The Bent-Over Roll

My training partner and I are going to show you the differences of good form vs. bad form…
In this first video you see Rodney: as he starts to stand up more, he pulls the bar up, this is bad form
What you want do is try to stay as flat a possible with your lower back, almost as if your back was parallel with the floor, when you are pulling up

In this second video you notice how Rodney’s back is more parallel with the floor and he is not standing up as he pulls the bar to his stomach, this is good form, the only thing that's not correct is his feet are not parallel, which can make it difficult to maintain flat back

Grab the bar off the rack at bench press width, step back bringing your feet close together, just slightly less than shoulder width. With you feet pointing straight as if you were skiing downhill, sit back into your hamstrings, stick your ass out, flatten your lower back, keep your chest up, lower the bar to just above the floor, maintain a flat back.
Feel all the pressure in your legs, you then drop down a little more snapping the bar to your lower stomach (catching the bar below your bellybutton) with your shoulders low, squeeze everything, then lower the bar back down and repeat



Again start the rep at the bottom, in the flat back position. When you start the rep, drop down a little, slightly rounding your lower back, then snap the bar up and quickly flatting your lower back and catch the weight off your lower stomach Don’t be afraid to use you whole body in this movement

This is a compound mass building movement and should be a staple in your training regime

Time for a protein drink

Pass the sodium

In my last post I talked about a column I’m reading in a Muscular Development magazine, about contest preparation theory verses science and from a scientific point of view, why water depletion isn’t a good idea and why it’s simply doesn’t’ work.

Sodium depletion is another typical contest preparation and the results can be just as disastrous.

The article talks about sodium balance directly affecting your fluid dynamics and blood volume and because of its effect of blood volume it also effects blood pressure and since blood pressure is kind of a big deal there is a very tight regulation on blood sodium levels.

The kidneys will decrease or increase sodium excretion, depending upon how much sodium you take in. The more you take in, the more the excretion of sodium will be in your urine and if sodium is reduced, the kidneys will decrease their excretion of sodium and increase the re-absorption of sodium back into circulation.

A study was performed and the researchers restricted the sodium to practically zero for 6 days and examined the results for your serum (blood) sodium, urinary sodium and aldosterone (aldosterone is a hormone that causes re-absorption and retention of water and sodium)

After 6 days of zero sodium, the blood sodium concentrations were perfectly conserved. In fact, by the 6th day, the kidneys had almost stopped limiting sodium all together, so all that sodium depleting you did for a week doesn’t even charge the actual blood sodium levels.

There are some things that the sodium depletion does do however, it increased the hormone aldosterone big time, and after just 2 days of sodium depleting your aldosterone has almost double and almost tripled by day 6

Elevation in aldosterone will cause an increase in water retention, as the kidney reabsorbs both the sodium and water back into circulation, compounding this with the fact that the deficiencies in sodium with lead to a drop in blood pressure, means that plasma water has been push out of the vascular system.

Now instead of having water in your blood vessels making you look full and vascular, it will be around the vessels interstitially (i.e. subcutaneous) making you look softer

The article continues to say, if you haven’t realized that sodium depletion is a pie-in- the- sky fallacy by now, perhaps this will change your mind…

During the contest preparation, some bodybuilders also deplete their carbohydrates. The idea being that depleting the sodium will make you tighter and when carb loading (after 3 day of depleting) will fill you out to skin-stretching proportions.

I already stated how depleting your sodium will actually make you softer, but did you know that it will also impair your ability to achieve fullness as well.

SLGT-1 is the co-transporter in the intestine that is responsible for glucose (blood sugar) absorption. It is called the co-transporter because it uses sodium concentrations to drive the glucose from the intestine to be absorbed.

Research has demonstrated that sodium restriction will actually reduce the expression and activity of this transporter, limiting your ability to absorb glucose and thus preventing you from achieving the great fullness you desire.

Now all that undigested glucose is going to remain in the small intestine and pull water into that area in order to maintain proper osmolarity, and it will cause bloating in the small intestine.

So now you managed to put water in two places you didn’t want, the subcutaneous layer and the gut, making you appear softer and bloated

They end by saying that we have all heard someone say they looked soft and flat on stage and then talk about how much better they looked after they went out after the show and pigged out.

Most people think this means they didn’t carb up enough, but that simply isn’t true because they loaded carbs for 2-3 days… the pig-out meal contained lots of sodium and they drank a lot of water with it… The result, the sodium and water finally allowed them to fill out properly

Part 3 next months issue they will be offering some recommendations for proper peaking

Oh boy, I can’t wait… stay tuned

Time for a protein drink

How dry I am…

So I’m reading this article called “The Final-Week Contest- Prep Fallacy” in a column in Muscular Development magazine called No Juice Bodybuilding.

This column claims it’s going to bust the myths behind contest prep, it talks about how so many bodybuilders prepare the final week out of theory instead of doing it scientifically

How many times have you heard a bodybuilder say they looked great a week out from the show and then looked terrible on stage?

This first of 3 articles talks about cutting out your water and using diuretics. It’s interesting to read the scientific side of this, they talk about water being held in the bodies intracellular (inside the cell) and extracellular (outside the cell) at a 70:30 ratio. Intracellular held water is what we want as a bodybuilder, giving us that full and volumized muscle belly look, that we try so hard to bring to the stage and the extracellular water which is what as a bodybuilder we try to eliminate by cutting out the water and taking diuretics approximately 24 hours before hitting the stage.

But scientifically speaking, in reality, since our body regulates the balance so closely, we can’t change one side of the water balance with changing the other side instantaneously.

So to cut out the water or to take a diuretic isn’t really helping you achieve the desired look of pulling the water out of your skin for the dry look on stage and giving yourself volumized muscle bellies, in fact scientifically speaking your causing you body to flatten out, because as you remove water from the outside cells, you are also removing water from the inside cells, causing your muscle to become flat

Further more we as bodybuilders deplete our carbs for 3 days from Monday to Wednesday and on Thursday up until the contest we carb-up eating tons of carbs, but ironically, we can eat all the carbs we want but they will do nothing to our muscles in terms of filling them out, if we don’t drink water…

Cutting your water out seems kind of ridiculous and counterproductive when you think about it…

Part two: I will talk about the myth behind sodium…

Time for a protein drink

Let’s put things into perspective

So my 6:30am weigh in seems to be leveling off at 215. I’ve been as heavy as 219 but at this point it’s only excess water weight from over eating and drinking

Weighing 215 with my abdominals showing is clearly the biggest I’ve ever been in my life and I’m growing be the week. You can’t expect your weight to increase extremely if you consider how much muscle actually weighs

Lets take 3 pounds of steak, if you were to lay this out on a table you would appreciate how much meat that really is and to put that much meat on your body, well that is quite a bit.

For my body weight to stay at 215, but continue to become leaner and leaner, well that’s growing even though my body weight hasn’t increased.

Increasing body weight faster then a pound or two a month is too fast, especially if you’re increasing it by eating tons of non fatting foods and you are fully carbed up all the time, you weight should not change much

Increasing body weight at this rate, under those conditions, assure that it is muscle you are putting on and not fat or external water weight
Let’s take a look at what I consume in a weeks time from Monday to Sunday

7 pounds of pasta
14 cans of tuna fish
14 weight gainer drinks
27 protein drinks
4- 400 calorie carb drinks (pre-workout)
6 pounds of chicken
14 cups of rice
And sugar of some sort we like to have after dinner, i.e. gum drops, fat free ice cream, frozen yogurt or any candy that doesn’t have fat.
In one week’s time, that is well over 35 thousand calories and no more this 10% coming from fat. That’s pretty amazing when you put it all into perspective…

As I mention in my last post this is truly a second job. I find myself always eating when I’m not hungry to eat. But I know it’s my job to keep the calories coming, so that I continue to heal from my workouts as fast a possible, continue to grow lean muscle mass as fast as possible, and continue to have the energy to train as intense as possible. I know if I don’t eat like this, I‘m only fooling myself thinking I will grow as fast as possible

Remember, the more you eat the bigger you get, the bigger you get the more weight you can push, the more weight you can push the bigger you become, the bigger you become the more food you need to eat…it’s a vicious cycle and I want to do it….

Time for a protein drink