Bodybuilding

In talking with my long time friend Clark at the gym this morning, I asked if could rant a little about gym manners or etiquette. Back when I started training on South Hill Street in Oceanside in the middle 80's, things were taken care of by the gym members. The larger fellows were in charge.  

 
 
A few weeks ago I was in a big Globo Gym squatting, not very heavy, but squatting none the less. As I finished my fifth set or so a "trainer" approached me and said, "Dude, that's bad for your knees"!
 
"What's bad for my knees? Squatting"? I replied. "No, going all the way to the floor like that." He said.
 
I didn't want to argue with this young, enthusiastic, over zealous trainer, so I just basic response was, "this is how I've been squatting for twenty years and I cannot do it any other way."
 
It's true though, very rarely do I see people performing good old fashioned butt to the floor squats.(or at least below parallel) I remember days back in the early eighties where we had full on squat workouts and if you didn't bottom out and puke you weren't leaving the gym.

I have a young friend back in Canton, Ohio who is really wanting to get big, lean and become a bodybuilder/fitness model. I must say that I am very encouraged by his drive, discipline and determination to reach his goals. I am 100% confident that he will, without a doubt, become everything he dreams of one day being.

Many of you saw Justin Stage on one of my video entries from when I was visiting Canton. He and I, along with his buddy Andrew, trained, hung out and ate chicken in the rain on a loading dock.

Clark,

I’m having an argument with my friend who says that bodybuilders aren’t athletes. What do you think?

Scott Crews

Santa Monica, CA

Scott,
What are you trying to do to me here? How am I supposed to be PC and answer this one?

Let me say this: Like many generalizations, there’s an element of truth to the notion that bodybuilders are short on athletic skills that require stretching, moving, and hand-eye coordination. The reason is simple: in their quest for size and strength, many bodybuilders neglect specific training protocols that could make them more athletic.

On the other hand, because strength is important for athletes, bodybuilders have a solid foundation of conditioning from which they can improve their athleticism, and I’ve seen some very athletic bodybuilders over the years. Many have made solid transitions into “sports entertainment” or otherwise known as wrestling. Now those guys are athletes!

In this article we will take a look a great workout that you can do in your home in twenty minutes or less (with little to no equipment at all), burn some serious fat, and push your muscles to limits that will help create that lean muscular look that every body aspires to have. If that sounds like something that might be of interest to you, I highly suggest that you read on.

Back in the early 1980’s, Nautilus training was the in thing. Arthur Jones developed a line of machines and methodology of exercise to help trainees get a full body workout in twenty minutes or less while adding a bit of a cardiovascular stimulation.

This was accomplished by setting the machines in order of a progression from larger to smaller groups and limiting rest between sets, therefore causing an increased heart rate while moving rapidly from one exercise to the next.

With the advances that have been made in training and nearly everyone claiming to be an “expert”, I am sure you will hear conflicting theories and some will argue the safety issues of training your legs first, etc… etc… etc…I am writing this for the guy or gal who wants to stay home and doesn’t have the luxury of time or the availability of an in home gym.

In this article my goal is to help you develop an in home circuit type workout, with little or no weights, that you can complete in 20 minutes or less. Were not talking about squatting 400 pounds or benching for a personal best, again the goal here is to keep you at home and kick your butt. Having said that, I refer back to the statement I made earlier about the mindset of the individual doing the training. If I were writing for a different audience I would suggest a differing approach.

We will go through the body parts one by one starting with the legs and ending with the oh-so-coveted abdominals. The order will look like this.

1. Quads
2. Hamstrings
3. Back
4. Chest
5. Shoulders
6. Triceps
7. Biceps
8. Calves
9. Abs

I am assuming that the majority people who visit this site are of the more advanced or somewhat seasoned exercisers so I am suggesting 3-4 sets per exercise with 15-20 reps per set with little or no rest between sets. If you are new to the training lifestyle, first let me congratulate you on such a wonderful decision, and then I will ask you to do one set per exercise for 10 reps per set. You will do this for about 2-3 weeks then you will add one set, then wait another 2 weeks and add the next set and additional repetitions.

We all know that doing cardio is great for burning calories and is great for working the heart. But it is important to know that there is such a thing as doing too much cardio. In excess, it can become counterproductive. Any cardio that is performed for more than an hour will work against you, as you will start to dip into your lean muscle and start to burn that muscle. Unfortunately there are many women that fall to this trap. Some think they can burn off all their fat by just doing as much cardio as they can. Yes cardio is very important, but it is all within moderation.

Not too long ago I had a photo shoot with Mike O’Hearn and we started talking about what we do to get in shape, so I decided to write it down figuring some people may want to know.

Clark’s Top 5 Do’s

1. Do eat consistently, portionally correct meals.
2. Do supplement with products that work; don’t waste your money on fad products.
3. Do drink plenty of water.
4. Do listen to your body: train heavy, rest when you need to.
5. Do get a great training partner that pushes you.

Mike’s Top 5 Do’s

1. Do take dieting serious—it’s 90% of getting in shape.
2. Do take photos and measurements every couple of weeks to watch your progress.
3. Do get plenty of sleep. You grow while you sleep.
4. Do train heavy relative to you. Train smarter—not harder. Go big or go home.
5. Do train with Clark Bartram if possible—if not, then try to find someone as motivating as Clark

I always finish my workout with a brisk thirty to forty-five minute walk on the treadmill, Stair Climber, or with a Spin Class. Needless to say that can be rather boring, so I spend my time watching people train. I observe fitness fanatics working hard to achieve the body of their dreams, some training hard and smart while others seem to be attempting to tear a limb from their anatomy.

As I witness these ill-informed club members, I cringe and oftentimes step off the treadmill and offer my assistance so they don’t leave the gym in an ambulance. It seems as if the most abused body part is the shoulders.

Lateral raises are arguably one of the most poorly executed exercises performed in gyms around America. The old “pouring from a pitcher” routine causes the ball of the humorous to come out of the socket therefore causing an impingement in the joint.

Try this; raise your arm as if you were doing a lateral raise to the point that your arm is parallel to the floor. Now rotate your palm downward from the thumb. Feel the strain it puts on the joint? Now imagine that with a load.

Behind the neck presses is another one. Do that same thing: raise your arms as if you were doing an overhead press; now simply push your hands back a few inches. Feel that?

I’ve been fortunate as a former athlete to have competed and trained with some of the best athletes in the world and what I’ve found through my experiences is that these athletes never shied away from pain. That is a part of what made these athletes so great. I come from an athletic and training background where it was instilled in my head that with no pain there is no gain. I absolutely believe that this concept is very true.

Too many people (and I am talking about both men and women) stop their set right when they start to feel the burn in the muscle they are exercising. Your workout doesn’t start at rep 1, it starts once you feel that burn. I had a coach that used to tell me when I was fatigued and in pain in practice, “this is when the workout starts”. I’ve never forgotten those words and I take those words with me every time I train. Remember pain is just a temporary thing and it is not going to kill you. In fact, you will experience greater muscle growth and burn more calories throughout the day if you can work through that burn and pain and execute that set properly.

Once upon a time, long, long time ago there was a man and a woman sitting by a tree. Suddenly they hear a sound; a crack of a branch,. The ground begins to shake and suddenly a thunderous roar fills the air. The man and the woman take a quick glance at each other and immediately, as if their bodies were machines, they begin to run. Their hearts began to race, their legs took them from rest to full speed in seconds; it was their body’s instinct that carried them to safety. As they reached safe harbor, they sat down on a rock and all was well; they were at peace once again. The man and the woman never saw the creature that loomed behind them; they did not need to see the danger to know how to respond because their instinct kicked in.

This is the story of how our bodies respond to stress, and it happens every day. When we face stressful situations in life, whether running from a predator, dealing with a deadline, or a bumpy time in a relationship our body releases sympathetic hormones (aka the “fight or flight response”) to allow our body to act. However, the problem is that unlike the cave man and woman previously described, we aren’t always able to run away as our body was designed.