True Natural Bodybuilding Ebook

The Personal Story of a TRUE Natural BodyBuilder

True-Natural-BodyBuilding.com January 2012

What is True Natural BodyBuilding about? On this website I describe how I have built my physique through TRUE natural bodybuilding. Because of the vast (ab)use of performance enhancing drugs and food supplements by bodybuilders and so-called natural bodybuilders, I unfortunately have to introduce and define a new term "TRUE Natural BodyBuilding" (short: TN bodybuilding), which basically means bodybuilding without EVER having used any performance enhancing drugs or supplements that do not occur in a normal healthy daily diet. I describe on this website everything about my personal training and diet, and I explain my vision on many aspects of bodybuilding such as training, exercises, equipment, nutrition, supplements, losing body fat, doping, and injuries. Please note that anything on this website is only my personal opinion, based on over 20 years of experience as a true natural bodybuilder and my understanding as a scientist with a Ph.D. in biophysics/biochemistry. I don't claim that everything on this website is 100% correct or that it is the only correct approach. It is not the intention of this website to thoroughly explain every aspect of bodybuilding or to become very scientific. If you want to know more about one specific subject, I recommend you to search the internet, which is full of detailed information. I also recommend you to use the free encyclopedia wikipedia.org as a general source of information. Some of the main goals of this website are to promote TRUE natural bodybuilding, to tell you how I have built my true natural physique, to explain some differences between true natural and drugged bodybuilding in terms of nutrition and training, to help you figure out what is really important to reach your bodybuilding goals, what is not important, and what is total nonsense. And believe me, there are lots of nonsense and irrelevant things being told and written in the world of bodybuilding. As you will notice while reading this website, I am a strong believer in the KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) principle. Building a great physique through true natural bodybuilding is much simpler than you might expect. It does however require very strong dedication and persistence, and the art to figure out what is essential and what not.

How to Get Big - all Secrets Revealed For your convenience I have concisely summarized all you need to know about true natural bodybuilding, including training, nutrition and supplementation, on a single webpage: how to get big - all secrets revealed. This webpage is a great starting point in case you want to read through the site and discover step by step everything you need to know in order to be able to develop your physique as efficiently as possible without using anabolic steroids or unnatural performance enhancing supplements.

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About Me

My name is Jos. I am a TRUE natural bodybuilder, which basically means that I have NEVER used any performance enhancing drugs or unnatural sports supplements in my life. I currently have about 20 years of experience with true natural bodybuilding, and I have never participated in any bodybuilding contest. I have a master's degree in physics and one in computer sciences. I obtained my Ph.D. in the field of biophysics/biochemistry. I have worked a couple of years in an investment bank as financial and technological analyst of pharmaceutical and biotech companies, and as a stock fund manager of pharma and biotech companies. Currently I work since 2003 in one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies of the world, where I am happy to contribute to the development of new medicines for all kinds of serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular diseases, HIV, hepatitis C, etc.

The Early Years I was born in the year that Arnold Schwarzenegger won his third Mr. Olympia contest. I came to the world at a mind blowing body weight of 9 lbs ripped (well, "ripped" may be slightly exaggerated ;-) ). Before I started true natural bodybuilding, I have been practicing judo for about 8 years. From childhood on, I always wanted to be the strongest and most muscular man of the world, and I was convinced that I would get there one day (at the age of 8, I didn't know about the existence of Arnold yet). I probably started doing some simple strength exercises such as sit-ups and push-ups already before I started practicing judo at the age of 8. Soon, however, I realized that judo was not going to make from me the strongest and most muscular man of the world. I needed something else, dumbbells. It took me till the age of 14 before I was successful in convincing my parents that they should allow me to buy a pair of dumbbells. Since that day on I started to work out like crazy, six days per week, over 2 hours per day. My goal was clear, and nothing was going to stop me.

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I started growing, and it didn't take long before I needed bigger dumbbells. Fortunately, my father was working in a steel company, and wanted to help me out. Soon my bedroom was completely filled with steel dumbbells and I was literally sleeping between them. In the mean time I had been watching any video and reading any book about bodybuilding that I could find. I probably watched Arnold Schwarzenegger's Pumping Iron more than a dozen times. At the age of 18, when I entered university, my parents allowed me for the first time to go to a real gym. Luckily for me, Gold's Gym Hasselt, probably one of the best hard core gyms Belgium has ever had, was only 4 miles away from home. Studying physics at the university and going to the gym 5 times per week was a tough combination. But "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going", and I was getting some very good results at university and in the gym. The muscles grew, and the boy became stronger, squatting 10 reps with 120 kg (265 lbs) and benching 10 reps with 100 kg (220 lbs), at a body weight of about 87 kg (192 lbs) and 183 cm (6 feet) tall, after only 4 months. Life was becoming too bright and fate turned itself against me. The heavy leg workouts took revenge and I got a severe lower back injury, a spinal disc herniation, about the worst injury you can get as a weight lifter.

Life after the Lower Back Injury Many doctor visits and a deep depression later, the conclusion of the medical professionals was clear and unanimous: I would never be able to lift weights again. As my lower back injury was so debilitation that I could hardly walk for months, I decided to change my dumbbells for a darts board. I learned to live the life of a lower back patient and avoided any stress on my spine, because any wrong movement caused the pain to come back. Two years and a half later, at the age of 21, I coincidently read somewhere that 8 times Mr. Olympia Lee Haney was going to give a seminar in a gym at walking distance of where I lived at that time. I decided to attend the seminar. The next day I bought my first new gym membership since my back injury 2.5 years ago. As my lower back was still very vulnerable, I decided for the rest of my life only to do those exercises that put no stress on my intervertebral discs, and today I am still loyal to that decision. I also changed my focus from heavy weights to intense muscle contraction, and experienced that this actually works very well for me. Although I missed two and a half of my best years (I believe that 18 till 26 are the most productive years to build muscle as a true natural athlete, because your natural 3

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testosterone levels are at their maximum in those years), it took less than 6 months of training to pass my previous level and cross the psychological barrier of 90 kg (200 lbs) of bodyweight. I gradually improved, and by the age of 25 I reached my peak condition as a true natural bodybuilder. Today, more than 10 years later, I can fairly say that I am still in the best condition of my life. When I am in my best condition, and that is about all year round unless I didn't work out for awhile because of one reason or the other, my body weight is about 100 kg (220 lbs) at a length of 183 cm (6 feet) and a body fat percentage of about 12%. This corresponds with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 30. My arms are 50 cm (20"), my legs 68 cm (27"), my calves 45 cm (18"), my waist is 80 cm (31"), and my chest 122 cm (48"). I have never tried to get my body fat percentage below 10% because I don't compete, and because I think 12% is quite a good number for a true natural bodybuilder to look okay and at the same time provide the body with enough energy to allow intense workouts and to promote muscle growth.

The photos of me that you find on this website are obviously unaltered. All photos are taken at the age of 35 except the back shot on the home page, which was taken at the age of 25. All photos were taken without pumping up. I've also made a slide show of my photos. Would my physique have been much better today if I had never had my severe back injury? How would my physique have been evolved if I had taken the decision to start using doping (anabolic steroids, growth hormone, insulin)? Unfortunately, we will never know the answers to these questions. Jos TN True-Natural-Bodybuilding.com

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What is TRUE Natural BodyBuilding? It is very sad that it has come so far with the sport that we have to define a term such as "TRUE Natural BodyBuilding". However, we have to face reality and acknowledge that there is lots of drug use among bodybuilders and so-called natural bodybuilders. Especially hormonal drugs such as testosterone, anabolic steroids, growth hormone, IGF and insulin are very popular among bodybuilders because they are extremely effective in building muscle mass. Let's take a look at my personal definitions and interpretations.

Bodybuilding A bodybuilder is someone who tries to induce muscle growth, and simultaneously tries to keep his body fat to a minimum, usually by a combination of weight training, proper diet, food supplements, doping, and sometimes cardiovascular exercises. Doping plays, unfortunately, a very important role in bodybuilding as the effects of modern doping products are really amazing. Testosterone and anabolic steroids are by far the most popular, and massively used by recreational, amateur, competitive, and professional bodybuilders. My estimate is that about 99% of the bodybuilders that you see in bodybuilding contests have used anabolic steroids at least sometime in their life, and most probably during the last months and weeks before the contest. The 1% who have never used anabolic steroids in their life are very easy to recognize as they usually end at the last place in the contest results. What professional bodybuilders concerns, my estimate is that 100% of the pros of the last 50 years have systematically used anabolic steroids throughout their career. Since the 1990's, many bodybuilders have started to add growth hormone, and shortly thereafter insulin and insulin-like growth factors (IGFs), to their doping regimen. Currently, probably more than 90% of the top bodybuilders are using growth hormones and insulin. In the near future new muscle growth promoting drugs are expected to become popular, such as: selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs), myostatin inhibitors, and even gene doping. Clenbuterol is another frequently used product that promotes muscle growth and body fat reduction. We also have of course thyroid hormones (T3 and T4), ephedrine and caffeine that are frequently used to burn body fat and increase energy levels. Close to contest time, many competitive bodybuilders also use diuretics to reduce the remaining water under their skin.

Natural Bodybuilding Natural bodybuilding was introduced around the mid 1990's, and it was probably intended to be bodybuilding without doping. Or at least it was intended to inspire people who don't want to become as big as a Mr. Olympia competitor, but want to improve their 5

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physique by bodybuilding without using drugs. In order to create a profitable business for this big new market segment magazines where published and contests were organized with so-called "natural bodybuilders". In practice it appeared that there was not much difference between bodybuilders and natural bodybuilders. Some of the less massive bodybuilders of yesterday, just started to call themselves natural bodybuilders. They accepted the fact that they may have a small chance of being tested for a limited number of prohibited drugs on the day of the contest. However, by slightly changing their doping regimen they could easily find a way around. So basically, most competing natural bodybuilders use the same kinds of drugs, and sometimes similar amounts as the other bodybuilders, or at least they have used them in the past.

TRUE Natural Bodybuilding My definition of "True Natural BodyBuilding" (short: TN bodybuilding) is: bodybuilding without EVER having used any performance enhancing drugs or supplements that do not occur in a normal healthy daily diet. For example, someone who has used a small amount of anabolic steroids 10 years ago for a period of 1 week is NOT a true natural bodybuilder. It is clear that for any of the hormonal drugs (testosterone, anabolic steroids, growth hormone, IGFs, and insulin), it is very important to use this very strict definition because they really can alter your body composition permanently. Although the effects of ephedrine, and its natural equivalent ephedra, which are often used in supplements (so-called fat burners), may not have permanent effects on your body composition, I strongly believe they do not belong in a true natural bodybuilding lifestyle. Let me try to provide a MINIMAL list of products that a bodybuilder should NEVER have used in his entire life to qualify as a true natural bodybuilder: any muscle growth promoting hormones such as for example: o testosterone o anabolic steroids (AS) o human growth hormone (HGH) o insulin o insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) such as IGF-1 and IGF-2 o any anabolic prohormones, prosteroids or precursor steroids thyroid hormones such as T3 and T4 2,4-dinitrophenol (DNP) clenbuterol erythropoietin (EPO) norephedrine, ephedrine, ephedra, and ma huang stimulants such as amphetamines diuretics synthol experimental muscle growth promoting products such as: o selective androgen receptor modulators (SARMs) o myostatin inhibitors o gene doping o muscle stem cells 6

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I didn't mention corticosteroids as they are really often used for all kinds of therapeutic reasons such as allergy, asthma and inflammation, and because they have no anabolic effect. I also didn't mention nicotine, alcohol and caffeine as they are not really performance enhancing for bodybuilders and because they are very commonly used in daily life by most people. I also didn't mention protein powder, amino acids, glucose, vitamins, minerals and creatine because they naturally occur in food products that are part of a normal healthy daily diet, and because they are not prohibited by any antidoping organization. Please note that the list above is only a minimal list of prohibited products that contains mainly those products that are best known and most frequently used by bodybuilders. I'm sure that there are many other products in the anti-doping lists of sport federations that should also be included (see for example the Prohibited List of the World AntiDoping Agency). Finally, true natural bodybuilding is not about using exotic plant extracts, new drugs not yet prohibited by the anti-doping agencies, or high-tech supplements that promote muscle growth. True natural bodybuilding is a healthy lifestyle in which you develop your muscles by hard and smart training, and by a targeted but healthy and natural diet, optionally supplemented with natural nutrients.

Pros and Cons of True Natural BodyBuilding It is not always easy to be a true natural bodybuilder, and certainly not glamorous. In fact it is often quite frustrating as you have to deal with the following challenges: It will take very hard work and lots of patience to reach your goals. You will never get the same results as bodybuilders who use drugs. You will never be able to compete in contests at a serious level. You will never get lots of compliments in the gym because there will always be a doped bodybuilder who is bigger and more muscular. As soon as you start getting serious results, people automatically think that you are on drugs. If you say that you are not, they may think that you are a liar. You will always have to deal with the temptation of the quick results that you could get by using drugs. You will never know how successful you would have been as a doped bodybuilder. Fortunately there are also some attractive advantages of being a true natural bodybuilder as compared to being a doped bodybuilder: You don't have to buy and use illegal drugs. You are not taking any health risks. In fact, you are significantly improving your health. You are saving lots of money. You won't have to lie about using drugs. Most women prefer men with natural bodies. 7

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You can really be proud of your results because they exist only thanks to your own efforts, and not as a result of some pills or injections.

Fitness Fitness is the little sister of bodybuilding. It is becoming very popular in Europe. It basically is bodybuilding without results. People who practise fitness have usually no idea about what they are doing. They like to chat with each other in the fitness club. Some of them dream about getting a better physique because the sales people of the fitness club promised them that they would get results automatically as long as they continue to pay their membership in time. :)

Strength Training The purpose of bodybuilding is to increase the body's muscle mass by developing all its skeletal muscles as much as possible. Although some bodybuilders are very strong, this is rather a side effect of the big muscles and the lifting of heavy weights. Other sports such as powerlifting, weightlifting, and strongman competitions have as main goal to be as strong as possible rather than being muscular. Developing muscular strength requires very different training methods and exercises than developing muscle mass. To build muscular strength, you mainly do basic compound power exercises, such as squat, deadlift, bench press, barbell press and row, with very heavy weights for a low number of repetitions (1-6) per set, and long rest periods (>3 minutes) between your sets. Each muscle group is trained once or twice per week to get optimal results. This way of training totally differs from typical bodybuilding training. To avoid any confusing, this website is all about bodybuilding, not about developing muscle strength.

The Future of Bodybuilding One day, gene doping will be a fact. Together with other increasingly effective drugs, gene doping will make it possible for people to be as muscular as a bodybuilder without ever having been inside a gym. I believe this is an unavoidable future that is coming to us within one or two decades. I have no problem with accepting this fact. And if people want to use these drugs, that's okay for me. However, I don't think these people should be called bodybuilders. Let's preserve the term "bodybuilder" for those people who have actually built their body by means of weight training. In fact, I personally think that the only real bodybuilders are the true natural bodybuilders, who didn't use any drugs to build their physiques. Does that make sense to you?

Concluding Note Although most bodybuilders claim to be true natural, true natural bodybuilders are in fact rare. However, true natural bodybuilders do exist. I am one of them, and I am proud of it. As far as I know there exist no magazines nor contests for true natural bodybuilders. I believe there are 2 main reasons for this: it is impossible to test whether a bodybuilder is 8

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TRUE natural, and true natural bodybuilders simply don't look impressive enough, especially when you are used to see doped bodybuilders.

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Pictures of a True Natural BodyBuilder Below you find some recent pictures of myself. I've also included a few pictures of myself next to Arnold Schwarzenegger. This kind of gives you an idea about how a true natural physique compares to a Mr. Olympia physique of the 1970's.

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My Abs While many bodybuilders train their abs multiple times per week with many sets and high reps, my abs seem to respond best if I train them like any other muscle. I train them once per week with 2 exercises, each consisting of 4 sets of 10 - 16 reps. I always do one exercise for the upper abs (crunches), and one for the lower part of the abs (leg raises), changing their order every workout.

My abs at the age of 35 at 12% body fat

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The Magic Recipe Sorry to disappoint you, but there really exists no magic recipe that can guarantee you to become a successful true natural bodybuilder. However, there certainly is a list of very important ingredients: sound knowledge and understanding about training and nutrition favorable genetics and good health in terms of skeleton, joints, muscles, tendons, digestive system and metabolism very strong motivation, dedication and persistence winner's mentality in the gym (no pain, no gain) healthy and effective diet effective training routine good gym equipment healthy lifestyle enough time and money to follow your diet and training program ability to learn from your experience and to find out what really works for yourself a strong personality to say NO to doping I hope that reading this website contributes at least to the first item of this list.

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How to Get Big All Secrets Revealed The goal of this page is to provide a concise summary of everything you have to do in order to get bigger, stronger and more muscular without having to use anabolic steroids or other drugs. After having read this summary on nutrition, supplements and training, true natural bodybuilding will have no more secrets for you. I promise you, if you do everything described on this page correctly for a period of about 5 years, the results will be amazing and your body will have developed nearly to its maximum natural potential.

Nutrition In order to make it possible for your muscles to grow you need to provide your body with enough energy and building blocks throughout the day; and this every day of the year. The energy is expressed as the total calories that you eat and drink. If you don't eat enough calories every day you will not get bigger. If you eat too many calories per day you will become fat. Therefore it is very important to get a good idea about the right amount of calories that you need. You can use my calculator to get an estimate of your maintenance level. In order to allow muscle growth you should eat a few hundreds of calories more per day. The main building blocks for your muscles are water and protein. Therefore you should eat at least 1 gram of animal protein for each pound of your body weight (1 kg = 2.2 lbs). The best protein sources are milk, eggs, meat, fish and poultry. A good rule of thumb is to get 30% of your calories from proteins, 50% from carbohydrates, and 20% from fats. Drink at least 3 liters of water per day. To get optimal results you should eat at least 6 meals per day. Each of these meals should contain more or less the same amount of calories, protein, carbs and fat. Use my diet plan excel sheet to determine your caloric need and to design your nutrition plan.

Supplements Sports supplements are not a requirement to get maximal bodybuilding results, but they are very handy in helping you to get all nutrients you need every day. Especially milk protein powder and creatine monohydrate are very handy and affordable substitutes for meat and fish. Whey protein powder is a fast source of protein, ideal for in the morning and right after your workout. Casein protein powder is a slow protein source that should be taken right before going to bed. Creatine monohydrate is best taken in 3 serving of 2 grams per day. Carbohydrates do not really have to be supplemented as they are abundantly present in many natural food products. However, if you want to add them to your protein shakes I recommend you to use fine milled oats, which is a great source of slowly digesting carbohydrates that also contains lots of vitamins and minerals. Glucose (also called 16

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dextrose), on the other hand, is a great source of fast absorbing carbohydrates that is recommended for your post workout shake as it is ideal for rapidly replenishing your glycogen stores. In summary, drink a casein protein shake with skimmed milk right before going to bed and a whey protein shake with skimmed milk right after waking up. This ensures enough protein supply for your muscles throughout the night and morning. Right after your workout drink a glass of orange juice with 40 grams of added dextrose. Fifteen minutes later you drink a whey protein shake with 50 grams of whey, 20 grams of dextrose, 300 ml of orange juice and 300 ml of skimmed milk. In each of these 3 shakes you add 2 g of creatine monohydrate.

Training First of all you need to get a membership to a well equipped gym. Use a 4- or better 5day split routine in which you train each of your muscle groups once per week. For each of your big muscle groups you do 3 or 4 exercises and for the smaller muscle groups you do 1 or 2 exercises. Every week you change your workout slightly by picking a couple of different exercises or at least by varying their order. Limit yourself to the basic bodybuilding exercises that have proven to be great muscle mass builders. For each exercise do 4 sets of about 10 quality reps with the heaviest possible weight that you can lift without scarifying good form. Don't rest longer than 1 minute between subsequent sets for the same muscle group. Perform your repetitions with continuous tension and full range of motion. After the first 1 or 2 warm-up sets make sure you train to failure and add some forced or partial reps at the end of your last set to optimize training intensity and muscle overload. If you are rather new to bodybuilding, gradually build up your condition by starting with some beginner routines. Learn how to perform the basic exercises correctly by watching the exercise video clips at muscleandstrength.com and reading my advanced tips. After a year or so you should be able to follow the advanced 4- or 5-day split routines. In order to reach your goals it is very important to take every workout very seriously. Never skip a workout and always train with optimal intensity to reach total muscular exhaustion by the end of your workout. Try to train harder and more intense every workout by progressively using heavier weights as you get stronger. Only by pushing your limits every workout again your body will be sufficiently challenged to continue growing. Allow yourself 2 or 3 weeks off after every 6 months of training in order to give yourself a chance to recharge mentally and to let your body fully recover from any physical stress accumulated during the past 6 months of heavy training.

Conclusion As said in the introduction of this page, you now know all secrets on how to get big and muscular without using steroids. If you follow the nutrition and training tips and tricks listed on this page you can expect to gain between 5 and 10 pounds of lean muscle 17

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mass every year. After 5 years of training that's up to a total of 50 pounds of muscle, which is enough to transform you from a skinny guy into a real powerful athlete. Whether or not you will be one of the lucky 50 lbs gainers depends on only two things: how well you adhere to the principles summarized above and your genetic potential. Wish you good luck!

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Nutrition Nutrition is extremely important in bodybuilding, but fortunately it is also very simple. Basically a good bodybuilding diet equals a normal healthy diet plus three big protein shakes per day. Can it be any simpler? For those of you who didn't learn at school how a normal healthy diet looks like, I recommend you to do some research on the internet. I also advise you to take a look at my section on losing body fat.

Calories The total number or calories that you daily eat and drink is very important. If you take in more calories than your body burns, you will gain weight. If you take in fewer calories than your body burns, you will lose weight. The number of calories that you burn during a typical day (= daily caloric need) depends on your gender, age, body weight, lean body mass, length and physical activity. You can try out my calculator to estimate your daily caloric need or a more advanced formula on the internet. If you want to build muscle mass, your calorie intake should be equal to or a few hundred calories higher than your daily caloric need. If you want to lose body fat your calorie intake should be equal to or a few hundred calories lower than your daily caloric need. I personally eat about 3,500 calories per day when I train 5 days per week. Bodybuilders who are using anabolic steroids consume much more calories; they burn usually about twice as many calories. The really big bodybuilders who use steroids often eat between 6,000 and 9,000 calories per day without gaining any body fat. Note: one gram of carbohydrates, proteins, fat, and alcohol contain 4, 4, 9, and 7 calories, respectively. One kilogram (2.2 lbs) of body fat contains about 7,700 cals.

Healthy Diet If you want to learn some general things about a healthy diet, please search the internet. Below I provide some of my personal opinions on the most important nutrients, and I say something about their relevance in a bodybuilding diet.

Water Water is the most important nutrient for almost any living organism. Drinking a lot is healthy, especially for the kidneys. Drink about 3 liters of water per day (milk and juice contain about 90% water). Don't drink too much alcohol, caffeine and sugar containing drinks. Unless your workouts take longer than 1 hour, there is no real need to drink or eat during your workouts.

Protein Protein is without any doubt the most important nutrient for any bodybuilder. Eat at least 1 gram of animal protein for each pound of your body weight (1 kg = 2.2 lbs). I 19

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personally eat about 300 grams of protein per day. A high daily intake of protein is an absolute requirement to make muscle growth possible, and protein is excellent in reducing the hunger feeling during a low calorie diet. Good sources of protein are milk, eggs, poultry, meat and fish.

Carbohydrates Carbohydrates are the best source of energy for bodybuilders as they are easily converted into glycogen, the main form of stored energy in the muscles. Avoid sugars and other carbohydrates with a high glycemic index (blood glucose levels increase fast after ingestion, causing an insulin peak). Good sources of carbohydrates are vegetables, fruit, milk, pasta, rice, bread, potatoes, and cereals such as oats, wheat and barley.

Fat Keep your fat intake limited. Avoid saturated fats, which are usually from animal origin. Good sources of fat are fat fish, nuts, seeds, and vegetable oils such as flaxseed oil (rich in omega-3 fatty acids that may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease), olive oil (rich in monounsaturated fatty acids that may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease) or sunflower oil (rich in vitamin E which is a strong antioxidant that prevents the celldamaging effects of free radicals).

Vitamins and minerals Vitamins and minerals are essential nutrients for a good health. However, if you follow a normal healthy diet, especially if you regularly include some grains, fresh fruit and vegetables, you will have plenty of all vitamins and minerals. Extra vitamins or minerals will certainly not stimulate muscle growth or body fat reduction.

Nicotine, alcohol, caffeine and other addictive drugs I don't believe it is possible to be a successful true natural bodybuilder if you are addicted to any of these drugs, especially nicotine (tobacco).

Protein Shakes Protein shakes are the simplest, least expensive, and most effective way to turn your normal healthy diet into an effective bodybuilding diet. I recommend you to drink three big protein shakes per day in between your other meals. Blend about 60 grams of milk protein powder (= about 50 grams of pure protein) with 0.5 liter of non-fat milk. Each protein shake will then contain about 66 grams of high quality protein, 25 grams of lactose (which is a very good carbohydrate with a low glycemic index), maximum a few grams of fat, and a total of about 375 calories. Adjust the size of your shakes to your personal needs. For those who are lactose intolerant I recommend to use egg protein powder and soy milk, juice or plain water to prepare your protein shakes. There also exist protein 20

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powders that are very low in lactose, very interesting for lactose intolerant people who have difficulties digesting milk sugar. When I was still studying at the university and didn't have access to protein powder, I used to drink a gallon (3.8 liters) of non-fat milk per day, eat three eggs per day, and lots of turkey, chicken breasts and tuna instead of protein shakes. In the mean time I have tried many brands and kinds of protein powder, and I find all of them equally effective.

Meal Replacement Shake Let me also present how I make my favorite whole meal shakes that are rich in high quality proteins and carbohydrates, high in fiber, low in fat, full of all necessary vitamins and minerals, and free of chemical additives. Add the following ingredients into your blender: 1 banana 500 mL of (skimmed) milk 250 mL of fruit juice (apple, orange, pineapple or grapes) 60 grams of Milk Protein Smooth (100% natural and free of chemicals) 35 grams of done whole grain wheat flour (Brinta Classic) or ultra fine oat powder After blending for 30 seconds you get a delicious shake of 700 calories containing 100 gram carbs, 70 gram protein, 2 gram fat, and 750 mL water. Note that apple juice, orange juice, pineapple juice and grape juice contain 46, 47, 53 and 60 calories per 100 g, respectively. Orange juice is contains by far the most vitamin B and C. If you want an extra thick shake that digests more slowly and kills the hunger for a longer time, you can add a small amount (<1 g) of xanthan gum or guar gum.

Post-Workout Shake The main energy source for a bodybuilding workout is glycogen. A total of about 500 gram of glycogen is normally stored in your muscles and another 100 gram in your liver. During an intense bodybuilding workout your body consumes about 100 gram of glycogen, depending on the duration and intensity of your workout. Also some muscle proteins are broken down during your workout and their amino acids (mainly the BCAA's) are used as fuel. Scientific studies have demonstrated that during the first 2 hours after a workout your body is able to recover its lost glycogen and muscle protein very fast and efficiently if the necessary nutrients are available in the blood. Although there is no substantial evidence that a fast post-workout recovery results in increased long term muscle gain, it has become popular among bodybuilders to consume a fast digesting nutrient-rich meal shortly after each workout. As a simple and healthy replacement for the commercially available post-workout supplements, you can drink 300 ml of grape juice shortly after your workout, followed by a whey protein shake (50 g whey, 300 ml orange juice, 300 ml skimmed milk) 10 minutes later. This releases a total of about 90 gram of carbohydrates and 50 gram of 21

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amino acids into your blood stream during the next 2 hours. The glucose and the fructose from the fruit juices serve the glycogen synthesis in the muscles and liver, respectively. The amino acids from the whey protein serve the recovery of the muscle proteins.

Bodybuilding Diet Plan Also take a look at my concrete example of a good bodybuilding diet plan and my excel spread sheet you can use to build your own diet plan.

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Bodybuilding Diet Plan Below I present a good example of a diet plan for a true natural bodybuilder who needs about 3700 calories per day. The diet plan consists of 5 solid meals and 3 protein shakes in between the meals. This results in a total of 8 small meals per day, each two and a half hours apart. 07:00: wake up 07:30: breakfast: 500 kcal 10:00: protein shake: 400 kcal 12:30: lunch: 800 kcal 15:00: protein shake: 400 kcal 17:30: dinner: 550 kcal 19:00: workout 20:00: post-workout protein shake: 400 kcal 21:00: snack: 400 kcal 22:30: bed time meal: 300 kcal 23:00: bed time The total daily intake of protein should be at least 1 gram of animal protein for each pound of body weight. The rest of your calories should mostly come from carbohydrates. A good target formula is to get about 30% of your calories from protein, 50% from carbohydrates, and about 20% from fat. Of course there are countless ways to compose the meals in order to get the target calorie and nutrient content. Great sources of protein are non-fat milk products, egg whites, poultry, meat and fish. Good sources of carbohydrates are vegetables, fruit, milk, pasta, rice, bread, potatoes and cereals. Good sources of fat are egg yolks, fat fish, and some vegetable sources such as olives, nuts and flaxseed oil. Variation is a key aspect of every healthy diet; therefore it is advised to change slightly the composition of your meals every day by choosing different meat, fish, poultry, fruit, vegetables and cereals. One example is presented below.

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Kcal

Protein (g) Carbs (g) Fat (g)

07:30 Breakfast 2 eggs 100 g wholemeal bread 300 mL orange juice

490 144 226 120

23.0 12.6 8.0 2.4

68.8 0.8 41.0 27.0

13.6 10.0 3.3 0.3

10:00: Protein shake 1 banana (100 g) 500 mL skimmed milk 30 g milk protein powder

382 99 171 112

42.4 1.1 16.5 24.8

48.4 23.0 24.0 1.4

2.1 0.3 1.0 0.8

12:30: Lunch 150 g tuna 150 g pineapple 100 g pasta 100 g olives

792 163 109 358 164

52.4 39.0 0.6 12.0 0.8

107.6 0.0 26.3 75.0 6.3

17.0 0.8 0.2 1.1 15.0

15:00: Protein shake 250 mL apple juice 250 mL skimmed milk 30 g milk protein powder 30 g whole grain wheat flour

399 105 86 112 97

36.6 0.3 8.3 24.8 3.3

58.4 25.5 12.0 1.4 19.5

2.2 0.3 0.5 0.8 0.6

17:30: Dinner 150 g turkey 100 g rice 100 g broccoli

546 147 358 41

43.1 31.5 8.8 2.8

84.6 0.0 78.0 6.6

3.9 2.3 1.2 0.4

20:00: Post-workout shake 250 mL orange juice 500 mL skimmed milk 30 g whey protein powder

392 100 171 121

42.3 2.0 16.5 23.8

48.3 22.5 24.0 1.8

3.3 0.3 1.0 2.1

21:00: Snack 100 g muesli

394 394

9.7 9.7

77.8 77.8

4.9 4.9

22:30: Bed time meal 329 400 g quark or cottage cheese 251 100 g cherries 78

49.0 48.0 1.0

30.0 12.0 18.0

1.4 1.2 0.2

Day total % of total calories

298 32%

524 56%

48 12%

3724

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Note that in the above example only 12% of the calories come from fat. However, the real amount might be a bit higher since I did not include any butter, oil and/or sauces used to prepare the meals. If you think you still need more fat, you can easily adjust it by changing some products (e.g. 1% fat milk instead of skimmed milk, fine oat powder instead of whole grain wheat flour (Brinta Classic), salmon instead of tuna, steak instead of turkey) or by adding some nuts, olives, fish oil capsules or flaxseed oil. If you want to build your own diet plan or customize this example to your own needs, please download my bodybuilding diet plan excel spread sheet.

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Sports Supplements Despite the impressive marketing claims by sports supplement vendors and pro bodybuilders who are sponsored by them, most sports supplements sold to bodybuilders simply do not work. The only effects they have on you are the placebo effect (a positive effect based solely on the power of suggestion) and the financial effect (you are basically sponsoring the sport when you buy supplements, which is of course a good thing). The only sports supplements of which I believe that they may have real beneficial effects for bodybuilders are those discussed below.

Protein Powders Protein is without any doubt the most important nutrient for building muscle mass. I personally consider protein powder as a normal food product rather than a food supplement because it is derived from natural food products such as milk or eggs and not by chemical synthesis (water, olive oil, table sugar and salt are other examples of pure substances that are not considered food supplements). Eat at least 1 gram of animal protein for each pound of your body weight (1 kg = 2.2 pounds). The best protein powders are made from milk (whey and casein), or eggs. Whey proteins are digested by the body within approx 2 hours, egg white proteins within approx 4 hours, and casein proteins within approx 7 hours. Milk protein exists for about 20% of whey and 80% of casein, and is therefore an ideal source of fast and slowly absorbing amino acids. The slowly digesting casein protein powders are often recommended to be taken right before going to bed, while the fast absorbing whey protein powders are preferred in the morning and right after the workout. There also exist milk protein powders (referred to as isolates) that are very low in lactose and therefore ideal for lactose intolerant people who have problems digesting milk sugar. According to my personal experience all types and brands of protein powder are equally effective, but I prefer the ones from MyProtein (use the 5% discount code MP51244 during checkout). I especially like their unflavored Impact Whey Protein and unflavored Milk Protein Smooth as they are 100% natural without any chemical additives. And of course Bodybuilding.com, the largest supplement store on the internet, offers some similar products.

MyProtein.com - Best Prices in Europe (use the 5% discount code MP51244 during checkout) Here I buy supplements myself. - Jos -

Amino Acids Proteins are broken down into amino acids during digestion. If you eat enough protein, there is no need to take additional amino acids. Amino acids are rather expensive and 26

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have totally no additional value. In the past amino acids have been popular, but in the mean time most bodybuilders have figured out that they are not worth the money. I don't believe that taking BCAA's (branched chain amino acids), EAA's (essential amino acids) arginine, glutamine, or any other amino acid just before, during, or just after your workout will accelerate muscle growth significantly. Any good whey protein contains 2025% BCAA's and 40-50% EAA's that get absorbed by the body within 2 hours.

Creatine Creatine naturally occurs in the muscles and plays an important role in the energy supply during exercise. The main sources of creatine in your diet are meat and fish. Since the amount of creatine in meat and fish is very low (about 5 g per kg) and since most of us don't eat big quantities of it, supplementation of creatine may be worth considering. In contrast to most other sport supplements, creatine supplementation definitely has real noticeable effects on your body if taken long enough in large enough quantities. Some of these effects are definitely interesting for bodybuilders. The main beneficial effects of creatine supplementation are: Your muscles will absorb extra water, which makes them bigger and harder, and you can experience as a result an increase in bodyweight of up to 3%. The levels of creatine phosphate in your muscles increase, resulting in more energy during your workouts. You can do more reps with the same weight. You will be stronger and thus being able to lift heavier weights for the same number of reps. You will feel a more solid pump in your muscles during your workout. You will experience increased stability of the joints, lowering the risk of injuries. As a result of the above listed effects you should be able to increase the overall intensity of your workouts, which in turn could theoretically result in faster muscle growth. Creatine is however not a magical product. It also has some drawbacks: All the beneficial effects disappear completely a couple of weeks after stopping creatine supplementation. Some people's digestive system gets upset by creatine supplementation, resulting in diarrhoea and insufficient absorption of the creatine supplement by the body. There are some concerns about possible negative side effects of long term use of large dosages of creatine on for example the kidneys and liver. The pump in your muscles can become so pronounced that it can actually become inconvenient during some endurance exercises or physical labor. People who have high natural creatine levels or eat large amounts of meat and fish may not get additional benefits from creatine supplementation. Although the 5 beneficial effects that I listed above are in my opinion factually true, so far I didn't see any proof yet that creatine supplementation does really speed up actual muscle growth or can push actual muscle mass to higher levels that could not have been reached without creatine supplementation (I use here the term "actual muscle" for 27

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not confusing it with the extra water that is temporary absorbed by the muscles during creatine supplementation). When I first tried creatine supplementation I was 25 years old, and full grown in terms of muscle mass. Creatine supplementation has never been able to help me increase my actual muscle mass beyond that level. During creatine supplementation I experience a body weight increase of about 6 pounds, fuller and harder muscles, up to 15% strength and energy increase, a powerful pump and a significant increase in joint stability. Especially the latter effect I like very much because it really helps me to prevent tendon injuries. I get the best effects with a loading phase of 2 weeks with 10 grams of pure creatine monohydrate powder per day, followed by a maintenance dose of 6 grams per day. All brands of creatine monohydrate are equal. You might consider choosing extra fine milled creatine monohydrate to facilitate its absorption, however, for me it doesn't make any difference. I take my creatine powder 3 or 4 times per day, and take it with plain water, juice or milk. Although I don't think that creatine supplementation has any permanent long term beneficial effects, its short term effects are certainly quite spectacular. I recommend everybody to try it out at least once to see whether you like it.

Carbohydrate Powders During an intense weight training workout the glycogen stored in the muscles and liver is the main energy source. For optimal strength and endurance during your workouts it is very important that these glycogen supplies are completely restored before starting a new workout. The best moment to replenish exhausted glycogen supplies is during the first 2 hours after the workout. Easily digestible food products containing lots of fast absorbing carbohydrates (high glycemic index) are recommended for this purpose. During the rest of the day food products with slowly absorbing carbohydrates (low glycemic index) are preferred in order to provide a steady supply of energy to the body and to maintain the glycogen supplies. For those of you who like to optimize their carbohydrate intake there are some very handy carbohydrate powders available that can easily be added to protein shakes.

Dextrose Dextrose is another name for glucose, the most important building block of most carbohydrates that occur in our food. Next to fructose and sucrose, glucose is an important sugar present in most fruits. During digestion most carbohydrates are broken down into glucose molecules that enter the blood stream and are transported to the muscles and liver where they are converted into glycogen. Dextrose has the highest glycemic index of all naturally occurring carbohydrates. Adding dextrose (about 1 gram per kg of body weight) to your post-workout protein shake is the most efficient way to replenish your glycogen supplies rapidly. 28

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Maltodextrin Maltodextrin, which is produced from corn starch, is another carbohydrate powder that is very easily digestible and has a glycemic index very similar to glucose. However, unlike dextrose, maltodextrin is not sweet. Therefore you can replace part of the dextrose in your protein shake by maltodextrin in order to keep its sweetness limited. A 50/50 mixture of dextrose/maltodextrin also gets slightly faster absorbed by the body than a pure dextrose or maltodextrin solution.

Fine milled oats In contrast to dextrose and maltodextrin, milled oats are a great source of slow carbohydrates (low glycemic index) that additionally provide lots of healthy fiber, vitamins and minerals. When milled ultra fine they are very easily mixable into a protein shake and they provide a great smooth taste. Fine milled oats are a great source of carbohydrates for throughout the day.

Vitamins and Minerals Vitamins and minerals are essential nutrients for a good health. However, if you follow a normal healthy diet, especially if you regularly include some fresh fruit and vegetables, your body will have plenty of all vitamins and minerals. The importance of vitamin supplementation is extremely hyped up by the heath care industry, and they are the favorite placebos prescribed by physicians. I do not recommend anybody to use additional vitamin or mineral supplements unless medical examinations clearly demonstrates a shortage (e.g. some people may have a shortage in iron). Extra vitamins or minerals will certainly not increase muscle growth or body fat reduction.

Ephedrine, Caffeine, and Aspirin Ephedrine (or its natural equivalent ephedra) together with caffeine and sometimes aspirin has proven to be really helpful in burning body fat, and has therefore often been used in sports supplements (so-called fat burners). Ephedrine is however a dangerous drug and prohibited by most anti-doping organizations. Ephedrine (or its natural equivalent ephedra or ma huang) does not belong in the human body and should never be used by true natural bodybuilders.

Prohormones Prohormones are often sold as sports supplements. I don't know very much about them because I think that all supplements that have the word "hormone" in their name should not be used by true natural bodybuilders. According to many sources, however, some prohormones do really stimulate muscle growth. Prohormones are converted into real hormones (usually testosterone or anabolic steroids) by the body, and can have a minimal hormonal effect by themselves. In some countries (including the US) they are no longer legally available and they definitely should never be used by a true natural bodybuilder. 29

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Hormone Boosters All kinds of hormone boosters are currently on the market as alternatives for hormonal doping with testosterone, anabolic steroids, growth hormone etc. These supplements are supposed to increase your natural levels of these hormones in a safe and legal manner. Honestly, I don't know very much about these products, but I doubt very much that any of these products can really significantly increase your natural hormone levels. In each case, in my opinion all substances that don't occur in a normal healthy daily diet, especially when they are supposed to manipulate your hormone levels, should not be used by true natural bodybuilders. I also believe that from a health perspective, it is not wise to disturb your natural hormonal balance.

Glucosamine and Chondroitin Sulfate Several studies have shown that glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate may have beneficial effects for the health of your joints. They are claimed to help relieve joint ache, treat osteoarthritis, and improve the health of your cartilage and maybe your tendons. In Europe they are even approved as safe and effective medical drugs for osteoarthritis. Although I have never tried them myself, I believe it may be worthwhile trying them to prevent or treat joint injuries.

Conclusion The only sport supplement that I believe is really beneficial to all bodybuilders is protein powder, because protein is really an essential nutrient for muscle growth. However, as explained above, I consider protein powder as a food product rather than a supplement, because it is isolated from natural food products such as milk and eggs. The only other sport supplement that true natural bodybuilders could benefit from is creatine monohydrate. However, I do not think that creatine supplementation has any long term beneficial effects. I believe that all other sports supplements currently on the market have no significant benefit for bodybuilders, do not work at all, or should not be part of true natural bodybuilding. Note that it is well possible to eliminate the need for sports supplements completely, simply by eating large enough quantities of meat and/or fish. By eating about 3 lbs of meat and/or fish per day you fully cover your daily needs of quality protein and creatine, eliminating the need for any supplementation. Eating such high amounts of meat or fish can, however, have a few disadvantages: meat and fish can contain lots of saturated fats and cholesterol, they can be rather costly, and take lots of time for preparing and eating. Also take a look at my section on supplement safety. If you are curious about which supplements you would find in my closet, take a look at my list of food supplements and training accessories. 30

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Protein Powders Explained Egg white protein powder is derived from chicken egg whites. It is produced by removing the yolk from the eggs and then converting the egg white into a powder form. Egg white proteins have an average digestion rate. They are absorbed by the body within approx 4 hours. Milk protein concentrate is derived from fresh skimmed cow milk that is concentrated by ultra-filtration. This ultra-filtration allows the whey and casein fractions to be extracted from the milk and then be dried into a powder. Milk protein concentrate contains about 80% pure protein. About 20% of it is whey protein and 80% of it is calcium caseinate. Whey protein concentrate is derived from sweet cheese whey using an ultra- filtration process in which fat, lactose, and other materials are largely removed from the product. Whey protein concentrate contains about 80% pure whey protein. Whey proteins have a fast digestion rate. Whey proteins are absorbed by the body within approx 2 hours. It is great for post workout shakes as well as anytime you need a quick burst of amino acids. Calcium caseinate is derived from fresh skimmed cow milk. Calcium caseinate protein is extracted from the casein fraction of the milk through acidification. Casein and calcium caseinate proteins have a slow digestion rate. Calcium caseinate proteins are absorbed by the body within approx 7 hours. Protein isolate is derived from a protein concentrate using a cold-filtration, a microfiltration, or an ion-exchange process in which the fat, lactose, and other materials are nearly completely removed. An isolate contains over 90% pure protein and very little (if any) fat and lactose. Hydrolyzed protein is enzymatically treated to form a hydrolysate. This results in short chain peptides and amino acids, thereby drastically increasing the absorption rate. Instantized protein is treated with lecithin in order to increase the solubility of the protein powder drastically.

Recommendations Milk protein isolate or egg white protein are recommended for lactose intolerant people who have difficulties digesting lactose. Calcium caseinate is a good choice for people who are trying to lose body fat. For all other people I would recommend milk protein concentrate or a mixture of milk protein concentrate with egg white protein. In the morning and right after your workout, a whey protein concentrate can be a smart choice because of its quick absorption.

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Supplement Safety If you take a sports supplement you not only expect it to improve your performance, but you also want it to be safe. You don't want it to cause any short or long term negative side effects on your health and you certainly don't want to use any products that can cause cancer. In contrast to the food and pharmaceutical industry, which are very strictly regulated by the national health authorities, the supplement industry is an open industry in which anybody can sell anything without having to demonstrate whether the substance is effective in doing what is promised on the product label and whether it is harmful to the consumer or not. Pharmaceutical companies, on the other hand, spend on average 12 years and hundreds of millions of dollars on lab, animal and human studies to prove that their medicines are effective and safe. Having worked several years in the pharmaceutical industry for the development of new medicines, I believe I have a well enough understanding to form an own opinion on the safety and risks of various substances that are frequently used in sports supplements.

Protein Powders Let me discuss first the pure and unflavored milk, whey, casein and egg protein powders that are most popular among bodybuilders and sold by companies such as MyProtein (use the 5% discount code MP51244 during checkout) and Bodybuilding.com. These products are 100% natural, meaning that they contain no chemical additives. Since they are prudently extracted from fresh milk and eggs, there are no safety concerns whatsoever.

Creatine Creatine is also a natural food component that is present in meat and fish. Although the supplement creatine monohydrate is chemically synthesized (extracting it from meat and fish would be too expensive), the synthesized molecule is identical to the one that naturally occurs is our food, with the only difference that one harmless water molecule is non-covalently bound to it. Therefore I believe that 100% pure creatine monohydrate supplementation (at reasonable dosages) is as safe as eating meat and/or fish. Decades of creatine supplementation and many scientific studies (PubMed - Medline: medical literature) support this standpoint. As with all chemically synthesized compounds, however, its purity is never 100% and some impurities, when ingested in too high quantities, can be potentially harmful. Therefore I advise you to only use the purest form of creatine monohydrate that you can find. My preference goes to Creapure, which is produced by a reliable company in Germany and strictly quality controlled with a claimed purity of 99.99%. 32

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Artificial Sweeteners Low-calorie artificial sweeteners such as aspartame, acesulfame-k, sucralose, saccharin and neotame, are often used to sweeten protein powders and beverages to avoid ingestion of large quantities of sugar. There exists some controversy about their safety, especially on the internet. Fortunately these sugar substitutes are not only used in supplements, but also in the strictly regulated food industry. Therefore all of them have been very thoroughly studied and tested before they were approved by the world-wide national health authorities after a stringent review process. Not only have all these chemical compounds been studied in dozens of well designed animal studies before being allowed on the market, but many of them have already been used by hundreds of millions of people world-wide for several decades without causing any serious harm. Yes, there are many claims against them (mainly due to nocebo responses), and there is even some sort of conspiracy theory traveling over the internet with the intention to get these products off the market. However, none of this can be taken seriously as it lacks any scientific basis. Because of their successful massive use for many years and extensive testing, I believe that the world-wide approved artificial sweeteners are probably some of the safest chemical additives currently used in the food industry when used at quantities not exceeding the allowed limits. Some of them (e.g. sucralose and neotame) were even proven to remain stable under very high temperatures, allowing them to be used safely for cooking and baking. If you want to read more on this, please read reliable scientific sources such as Sugar Substitutes and Your Health written for the American Council on Science and Health.

Aromas and other Additives Aromas and other additives are frequently used to improve the taste of sports supplements such as protein powders. Unfortunately I am not an expert in this field and there are just too many of them to be discussed here. Therefore, let me give some general tips. Limit their consumption. Add some fresh fruit (e.g. banana) to your unflavored protein shake to improve its taste. Choose for natural flavoring substances with a long and broad history of safe use in the food industry, such as cocoa and vanilla. If using chemical flavoring substances, stick to those that have been used safely for many years all over the world in many food products, such as the broadly used vanillin which is a chemically synthesized substitute for vanilla.

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Other Supplement Components Most so-called active compounds that are used in bodybuilding supplements to increase muscle growth, energy levels or fat loss, are not used in the food industry and do not occur in natural food products consumed in a normal healthy diet. This basically means that they do not belong in the human body and should be considered unsafe until the opposite is appropriately demonstrated. Unfortunately the supplement industry in not much regulated and therefore no reliable studies are performed to ensure that all components used in sports supplements are safe for human use. Even substances from vegetable origin cannot be considered to be safe by default. In fact, many vegetable substances are known to be toxic, especially when derived from (exotic) plants that are not common in human diet. Another source of safety concern, common to substances that are chemically synthesized, is the presence of synthesis impurities and degradation products that appear during long term storage, heating and wetting of the chemical compounds. In the pharmaceutical industry these are all very thoroughly studied for toxicity, including carcinogenic properties (their potential to cause cancer), and their quality is extremely strictly controlled by health authority audited systems. In the supplement industry, on the other hand, everybody trusts in god.

Conclusion If you want to use sports supplements, read the list of ingredients very carefully and don't just swallow anything without knowing what it is. Unfortunately, in many countries, including the US, there is no regulation that requires the supplement industry to mention all ingredients on the product label. Also, a well-known brand name is by no means a guarantee for safe products. If you are curious about which supplements you would find in my closet, take a look at my list of food supplements and training accessories.

Take $5 off your $100 order. Use coupon code 5off100. Take $15 off your $250 order. Use coupon code 15off250. Take $20 off your $300 order. Use coupon code 20off300.

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How to Save on Food and Supplements A bodybuilding diet can be expensive, not only because a bodybuilder must eat more than a regular person, but also because he has to eat high quality food with high protein content. As not everybody can spend or wants to spend large amounts of money, let me give you some tips that can help you keeping your food and supplement spending within your budget.

Keeping your Food Affordable I am not going to spend much time on discussing sources of fats and carbohydrates as these are abundantly available at very reasonable prices. Very affordable sources of fat are flaxseed oil (rich in omega-3 fatty acids that may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease), olive oil (rich in monounsaturated fatty acids that may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease) and sunflower oil (rich in vitamin E which is a strong antioxidant that prevents the cell-damaging effects of free radicals). Very affordable sources of complex carbohydrates are for example bread, rice, pasta, potatoes and oats, while fruit juices are a good example of simple carbohydrates. More expensive can be foods that are high in protein such as meat (pork and beef), fish (tuna) and poultry (chicken and turkey). Fortunately there are also some dairy products that are very reasonably priced while containing lots of very high quality protein. Good examples are skimmed milk, egg whites, non-fat quark and cottage cheese.

Keeping your Supplements Affordable If used wisely, food supplements can significantly reduce the costs of your diet without scarifying its quality. As mentioned before the only supplements that will are really worth being used are whey and casein protein powders, creatine monohydrate, dextrose, maltodextrin and fine milled oats. All the other sports supplements are a waste of money and/or not suitable for a true natural bodybuilder. Fortunately all the above mentioned supplements can be purchased at very favorable price/quality ratios when taking a few simple rules into account: Only buy pure products, not mixtures of several ingredients. Buy natural products without flavoring substances and sweeteners. Don't buy high-end brands which cost a lot because of their marketing spending. Buy bulk products in big quantities that last for several months. Don't waste money on products packed in cool containers with fancy labels. Buy products packed in bags or generic containers. Online shops are always less expensive. Buy from an online store located near you to limit shipping costs. Make use of discount offers. 35

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If you live in Europe, I recommend you to buy from MyProtein.com. It is my favorite store because of the high quality products, very sharp prices and excellent service. If you input the code MP51244 on their billing page you will get an additional 5% discount on your first order. If you live in Canada or the United States, I recommend you to buy supplements from the brands Higher Power, Supplement Direct or Muscle Gauge Nutrition at Bodybuilding.com using the coupon codes listed below. Also take a look at the list of supplements that I specifically recommend.

Take $5 off your $100 order. Use coupon code 5off100. Take $15 off your $250 order. Use coupon code 15off250. Take $20 off your $300 order. Use coupon code 20off300.

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Training Training is by far the most complicated and important aspect of true natural bodybuilding. After more than 20 years of experience, I have developed a training routine that I believe works best for me, being a true natural bodybuilder. On this page I discuss all aspects of my personal training routine, which I believe are the most important. Note however that the science behind exercise-induced muscle hypertrophy is still not completely understood. It may well be possible that my way of training is not the only route to success, and that your body reacts better on a different way of training. If you watch some training videos of the professionals, you will see that all of them have their own unique way of training, all resulting in excellent physiques. If you are not using any drugs, however, you should not blindly follow the training and nutrition advice of the pros, which are all using at least massive quantities of anabolic steroids, growth hormone, and insulin. These drugs fundamentally change the biochemistry of your body, and are so extremely powerful that almost any training routine will cause the muscles to grow. Having that said, I believe it is also correct to say that some aspects of effective bodybuilding training are quite universal, and followed by almost all successful bodybuilders. If you are new to this sport, I suggest that you consider following this training routine and principles that have proven to be effective for me, and adjust it to your own needs as you gain more experience yourself. The general structure of my training routine is described below, and its most important aspects are discussed in detail.

The Training Routine My training routine is completed once per week and consists of 5 different workouts and 2 rest days: Monday: chest, abdominals, forearms Tuesday: shoulders, upper trapezius, triceps Wednesday: rest Thursday: upper and middle back, biceps Friday: hamstrings, lower back, calves Saturday: quadriceps, inner and outer thighs Sunday: rest The frequency by which you train each muscle is very important. Basically you want to give the muscle just enough time to recover and to grow before you train it again. If you train too often or not frequently enough, you risk to injure your muscles and tendons, or not to grow at all. How frequently you have to train each muscle depends on how fast your muscles recover, which largely depends on the intensity of your workouts. People using anabolic steroids recover much faster than true natural bodybuilders. For advanced true natural bodybuilders I advise to train each muscle group once per week. 37

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Beginners, whose workouts are less intense, could start with training each muscle twice per week. Another very important aspect of the training routine is the order in which you train each muscle group. For example, you should not train your triceps the day before you train your chest, because you need fresh and strong triceps to do heavy bench and dumbbell presses for your chest. You also need fresh and strong biceps to do your upper back workout, so don't train biceps the day before your upper back. My workouts usually take no longer than 1 hour. During each workout I train 2 or maximum 3 muscle groups. It's best to start with the biggest muscle group that requires most energy. If you train chest and triceps on the same day, you start with chest. If you train upper back and biceps on the same day, you start with upper back. If you train biceps and triceps on the same day, you should start with the muscle that needs to grow most. Before I start to train my 2nd or 3rd muscle group of the workout, I take a rest of about 3 minutes so that I feel strong and energetic enough to continue. It is very important never to miss a workout. Whenever you do miss a workout, try to catch it up the next day if possible. There exists also something like over-training, which can occur if you train too frequently and/or do to many exercises and sets. When you are over-trained, your muscles will not grow and you may easily get injured. I recommend you to take 2 or 3 weeks off after every 6 months of training in order to give yourself a chance to recharge mentally and to let your body fully recover from any physical stress accumulated during the past 6 months of heavy training.

Intensity The higher the intensity of your muscle workout, the stronger your muscle will be stimulated to grow. Therefore it should be your goal to maximize the intensity of each of your muscle workouts. Many aspects of your muscle workout determine its intensity, such as: the number of exercises you do for the muscle group, the number of sets and reps you do for each exercise, the total time that you use to complete the muscle workout, the time that you rest between your sets, the form of your reps and sets, and the amount of weight that you lift. All aspects of the muscle workout that are important for its intensity, are discussed in detail in the following paragraphs.

The Muscle Workout For each muscle group I do 2 or 3 different exercises, each exercise targeting the muscle from a different angle. Every week, I start my muscle workouts with a different exercise because I believe that the first exercise is always the most productive one. Basically I always do 4 sets of each exercise targeting 10 quality repetitions (reps). I limit my rest between consecutive exercises for the same muscle group to about 1 or maximum 2 minutes in order to keep my muscle pump and to maximize the intensity of the workout. Let's take a look at what I do for each individual muscle group.

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Chest I do 3 different exercises for my pectorals (pecs). One will target the upper part of the pecs (inclined bench), one the middle part of the pecs (flat bench), and one the lower part of the pecs (declined bench), and I change the order each workout. Most of the time I use dumbbells (flyes or presses) as I feel that they work best for me, but barbell presses are also very effective for most people. Sometimes I add cable crossovers at the beginning or end of my chest workout. Cable crossover is a very good isolation exercise for the pecs.

Abdominals While many bodybuilders train their abs multiple times per week with many sets and high reps, my abs seem to respond best if I train them like any other muscle. I train them once per week with 2 exercises, each consisting of 4 sets of 10 - 16 reps. I always do one exercise for the upper abs (crunches), and one for the lower part of the abs (leg raises), changing their order every workout.

Forearms I end my first workout always with one exercise for the outer part of my forearms. I don't separately train the inner part of my forearms as they get enough intensity during my heavy upper back workouts.

Shoulders I do 3 different exercises for my deltoids (delts). One will target the front part of the delts, one the middle part, and one the rear part. I used to do lots of dumbbell presses for my shoulders when I was a teenager. However, now I prefer standing dumbbell raises (front, lateral, and bent-over) as they isolate the delts better. I rotate the order every workout.

Upper trapezius I always follow my deltoid exercises with one exercise (shrugs) for the upper part of the trapezius (trap) muscle, which is located between the neck and the shoulders. Since I only do one isolation excerise for the upper trapezius I usually do 6 sets of 10 - 15 reps.

Triceps The triceps muscle has three heads. Therefore, I do 3 exercises for my triceps, each targeting another part (inner/middle/outer) of the muscle. I rotate the order every workout.

Upper and middle back The back is a complex group of big muscles. I do 3 or 4 different exercises to train my complete upper and middle back. One exercise targets the upper part of the latissimus (lats) (wide grip pulldown), one the lower part of the lats (narrow grip pulldown), and one 39

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or two that target the trapezius muscle between the shoulder blades (rows). I change the order every workout.

Biceps As my biceps usually already have quite a pump after my heavy upper back workout, I immediately proceed with 2 exercises for my biceps, each targeting the muscle from a slightly different angle to make sure that the inside as well as the outside head of the muscle gets fully developed.

Hamstrings The hamstrings are a complex and strong group of muscles at the rear side of the leg. I usually do 3 different exercises for my hamstrings, each targeting the muscle in a slightly different way.

Lower back As my lower back usually already has quite a pump after my heavy hamstring workout, I immediately proceed with 1 exercise for my lower back.

Calves As the calves are formed by two different muscles (gastrocnemius and soleus), I do 2 different exercises for my calves, one targeting the gastrocnemius (standing calf raises) and one targeting the soleus (seated calf raises).

Quadriceps The quadriceps is a big, strong, and complex muscle group at the front side of the thigh. The quadriceps workout is without any doubt the toughest of all, and completely drains all energy from you. Before my lower back injury I used to do 3 exercises for my quads, usually 2 heavy ones (a squat movement and a leg press) followed by one lighter exercise (leg extensions or sissy squat). Now I prefer to start with one-leg hack squats (this keeps the heavy weights from my back) or one-leg leg presses, followed by leg extensions. Doing the hack squat first with one leg and then with the other, allows me to completely focus all my power on one leg at a time. The hack squat is an excellent quad builder.

Inner and outer thighs I finish my leg workout with 2 exercises, one to build my inner thighs (thigh adductor), and another for the outer thighs and glutes (thigh abductor).

Exercises and equipment The exercises that I recommend and the equipment that should be used are described elsewhere on this website. 40

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The Exercise Usually I do 4 sets of each exercise, which is exactly enough to fully wear down the muscle and to maximize growth stimulation. I train to failure in every set of each exercise. I never save energy for my next set or my next exercise. I would rather advice to do a set or an exercise less than to dose your efforts. In order to maximize the intensity of an exercise I always try to keep my rest between consecutive sets below 1 minute; just enough to more or less normalize my breathing, without losing my muscle pump. For very heavy exercises that are huge energy drainers (e.g. upper back and quadriceps), I might sometimes take up to 90 seconds of rest between consecutive sets. As I go all out in every set, I usually use the heaviest weights in the first set of my first exercise, and gradually go lighter set after set, as my muscle gets more and more exhausted. If everything went well, by the time of the last rep of the last set my muscle should be fully pumped up and almost paralyzed from exhaustion. For example, after my quadriceps workout, I can hardly walk, and after my shoulder workout I cannot comb my hair anymore.

The Quality Repetition Lifting a weight sounds very simple, but it is in fact quite complex, if you want to do it in such a way that it will maximally stimulate muscle growth. A repetition (rep) should basically result in two growth-stimulating effects, if executed correctly: depletion of the energy supplies in the muscle (especially glycogen), and damage to the protein structures inside the muscle fibers. Let's take a closer look at the repetition (rep) and define its 4 different parts: Bottom: A rep starts at the bottom where the weight is in the lowest position and the muscle is fully extended and stretched. Up-phase: During the up-phase the muscle contracts and lifts the weight up. Top: At the top of the repetition the muscle is fully contracted and the weight is at its highest position. Down-phase: During the down-phase the muscle extends and lets the weight go down. Now let's define the "Quality Rep" as being a repetition that is executed in such a way as to maximize muscle growth stimulation. A quality rep, in my opinion, should be executed as follows: Lift the weight in an explosive way from the bottom to the top. The up-phase should be a fast and powerful movement that takes maximum 1 second. At the top of the movement, the muscle should be fully contracted (as short as possible), and flexed for a fraction of a second as hard as possible (peak contraction) as if you are posing for a photo. Then slowly lower the weight in a controlled fashion to the bottom of the movement. The down-phase should be controlled and take longer than the upphase, let's say between 1 and 2 seconds. At the bottom of the movement the muscle should be fully extended (as long as possible) without losing the tension on the muscle. There must be no pause at the bottom of the movement; without any rest the weight is 41

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lifted up again. A quality rep should take in total between 2 and 3 seconds for most exercises. During the complete rep your mind should stay focused on the muscle, its contraction and extension, rather than the weight you are lifting. I want to focus your attention on 2 extremely important principles applied in the quality rep, which have been recognized and followed by most top bodybuilders for many decades: continuous tension and full range of motion.

Continuous tension Continuous Tension is the most important principle that needs to be followed in order to maximize muscle growth stimulation. It basically means that you keep the tension on the muscle throughout the complete movement of the rep, including the up-phase, top, down-phase, and bottom. There should be no moment of rest (muscle relaxation) during the entire rep or between consecutive reps at all in order to maximize the intensity of your set. About ninety percent of the bodybuilders fail to respect this most important principle, and wonder why their muscles are not growing. The main reasons why many bodybuilders fail to follow the principle of continuous tension are ignorance, and because they are using much too heavy weights that forces them to pause at the top and/or bottom of the movement, and/or by letting the weight fall down in an uncontrolled fashion during the down-phase. A typical example of violating the principle of continuous tension is to lockout the elbows at the top of a bench press or the knees at the top of a squat, as this fully releases the tension from the pecs or quads, respectively. Putting 30% less weight on the bar should solve the problem and really make your muscles grow. Bringing the dumbbells too close together at the top of a dumbbell press or fly is another typical example where the tension is lost at the top of a rep.

Full range of motion Full Range of Motion is without doubt the second most important principle that needs to be followed in order to maximize muscle growth stimulation. It basically means that you contract the muscle as far as possible at the top of the rep (until the muscle is as short as possible), without losing the tension on the muscle (e.g. by locking-out the joint), and that you extend the muscle as far as possible at the bottom of the rep (until the muscle is as long as possible), without losing the tension on the muscle (e.g. by letting the weight hang down). Many bodybuilders fail to respect this very important principle, and wonder why their muscles are not growing. The main reasons why many bodybuilders fail to follow the principle of full range of motion are ignorance, and because it is much easier to lift heavy weights if you do only partial reps. I often see bodybuilders lift much too heavy weights in a cramped manner, while hardly letting the muscle do any work, as it stays nearly at the same length throughout the complete rep. As I discuss on another page, some badly designed weight machines, unfortunately, don't allow the user to train full range of motion. Free weights (especially dumbbells) nearly always allow you to train full range of motion, and are therefore preferred.

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The Forced and Partial Repetition I recommend you to do 10 quality reps in each of your sets. However, at the end of the last set of your exercise, when you are no longer able to execute any additional quality reps, you may want to squeeze out the last drop of energy from your muscle by doing some lower quality reps - forced reps and/or partial reps - in order to maximize the intensity of your exercise. Forced reps are basically reps in which you force up the weight during the up-phase because it is too heavy to lift it in the normal way, often helped by a spotter, followed by slowly lowering the weight in a controlled fashion to the bottom, without the help of a spotter. Many spotters, however, let the forced up-phase take much too long. The upphase of a forced rep should basically take the same amount of time as the up-phase of a quality rep. Forced reps can be very effective as lots of the growth stimulation actually comes from the down-phase (negative part) of the rep, which is very stressful for the muscle fibers. When you don't have enough power left to do additional quality reps, partial reps can also be effective to squeeze out the last energy from your muscles. Doing partial reps basically means that you don't follow the principle of full range of motion, but only a fraction (let's say 50%) of the full range that is used for a normal quality rep. Effective partial reps as well as forced reps should always follow the principle of continuous tension.

The Set A set that is optimized for muscle growth stimulation should be an uninterrupted series of about 10 quality reps, potentially followed by a few additional forced or partial reps. In order to optimize the intensity of the set, which is essential in stimulating muscle growth, the principle of continuous tension should be applied throughout the complete set. This basically means that there should be no moment of rest (muscle relaxation) between consecutive reps. Each individual rep obviously also follows the principle of continuous tension as explained in the paragraphs above. I always do my sets with the heaviest possible weight that I think will allow me to do 10 quality reps. Depending on how well my estimate was, I may end up somewhere between 6 and 14 quality reps. As I train to failure in every set, I usually use the heaviest weights in the first set of my first exercise, and gradually go lighter set after set, as my muscles becomes more exhausted. A full set of 10 quality reps usually takes me between 20 and 30 seconds to complete, however, it strongly depends on the exercise. Usually I only do forced and/or partial reps at the end of the last set of my exercise.

Drop Sets Occasionally I finish my muscle workout with a few drop sets. This basically means that immediately after the last normal set of my last exercise I add a few extra sets (drop 43

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sets) of this exercise with progressively lighter weights. The rest between consecutive drop sets is kept minimal (a couple of seconds). In each of those drop sets I do as many reps as possible. Upon failure the weight is decreased again with 20% and without rest the next drop set is started. In total it may take about 3 drop sets before complete muscle exhaustion is reached.

Learn and Adjust How to know whether your workouts are effective or not? That is a very important question because it allows you to learn from your experience and to adjust your training routine in such a way that it becomes more effective. As I wrote at the top of this page, it is well possible that my way of training is not the most effective way of training for you, and that you may need to make some minor adjustments to optimize it for you personally.

Intensity indicators There are three very important indicators that can tell you whether your workouts are effective or not. The first and ultimate indication is of course the speed at which your muscles grow and the final size your muscles have. This, however, will not tell you much about any specific single workout, because it will take at least a few months before you will see any measurable change in muscle mass. The second indicator is a very useful one, and it really gives you feedback about one specific workout, and often even about one single exercise. I'm talking here about the muscle soreness that you feel in the trained muscle during the first 3 to 6 days after your muscle workout. The more muscle soreness and stiffness you experience in the days following your workout, the more effective your training was, and the stronger the muscle is stimulated to grow. The exact location of the soreness can be a useful indication about which exact part of the muscle was targeted most by one specific exercise. The third indicator gives you almost real-time feedback about the effectiveness of your set. It is the well-known muscle pump, which is caused by an accumulation of blood in the muscle. The higher the intensity of your sets, and the less rest you take between consecutive sets, the more your muscles will get pumped up, and the stronger they will be stimulated to grow. Because of various reasons, your muscle pumps will not be of the same intensity every day. However, on top days, your muscle pumps may be so intense that during the last couple of reps of your set you may even feel an intense burning sensation inside the muscle. Whenever you feel this intense muscle burn, you may smile, because you reached top intensity and your muscles are getting the maximum load of growth stimulation. There are a few other simple indicators that may give you an idea about whether the intensity of your workouts is high enough to result in some serious muscle growth. Your heart beat rate, breathing intensity, body temperature, and transpiration should significantly increase as your training intensity goes up. You might even see some steam coming off your body. During a very intense workout of one of your biggest muscle groups, such as upper back or quadriceps, you might even experience a feeling as if you 44

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are going to black out. These are clear indications that you are not playing around in the gym, but putting some serious growth-stimulating intensity into your workouts. If, on the other hand, you are able to talk, laugh and dance between your sets, you are very likely not putting enough intensity into your workouts to get any serious results.

How much weight to lift? One of the biggest mistakes and misunderstandings among inexperienced bodybuilders is to think that you have to lift extremely heavy weights in order to stimulate muscle growth. They believe that gradually increasing the size of the weights they lift, will also gradually increase the size of their muscles. Although this might sound logic at first sight, nothing is less true. Bodybuilding is not the same as strength training. I have seen countless small guys lifting extremely heavy weights without ever being able to develop any significant muscle mass. The only role that the size of the weights plays in an effective bodybuilding training routine, is to ensure that your reps are so intense that you are not able to do more than about 10 quality reps per set. Far more important are the form of your reps, and the correct application of the principles of continuous tension and full range of motion throughout your sets. So the answer to the question is: "use the heaviest possible weights that allow you to perform 10 quality reps." Milos Sarcev, a former pro IFBB bodybuilder and today the most respected trainer of professional bodybuilders (Flex, Nasser, etc.) has given a very inspiring interview on this subject.

Conclusion Read this page again until you fully understand each aspect of it, as the training is by far the most complex part of being a true natural bodybuilder. If you want to learn more about effective bodybuilding training, I recommend you to watch some good training videos. If you are a beginner, also check out my bodybuilding training routines for beginners and advanced trainees.

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Exercises For each muscle group there exist many different exercises. However, it is very important to realize that not all of those exercises are equally suitable for stimulation your muscles to grow. Because it is very difficult to build muscle mass being a true natural bodybuilder, I strongly recommend you to only include those exercises in your training routine that are most suitable for building muscle mass. Any exercise that has not proven to be a real mass builder is not worth being performed. On this page I will identify for each muscle group some of the most popular exercises of which I believe, based on over 20 years of training experience, are the best for building muscle mass. It is important, however, that you understand the criteria on which I have based my selection. Some of these criteria are explained in detail on my page about training.

Exercise Selection Criteria Back to the Basics. Many of the best exercises have proven their muscle building capabilities throughout more than 50 years of bodybuilding history and were used by all great bodybuilding champions, including the most recent ones. These basic exercises are usually simple to perform and represent very natural movements. Exercises performed with your own body weight or free weights (barbells and especially dumbbells) are by far the most effective as they usually allow very natural movements, full range of motion, and continuous tension. Machines and cable exercises should be avoided whenever possible, as their mechanical friction lowers the tension on the muscle during the down-phase of your reps, and they often limit the range of motion. The order of preference is: body weight, dumbbells, barbell, plate loaded machine, cable machine. Any exercise that doesn't allow you to perform quality reps, which comply with the principles of continuous tension and full range of motion, should be avoided. A good exercise should place about the same force on your muscle at any phase of the rep (bottom, up, top, down), and should allow the greatest possible range of motion (from longest muscle stretch to shortest muscle contraction). Being a natural bodybuilder, you need the strongest possible muscle growth stimulation you can get. Therefore isolation exercises, which allow you to put all your energy and intensity into one single target muscle group at a time, are preferred over compound power movements that involve many muscle groups simultaneously, and lead to exhaustion before maximum muscle growth stimulation of all involved muscle has occurred. If possible and if they can be performed with enough stability, one-sided exercises are preferred, as they always allow you to put more intensity into the targeted muscle group, because you can first fully concentrate on one side (left muscle) and then on the other side (right muscle). So basically you need proven basic exercises that follow a very natural movement, which allow you to isolate the targeted muscle group as much as possible, which can be 46

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performed with free weights (if possible one-sided), and which allow you to do quality reps under continuous tension over the greatest possible range of motion. The equipment needed to do all these exercises is discussed on another page.

Recommended Exercises For each muscle group, I list my personal favorite exercises, selected based on the criteria above. It's always good to have a pool of good exercises available for the same muscle, because varying the exercises in consecutive workouts always results in better muscle response. I do not describe all recommended exercises in full detail because most of them are well-known and described in detail on many other websites (see for example muscleandstrength.com, bodybuilding.com or ExRx.net). I do, however, discuss the critical aspects of the exercises to help you better understand how to perform them in the most effective way to build muscle mass.

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Chest For my pecs I prefer dumbbell flyes, dumbbell press, and barbell bench press (on smith machine). All three exercises can be performed on an incline bench of +22° (upper pecs), flat bench (middle pecs) or decline bench of -22° (lower pecs). When I use an incline bench, I keep the angle of the bench rather small to avoid that my front delts will do more work than my pecs. For the dumbbell press and flyes I am very careful not to lose the tension on my pecs at the top of the rep by bringing the weights too close to each other. For the same reason my grip is rather wide for the barbell bench press (which also reduces triceps involvement), and I avoid locking out my elbows at the top of the reps. In order to get a maximal stretch of the pecs at the bottom of the reps, I let the weights go really low for my dumbbell exercises and I fully extend my ribcage. Sometime I do hybrid dumbbell press/flyes in which I press the weight up and fly it back down, which gives a very powerful tension on the pecs during the down-phase of the reps. Sometimes I do a few sets of cable crossover, which completely isolate the pecs, or straight-arm dumbbell pullovers across the bench to finish my chest workout. Don't waste your time with machine exercises for your chest.

Abdominals For my lower abs, I always do hanging or lying leg raises. For my upper abs I always do full range of motion crunches on a very steep decline bench of about -50°, where I arch my back as far as possible backwards (hollow back) at the bottom of the rep to fully stretch the abs, and arch my back as much as possible forwards (round back) at the top of the rep to fully contract the abs. During the crunch movement, my hip joints remain frozen, and the lowest part of my back remains horizontal throughout the whole rep. This is by far the most powerful exercise for the abs that I know. For both exercises I typically do 4 sets of 10 - 16 reps once per week. Don't waste your time doing million of repetitions of worthless exercises. Don't do any twists because they will damage your spine rather than giving you a small, muscular waist.

Forearms For my outer forearms, I do palms-down dumbbell or barbell wrist curls. When I do the wrist curls with a barbell I keep my arms straight, when I do them with dumbbells I keep my arms (elbows) in an angle of 90°. I always support my arms on a (preacher) bench. Sometimes I finish with a few sets of standing reverse barbell curls.

Shoulders I used to do many standing dumbbell presses and seated barbell presses on the smith machine when I was a teenager. However, now I only do standing dumbbell lateral raises (side delts), bent-over dumbbell lateral raises (rear delts), and standing one-arm dumbbell front raises (front delts) because they really isolate the different parts of the deltoid muscle, while all press movements heavily involve the triceps muscles. When I do dumbbell raises to the side, I sometimes do them one-arm at a time. Dumbbell front raises I always do one-arm. I never alternate left and right because I feel this violates the principle of continuous tension by giving too much rest at the bottom of the rep. I also like to do my one-arm dumbbell lateral raises while lying on my side on an slightly 48

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inclined bench as this puts extra tension on the muscle at the bottom of the rep, when the delt is fully stretched. Don't do any cable exercises for your shoulders. Dumbbell raises are the greatest to develop your delts. I keep my arms slightly bent, and raise them rather high. Be careful not to give your delts any rest at the bottom of your reps. Occasionally I do one-arm dumbbell upright rows, which is a great exercise for the side delt and upper trapezius.

Upper trapezius After my delts workout, I do one exercise for the upper part of my trapezius. I prefer onearm dumbbell shrugs, because they really isolate the upper part of the trapezius and allow me to have the greatest possible range of motion.

Triceps There are many good triceps exercises. My favorites are: parallel-bars or bench dips, close-grip EZ-bar bench press, EZ-bar triceps extension on a slight decline bench, lying dumbbells triceps extension, standing one-arm dumbbell triceps extension, and EZ-bar cable triceps pushdown. These exercises are all quite simple to perform correctly, and target the triceps muscle from all different angles. Pay attention that you don't forget the principle of full range of motion.

Upper and middle back The best exercises for your upper back (lats) are: wide-grip pulldown behind the neck, mid-grip pulldown to the chest, V-bar pulldown to your middle, and kneeled one-arm cable pulldown. The latter one is definitely the best lat exercise that I know as it allows an incredible great range of motion, especially when you rotate your torso 90° during the movement. I used to do lots of pull-ups (chins) when I was a teenager. However, as they don't allow to vary the weight easily, I stopped doing them. The best exercises for your middle back (lower lats and trapezius) are: barbell row, T-bar row, one-arm dumbbell row, and seated cable row. Since my lower back injury I stopped doing bent-over barbell rows, T-bar rows, and seated cable rows, and replaced them by seated machine row, and lying T-bar row because these machines support the chest so that the stress comes off the lower back and legs. This way these exercises also become more of an isolation exercise rather than a compound power exercise, which allows you to put more of your energy in the targeted muscle group. While training your upper and middle back, it is very important to realize that you are training your lats and trapezius, and not your biceps. Therefore you should focus on arching your back, pulling backward and downward your shoulders, and pulling together your shoulder blades during the up-phase of your reps, in order to obtain a full range of motion for your lats and trapezius.

Biceps The best biceps exercises are: standing one-arm dumbbell curl, and seated incline dumbbell curl. I always rotate my wrists during the reps to maximize the range of motion 49

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of the biceps. Once in a while I do EZ-bar curls, concentration curls, hammer curls, or preacher curls. I always make sure that I don't lose the tension at the top of the rep, and I never alternate my dumbbell curls because I believe this violates the principle of continuous tension by giving too much rest at the bottom of the reps.

Hamstrings For hamstrings I do lying leg curls, seated leg curls, standing leg curls, and glute-ham raises. For the leg curls it is important to explosively curl the weight up and to strongly contract the hamstrings for a moment at the top of the rep, before slowly lowering the weight in a controlled fashion. Your knees must be positioned exactly at the level of the rotation point of the machine, and the pads at the lower legs must be placed close to your feet. Glute-ham raises put a very strong tension on the hamstrings in their extended position, and give a great muscle pump and soreness. They have a similar effect on the hamstrings as barbell deadlifts do, but they are harmless for the lower back as they don't put any stress on the intervertebral discs.

Lower back The only very effective lower back exercise that is 100% safe for the back, is the hyperextension. Don't use too much weight, focus on the contraction of the muscles in the lower back. I would not recommend you to do any stiff-legged deadlifts or goodmornings as they can be very dangerous for damaging the intervertebral discs in your lower back.

Calves The best exercise for the soleus muscle is the seated calf raise. The best exercise for the gastrocnemius muscle is the standing calf raise. The latter I prefer to do one leg at a time, only using my body weight or holding a dumbbell in one hand. The standing calf raise can also be performed on a machine, both legs at a time. However, I feel a better control of the muscle when I do each side separately.

Quadriceps The best exercises to build your quadriceps are the barbell squat, optionally performed using a smith machine, and the hack squat performed on a plate loaded hack squat machine. A potentially interesting variant of these may be the front barbell squat, optionally performed using a smith machine. In all these exercises you have to go down as deep as possible to obtain a full quadriceps stretch (full range of motion), and you have to avoid locking out your knees at the top of the movement to keep the tension on the muscle. It is very important always to press with your heels instead of your toes during all squat exercises. However, many people are not able to keep their heels on the floor when they squat deep, because their body structure doesn't allow it. These people should put a wooden plank of about 2 inches thick (e.g. 5 x 20 x 80 cm) under their heels, and adjust the angle of the feet plate of the hack squat machine. The belt squat is a good alternative for the barbell squat for people with a back injury. 50

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The barbell deadlift, and the machine leg press are rather compound power movements for the legs. They are great power movements that can add to the overall development of the legs. However, because they are compound exercises, lots of your energy gets lost in supporting muscles rather than the quadriceps. In fact they are often considered to be more effective for hamstring and glute development rather than quadriceps development. One other disadvantage of the leg press is its limited range of motion, as the quads don't get fully stretched at the bottom of the rep. Leg extensions and sissy squats are not really suitable for building serious muscle mass, because they are rather unnatural movements that restrict the quadriceps to a limited range of motion. However, they are the only quadriceps exercises that are completely safe for people with lower back problems, because the spine doesn't have to carry any weights. Lunges are another popular leg exercise. However, as they cannot really be performed according to the principle of continuous tension, I don't consider them as very good mass builders, and therefore I do not recommend them. Since my serious lower back injury at the age of 18, I've only used one-leg hack squats to develop my quadriceps. These put very little stress on my lower back, but put extremely high intensity on my quadriceps. By doing one leg at a time, I can put almost twice as much energy in each of my legs. After 8 sets of one-leg hack squats (4 sets of 10 reps for each leg) my quads have an incredible pump and are almost paralyzed from exhaustion. If my legs still allow so, I add an additional 4 sets of leg extensions or oneleg leg presses to squeeze out the last remaining drop of glycogen. This usually is enough for several days of deep muscle soreness.

Inner and outer thighs The only exercise that really isolates the inner thighs is the thigh adductor machine. It is a natural movement for the inner thigh muscles, allowing full contractions and extensions of the muscles without sacrificing the principle of continuous tension. The thigh abductor machine offers the best isolation exercise for the outer thighs and gluteus muscles. It is a great exercise to help define your outer thighs, and develop a pair of sexy, round glutes.

Conclusion We all have limited time and energy, but we all want maximal results. Therefore, it is extremely important to do only those exercises, which guarantee the strongest possible muscle growth stimulation. I see too many inexperienced bodybuilders wasting their time and energy doing exercises that are simple not suitable for any serious muscle growth stimulation. It is much better to do one effective exercise than four ineffective. Apart from doing the right exercises, it is of course also of crucial importance to perform them correctly. By following my guidance above, and by performing only quality sets according to the principle of continuous tension and full range of motion, it must be possible for everybody to generate sufficient intensity needed to stimulate some serious muscle growth. 51

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If you are not familiar with the exercises that I've mentioned above or if you have no clue about how they are performed correctly, visit the website muscleandstrength.com which has a very good database of over 600 free exercise videos with instructions.

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Bodybuilding Training Routines for Beginners If you are a beginner and want to build as much muscle mass as possible in the shortest possible time, I suggest you train 5 days per week. You start with a 2-day split routine and work yourself up to a 5-day split program as your body gets in better condition. Use each split routine for a minimum of 6 months before you move to the next split level.

2-Day Split Routine If you have never trained with weights before, I suggest you start the first 6 months with a 2-day split routine in which you train half of your muscles during the first workout and the other muscles in the second workout. You should do a couple of basic exercises for each muscle group and perform 3 sets per exercise. The first set should be a warm-up set for which you use light weights and do about 20 repetitions. Each rep should be performed slowly (about 3 seconds) and you should focus on your technique. For the 2 next working sets you use heavier weights so that you can perform about 10 quality reps per set using perfect form. Each workout should take less than 90 minutes to complete.

WORKOUT 1: Thighs o o o

(hack) squat 1×20 + 2×10 leg press 1×20 + 2×10 dead lift 1×20 + 2×10 Hamstrings o lying leg curls 1×20 + 2×10 o standing leg curls 1×20 + 2×10 Lower back o hyperextension 3×15 Calves o standing calf raise 1×20 + 2×10 o seated calf raise 1×20 + 2×10 Abdominals o hanging knee raises 3×15 o crunches 3×15

WORKOUT 2: Upper back o wide-grip pulldown 1×20 + 2×10 o seated cable row 1×20 + 2×10 Biceps o standing barbell curl 1×20 + 2×10 o concentration curl 1×20 + 2×10 Chest 53

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o o

barbell or dumbbell bench press 1×20 + 2×10 dumbbell flyes 1×20 + 2×10 Shoulders o seated dumbbell press 1×20 + 2×10 o dumbbell lateral raises 1×20 + 2×10 o upright row 1×20 + 2×10 Triceps o standing one-arm dumbbell triceps extension 1×20 + 2×10 o cable pushdown 1×20 + 2×10 Forearms o palms-down barbell wrist curls 1×20 + 2×10

3-Day Split Routine After about 6 months using the 2-day split your body should be ready for a 3-day split routine. By splitting your training over 3 workout days, you have some extra time to add a couple of exercises or to do an extra set for a few exercises. Do for each exercise at least 3 working sets of 8 to 12 quality reps per set. Each workout should take maximum 80 minutes to complete.

WORKOUT 1: Thighs o o o

(hack) squat 1×20 + 3×10 leg press 1×20 + 2×10 dead lift 1×20 + 2×10 Hamstrings o lying leg curls 1×20 + 3×10 o standing leg curls 1×20 + 2×10 Lower back o hyperextension 3×15 Calves o standing calf raise 1×20 + 3×10 o seated calf raise 1×20 + 2×10

WORKOUT 2: Upper back o wide-grip pulldown 1×20 + 3×10 o seated cable row 1×20 + 2×10 Trapezius o dumbbell shrugs 1×20 + 3×10 Biceps o standing barbell curl 1×20 + 3×10 o concentration curl 1×20 + 2×10 Abdominals o hanging knee raises 3×15 o crunches 3×15 54

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WORKOUT 3: Chest o o

barbell or dumbbell bench press 1×20 + 3×10 dumbbell flyes 1×20 + 2×10 Shoulders o seated dumbbell press 1×20 + 3×10 o dumbbell lateral raises 1×20 + 2×10 o upright row 1×20 + 2×10 Triceps o standing one-arm dumbbell triceps extension 1×20 + 3×10 o cable pushdown 1×20 + 2×10 Forearms o palms-down barbell wrist curls 1×20 + 3×10

4-Day Split Routine After about 6 months using the 3-day split your body should be ready for a 4-day split routine. By splitting your training routine over 4 workout days, you have some extra time to add a couple of exercises or to do an extra set for a few exercises. Do for each exercise 3 or 4 working sets of 8 to 12 quality reps per set. Each workout should take about 60 minutes to complete.

WORKOUT 1: Hamstrings o lying leg curls 1×20 + 4×10 o seated leg curl 4×10 o standing leg curls 3×10 Lower back o hyperextension 4×15 Biceps o standing barbell curl 1×20 + 4×10 o concentration curl 3×10

WORKOUT 2: Thighs o o o

(hack) squat 1×20 + 4×10 leg press 4×10 dead lift 1×20 + 3×10 Triceps o standing one-arm dumbbell triceps extension 1×20 + 4×10 o cable pushdown 4×10 o dips (between bench) 3×10 Forearms o palms-down barbell wrist curls 1×20 + 4×10

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WORKOUT 3: Upper back o wide-grip pulldown 1×20 + 4×10 o mid-grip pulldown 3×10 o (lying) T-bar row 4×10 Calves o standing calf raise 1×20 + 4×10 o seated calf raise 4×10 Abdominals o hanging leg raises 4×15 o crunches 3×15

WORKOUT 4: Chest o o o

flat bench dumbbell flyes 1×20 + 4×10 incline barbell or dumbbell bench press 4×10 cable crossovers 4×10 Shoulders o seated dumbbell press 1×20 + 3×10 o bent-over lateral raises 4×10 o dumbbell lateral raises 3×10 Trapezius o upright row or dumbbell shrugs 4×10

5-Day Split Routine After about 6 months using the 4-day split your body should be ready for a 5-day split routine in which each muscle group is trained exactly once per week. By splitting your training over 5 workout days per week, you can train each muscle with maximum intensity and provide them enough time to completely recover and grow before their next training. Do for each exercise 4 working sets of 8 to 12 quality reps to failure. Each workout should take maximum 60 minutes to complete.

WORKOUT 1: Hamstrings o lying leg curls 1×20 + 4×10 o seated leg curl 4×10 o standing leg curls 4×10 Lower back o hyperextension 4×15 Calves o standing calf raise 1×20 + 4×10 o seated calf raise 4×10

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WORKOUT 2: Quadriceps o (hack) squat 1×20 + 4×10 o leg press 4×10 o (dead lift 1×20 + 4×10) o leg extension 4×10 Inner and outer thighs o thigh adductor 1×15 + 3×10 o thigh abductor 1×15 + 3×10

WORKOUT 3: Chest o o o o

flat bench dumbbell flyes 1×20 + 4×10 decline barbell or dumbbell bench press 4×10 incline barbell or dumbbell bench press 4×10 cable crossovers 4×10 Abdominals o hanging leg raises 4×15 o crunches 4×15 Forearms o palms-down barbell wrist curls 1×20 + 4×10

WORKOUT 4: Shoulders o seated dumbbell press 1×20 + 4×10 o dumbbell lateral raises 4×10 o bent-over lateral raises 4×10 Trapezius o upright row or dumbbell shrugs 6×10 Triceps o standing one-arm dumbbell triceps extension 1×20 + 4×10 o cable pushdown 4×10 o dips (between bench) 4×10

WORKOUT 5: Upper back o wide-grip pulldown 1×20 + 4×10 o mid-grip pulldown or one-arm dumbbell row 4×10 o (lying) T-bar row 4×10 Biceps o standing one-arm dumbbell curl 4×10 o seated incline dumbbell curl 4×10

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Concluding Note Note that the perfect bodybuilding training routine does not exist. There are countless ways to construct an effective bodybuilding split routine, and each of them has advantages and disadvantages. Therefore the above routines only serve as good examples and can be adjusted to fit your personal needs.

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Injuries If you want to realize your bodybuilding goals, avoiding injuries should be your top priority each time you step into a gym. If fate strikes and you get injured anyway, getting rid of the injury completely and as fast as possible should become your top priority. Fortunately, bodybuilding is one of the safest sports that exist, because each movement you make is fully planned in all details, and under complete control of yourself. Unless somebody drops a dumbbell on your head, or kicks against your leg while you are doing heavy squats, you should be able to avoid any serious injuries if you follow some simple guidelines. Since I am not a medical doctor, and only had a limited number of injuries myself, I am certainly not an expert in this field. However, over 20 years of experience as a true natural bodybuilder, and several injuries later, I certainly built some basic knowledge and understanding on the subject, which I believe is worthwhile sharing with you. If you want to know even more about injuries, search the internet for the information you need. If you ever become the victim of a serious injury, always consult a medical professional.

Kinds of Injuries I do not discuss here all types of injuries because there are too many, and because I don't know enough about all of them. Therefore, I will focus on the ones that I am most familiar with, and most frequently occur among true natural bodybuilders.

Lower back injuries Almost everybody has experienced or will experience sooner or later some kind of pain in the back. Especially lower back pain frequently occurs, not only to bodybuilders, but to all people. Although lower back pain can be very debilitating, in most cases it is very innocent and goes away automatically after a couple of days. An innocent and minor mechanical problem somewhere along the complex structure of the spinal column, such as a muscle cramp for example, may have caused the pain. In some cases, however, lower back pain can be the result of a very serious injury: a spinal disc herniation (disc bulge), which basically means that the outer, fibrous ring of one of your intervertebral discs is torn and allows the softer central portion of the disc to bulge out and press onto a nerve root. This does not only cause a very debilitating pain, but it also can damage the nerve so seriously that some muscles in your lower body, most frequently the legs, may get temporarily or even permanently paralyzed. In severe cases, emergency surgery may even be required. Therefore, all lower back pain should be taken very seriously. A light spinal disc herniation may heal by itself within a few weeks or months of rest. However the spinal disc will always remain a weak spot, and the disc damage and pain may recur and even worsen, if you start using your back incorrectly again, or if you put too much stress on it.

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Tendonitis Tendonitis basically is a very painful inflammation of a tendon, which is caused by the accumulation of microscopic tears in the tendon due to chronic overuse. Because bodybuilding workouts are extremely stressful for the muscles as well as the tendons (tendons connect the muscles to the bones), tendonitis frequently occurs among bodybuilders. Tendonitis can be very painful and can take very long to heal completely. You mainly feel the pain when you flex or stretch the muscle that is connected to the tendon, or when you press hard with your fingers directly on the tendon. If treated early and correctly (mainly by rest), a tendonitis can heal completely, but it may recur very easily. If you don't let a tendonitis heal, the tendon may completely break during an intense workout.

Torn muscles and tendons As discussed above, a torn tendon can be the end results of an untreated tendonitis. However, in some cases a healthy tendon may also suddenly break or even tear of the bone, without any warning, in the middle of a very heavy workout. This usually occurs during extreme heavy lifting or by really jerking the weight up in an uncontrolled manner. The latter can also cause the muscle itself to tear partly or completely. A torn muscle or tendon is usually quite painful, and you immediately feel that you lose any power in the concerned muscle. You may also notice blood accumulation at the location of the tear. Torn muscles and tendons need to be fixed surgically.

Strains and sprains A strain, also known as a pulled muscle, is an injury in which a few muscle fibers are torn as a result of overstretching the muscle. The equivalent injury to a ligament (fibrous tissue connecting two bones) is a sprain. Typical symptoms of a strain include localized pain, swelling, stiffness, inflammation, and bruising around the strained muscle or ligament. Strains and sprains do not often occur to bodybuilders because they are mainly the result of sudden, unexpected, unnatural, or extreme movements. Strains and sprains almost always heal completely by themselves after a few days or weeks of rest.

Joint or cartilage damage If you don't perform you repetitions in a controlled way, and let the weight bounce at the bottom of your reps, or allow an overextension of your joints, you will very likely sooner or later be suffering from joint or cartilage damage. Usually the damage is the results of long term incorrect use of your joints. However, it may also be the result of one very wrong movement, especially when you make uncontrolled, jerking movements with very heavy weights. Damaged joints or cartilage usually results in unstable and painful joints, especially during exercise. The damaged tissue can cause a local inflammation and water accumulation within the joint. Joint or cartilage damage is usually permanent.

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How to Prevent Injuries Injuries are the biggest enemy of every bodybuilder, because they can have a very negative effect on the quality and the results of your workouts, or even stop you completely from training a specific muscle group for a limited or a prolonged period of time. Unfortunately, some types of injuries do never heal completely, and will hamper your workouts for the rest of your life. Therefore, preventing injuries is of primordial importance if you want to become a successful bodybuilder in the long term.

Lower back lessons Some lower back injuries, especially spinal disc herniations, are extremely serious because they can cause a very debilitating pain that can become chronic, and in bad cases they can cause a permanent damage of a nerve root, resulting in partial or total paralysis of some muscles in your lower body. Although spinal disc herniations can be prevented rather easily, they occur quite frequently because most people use their back incorrectly. Most people, including bodybuilders, use their back incorrectly because they don't know how to do it right, or because they underestimate the risks they take. It is a misunderstanding to think that having big and strong muscles in the back area will prevent you from getting a spinal disc herniation. No matter how strong or muscular you are, if you lift heavy weights the wrong way, you run a very big risk of getting one of your spinal discs damaged sooner or later. Spinal disc herniations, however, are certainly not only caused by incorrect lifting of heavy weights. They can as well occur as the result of long term faulty use of your back during very simple, everyday activities such as sitting, sleeping, picking up something from the floor, or lifting light objects. The main aspect in preventing spinal disc damage is to keep your back, especially the lower part, always in a naturally straight position during standing, sitting, lying, and especially during lifting or picking up objects. Whenever you lift an object or pick something up from the floor, you should make a squatting movement and keep your back straight all the time. Keep your back straight throughout the movement and only bend at your knees and hips. Do never bend forward at the waist with your knees straight, as this puts extreme tension on your spinal discs, even if you don't lift any object at all.

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wrong lift

good lift

Some of the most dangerous bodybuilding exercises for the lower back are: bent-over barbell row, T-bar row, deadlifts, goodmornings, and all squat movements, especially heavy barbell squats and front squats. I recommend you to replace these exercises by safer alternatives such as seated machine row, lying T-bar row, hyperextensions, and machine hack squats. If you still chose to do any of these dangerous exercises, always keep your back 100% straight throughout the movement, and only allow your knees and hips to bend. Wearing a leather weight lifting belt helps you keeping your lower back straight during heavy lifts.

Warm up and stretch In order to prevent any of the other injuries to the muscles, tendons, ligaments and cartilage of the joints, there are basically three important aspects: warm up, stretch, and quality reps. Before you start to train a muscle all out with heavy weights, it is important to warm up the muscles, their tendons, and the joints involved in the exercises that you are going to perform. Warming up basically means to increase the temperature of the tissues by pumping warm blood in those areas by doing some high repetition sets of an exercise with light weights. Warm muscles, tendons, and ligaments are more resistant to injuries. Stretching your muscles, tendons, and ligaments during and after your warm up, increases their flexibility and elasticity, and decreases their vulnerability to microscopic tears that can occur during heavy exercises. Before each muscle workout, I usually do 2 set of about 20 reps of an exercise with very light weights (20 - 50% of the weight of my first real set). After each of these warm-up sets, I stretch the muscles for about 15 seconds. 62

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A third very important aspect in preventing injuries is to perform all your exercises by means of well controlled quality reps. It is very important to do your reps in a slow and controlled manner, without jerking the weight up and letting it fall back down.

Stop when it hurts A last and very important aspect in preventing, or at least minimizing, injuries is to stop your exercise as soon as you feel any abnormal pain in any muscle, tendon, or joint. The biological function of pain basically is to give a signal, which tells you that something is going wrong and immediate action should be taken to prevent worse. Listening to your body, and stopping immediately as soon as a feel the slightest pain, can save you lots of problems and frustrating delays in your bodybuilding results. Applying ice on the injured area is very helpful in preventing swelling and inflammation.

Recovering from injuries Whenever you catch an injury that doesn't heal by itself within a couple of days, you should consult a medical professional to get a correct diagnosis and an appropriate therapy. Whatever the diagnosis and therapy may be, some aspects of the recovery process will always be the same, because they are an essential part in the healing process of any trauma, or of major importance in getting your body ready again for intense bodybuilding workouts without damaging the same tissue again. The following paragraphs discuss some aspects that I believe are essential or very effective for the recovery of any kind of injury.

Rest, rest, rest No matter what therapy or medication your doctor may present to you, rest will be the most important contributor to the actual healing of the damaged tissue. As long as you continue to stress the injured tissue, it will not heal, or even get worse. Therefore you should avoid any exercises and movements that put stress on the injured tissue, or cause pain at that location. It may take weeks or even months before the pain is completely gone. Only when the pain is gone for 100%, you can be sure that the tissue is completely healed. In the meantime you will have to rest, or limit yourself to exercises that don't put any direct stress on the injured area, and don't cause any pain at all during execution.

Apply ice Applying ice on the injured area right after an accident is very helpful in preventing that the injured tissue starts swelling and developing inflammation. Put some ice cubes in a plastic bag and place it on the injured area for 10-15 minutes. Repeat this several times per day until the swelling and inflammation is gone. Especially when recovering from a tendonitis it is very important to use cold therapy after each workout.

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Compression and elevation Applying compression to and elevation of an injured limb are two other effective ways to prevent and treat excessive swelling. Reducing the swelling will results in less pain and will accelerate the recovery of the injured tissue.

Massage Sometimes an injury does not heal by itself and continues to hurt even after many weeks of total rest. If that is the case, massage may offer a solution. While massage is certainly not the ideal solution for all chronic injuries, some types of injuries respond very well on massage therapy, especially if soft tissues are involved such as muscles, fascia, tendons and ligaments. There exist many kinds of massage, but here I am talking about a specific kind of deep tissue and cross fiber massage in which very high pressure is applied on the painful tissue by the fingertips. Unless you cannot reach the painful spot yourself, it is recommended to perform the massage yourself because nobody else can better locate the exact spot and apply the right pressure. This type of massage works very well if the pain is caused by cramped muscles, chronic inflammation, deposits of calcium or uric acid, and structural problems caused by scar tissue formation. High pressure applied on cramped muscles is known to be very effective in relaxing the muscles and relieving the pain. The problem of sustained muscle cramps is very common in muscles that contribute to your posture, such as back, shoulders and neck muscles. High pressure deep tissue and cross fiber massage can also be very effective in resolving problems caused by excess scar tissue formation after an injury and to promote the healing of a chronic inflammation as in tendonitis. High pressure deep tissue massage increases the blood flow and stimulates the natural healing process, whereas cross fiber massage breaks up excessive scar tissue and stimulates restoration of the normal functional tissue structures. To be successful, very high pressure has to be applied to the painful tissue, resulting in even more pain the first few days after the massage. This pain will gradually decrease the days after the massage. If the pain is not completely gone 5-7 days after the massage, you may need to repeat it with even higher pressure. Depending on the severity of the injury it may take several weeks to reach complete recovery.

Rebuild gradually When the pain is gone after a few weeks or months of rest, the damaged tissue of your injury is probably largely healed. However, this doesn't mean that you are again the old guy. The injured muscle, tendon, ligament, or cartilage is not replaced; it is kind of recovered but still wears the scars of the injury, and probably always will. You are not yet as good as new. You have to rebuild the condition of the muscle, tendon, ligament, or cartilage as much as possible. And this may take several extra weeks or months, depending of the severity of the initial injury. 64

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If you would immediately start training again at 100% intensity, the healed tissue would get damaged again, and the problem would start all over again. Therefore you have to rebuild very gradually the condition and resistance of the healed tissue. The best way to do this is by very light resistance training and gradually, week after week, increasing the intensity bit by bit. For a severe injury, such as a tendonitis or a torn muscle, I believe you should start training the muscle again 3 times per week at only 10% of its intensity. Do 1 or 2 sets of 15-25 reps of a couple of exercises with 10% of the weight that you would normally use. Every week you increase the intensity by about 10%, gradually increase the number of sets, and decrease the frequency of your exercises. When the intensity of your training is back at 50%, reduce the frequency of your exercises back to once per week, but keep 4 days after your training a very light training session of a couple of sets at only 20% intensity to speed up the recovery of your high intensity workout. If everything goes well, you should be back at 100% intensity after about 3 months. I would recommend you to keep for a few months the light workout session at 20% intensity between your normal workouts. Whenever you take a break from training of longer than 1 week, I would strongly advise you to be very careful when you start working out again, and do your first workouts at a much lower intensity then you would normally do (let's say 50%) in order to avoid overloading your muscles and especially your tendons. Reserve a couple of weeks to get back into your normal rhythm at 100% intensity. At first sight this may sound like a waste of time, however, my experience tells me that it will save you lots of troubles by avoiding tendon inflammations and other annoying injuries.

Warm up and stretch Because the healing tissue is very vulnerable and has reduced flexibility and elasticity, it is very important to do a few warm up sets and a couple of minutes careful stretching before every workout, in order to avoid damaging the same tissue again. Do before each workout 2 set of about 20 reps of an exercise with very light weights (20 - 40% of your normal weight). After each of these warm-up sets, carefully stretch your muscles for about 15 seconds each.

Conclusion Although bodybuilding is a relatively safe sport, you will probably get your portion of injuries too. Because every injury implies a significant setback in your bodybuilding goals of at least a few weeks or months, and not rarely impacts your training ability for the rest of your life, you should do anything possible to prevent them. The best ways to prevent injuries is to warm up and stretch before every workout, to perform your exercises correctly, using good form and quality reps with moderate weights that you can fully control. Always keep you back straight during heavy lifting, and stop your workout completely as soon as you feel the slightest pain. Training with pain will result in serious injury.

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In case you catch a serious injury, and the pain doesn't go away by itself after a couple of days, consult a medical professional for a correct diagnosis and appropriate therapy. Rest will always be an essential part of the initial healing process, whereas massage may offer a solution for chronic conditions. When the pain is gone for 100%, start rebuilding the condition and resistance of your injured muscle, tendon, or joint very gradually, and pay extra attention to your warm-ups and stretching. Whenever you take a break from training of longer than 1 week, reserve a few weeks to get back into your normal rhythm of 100% training intensity. For more information on a specific sports injury you can take a look at the Sports Injury Clinic site.

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Gym Equipment It is very important to have high quality equipment available so that you can perform your exercises correctly and get the results that you deserve. Unfortunately there is lots of low quality equipment on the market that will not allow you to perform quality reps, resulting in little or no muscle growth. I describe here the equipment that is needed to do the recommended exercises, and discuss the most critical aspects of these machines. This section is written to help you select a gym with good equipment and pick out the right machines to do your exercises. I hope this information will also inspire some gym owners when they are looking to buy some new equipment. The good news is that you really don't need a lot of equipment to assemble an excellent gym where bodybuilders can get great results. If you are planning to buying new fitness equipment, I recommend you to shop well and to consider at least some of the following manufacturers: Cybex, Hammer Strength, Life Fitness, Gervasport, Body-Solid, Precor-Icarian, Hoist, Gym 80, Paramount, Nautilus, Maxicam, Apex, Yukon, Legend, Magnum, Maximus, Pro Fitness, MedX, Atlantis, Powertec, Star Trac, Wilder, Power Strength, FreeMotion, Strive, Flex, Matrix, Barbarian Line, Inter Atletika, BH HiPower, Sport-Thieme, Yeekang Fitness, Panatta Sport, Teca Fitness, Pulse Fitness, Multi Form, Bcube, Teuwsen Sportgeraete, Kaesun, Exe Fitness, MF Sport, Iron Grip, Hampton, Ivanko, Cemco, Troy, Intek, TuffStuff, Quantum, Nebula, Power Lift, ProSpot, BodyCraft, GP Industries, Sorinex, Bomb Proof, TechnoGym. (If I miss any important brand, please let me know.) Never buy a new weight machine without testing it.

Weight Machine Selection Criteria When you are choosing a good weight machine to do your muscle building exercises, you should make sure that it passes the following criteria: I strongly advise to stick to the basic machines. Use the same type of machines that the champions have been using for decades, and are still using today. The best weight machines have a simple construction. The more complex and trendy a machine is designed, the less effective it usually is in stimulating muscle growth. The best weight machines provide a very natural body movement throughout the full range of motion. The machine must be constructed in such a way and the hand grips must be located in such places that your body is always in a comfortable position/posture, which allows you to generate maximum power during heavy reps. A good weight machine must have a strong, robust, and stable construction made from solid steel. You do not want to use or own a machine that cannot survive a single workout of Ronnie Coleman. The best machines can easily survive a century of heavy duty workouts. A good weight machine must be adjustable to the length and body construction of all its users. Everybody between 5 and 7 feet (150 - 210 cm) tall should be able to use it under optimal conditions. 67

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A good weight machine must allow the exercise to be performed over the greatest possible range of motion, with a complete stretch of the muscle at the bottom of the rep and full contraction at the top of the rep. By nature, machines usually provide a smaller range of motion compared to free weights. It becomes even worse when the machine is designed badly, forcing the user into a restricted range of motion, that totally erases the effectiveness of the exercise. A good weight machine must keep the muscle under continuous tension with a constant force throughout the full repetition, from the bottom till the top of the movement. Unfortunately, many machines have a significant mechanical friction that lowers the tension on the muscle during the down-phase of the reps. This mechanical friction is usually higher for stack machines (using cables running over pulleys or wheels) than for plate loaded machines (using standard barbell plates). Plate loaded machines, on the other hand, have the disadvantage that the force does not remain 100% constant throughout the movement as the weights make a rotation in an arch around a hinge point. It is not always clear which is better, plate loaded or cable machines, it really depends on the exercise and the design of the machine. Avoid machines with a high mechanical friction.

Recommended Equipment Let's take a look now, at the equipment that we need to do the recommended exercises, and discuss some of its most critical aspects. Pictures and movies of the equipment can also be found at muscleandstrength.com, bodybuilding.com or in my imaginary dream gym.

Chest For the chest exercises you need dumbbells, an Olympic bar, Olympic plates and Olympic collars, a flat-incline-decline bench, and a smith machine. The smith machine must be vertical (not angled), must allow the bar to slide from the floor up to about 8 feet (2.5 m) high, and must be very heavy and stable so that it doesn't slip away when it is used for heavy squats. The dumbbells are without any doubt the most important equipment in any gym. Dumbbells must lay stable in the hands. Therefore, it is recommended to choose dumbbells of standard shape, size and grip, rather than any fancy looking new design. A gym must minimally have a pair of dumbbells of 2, 3, 4, 5,..., 19, 20 kg, increasing in steps of 1 kg (2.2 lbs), and 22, 24, 26, 28 ,..., 48, 50 kg increasing is steps of 2 kg. A good flat-incline-decline bench must be very stable, not too wide so that the shoulders have enough freedom to move during dumbbell presses, not too high so that the heels of both feet can be placed on the floor, and adjustable to the following angles: -22°, 0°, +22°, +45°, +67°, and +90°. Unfortunately, many adjustable benches don't allow to go decline (-22°). People who like to do heavy bench presses may prefer separate bench press setups for flat, incline and decline bench presses.

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Cable crossover for the pecs is performed with a cable crossover machine. It is a very all-round cable machine that can be used for many exercises (biceps, triceps, shoulders etc.). Therefore I do believe that every gym should have one. It is very important that the pulleys can be adjusted in height from the floor level up to more than 2 meters (7 feet).

Abdominals For the full range of motion crunches a very steep decline (-50°) bench with leg support is needed, which can also be used to do the lying leg raises, if set in a less steep angle (-22°). For the hanging leg raises, a vertical leg raise construction is needed.

Forearms All you need for the forearm exercises is some dumbbells, straight barbells, and a flat bench or preacher bench to support your arms.

Shoulders All you need for the deltoid exercises is dumbbells, and a smith machine.

Upper trapezius Dumbbells are all you need.

Triceps For your triceps exercises you need dumbbells, an EZ-bar with plates and collars, a flatincline-decline bench, parallel dip bars, and a cable column with EZ-grip. I prefer to use EZ-bars for all my arm exercises because they allow a much more natural grip for the wrists, which provides extra strength during the exercise and keeps the wrists free from injuries.

Upper and middle back To do the exercises for your upper back (lats) you absolutely need a cable lat pulldown machine with a wide-grip bar, a middle-grip bar (palms facing each other), and a smallgrip V-bar. A plate loaded lat pulldown machine is also very effective. For both pulldown machines it is very important that the distance between the seat and the grips is large enough so that even a very tall person can fully extend his arms, and get a full stretch of his lats, at the bottom of the repetition. Therefore, it is best if the seat is adjustable in height. It is also very handy to have a chin-dip-ab combination with a high pull-up bar for chins, two parallel dip bars, and an arm/back support for hanging leg raises. For the middle back exercises a seated row machine and a lying T-row machine are must-haves. I have experienced very good plate loaded as well as stack loaded seated row machines. Most important is that the position of the chest pad must be adjustable so 69

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that all people (short or long arms) can easily grab the grips, and are able to enjoy a full range of motion with fully extended arms and completely stretched muscles at the bottom of the movement. The lying T-row machine must be plate loaded, and preferably have various grips (wide, middle, narrow) and an in height adjustable feet plate. Seated cable row columns are also very popular, but in my opinion less essential for building muscle mass than the seated row machine and lying T-row machine.

Biceps For your biceps exercises you need dumbbells, an EZ-bar with plates and collars, an incline bench, and a preacher bench. The preacher bench must be adjustable in height.

Hamstrings Lying leg curl, seated leg curl, and standing leg curl machines are usually stack loaded cable machines. It is very important that they allow the greatest possible range of motion, and that the pad at the back of your lower leg can be adjusted in height. For the standing leg curl machine, the location of the hand grips is very important, as they contribute a lot to the stability of your body during heavy leg curls. The glute-ham raises are preferably performed at a glute-ham machine, or if you don't have one a hyperextension machine can be used.

Lower back A hyperextension machine can be horizontal or 45° inclining. Horizontal hyperextension machines put much more stress on the knees. The stress on the knees is lower if the pads that support the back of the legs are not too close to the feet. If the pad supporting the pelvic does not have a shape that provides enough space for your testicles, performing hyperextensions can be very uncomfortable.

Calves A standing calf raise machine must be a vertical machine, can be stack or plate loaded, and must be very strong, robust, and stable because some guys use very heavy weights for this exercise. I have used very good plate loaded as well as stack loaded seated calf raise machines.

Quadriceps While the barbell squat is the king of all bodybuilding exercises, the hack squat machine is without doubt the king of all weight machines. Every self-respecting gym must have a hack squat, as it is the best quadriceps building exercise that exists. No other squat or leg press machines can replace the hack squat. The best hack squats have an angle of about 45° and must be plate loaded. The feet plate must be big enough (about 80 x 80 cm), have a rough surface against slipping, and preferably have an adjustable angle. The success of the hack squat is its simplicity. For the barbell squat and the front squat you need a barbell, a smith machine, a squat rack or power cage, and a wooden plank of about 2 inches thick (e.g. 5 x 20 x 80 cm) for 70

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under the heels. A good power cage has in height adjustable parallel bars at the sides that can catch the barbell is case you would fall. A good alternative exercise for the barbell squat is the belt squat. The belt squat allows you to perform heavy squats without placing any stress on the spine, which is a bless for people suffering from a back injury. The belt squat is performed on a belt squat machine. For power movements every gym also needs to have a leg press machine. A good leg press machine must be plate loaded, with the seat near the floor, and the weights sliding under an angle of about 45°. The angle of the back of the seat is preferably adjustable. A leg press machine must be extremely strong and robust because the biggest guys can press up to 2,000 lbs (1000 kg) of weights. None of the plate loaded leg extension machines that I have tried so far were really good. Therefore I think that a leg extension machine is best a stack loaded cable machine. The best leg extension machines have a seat that declines slightly backwards. I never use leg extension machines that do not allow me to lower the weight 100% (to full quadriceps stretch) without losing the tension on the muscle at the bottom of the rep. A sissy squat is a very simple construction that should have 2 long parallel bars pointing backward, so that you can comfortably lean completely backwards during your squats without falling down.

Inner and outer thighs Thigh adductor and thigh abductor machines must be stack loaded cable machines that allow full range of motion.

Conclusion Today there are many different fitness equipment manufacturers, each with their own line of weight machines, often designed in a very original way. Many of these weight machines are worthless; some of them may be good. Regardless of the quality, each of the manufacturers will have a story available to convince you why their equipment is the best. In order not to get lost in this jungle of weight machines, I very strongly recommend everybody to ensure that your gym has at least the proven basic equipment available that I have described above. You are also invited to take a look at which equipment you would find in my imaginary dream gym.

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My Dream Gym Please be invited to take a look at the equipment that I would place in my imaginary dream gym. I will start with the equipment that I consider must-haves, as it is needed to be able to perform the recommended exercises. Then I will add some great-additions that belong in every hard core bodybuilding gym, and finally some nice-to-haves that may be useful from time to time.

Must-haves

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Great-additions

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Nice-to-haves

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Doping and Steroids On my page True Natural Bodybuilding I explained which bodybuilders are using which doping products for which purposes. Here I discuss a few other aspects of the most popular performance enhancing drugs used by bodybuilders. To be honest, since I have never used any doping products myself, I am certainly not an expert in this field. Therefore, if you want to know more factual information on any specific drug, I recommend you to search the internet, starting with wikipedia.org.

Testosterone and Anabolic Steroids Testosterone (the male sex hormone) and anabolic steroids (synthetic variants of testosterone) are by far the most popular drugs among bodybuilders. That is mainly because they are extremely effective in promoting muscle growth, because they are rather easy to get, not very expensive, and relatively safe (although they may have serious side effects, it is unlikely that any of them will kill you in the short term). To obtain the desired results, bodybuilders usually use very big quantities of several different kinds of anabolic steroids at the same time. Most bodybuilders use about 10 to 100 times the therapeutically recommended dose or normal male physiological testosterone level, and use 2 to 4 different anabolic steroids together. A talented bodybuilder can gain between 10 and 30 pounds (5-15 kg) of body weight and very impressive strength gains in a single 2-month cycle with anabolic steroids. The steroids can make the athlete's total blood volume increase by up to 20%, which results in a permanent muscle-pump look, with sometimes impressive vascularity. The calories that the athlete burns per day, can double during a cycle, which makes it much easier for them to lose excess body fat. Also the strength gains are sometimes impressive. Some frequent side effects of testosterone and anabolic steroids are: elevated blood pressure, increase in bad cholesterol, severe acne, baldness, structural changes in the heart, liver and kidney damage, development of female breast tissue, sexual dysfunction, infertility, shrinking testicles, prostate enlargement, aggression and depression, masculinization in women, increase of body hair, and in extreme cases congestive heart failure, heart attacks, sudden cardiac death, and liver, prostate or kidney cancer.

Human Growth Hormone (HGH) The use of human growth hormone can give an extra boost in muscle growth on top of the gains made by anabolic steroids. While anabolic steroids make existing muscle cells grow in size, growth hormone can increases muscle mass through actual creation of new muscle cells. Since bodybuilders have started using growth hormone in the early 1990's, top bodybuilders have gained on average about 20 lbs (10 kg) in lean muscle mass. Because of its high price, growth hormone is mainly used by competitive athletes. So far, there is no effective method to test whether an athlete uses growth hormone or not. 119

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Some possible side effects of using growth hormones are: thickening of the bones of the jaw, fingers and toes, joint pain, nerve compression symptoms, insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes, reduced sexual function, and cancer. Growth hormone also stimulates the growth of all internal organs except the brain. This is why most Mr. Olympia contenders since the early 90's have a bloated midsection and look like if they are 6 months pregnant.

Insulin and Insulin-Like Growth Factors Around the mid 1990's, bodybuilders started to combine growth hormone with insulin and insulin-like growth factors (IGFs) in order to reach new levels of muscle size and density. My guess is that these drugs are worth another 10 to 16 lbs (5 - 8 kg) of lean muscle mass. Inappropriate use of insulin is very dangerous and can lead to diabetes, permanent insulin resistance, and sudden insulin shock, which may result in a coma or even death. The risks of using IGFs are not well known yet, but cancer and diabetes are frequently mentioned. So far, there exists no effective method to test whether an athlete has used insulin and IGFs or not.

Fat Burning Drugs Thyroid hormones (T3 and T4), clenbuterol, ephedrine and diuretics are also very popular among bodybuilders, mainly to reduce excess body fat to levels below 3% at contest time, and to get that dry appearance of paper-thin skin sucked tightly to the muscle. Especially diuretics are very dangerous because they can cause severe dehydration, sometimes resulting in sudden death. Another dangerous fat burning drug sometimes used by bodybuilders is DNP (2,4-dinitrophenol).

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To Use or Not to Use Although the non-therapeutic use of the above discussed drugs is illegal, I guess it's up to each individual to decide whether he wants to use them or not; and whether he wants to go through life as a bodybuilder, a natural bodybuilder or a true natural bodybuilder. However, before making the big step, please consider the following disadvantages of being a drug user: Non-therapeutic use of these drugs is illegal in most countries. If you are a competitive athlete you are cheating and may test positive. You will experience side effects and may be taking serious health risks (see above). You should be taking additional drugs to prevent or treat the side effects. Drug use may be addictive. You may lose your motivation to train without them. You may have to spend lots of money. Some drugs are very expensive. You give the sport a bad image. Bodybuilding is already very strongly associated with drug use. You will have to lie to everybody about your drug use. Will you tell it to your girlfriend or wife? What if she finds out? Most women don't like doped bodybuilders. They find a Mr. Olympia type of physique, or anything close to that, very unattractive. You might have to buy your drugs on the black market or the internet, and end up with fake or even dangerous stuff. You cannot really be proud of your results as most of them exist because of the drugs, not because of good genetics, proper diet, and hard training. How far will you go? Which and how much drugs will you use? How much money will you spend on them? Will you stop when you get female breasts, lose your hair, get severe acne and become impotent, or will you continue till you get serious heart disease, diabetes or even cancer? When you stop using the drugs, you will lose a big part of your muscles. Is it really worth all the trouble?

How to Recognize a Steroid User Whenever I see a big muscular guy in the gym, I always ask myself the question whether he would be a true natural bodybuilder or not. Unfortunately you often cannot answer that question with 100% certainty. It is especially difficult to say, if they haven't been using drugs for a longer period of time. However, if they are in the middle of a heavy steroid cycle, a trained eye can often clearly see it from their appearance. Usually they gain lots of muscle mass in only a few weeks. They look like if all their muscles are permanently pumped up, even when they are not lifting weights. Their muscles really jump out, look hard, full, and often vascular. Their metabolism is up to twice as high as normal (often above 5,000 calories per day). Unfortunately there exists no test that can determine a bodybuilder's detailed drug use in the far past, and doping test results are very easy to manipulate. Therefore, if you really want to know whether a bodybuilder is true natural, or which drugs he has been using to build his physique, you will have to ask him. The standard answer to this question is, 121

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however, always "No, I have never used any drugs". However, if you get to know the guy better, develop some friendship, give him some complements on his physique, and especially if he thinks that you are a drug user yourself or interested in becoming one, he might well loosen up and start telling you at least part of his true story. There are, however, two simple and quite innocent questions that can help you in many cases figure out whether a guy has ever been on steroids or not: Did you ever compete in bodybuilding contests or do you have plans to do so? What is your highest daily calorie intake when you are in good shape? Remember, about 99% of all competitive bodybuilders use anabolic steroids, certainly the heavy guys. Also remember that a heavy anabolic steroid cycle can double the daily amount of calories burned.

What Do I Think about Bodybuilders Who Use Drugs? I love to watch the top professional bodybuilders. I love to watch contest and training videos. I have been at the Mr. Olympia contest in 1997, the Musclemania Wold Championships in 2007, and I am dreaming to go once to the Arnold Classic. I love to work out in gyms where there are many big, muscular, strong man training in the hard core fashion, because it creates a motivating atmosphere. Several of my friends are doped bodybuilders. I respect everybody's choice to be a true natural bodybuilder or not. What I don't like is all the hypocrisy and lies about drug use. However, I understand that most bodybuilders don't want to admit their drug use because it is illegal after all, and it's not really cool to admit that most of your muscles are the result of drugs rather than good genetics, proper diet and hard training. Ronnie Coleman at least is an honest guy. He always says to the public, after he wins a contest, that he could never have done it without the help of GOD (Gallons of Drugs). ;-) One of the main reasons why I have made this website, however, is to convince people that bodybuilding does not by definition implies drug use, and that it is definitely possible to build quite an impressive physique without any drugs at all. Personally I have added more than 50 lbs (23 kg) of lean muscle to my frame by true natural bodybuilding, which I think is definitely worth the effort.

In Memory of Dead Bodybuilders In memory of the Mr. Olympia competitors who died an early death: Mohammed Benaziza Chuck Sipes Ray McNeil Andreas Munzer Mike Mentzer Sonny Schmidt 122

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Don Youngblood Paul Demayo Johnny Fuller Edouard Kawak Wilfried Sylvester

Conclusion Although the modern doping products are very powerful in promoting muscle growth and body fat reduction, better think twice before starting to use them and inform yourself very well about their side effects and health risks. A must-see for everybody who considers starting with anabolic steroids is the documentary on steroids produced by Nat. Geogr. Chan. One of the best books with practical information on anabolic steroids is Anabolics by William Llewellyn.

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BMI Evolution of Pro IFBB Bodybuilders In the early 90's bodybuilders have started to use human growth hormone (HGH), and soon thereafter insulin and IGFs, to further increase their muscle mass beyond levels that were obtainable by only using anabolic steroids (AS). To demonstrate the impact of the entrance of growth hormone and insulin into bodybuilding, I have gathered some statistics (peak performance year, competition body weight, and body length) of as many professional IFBB bodybuilders throughout history as I could find, and calculated their lean body mass index (BMI). The lean BMI is the best available parameter to estimate a bodybuilder's overall muscle mass independently from his body length. The data that I have used, and the body mass index values that I have calculated, are presented in the table at the bottom of this page. I also plotted the BMI-values versus the athletes' peak performance year into the graph below.

One can clearly see a trend break in the graph in the first half of the 1990's, when growth hormone and insulin entered bodybuilding. Before that period the BMI-values of bodybuilders were scattered around a nearly flat linear trend line with an average value of about 31. In the early 90's the average BMI suddenly increased by over 15% up to an average value of 36, and further increased gradually up to an average value of 38 in the years 2000, an increase by over 20% compared to the pre-HGH era. As the use of HGH, insulin and IGFs are further pushed to the limits by today's professional bodybuilders, we expect to see more and more athletes showing up with a BMI of 40 or even higher in the coming years. Currently about 8 athletes have a BMI of about 40. Unfortunately there are no reliable body statistics available of true natural bodybuilders, who have built their physique completely without the use of any hormonal drugs. That is because the use of anabolic steroids became a common practice among top bodybuilders already before the first professional bodybuilding contests were organized 124

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in the 60's. However, everybody who knows the sport of bodybuilding well enough, knows that a similar increase in the BMI of over 15% is expected to be observed, if one would compare true natural bodybuilders with bodybuilders who have used anabolic steroids to build their physique. In conclusion, one can fairly say that the lean BMI or body weight of modern professional top bodybuilders is more than 30% higher solely as the result of massive use of very potent hormonal drugs such as anabolic steroids, human growth hormone, IGFs, and insulin. This is more or less consistent with the observation of nowadays natural bodybuilding contests, where the BMI-values of the champions are usually closer to 25 than 30. It is therefore fair to say that today's top heavy weight bodybuilders have more than half of their lean muscle mass thanks to the drugs, rather than hard training and good nutrition. No, the steep increase of lean muscle mass among top bodybuilders since the 90's has nothing to do with better genes, better training, better nutrition or supplements. Unfortunately Ronnie Coleman does not come from another planet, as many of his fans would like to believe. Let me finally try to estimate the lean BMI of a male person with optimal genetic potential for bodybuilding under different conditions of training and drug use, assuming that in all cases he has a body fat percentage of about 3% (= lean). Training

Drug Use

BMI (3% BF)

Never trained

Never

20 ± 2

Fully trained

Never (true natural)

26 ± 2

Fully trained

Anabolic steroids

31 ± 3

Fully trained

AS + HGH + Insulin

37 ± 3

I also advice you to read this article on the maximum muscular bodyweight and size potential that can be achieved without using any anabolic drugs. It also comes with an interesting calculator that helps you estimate your personal maximum potential in terms of bodyweight and body part measurements. -----------------------------------

Table with BMI-Values of Pro IFBB Bodybuilders Year

Name

Length Weight BMI (cm) (kg)

Length Weight (feet) (lbs)

1950 Steve Reeves

185

97

28.3

6'1"

213

1966 Larry Scott

170

93

32.2

5'6"

205

1967 Dave Draper

180

102

31.5

5'10"

224

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1971 Bill Pearl

175

100

32.7

5'8"

220

1973 Reg Park

187

102

29.2

6'1"

224

1975 Serge Nubret

180

96

29.6

5'10"

211

1975 Jim Morris

178

98

30.9

5'10"

216

1978 Kalman Szkalak

178

95

30.0

5'10"

209

1980 Arnold Schwarzenegger 187

107

30.6

6'1"

235

1980 Mike Mentzer

173

102

34.1

5'8"

224

1981 Franco Columbu

165

84

30.9

5'4"

185

1981 Ken Waller

183

104

31.1

6'0"

229

1982 Casey Viator

178

109

34.4

5'10"

240

1982 Dennis Tinerino

183

100

29.9

6'0"

220

1983 Frank Zane

175

84

27.4

5'8"

185

1983 Ed Corney

170

88

30.4

5'6"

194

1984 Chris Dickerson

170

86

29.8

5'6"

189

1984 Bill Grant

175

89

29.1

5'8"

196

1984 Boyer Coe

170

98

33.9

5'6"

216

1985 Sergio Oliva

178

109

34.4

5'10"

240

1985 Mohamed Makkawy

160

72

28.1

5'2"

158

1985 Danny Padilla

157

79

32.0

5'1"

174

1986 Jusup Wilkosz

185

115

33.6

6'0"

253

1988 Berry Demey

185

102

29.8

6'0"

224

1988 Phil Hill

173

102

34.1

5'8"

224

1988 Scott Wilson

178

96

30.3

5'10"

211

1989 Bertil Fox

178

107

33.8

5'10"

235

1990 Albert Beckles

170

99

34.3

5'6"

218

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1990 Mike Christian

185

109

31.8

6'0"

240

1991 Lee Haney

180

112

34.6

5'10"

246

1991 Bob Paris

180

104

32.1

5'10"

229

1991 Rich Gaspari

173

102

34.1

5'8"

224

1992 Mohammed Benaziza

160

85

33.2

5'2"

187

1993 Lee Labrada

167

84

30.1

5'5"

185

1993 Lou Ferrigno

195

125

32.9

6'4"

275

1993 Flavio Baccianini

147

65

30.1

4'9"

143

1993 Ron Love

175

88

28.7

5'8"

194

1994 Samir Bannout

172

90

30.4

5'7"

198

1994 Porter Cottrell

168

88

31.2

5'6"

194

1995 Vince Taylor

175

104

34.0

5'8"

229

1995 Paul Demayo

178

114

36.0

5'10"

251

1995 Sonny Schmidt

178

109

34.4

5'10"

240

1995 Ian Harrison

178

117

36.9

5'10"

257

1996 Roland Cziurlock

173

102

34.1

5'8"

224

1997 Charles Clairmonte

180

112

34.6

5'10"

246

1997 Dorian Yates

178

120

37.9

5'10"

264

1997 Michael Francois

173

107

35.8

5'8"

235

1998 Jean Pierre Fux

180

117

36.1

5'10"

257

1998 Aaron Baker

173

107

35.8

5'8"

235

1999 Milos Sarcev

180

109

33.6

5'10"

240

1999 Paul Dillett

185

129

37.7

6'0"

284

2001 Shawn Ray

170

93

32.2

5'6"

205

2001 Mike Matarazzo

178

112

35.3

5'10"

246

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2002 Flex Wheeler

175

104

34.0

5'8"

229

2002 Ernie Taylor

173

106

35.4

5'8"

233

2002 Craig Titus

173

110

36.8

5'8"

242

2002 Bob Cicherillo

183

109

32.5

6'0"

240

2003 Kevin Levrone

176

116

37.4

5'9"

255

2003 Lee Priest

162

103

39.2

5'3"

227

2003 Art Atwood

180

111

34.3

5'10"

244

2003 Nasser El Sonbaty

180

127

39.2

5'10"

279

2003 King Kamali

178

113

35.7

5'10"

249

2004 Darrem Charles

173

107

35.8

5'8"

235

2006 Chris Cormier

178

113

35.7

5'10"

249

2006 Gunter Schlierkamp

185

135

39.4

6'0"

297

2006 Dennis James

173

117

39.1

5'8"

257

2007 Ronnie Coleman

180

134

41.4

5'10"

295

2007 Jay Cutler

175

124

40.5

5'8"

273

2007 Victor Martinez

178

110

34.7

5'10"

242

2007 Dexter Jackson

167

100

35.9

5'5"

220

2007 Markus Rühl

178

130

41.0

5'10"

286

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Effects of HGH and Insulin on Waistline of Bodybuilders Interview with Serge Nubret Please listen to this very interesting interview with the legendary Serge Nubret about how the use of doping has impacted modern bodybuilding.

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Brian Buchanan

anabolic steroids without HGH and insulin

Ronnie Coleman

anabolic steroids with HGH and insulin

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Arnold versus Ronnie

anabolic steroids (235 lbs) versus anabolic steroids + HGH + insulin (295 lbs)

Arnold versus Ronnie

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Passing the Doping Tests How do bodybuilders pass the doping tests successfully while using big amounts of various drugs throughout the year and during competition? To be honest, I am certainly not an expert in this field, but doing some research on the internet revealed the following information in less than one hour. I am sure there exist many other methods and tricks that I don't know of yet. The big bodybuilding federations don't test their athletes for doping at all, and don't even claim their athletes to be drug free. Some smaller so-called natural bodybuilding federations claim their athletes to be drug free, but don't have the financial resources to do any significant doping testing. Sometimes a limited number of athletes are urine tested during a big contest, but for off-season testing there is certainly no money, as a single urine test costs several hundreds of dollars, and a more advanced blood test cost a multiple of this.

Tricks to Test Negative Passing a doping test while being on drugs, doesn't seem to be very hard at all. There are countless ways to achieve it. Below I list some of the more effective and popular methods. As I am not an expert myself, I will not attempt to explain any of them in detail. I just briefly list them to give you an idea. Currently no tests are operational to detect the use of human growth hormone, insulin, IGFs, myostatin inhibitors, gene doping, and stem cell therapy. Designer steroids exist, which are structurally manipulated anabolic steroids especially developed by chemists for athletes to be undetectable by the current doping tests (e.g. tetrahydrogestrinone or THG). Several anabolic steroids, prosteroids, and precursor steroids are not yet classified as controlled substances, and are undetectable by current doping tests. Several oral drugs, including anabolic steroids, are no longer than a few days or weeks traceable by current doping tests. Insulin disappears already a couple of hours after administration. Epi-testosteron is used to mask the use of exogenous testosterone. Adding certain chemicals to a urine or blood sample can cause a false negative doping test. Oral masking drugs are taken to hide traces of doping products in the urine. Urine samples can be diluted to make doping traces undetectable by drinking lots of water or using diuretics. Using small amounts of many different drugs can keep the level of each individual drug low enough in the test sample to remain undetectable.

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A very effective method that athletes use during doping tests is to give a clean urine sample instead of their own fresh urine sample. This clean urine can come from a donor, or can be prepared from powdered urine, which can be self-made or even bought on the internet. The clean urine is usually concealed in a container or can be injected into the athlete's bladder directly via a needle or via a catheter through the urethra.

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Losing Body Fat This section is written for everybody (including bodybuilders) who wants to reduce his/her body fat in order to reach a healthy and sustainable body fat percentage. This section is not written for bodybuilders in contest preparation who want to get a body fat percentage below 5%, which can only be reached by using drugs, and is unhealthy and unsustainable. The aim of this section is to help you, without the use of illegal and unhealthy drugs, to reach and maintain a healthy and aesthetic body fat percentage between 8% and 15% for men, and a few percent higher for women. Unless you are extremely naive, you probably have already figured out that there exists no miracle diet, wonder pill, or high-tech fitness device that will do the job for you. All the commercial nonsense that you see on TV, in the magazines, and even in your local pharmacy only have one goal: getting your hard earned money. Most of the information that I present here is public knowledge, based on scientific understanding, proven by scientific methods and decades of experience by dieticians, drug-free bodybuilders, and other people who have successfully reduced their body fat. As you will read, the most successful method to lose body fat in a sustainable manner is through a combination of reducing daily calorie intake (how much you eat and drink), eating correctly (what you eat and drink), hunger control (what and how you eat and drink), and physical activity (exercise). It is not my intention to tell here a very extensive story that explains every aspect in a detailed and highly scientific manner. I rather prefer to keep this a concise and practical guide that can be used by anybody, irrespective of age and background. If you want to know more on any specific topic, I advise you to consult wikipedia.org or search the internet.

Reducing your Daily Calorie Intake Body fat is stored energy that the body will only use during periods in which there is not enough energy directly available from your food intake. The amount of energy is expressed in terms of calories. One kilogram (2.2 lbs) of body fat contains about 7,700 calories. The only way to reduce your body fat is by lowering your daily food intake so that the body starts burning the stored energy supplies (body fat) to get the energy it needs. The body needs energy (calories) to perform its basic functions to stay alive (body temperature, thinking, breathing, digesting food, etc.) and to perform physical work (walking, working, exercise, etc.). The total number of calories that your body uses daily depends on your gender, age, length, weight, muscle mass, and physical activity. The simplest (but not so accurate) method to estimate your daily caloric need is to multiply your body weight in kg by 33 (or multiply your body weight in lbs by 15). More advanced formulas to calculate your daily caloric need can be found on the net. The most accurate way to determine your personal daily caloric need is to count your average daily caloric intake during a long period of stable body weight. You can also try out my calculator to estimate your daily caloric need. 134

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The only way to reduce your current body fat is by letting your body burn more calories than you eat and drink. This can basically be accomplished in two ways: by keeping your daily caloric intake below your daily caloric need, or by increasing your physical activity so that your daily caloric need increases above your daily caloric intake. Simply said: eat less and move more. If you want to lose body fat, it is recommended to eat between 15 and 30% calories less than your daily caloric need. In order not to shock and block your metabolism, which is very contra-productive, always change your calorie intake gradually. I recommend you to do it in steps of 5 or 10% and letting your body adjust for at least a couple of weeks between consecutive changes. An average weight loss between 2 and 5 pounds (1 kg = 2.2 lbs) per month is best to reach a sustainable long-term result. Note that, as your body weight goes down, you will have to further decrease your daily calorie intake to stay below your new daily caloric need, and because your metabolism will gradually slow down during a calorie restricted diet. Daily calorie levels should never drop below 1200 calories for women or 1600 calories for men. When you finally have reached your target body weight, increase your calories very slowly (over a period of several months) back to your new daily caloric need. If you do it too fast, you will start gaining weight again, and might end up even fatter than you were before your diet. There exist four different kinds of nutrients that contain calories: protein, carbohydrates, fats, and alcohol. Let's take a closer look at them.

Protein One gram of protein contains 4 calories. Sources of protein are: chicken, turkey, meat, fish, eggs, milk, quark cheese, yogurt, protein powder, nuts, beans, peas, and soy. Proteins from animals (meat, poultry, milk, fish) are more nutritious than proteins from plants (nuts, beans, peas, soy).

Carbohydrates Carbohydrates (carbs or sugars) contain 4 calories per gram. Sources of carbohydrates are: potatoes, rice, pasta, table sugar, fruit, vegetables, bread, couscous, candy, sweet drinks, fruit juice, milk, cookies, chocolate, corn, cereals.

Fats and oils Fats and oils contain 9 calories per gram. Sources of fats are: butter, oil, fat meat, fat fish, sausages, egg yolks, sauces, fat milk, cheese, cookies, fries, chips, nachos, nuts, olives, chocolate. Fats from animals are worse for your cardiovascular health than oils from plants.

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Alcohol One gram (1 ml) of alcohol contains 7 calories. For example: 1 liter of sweet wine (15% alcohol, 15% sugar) contains 150 ml of alcohol (= 1050 calories) + 150 g of sugar (= 600 kcal) = 1650 calories per liter. As a comparison: non-fat milk contains only 340 calories per liter and orange juice contains 425 calories per liters. If you want to know the exact nutritional content of a food product, you can look it up on the internet. The USDA National Nutrient Database is a very good starting point.

Eating Correctly Fats and oils Fats and oils are the worst nutrients for people who want to lose body fat. They contain the highest amount of calories (9) per gram, and the body stores them very easily as body fat. As fats contribute to the delicious taste of many food products, people usually tend to eat more if their meal contains lots of fat. The only positive aspect of fat is that it slows down the digestion of your meal. Eat as little fat and oil as possible (max 20% of your total daily calories).

Alcohol Alcohol has a very high caloric density of 7 calories per gram, and is easily converted into body fat. It is rather easy to drink relatively large quantities of it, and it invites to drink more as it tastes so well. One liter of sweet wine (15% alcohol, 15% sugar) contains 1650 calories. People who want to lose body fat should avoid drinking alcoholic drinks.

Carbohydrates There exist several different kinds of carbohydrates. Some of them have a sweet taste, others not. All of them have their own characteristic glycemic index. The lower the glycemic index (GI), the lower the chance that they get stored as body fat. Let's take a closer look at some of the most important kinds of carbs.

Glucose Glucose (also called dextrose) is a monosaccharide with a sweet taste that occurs a lot in products such as grapes, honey, and sweet fruits. Most carbohydrates that you eat are slowly transformed by the body into glucose during digestion. Glucose is the most important carbohydrate in the blood. If you eat products that contain lots of glucose, the glucose enters your blood very fast (GI>95), it is stored as body fat very easily as soon as there is too much glucose in the blood, and you become hungry again very fast. Products that contain lots of glucose should be avoided if you want to lose body fat.

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Sucrose Sucrose (table sugar) tastes about 33% sweeter than glucose and occurs in products such as white table sugar, honey, candy, jam, biscuits, chocolate, soft drinks, etc. Sucrose is a disaccharide that is split into glucose and fructose during digestion, and has a GI of about 75. Avoid products that contain lots of sucrose as much as possible. If you like soft drinks, pick the artificially sweetened ones that are sugar-free and contain zero calories.

Fructose Fructose is the sweetest carbohydrate (about 70% sweeter than sucrose) and is the most important carb in fruits and some vegetables. This monosaccharide is converted into glucose very slowly and has a GI of about 20. Unfortunately, fructose is rather easily converted into fat by the liver, and therefore its consumption should remain moderate. Because fresh fruits mainly contain water and lots of fiber, it is fine to eat a few pieces of fruit every day. Do not eat dried fruit and jam because they contain too much sugar per gram. Also don't drink any fruit juices as they get absorbed very fast.

Lactose Lactose is the carb that occurs in milk and milk products, and it does not have a sweet taste. Lactose is a disaccharide that is split by the enzyme lactase into glucose and galactose during digestion. Lactose is a very good carb because it digests very slowly and has a low GI of about 45. This way, it is unlikely that is will be stored as body fat, and it takes a long time before you become hungry again. Drink only zero-fat milk and eat low-fat yogurt and cheese. Be careful, most cheese contains lots of fat.

Complex carbs Complex carbs are basically long chains of glucose molecules, that mainly occur in products such as starch, maltodextrin, bread, pasta, rice, potatoes, corn, cereals, and vegetables. Complex carbs don't taste sweet. They digest rather fast into glucose (GI>80), especially when the products are cooked (not eaten raw) and/or contain little fiber. Don't eat too much bread, rice, potatoes, and pasta. It is better to eat uncooked vegetables because they contain lots of fiber that slows down the digestion.

Protein Proteins are without doubt the best nutrient to eat for people who want to lose body fat. Eat as much as 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight (1 kg = 2.2 lbs). Proteins digest very slowly, they slow down the uptake of glucose in the blood, and they reduce the hunger feeling significantly. Proteins do not easily convert into body fat (the body burns about 1 calorie to convert 1 gram of protein into body fat. Therefore, 1 gram of protein can only be converted into 0.4 gram of fat). Protein is also an essential nutrient for maintaining your muscle mass during a low calorie diet. Be careful, egg yolks, cheese, milk, nuts, fish, and meat can contain lots of fat. Therefore it is better to chose products that are high in protein and low in fat, such as 137

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chicken and turkey breast, egg whites, non-fat milk, non-fat cheese and yogurt, low-fat fish and low-fat meat. Avoid chicken skin, sausages, hamburgers, and other meat products that are prepared with lots of fat or oil. Grill you meat and boil your eggs instead of baking them in butter or oil.

Eat slowly digesting food It is important to eat mainly products that digest slowly (low glycemic index) because of two reasons. Because their nutrients are released more slowly into the blood stream, they are less likely to be converted into body fat. Secondly, it will take longer before you become hungry again. Protein, lactose and fructose are the best nutrients for a slow digestion. Foods that contain lots of fiber (dark bread, brown rice, fresh fruit, raw vegetables), and uncooked products also slow down the digestion. The longer you cook your products, the faster they will digest.

Meals It is very important to eat at least 4 small meals per day, rather than 1 or 2 big meals. A couple of hours after a meal all food will be digested and all its nutrients are entered into the blood stream. If your blood is overloaded with nutrients (glucose, protein, fat) from a big meal, the body will start storing it as body fat. Moreover, by eating big meals, your stomach will become larger, resulting in a stronger hunger feeling. There are basically two things that result in a hunger feeling: an empty stomach and a low level of blood glucose (or other nutrients). Several small meals spread over the day keep your stomach smaller and keep your blood glucose level high enough throughout the day. Each of your meals should contain some protein and some carbs. Avoid fats, oils, sugar, and alcohol as much as possible. I would recommend you to eat at least 4 small meals per day, each of the same size. In the middle between each meal, drink a protein shake containing zero-fat milk and milk protein (casein) powder. Try to eat every day 2 grams of protein per kg of body weight, less than 30 grams of fat and oil, no sugar, and no alcohol. Drink at least 2 liter of water per day (the water in your tea, milk, and juice, obviously also counts).

Recommended food products zero-fat milk, non-fat yogurt, non-fat quark and cheese low-fat meat such as beef and horse low-fat fish such as tuna turkey and chicken breast without skin egg whites fresh fruits un-cooked vegetables, peas, and beans dark bread, brown rice, potatoes, dark pasta milk protein (calcium caseinate) powder water, sugar-free tea, zero calorie drinks

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Food products to be avoided fruit juice, dried fruit, grapes, honey, jam candy, cakes, biscuits, nuts, chips, nachos, fries fat meat, fat fish, egg yolks, sausages, hamburgers fat sauces, chocolate, sugar, butter, cream, oil white bread, white rice, white pasta alcoholic drinks such as wine, beer, vodka sugar containing drinks such as lemonade, cola

Hunger Control These are some ways to manage the hunger feeling during a low calorie diet. Eat at least 4 small meals instead of 1 or 2 big meals. Eat foods that digest slowly (high in protein, lactose, fiber, raw vegetables and fruits). Drink and eat foods with a low caloric density (low number of calories per serving or per 100 grams). They fill your stomach while keeping your calorie intake low. Drink a zero-fat milk protein (casein) shake between your meals. Add some (<1 g) xanthan gum or guar gum to thicken it and to slowdown digestion. Drink lots of water (or zero-calorie drinks) before, after, and between your meals. Avoid thinking about food. Be active, be busy, and avoid being bored. Avoid seeing and/or smelling delicious food. These are some tips to help you to avoid eating too much (bad food). Don't make it a habit to eat during other activities, such as watching TV, studying, etc. Avoid activities, social events, and places where people eat and drink lots of (bad) food, such as parties, restaurants, drinks, cinema, etc. Don't spend much time with people who have bad eating and drinking habits. Be outdoors and active. A successful diet starts in the grocery store. What you don't buy, you can't eat. Don't grocery shop while being hungry, as you will more likely buy bad food. Or make a shopping list and send someone else. The more delicious your meals are, the more you will eat. Be careful.

Physical Activity While reducing your daily calorie intake, and eating correctly are essential to be successful in losing body fat, your results will probably not be very impressive if your level of physical activity remains very low. Physical activity includes activities such as walking, working and sporting. Unless you are physically very active in your daily life, I recommend you to do at least 4 times per week some sport for about 1 hour. Two types of sport are particularly effective in helping you to reduce your body fat.

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Cardiovascular exercises Cardiovascular exercises specifically focus on burning calories by means of endurance exercises such as jogging (very stressful for your joints), swimming, cycling, or training on one of the cardio machines that you will find in your local gym: stationary bike, elliptical machine, stairclimber, treadmill, row machine, etc. Depending on the intensity these exercises can help you burn several hundreds of calories per hour. The best timing for cardiovascular training is in the morning, before your breakfast. That is because during the night, your body switches into fat burning mode, as the energy supply from food intake is no longer available. The best fat burning results are obtained while training at a heart beat rate between 130 and 165 beats per minute.

Bodybuilding training While bodybuilding workouts also consume lots of energy, the main goal of bodybuilding is to increase the lean muscle mass. As the muscles are one of the main energy consumers in the body, having bigger muscles implies that the body burns more calories throughout the day, even during rest. A high protein diet in combination with bodybuilding training, is the best way to increase your lean muscle mass, and therefore to increase your daily caloric need. By combining bodybuilding with cardiovascular exercises, you will get without doubt the very best results.

Tips and Tricks Don't eat during the first 2 hours of the day because your body is still in the fat burning mode of the night. Don't eat any fats and not too much carbs during the last 3 hours before you go to bed. During the night your body does not need much energy. Therefore, food eaten late at night will get stored as body fat during your sleep. A small amount of protein before going to bed is fine. Prepare your meals yourself so that you can control which ingredients go in. Meals from (fast food) restaurants contain usually too much fat. If you want to go through life with a certain body fat percentage, it is important never to let your body fat rise significantly above that level, because it is much easier to stay lean than it is to get lean. Your body will always easily slip back to its highest level of body fat, as it has some kind of memory. Approach it in a proactive preventative way rather than a reactive therapeutic way. Don't play yo-yo with your body weight. Keep your body fat constant once it is at the right level. Don't allow your calorie intake to jump up fast after a long period of dieting. It may take a long time (over 1 year) before your body is completely used to your new body composition. Finally your metabolism will find its new equilibrium and it will become easier to stay there. To be successful in losing body fat and staying lean, it is very important to be motivated, determined, devoted, disciplined, strict, and well organized in terms of planning your meals. 140

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How to follow your diet successfully Be motivated and determined. Ask yourself why you want to reduce your body fat, and how important it is to you. Less body fat makes you more beautiful and healthy. Change your mindset: stop thinking about food as an item of pleasure, consider its nutritional value as a means to feed your body, to get slim, and to stay healthy. Make sports a part of your life. Do your exercises every week on the same days and the same time. Allow yourself one junk day per week, on which you can eat whatever you want, without going above your daily calorie intake. The other 6 days you follow your diet very strictly. The junk day is very important from a psychological standpoint. Plan every morning when, what and how much you will eat that day. Eat every day around the same time. Don't make eating a big social event. Eat alone or with your family. Don't let other people decide or influence when, what, and how much you eat. You should be in control of your diet yourself. Don't buy or prepare more food than you are planning to eat. It's harder to stop eating when the table is still full of food. Leave the table as soon as you finish eating.

The Ultimate Fat Loss Strategy The most efficient way and in many cases the only way to reduce your body fat permanently is by combining a well-designed diet with an exercise program that consists of aerobic exercises as well as weight training. It is very important to realize that you need to lose body fat and not muscle mass because the muscles give shape to your body and most important you need them to keep your metabolism high and burn calories throughout the day and night. Your muscles are the furnace that burns your body fat. The more muscles you have, the easier it will be to get and stay lean! Your fat loss diet should contain between 10 and 30% less calories than your daily caloric need depending on your goals and results. Never go farther than 30% in order to prevent that your metabolism blocks and to prevent that you will lose muscle mass. When you lose more than 5 lbs of body weight per month chances are high that you are losing muscle mass and you should increase your calorie intake to prevent further loss of muscle. Changes in calorie intake should be made gradually in steps of 5 or 10% every couple of weeks. Your daily calorie intake should consist for 30% of protein, 50-55% of carbohydrates and 15-20% of fat. For a 3000 calorie diet this means that you should eat about 225 g of protein, 375-410 g of carbs and 50-70 g of fat, since protein and carbs contain 4 calories per gram and fat contains 9 calories per gram. You should eat 6 small meals per day (5 for women) about equal in size. Each individual meal should also follow more or less the 30/50/20 rule for protein/carbs/fat as explained above. As you decrease your calorie intake down to 30% below maintenance level, you should mainly decrease your carbohydrates and maybe also your fat intake, but your protein intake should stay high. Starting from a 3000 calorie maintenance level at 30/50/20 (225 g protein/375 g carbs/70 g fat) you would end up at around 2100 calories somewhere 141

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between 40/30/30 (210 g protein/160 g carbs/70 g fat) and 40/40/20 (210 g protein/210 g carbs/50 g fat) depending on what works best for you. Your protein should come mainly from lean products of animal origin such as low-fat dairy, meat, poultry, fish and egg whites, or from products of vegetable origin such as nuts, beans and soy. Your carbohydrates should come mainly from starchy and fibrous products such as oats, potatoes, yams, rice, pasta, fresh fruit, vegetables, bread, couscous, sugar-free cereals. Your fats should come from vegetable products such as nuts, olives, flaxseeds and sunflower oil, or from fish or a limited number of egg yolks. You avoid products that contain sugar/HFCS, alcohol and large amounts of animal fat. Most of your food should consist of fresh, natural, unprocessed products. Perform aerobic exercises (jogging, running, treadmill, bicycle, stationary bike, elliptical machine, rowing machine or stairclimber) to stimulate your metabolism and burn extra calories. Do 20 to 60 minutes of aerobic exercises 3 to 6 times per week, keeping your heart rate at 130 (low intensity) to 170 (high intensity) beats per minute. Do your cardio first thing in the morning before breakfast, or right after your weight training workout. Train with weights (bodybuilding) 3 to 6 times per week for 45-60 minutes to maintain or build extra muscle mass. Do 2 to 4 exercises per muscle group and perform 3 to 4 sets of 10 repetitions for each exercise as explained in the training routines. Increase the poundages and training intensity as you get stronger. Without weight training you will unavoidably lose muscle mass during a calorie restricted diet and consequently suffer from a decreased metabolism which will hinder further and permanent fat loss. Muscle loss is a major cause of rapid body fat regains many people experience after a diet (yoyo effect). Any changes in diet or training program should be made gradually in small steps to ensure optimal results and prevent injuries.

Calorie or carbohydrate cycling One trick that some bodybuilders use to obtain ultra-low body levels is calorie or carb cycling. This basically means that you go low in calories for a few days followed by a few high calorie days. This method is especially useful when you have hit a plateau and you are no longer able to lose additional body fat even though your calorie intake is much below maintenance and you aerobic and weight training are at a high level. The rationale behind inserting the high calorie/carbohydrate days is to replenish the glycogen supplies in your muscles and to reaccelerate your metabolism. During a prolonged calorie restricted diet your metabolism unavoidable slows down. This is a natural survival mechanism your body uses to cope with periods of low food supplies. A couple of high calorie days may be all that is needed to reaccelerate your metabolism and get you out of the dead end path. Letting every 3 days of low calories follow by 1 to maximum 3 days of high calories should do the trick. Someone with a maintenance level of 3000 calories per day could for example do cycles of 3 days at 2100 calories of 40/30/30 (210 g protein/160 g carbs/70 g fat) followed by 2 days at 3000 calories of 30/50/20 (225 g protein/375 g 142

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carbs/70 g fat). Note that this is just an example and any reasonable variation might fit your personal needs even better.

Summary The following are the most important aspects for losing body fat: Eat fewer calories per day. Eat at least 4 small meals per day, equal in size. Eat and drink only products that are low in fat, oil, sugar/HFCS, and alcohol. Eat and drink only slowly digesting products that contain lots of fiber, protein, water, lactose and other carbs with a low glycemic index. Eat lots of protein. Be physically active. Work, walk, exercise (cardiovascular and bodybuilding).

The perfect fat loss day 06:00: wake up 06.30: cardiovascular training (about 45 minutes) 08:00: breakfast 10:00: zero-fat milk protein shake 12:00: lunch 14:00: zero-fat milk protein shake 16:00: dinner 17:00: bodybuilding training (about 45 minutes) 18:00: small meal 20:00: zero-fat milk protein shake 22:00: bed time

Example Assume you are a 30 year old, 66 kg (145 lbs) weighing, moderately active female of 170 cm (5"7'). Your daily caloric need is about 2180 (33 x 66 kg or 15 x 145 lb) calories per day. After a month of diet your daily caloric intake should be about 20% below your daily caloric need, which results in (2177 x 0.80) = 1740 calories per day. You eat about 140 grams of protein per day (1 gram per pound of body weight). You drink 3 protein shakes per day, each containing 0.25 liter of zero-fat milk and 30 grams of milk protein powder, giving a total of 30 grams of protein, 12 grams of lactose, 1 gram of fat, 0.20 liter of water, and 175 calories. Your breakfast, lunch and dinner contain each about 350 calories, and your small meal at 6 in the evening contains about 200 calories. Each of your meals contains about 13 grams of protein from non-fat meat, non-fat poultry, non-fat fish, egg whites, or non-fat milk products. The carbohydrates should come from the lactose in the milk products, fructose in fresh fruits, and complex carbs in raw vegetables and small quantities of dark bread, brown rice, cereals, pasta, or potatoes. You keep your fat, oil, sugar, and alcohol intake as low as possible. Between the meals you don't eat anything, and only drink zero-calorie drinks such as water and sugar-free tea. After a month, you may decide to lower your daily caloric intake by another 10% (220 calories) down to 1520 calories per day. Once you reach your target 143

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weight, you very slowly (over several months) increase you daily calorie intake back up to your new daily caloric need.

Diet plan You may choose to build your own personal diet plan in which you calculate for every meal how many grams of protein, carbs, fat and calories you eat. To accomplish this you could use my diet plan excel spread sheet and customize it according to your own needs.

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Competition I don't think that there are any true natural bodybuilders taking part in any bodybuilding contests or natural bodybuilding contests these days, at least not in the contests at any significant level. The reason is very simple, they would be blown away from the stage by their doped fellow competitors. Yes, anabolic steroids and other drugs are that effective. Most so-called natural bodybuilders are using hormonal drugs such as anabolic steroids, growth hormone, insulin or prohormones during contest preparation, or have been doing so in the past to build their physique, especially the heavy weight competitors. I think it is fair to state that since the 50's, when testosterone and anabolic steroids became available to athletes, competitive bodybuilders have been using them consistently, especially the professionals. Most of nowadays professional bodybuilders started using hormonal doping products already as a teenager, and sometimes even as early as the age of 15. I seriously doubt whether competitive bodybuilding would ever have come off the ground if this hormonal doping would not have been available. So far, there exist no contests for true natural bodybuilders, mainly because of 2 reasons: it is impossible to test whether a bodybuilder is TRUE (life-time) natural, and true natural bodybuilders simply don't look impressive enough (not enough muscle mass and too much body fat compared to doped bodybuilders). And to be honest, I hope there will never be contests for true natural bodybuilders as there will always be cheaters showing up. I believe that true natural bodybuilding is and should stay simply a healthy, sporty lifestyle. I approach it as a competition against myself, in which I try day after day to push my personal limits one step farther. I don't believe there is any honor or money to win by true natural bodybuilders in terms of competing or becoming an idol.

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Frequently Asked Questions If you have any question, please send it to me by email at answer it as soon as possible, and it might even get posted here.

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Questions Does the info on your website only apply to men or also to women? Is there a shorter way to say True Natural Bodybuilding? How much muscle will I gain following your training program and diet? What should an ectomorph, a mesomorph, and an endomorph do differently? Do you prefer isolation exercises above compound exercises? What is the best possible physique true natural bodybuilding can generate? Are natural bodybuilding contests drug free? Which training routine do you propose for a beginner? Can you make a bodybuilding diet plan for me? Can you give some guidelines on when to cut and when to bulk? How can I thank you for sharing this information? Do you want to be my personal trainer?

Answers Does the information on your website only apply to men or also to women? What makes muscles grow in men, also makes muscles grow in women. What makes men lose body fat, also makes women lose body fat. Although women have by nature much smaller muscles than men, mainly because they miss the big quantities of the 146

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natural anabolic sex hormone testosterone, which is produced by the male testicles, I believe that the training and nutrition to optimize muscle growth and minimize body fat are essentially the same for men and women. So yes, I believe that almost all information on this website is also applicable for women.

Is there a shorter way to say True Natural Bodybuilding? Sure, if you find the words "True Natural Bodybuilding" too long to write or to pronounce, you can abbreviate it as TN bodybuilding. And a true natural bodybuilder would become a TN bodybuilder.

How much muscle will I gain following your training program and diet? I think it is fair to say that I've gained in total about 50 lbs (23 kg) of muscle mass by the age of 25 thanks to true natural bodybuilding. I also think it is fair to say that if I would have been able to train uninterruptedly without any injuries, in a well equipped gym, and having enough financial resources to optimize my nutrition, especially in terms of protein intake, I would have been able to build these 50 lbs of muscle in about 5 or 6 years. So my training program and diet enabled me to build about 9 lbs of muscle per year. Depending on your age, genetic potential, and other factors, you might get better or worse results than me.

What should an ectomorph, a mesomorph, and an endomorph do differently? An ectomorph is someone who is by nature very skinny in terms of body fat as well as muscle mass. Usually ectomorphs are not very hungry, have difficulties eating enough, and have a hard time building muscle mass and even body fat. An endomorph is someone who is by nature rather big in terms of body fat. Usually endomorphs are very hungry, eat more calories than they should eat, tend to become over weight, and have big difficulties losing body fat. A mesomorph has an athletic physique, is muscular by nature without having excess body fat (between 10 and 15%). He has the most favorable genetics for being a successful bodybuilder. It doesn't really matter very much which of these body types you have. Every bodybuilder should basically follow the same training program and healthy high protein diet. An ectomorph should however focus a bit more on ensuring that his daily calorie intake is high enough. If your appetite is really too low to eat enough calories per day, you might find it easier to get some extra calories from liquid food such as milk, juices, protein shakes, and weight gainers. An endomorph, on the other hand, should keep his 147

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daily calorie intake under control, limit his daily fat intake, and add some cardiovascular exercises to his training program in order to lose some excess body fat.

Do you prefer isolation exercises above compound exercises? Compound exercises involve more than one joint and muscle group. Well known examples are the barbell bench press (pecs, triceps, delts), barbell shoulder press (delts, triceps), barbell upright row (trapezius, delts, biceps), bent-over barbell row (upper back, lower back, delts, biceps), barbell deadlift (quads, hamstrings, glutes, lower back, forearms), leg press (quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves), barbell squat (quads, hamstrings, glutes, calves). These are great power exercises to develop strength, and they contribute to the overall development of your body because they target many secondary muscle groups next to the primary muscle group (first mentioned between brackets) for which they are mainly intended. The negative aspect of compound exercises, which often use nearly all of your body's muscles simultaneously in order to lifting very heavy weights, is that they require enormous amounts of energy. You might get totally exhausted before you were able to stimulate the primary muscle group intensely enough to induce serious muscle growth. At the same time you also heavily involved many secondary muscle groups that you were not planning to train in that particular workout, and thereby interrupting their recovery and growth period. By doing exercises that involve only one specific muscle group, or by performing an exercise in such a way that you isolate one particular muscle group (maximize the involvement of the primary muscle and minimize the involvement of secondary muscles) you can 100% focus all your physical and mental energy and intensity into that specific muscle group, and thereby maximizing its growth stimulation. In summary, by isolating the targeted muscle group I am able to put more intensity into it, and I don't interrupt the recovery and growth process of the other muscles that I train on other days. Indicators such as muscles pump, muscle soreness, and muscle growth have proven that this works better than compound exercises for me personally.

What is the best possible physique true natural bodybuilding can generate? This is a very difficult question because it depends from so many different variables. Genetic potential, which differs so much between individuals, is definitely one of the most important factors. Let's limit the question here to those people who do not have any rare genetic mutations that result in abnormal muscle growth or hormone levels. Personally I would estimate that a Body Mass Index (BMI) of about 28.5 with a body fat percentage of about 5% is close to the maximum result obtainable through true natural 148

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bodybuilding. This assumes that a bodybuilder with the best possible genetics succeeds to fully develop all his muscles through training and nutrition without ever using any performance enhancing drugs or unnatural food supplements. The best example of a famous bodybuilder I can think of, who comes close to this best possible true natural physique is Steve Reeves. Steve competed in the 1940's, when anabolic steroids where not yet generally used by competitive bodybuilders. I am not saying that Steve was completely drug free, however, he might have been. He certainly didn't use the massive quantities and many different kinds of very powerful drugs today's bodybuilders use. I also advice you to read this article on the maximum muscular bodyweight and size potential that can be achieved without using any anabolic drugs. It also comes with an interesting calculator that helps you estimate your personal maximum potential in terms of bodyweight and body part measurements.

Are natural bodybuilding contests drug free? Just as the Olympic Games, natural bodybuilding contests are supposed to be drug free, and even drug tested, but still everybody knows they are not. As soon as you organize contests at a certain level, where lots of money and/or honor can be earned you will get athletes that use drugs. In a sport such as bodybuilding, where the drugs are so effective that they give a huge advantage over fellow competitors, the seduction is enormous. When one athlete makes the step, the rest has to follow or accept losing. In no other sport drug use is as common as in bodybuilding, that even separate natural competitions are organized next to the normal competition. However, this doesn't mean at all that athletes participating in these natural bodybuilding contests are really drug free. On the contrary, drug use is at least as common in natural bodybuilding as in any other sport, especially in the high level contests. The reason why natural bodybuilders use drugs is very simple: the drugs are extremely effective, it is very easy to pass the doping tests, and the rewards of being a champion are very seducing. None of the natural bodybuilding federations have the money to organize serious drug testing. In the best case, a few athletes are urine tested on the day of a big contest. A single urine test costs several hundreds of dollars, and a more advanced blood test cost a multiple of this. Only a few tests cost already more than the total prize money in a natural bodybuilding contest. Even the best doping tests can only find a limited number of prohibited drugs. Athletes are not tested for growth hormone, insulin and IGF-1, which are very powerful hormonal drugs frequently used by bodybuilders. There even exist anabolic steroids that cannot be found by doping tests, or that become undetectably only a few days or weeks after ingestion. None of the doping products can be found back in the urine or blood a year after administration. 149

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Because no doping test can find drugs taken more than a year ago, natural bodybuilding federations don't even require their competitors to be drug free for more than a couple of years. In practice this means that someone can use any drug he wants for many years to boost his training intensity and build huge muscles, and still be welcome in the natural contests as soon as he stops using for a few months.

Which training routine do you propose for a beginner? If you want to build as much muscle mass as possible in the shortest possible time, I suggest you train 5 days per week. If you have never trained with weights before, I suggest you start with a 2-day split routine in which you train half of your muscles during the first workout and the other muscles in the second workout. After about 6 months you can start with a 3-day split routine in which you divide your muscle groups over 3 different workouts. About 6 months later you should be ready for a 4-day split routine. And finally, after another half a year, you can try a 5-day split routine in which each muscle group is trained exactly once per week. In the 2- and 3-day split routine you should do about 2 basic exercises for each muscle group and execute 3 sets per exercise. Each workout should take about 80 minutes to complete. In the 4- and 5-day split routine you can do 2 or 3 exercises per muscle group and execute 4 working sets per exercise. Each workout should take no more than 60 minutes to complete. Please take a look at my examples. Do not hesitate to adjust it to your own needs.

Can you make a bodybuilding diet plan for me? Unfortunately I cannot make a diet plan for each of you personally. I did, however, make a very good and detailed bodybuilding diet plan example, which you can easily customize to fit your personal needs.

Can you give some guidelines on when to cut and when to bulk? Whether you want to gain muscle mass or lose body fat I always recommend you to get about 30% of your daily calories from protein, 50% from carbohydrates and 20% from fat. Apart from this the general rules are: "the higher your calorie intake, the faster your muscles will grow, but the more likely it is that your body fat will also increase", "the lower your calorie intake, the faster you will lose body fat, but the more likely it is that you will also lose muscle mass" and "in order to maintain a low body fat level (e.g. 8%) you will have to keep your calorie intake lower than to maintain a higher body fat level (e.g. 16%)". As most bodybuilders want to gain muscle mass as fast as possible while keeping their body fat levels as low as possible or even lose excess body fat, you understand that we are facing a difficult challenge of finding the right balance in daily caloric intake. On top 150

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of that every body is different in terms of the initial amount of muscle mass and body fat present, how easily a calorie excess is turned into muscle or body fat increase, and how easily a calorie deficit is turned into muscle or body fat decrease. The best way to approach this bodybuilding dilemma is to form a realistic goal for yourself. Which body fat percentage will satisfy you and is realistic for you to maintain without having to stay so low in calories that your muscles will lack sufficient nutrients for growth. This is very personal, but for most males this is probably somewhere between 8 and 16%. If your body fat percentage is below 8% you probably want to speed up your muscle growth a bit by increasing your calorie intake gradually by a few hundred calories per day until your get a bit closer to 10%. If your body fat percentage is above 16% you probably want to lose some body fat by decrease your calorie intake by a few hundred calories per day until your get a bit closer to 14%. Let's look at an example. Assume you are at 180 lbs at 16% body fat and you want to reach 195 lbs at 12%. There are basically 3 popular ways to reach that goal. 1) You first diet down from 16 to 12% in a short period of time and then start focusing on building muscle mass while maintaining the 12%. 2) You follow periodic cutting and bulking cycles in which you decrease and increase your calories below and above your maintenance level, respectively, for a few weeks or months in which your body fat percentage cycles around a comfort level of 14±2% for example. 3) You first build all the muscle mass you need, which may take you several years, and then cut down from 16 to 12%. Option 3 is the fastest way to reach your goal but has the disadvantage that you will be at 16% body fat for several years while you are building your muscle mass. Option 1 is the slowest method but has the advantage that you will be rather lean at 12% while the years of building your body pass. Option 2 probably lies somewhere between option 1 and 3. Which option to choose is a matter of personal preference.

How can I thank you for sharing this information? Help promoting true natural bodybuilding as a healthy lifestyle. Explain others what true natural bodybuilding is. Let others know that you do bodybuilding in a truly natural way by wearing a True Natural BodyBuilding T-shirt. Join the club! ;-) If you think the information on this website was of any value to you, helped you saving time or money, or helped you reaching your goals faster, you can of course also consider making a donation or you could buy the TN Bodybuilding book.

Do you want to be my personal trainer? If you want to learn in 2 weeks what I have learned in 20 years, of course. However, I don't have much free time, and I may be living very far away from you. 151

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Blog I will use this page to post some random thoughts and ideas about bodybuilding as they come up in my mind. Please check this page regularly because it may be updated at any moment in time.

Interviewed by Steve Shaw from Muscle & Strength Saturday, December 5, 2009 A couple of months ago I was contacted by Steve Shaw from Muscle & Strength to do a interview. Muscle & Strength is one of the main natural bodybuilding websites on the internet. You can read the complete interview at muscleandstrength.com.

Visiting FIBO 2009 in Essen Saturday, April 25, 2009 I visited today the FIBO in Essen (Germany), the biggest fitness-bodybuilding expo in Europe which takes place every year in spring. There were a few IFBB professional bodybuilders present, including Dennis James. A great chance for me to shake hands with him and get on the photo with him.

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Website ready and launched Tuesday, January 1, 2008 OK, it took me more than 2 weeks to write all text and to get all pictures formatted, but finally my website is ready and online. I hope you guys and girls will like it and learn something from it. I'm always happy to hear any feedback from you: whether you like the site or not, suggestions for improvement, etc. Thank you all for visiting, Jos

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Get Your Own T-Shirt Are you a 100% life-time natural bodybuilder? Congratulations! Be proud of it! Help improving bodybuilding's image and promote True Natural Bodybuilding as a healthy lifestyle, without performance enhancing drugs, that keeps you fit and good looking. Get your own True Natural BodyBuilding T-shirt and tell the world that you have built your physique in a truly natural way without using drugs or other unnatural performance enhancing chemicals.

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How to get your T-shirt? It's very easy and takes about 5 minutes to design and order your own T-shirt, and it costs about 10 USD. Just go to the website vistaprint.com, select your country, click on T-shirts, click on Brows the Designs, click on Start with a Blank Template, enter the text True Natural BodyBuilding, click on Advanced Editing to change the font size (96) and font type (stencil, bankgothic, comicpro or handelgothic), choose your color, and you are ready to check out. Thank you for supporting the sport that we love so much! Jos TN True-Natural-Bodybuilding.com

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Interview with Jos from True Natural BodyBuilding Author: Steve Shaw from Muscle & Strength Jos has a passion for natural bodybuilding. True natural bodybuilding. And he has a body that backs up his passion. Though he has never competed in the sport, Jos knows his stuff. His personal website, www.true-naturalbodybuilding.com, is one of the most informative natural-only sites on the Internet. Muscle and Strength: You have an amazing natural physique. What are your primary training philosophies, and did you ever consider yourself a "hardgainer"? Jos: My training routine resembles pretty much a standard classic bodybuilding routine that most successful bodybuilders have been using for decades. I typically train every muscle group once per week. For each muscle group I typically perform 3 or 4 exercises of 4 sets. I do about 8 to 12 reps per set using as much weight as possible without scarifying good form. I keep the rest between my sets as low as possible (around 45 seconds) in order to get a solid pump and to progressively exhaust my muscles as I go through my exercises, but long enough to avoid cardiovascular failure. My goal is always to have my muscles totally exhausted at the end of the last exercise. My key word for an effective muscle building workout is “intensity.” The higher the intensity of your workout, the more the muscles are stimulated to grow. I believe that many inexperienced bodybuilders focus too much on lifting heavy weights. In order to be able to lift heavy they take too much rest between the sets, do not enough reps per set, and often use sloppy form. Instead of worrying about the amount of weight, one should worry about the intensity load that is put on the muscles. My advice is to concentrate on intense muscle contractions, good exercise form (continuous tension and full range of motion), firm training pace (not too much rest between sets) and sufficient volume (total of 12-16 sets of 8-12 reps per muscle). Furthermore, I believe it is very beneficial to build in some variation every week in the workouts in terms of which exercises are performed or at the least by varying the order in which the exercises are performed. I don’t consider myself a "hardgainer", but I also don’t have any reason to believe that I am exceptionally gifted. I guess my genetic potential for bodybuilding is somewhere in the middle of the favorable half of the genetic spectrum. When I started bodybuilding I grew rather fast. By the age of 24 or 25 I had reached about 95% of my total muscle mass. Not bad knowing that I had only trained in a gym for about 4 years at that time (because of a back injury I didn’t train from age 18 till 21). Yes, I used to workout at home since I was 14 years old, but having only some dumbbells and a chin bar (no bench, barbell, or whatever other training equipment) available that was far from optimal. It did, however, provide me with a solid basis to start from.

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At the age of 25 I kind of hit the wall regarding my maximum natural potential. Since then my gains in muscle mass have been very minimal no matter how hard I trained, and how well I ate. When you train without chemical assistance you have to accept that the sky is not the limit. Only steroids can push you beyond that natural limit. Muscle and Strength: I've been at my natural limit for 12 years myself, so I understand what you mean. A good percentage of young, natural lifters believe that you can obtain results like that of steroids users...but it just takes longer. Why do you believe that so many of these trainees are resistant to the idea that natural training has a "ceiling”? Jos: When I was 18 years old I believed that one day I would win the Nobel Prize for Physics, drive a Ferrari, marry a model, and become Mr. Olympia being natural. Some years later I had to downgrade some of these expectations. (laughing) Having high expectations in life is part of being young. Young people are healthy and full of energy and motivation. They see themselves growing every day, mentally, intellectually and physically. Their natural testosterone levels peak, giving them the feeling they can rule the world. Their parents, trainers and teachers tell them they can achieve any goal as long as they work hard enough. No surprise that some inexperienced, young, natural lifters have unrealistic expectations. On top of this you also have of course what I prefer to call the “Natural Illusion.” While it is public knowledge that lots of performance enhancing drugs are being used by competitive and amateur bodybuilders, most of them still consistently deny it (using steroids is illegal, not accepted by society, and a huge taboo). Because of this, people who are new to the sport get a false image of what can be achieved naturally. People who are a bit more mature, have some sense of reality and some experienced with the sport will look through the Natural Illusion pretty fast and realize that if today’s professional bodybuilders would be completely drug free they would rather look like Frank Zane than Ronnie Coleman. Nowadays you won’t find any serious medical doctors or scientists who claim that you can achieve drug free the same muscle mass, strength or speed as with steroids. No matter how long or hard you train. That’s simply a scientific fact. And especially in bodybuilding the difference between using or not is huge. Muscle and Strength: Have you ever been tempted to experiment with steroids? Jos: I have never seriously considered using steroids in my life because if I compare the pros and cons of steroid use from my personal viewpoint the balance goes very strongly against steroids.

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First of all I’ve never had any interest in competing in bodybuilding contests. Standing in a tiny posing trunk being judged in front of an audience doesn’t sound very appealing to me. So bodybuilding was for me never more than a competition against myself in which I try to get as close as possible to my dream physique (something near to Arnold or maximum Lee Haney). By using steroids I think I would reach my bodybuilding goals too fast and too easily and therefore lose most of the challenge, motivation and fun that the sport gives me every day. Having that unreachable goal keeps me hungry and motivated. I also don’t believe in doing a little bit of steroids. It’s not my personality to do a bit of something. I’m someone who goes all out or not at all, especially in sports. I also find using steroids a way of cheating yourself and the others, even if you admit using them. For me, steroid muscles are as fake as breast implants. They hide your true genetic potential and achievements as a sportsman. Yes, using steroids will improve your physique dramatically, but does the fact that you inject yourself everyday with steroids make yourself a more respectable sportsman? I don’t think so. Personally, I find it absurd to stick a needle in the ass every day. It has nothing to do with sport and I don’t want it to be part of my hobby. I don’t want to degrade bodybuilding to some kind of beauty therapy in which all means serve the goal. Bodybuilding for me is a sport and hobby that give me lots of fun, not a frustrated obsession to reach some beauty ideal or to win a contest title. Last but not least, I don’t want to spend my money buying illegal drugs on the black market that will jeopardize my health. I’m not prepared to get severe acne, liver damage, testicular atrophy, elevated blood pressure, high cholesterol, gynecomastia, impotence, prostate enlargement, boldness or any other health complication for a few pounds of extra muscle. I also don’t want to be known as a steroid user nor do I want to lie about it. So the only option is never to use steroids. Muscle and Strength: I want to ask you about diet. Do you use bulking and cutting cycles, or does your diet stay consistent year round? Jos: I never did bulking and cutting cycles. I believe you can make the same gains in the same period of time by staying around a constant calorie intake and body fat level. At least if that body fat level is not too low. Otherwise your calorie intake will not be high enough to allow muscle growth. Since I don’t compete and don’t spend much time on the beach or other places where I have look at my best I personally feel comfortable with a body fat percentage of about 12% year round. This is sufficiently low for me to clearly see my abs, while it allows me to eat enough food so that I have sufficient energy and strength to train very hard in the gym. I always try to eat as much as possible without going over 12% body fat. I weigh myself everyday and monitor myself carefully in the mirror. As soon as I observe a slight increase in body fat I cut down my calorie intake a bit for a few days or weeks till I’m back to baseline. When you know your body very well and have done this for several years, you can easily do this even without having to count all your calories. Muscle and Strength: I'm not sure how closely you follow forum debates, but the most heated battle is always over HIT (High Intensity Training) vs. High Volume training. What are your thoughts on these schools of training, and do you believe either is viable for a natural lifter? Jos: While muscle hypertrophy is not completely understood yet, continued muscle growth is best obtained by subsequent cycles of muscular overload followed by overcompensation. Intense resistance training results in glycogen depletion and micro-tears in the muscle fibers. After the

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workout, the body recovers and weapons itself against a next overload by overcompensating: growth in muscle fiber size and storing more glycogen in them. An effective bodybuilding workout must deplete the glycogen stores in the muscle and cause a significant amount of micro-damage to the fibers. The best way to achieve this is by training to complete muscular exhaustion by flirting long enough with total muscular failure. With total muscle failure, I mean the point where the muscle is no longer able to contract strongly enough to move the weight up or even hold it in its position due to exhaustion of the neuromuscular stimulus and local energy (glycogen) depletion. I believe that any training system that leads to complete muscular exhaustion through complete glycogen depletion and significant micro-tears in the muscle fibers, followed by a long enough period of rest to allow the muscle to recover and overcompensate, can induce continued muscle growth. Complete glycogen depletion can only be reached through a minimum of training volume (i.e. “time under tension”). In order to get enough micro-tears in the muscle fibers you need to flirt long enough with total muscle failure. Variables such as number of sets, number of reps and amount of weight are not the critical parameters themselves, but merely the means to get to the same goal: intense muscle overload leading to local energy depletion and neuromuscular exhaustion resulting in total muscular failure causing fiber micro-damage which accumulates into a state of complete muscular exhaustion. The amount of weight must be high enough to be able to reach neuromuscular failure, while the total time under tension (sets x reps x rep duration) must be high enough to be able to reach local glycogen depletion. A typical powerlifting style of training (few reps with maximum weight) will lead to neuromuscular failure long before glycogen depletion, a state I call “partial muscular failure”, and therefore is not optimal for inducing hypertrophy. Endurance training (very high reps with light weights) leads to another type of “partial muscular failure” in which local energy supplies are depleted before neuromuscular exhaustion is reached. When comparing a HIT routine with a classic training routine, they may seem very different at first sight in terms of the training variables: sets, reps, weights, and rep duration. However, all critical aspects are present in both routines: complete muscular exhaustion, training to total muscular failure. Even the total time under tension (TUT) is comparable for both. HIT would typically have 2 sets of 10 reps of 10 seconds (TUT=200 s), while a classic routine would have like 12 sets of 10 reps of 2 seconds (TUT=240 s). The correct question is not “which of both training routines is the best”, but rather “which of both training routines suites you best.” And the answer is very individual depending on your personal mental and physical capabilities and preferences. In practice we see that most nowadays bodybuilding champions chose for a classic training routine (15 sets) that lies somewhere between Mike Meltzer’s HIT (2 sets) and Serge Nubret style High Volume training (30+ sets).

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My advice for a natural bodybuilder is to shoot in the middle and start out with a classic routine. If you don’t feel good with this, shift a bit towards the extremes and test how well this works for you. Not very many people will find themselves to get the best results with any of the extremes. Muscle and Strength: What are your thoughts on isolation exercises. Where do they factor into the equation with relation to glycogen depletion and micro-damage? Can a natural lifter use them effectively in a routine, or are they a waste of training time? Jos: Compound exercises and isolation exercises both deserve their place in bodybuilding. Compound exercises involve multiple muscle groups and more closely resemble natural, “real world” movements, and are therefore excellent for developing overall body strength and muscle mass. With only a handful of well selected compound exercises you can assemble an excellent routine to train your complete body. This is especially interesting for the beginner lifter, who needs to develop core strength and muscle mass, when choosing for a full body workout or an upper body/lower body split that can be completed a couple of times per week. While compound exercises are the greatest power builders, they also have some disadvantages for the advanced bodybuilder. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link is literally applicable to compound exercises. While many different muscles are used simultaneously in compound exercises, the failure of only one will cause the lift to fail. It’s only that failing muscle (target muscle) that gets the full growth stimulation (i.e. maximum glycogen depletion and microdamage). The other muscles that assist the lift (synergists) don’t reach total muscular failure and therefore only get limited growth stimulation. The limited growth stimulation that synergists get during compound exercises may be all a beginner needs to grow. But an advanced bodybuilder may need more to maintain continued growth. That’s where isolation exercises come into play. With an isolation exercise, you can focus all your mental and physical energy into one single target muscle at a time in order to deliver the maximum possible growth stimulation. A simple example is the biceps. You can give them quite a good workout by doing compound back exercises such as barbell row, chins, lat pulldowns etc. However, if you want to get your biceps fully developed you will have to add some isolation exercises (e.g. curls) at some point in time. That’s because your biceps function as synergists in these exercises while the main growth stimulus goes to the back muscles (lats and trapezius). As you get more advanced as a bodybuilder, I believe that targeting your muscles individually becomes increasingly important because this really is the only way to enable maximum growth in all those muscles. I believe that even compound exercises should be performed in a way to guide the intensity as much as possible into the target muscle rather than letting it dissipate towards the synergists. It’s better to target afterwards each of the synergists individually with their own dedicated isolation exercise. A nice example of the importance and extend of targeting and isolation by advanced bodybuilders are the use of incline, flat and decline dumbbell flyes. These not only isolate a single muscle (the pecs), but even target separate parts of that muscle (upper, middle and lower, respectively). Having synergistic muscles involved too much in compound exercises might be even counterproductive for advanced bodybuilders. A muscle should be trained completely to failure or not at all. Having a muscle trained partially is a lost opportunity, a waist of energy, and possibly a disruption of its recovery period. Muscle and Strength: What do you believe a true natural bodybuilder is? Jos: For me a true natural bodybuilder is someone who has build his physique through effective training and a targeted nutrition without ever having used performance enhancing drugs or

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supplements that differ from the nutrients that naturally occur in our daily diet such as proteins, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, minerals, creatine etc. Note that this is quite a strict definition and that many athletes who call themselves natural bodybuilders don’t fit within these conditions. True natural bodybuilding has in my opinion nothing to do with using exotic plant extracts or chemical substances that can boost performance, increase muscle growth or accelerate fat burning. A true natural bodybuilder should be able to say that his physique is 100% the results of effective training, appropriate nutrition and good genetics; not improved by capsule X, ampoule Y or vial Z. This, however, doesn’t mean that there is no place for supplements at all in true natural bodybuilding. Supplements like milk protein powders and creatine monohydrate are very useful supplements for bodybuilders who are not able to or do not want to eat large quantities of meat and fish throughout the day. They are inexpensive, low in saturated fats and cholesterol, and don’t take much time to prepare and drink. Omega-3 fatty acids, multi vitamins/minerals, and dextrose are a few other examples of supplements that do not violate my vision of true natural bodybuilding. What doping products such as anabolic steroids concern, these of course have no place at all within true natural bodybuilding. These are not only known to be very effective in boosting performance and muscle growth, but they also have many harmful side effects. As steroids are able to push a physique permanently beyond its maximum natural limits, fair play can only be guaranteed in natural bodybuilding contests if there is a zero tolerance for such products. Unfortunately, drug testing is very ineffective, especially in detecting prohibited substances that have been taken months or years ago. Because of this, many athletes that participate in natural bodybuilding contest are not as clean as they would want you to believe.

Muscle and Strength: What would you say to a young trainee who is strongly considering making the switch from natural bodybuilder, to "enhanced" bodybuilder?

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Jos: I understand that the temptation to start with steroids can be very big for some people. However, it is not a decision that should be taken lightly, as it can have far-reaching social as well as health related consequences in the short term as well as the long term. Steroids come with a big promise, but they also can have a significant price tag attached to them. Adolescents…I would always strongly discourage to make the consideration because at their age it’s simply very unwise from a health perspective to experiment with steroids. There is also no reason to hurry because most bodybuilders still have their best physique in their late 30’s. It’s better to give your body some time to grow naturally. Maybe it will turn out that you don’t need any “assistance” to reach your dream physique. Imagine how much more satisfaction and selfconfidence it will give you if you can say that you reached your goal all by yourself without any chemical assistance. For those who still believe they are a candidate for the big step, it is very important to fully understand all possible consequences before starting their adventure. Therefore they should get as well informed as possible on the subject. There is plenty of quality information from reliable sources available on the internet, in books, and even documentaries that can be used to make your personal analysis. What the outcome is of that analysis can be very different from person to person as it depends from your personal view on life. Most important is that you do your analysis thoroughly so that you feel comfortable with your decision and are sure that you will never regret it. As long as you are prepared to deal with all its consequences you will always be able to stand in front of the mirror and say to yourself: “Yes, I’ve made the right decision.”

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