue to train your ass off, grow and compete.
I have a team of people that are invested in this project and believe in it as much as I do. They are very good at the parts that they will be playing so I am excited about starting this project in just a couple weeks. We plan to do most of the shooting in late January with permission from Dylan and Heather to shoot it at Armbrust Pro Gym here in Denver, Colorado. As all projects of this magnitude sometimes take longer than the scheduled time, we are going to work hard within the time frame that we have and we feel that this time frame is doable. I think everyone will find this DVD to be not only informative and providing a lot of insight into the areas of training, nutrition and supplementation but the plan is to be entertaining, as well.
I am looking forward to this project even though I am sure it will be a long and arduous task to get this done the way that we envision the final product.
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