Trevor Smith Articles

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:42 PM

Getting Ripped

How many times have you seen absolute monsters in the gym that become completely unrecognizable when they diet down for competition? Victor Richards comes to mind as someone who is the biggest man on the planet in the off-season (remember those pics of him at FIBO in 1994?) who becomes an average body-builder when it is time to get ripped. Why is this?

Actually I feel there are multiple reasons (not the least of which is a lack of sufficient Natural training to build up a good base although I do not believe this to be the case with Victor). Knowing what pharmaceutical compounds to use is one of the factors as is old-fashioned hard work and dedication and most importantly taking things slow.

The last statement is where I feel the majority of people error. I myself have done the very things I am going to tell you not to do in this article

1.Over-dieting: This is basically where you get obsessed with fat loss and when things are not going the way you planned, you decide to make drastic changes quickly.

2.Too much aerobics: This is the killer of more muscle than anything else, especially if you are a big man. I suggest no more than 45 minutes to an hour of aerobics per day. Anything less will slow the process and anything more will cause the body to go into a preservation mode and try and hold onto emergency fat stores and burn muscle instead

3.Too many carbs: Personally I do not respond well to carbohydrates as they get me fat real quickly and bloat me like a ****ing cow. This is not to say that I do not love them to death as most other people do, but when trying to control bodyfat they must be kept in check. I suggest no more than 150 grams per day if you have a fast metabolism, and no more than 50 grams per day if you have the metabolism of a turtle

4.Too little protein: Whenever you cut your carb intake, your body will look for other energy sources to burn starting with the easiest stuff, mainly protein which is another way of saying your hard earned muscle. To prevent this, you must make sure that you OVER-compensate in terms of protein consumption. I suggest 600-800grams per day or more depending on bodyweight

5.Too little fat: Let s face it, you need fat to burn fat. The body likes to know that it is not ridding itself of vital and necessary fat stores without having a good amount coming in on a daily basis. Since you are keeping your carbs ultra-low, you can and must allow for greater intake of fat. Again this varies greatly, but 100 grams per day is not too much and in many cases a little more is necessary

6.Over-use of thermogenic compounds: D.N.P. is the latest range in the quest to get ripped. It can increase your BMR by up to 50%. The downside is that muscle will be burned in the process

7.GH: This will increase fat burning by up to 20% in some cases and will help you hold on to your muscle mass.

8.Anabolics:

9.Training: A great number of people feel that their training has to change during the contest prep period and to me this is utter non-sense. If you train hard and heavy, as you should be doing, you need to continue it during the contest prep. I am not saying don t be cautious, as you must when your bodyfat starts to drop and you do not want things to tear or injure, but training balls to the wall with some added "shaping" exercises will help to insure that you come in as big and full as possible. Has anyone seen the "Battle for the Olympia 98" tape? Kevin Levrone is the hardest training athlete on the tape, using weights that would crush most bodybuilders in the off-season, let alone 10 days before a competition. 500lb bench presses for 3 reps and 455lb inclines for 4-6 reps!!! And this is after he tore his pec!!! Kevin, I take my hat off to you as you are a ****ing animal, and yet we are bombarded with bull**** strength claims about Kovacs and told that Cormeir is the strongest Pro. Now if Kevin would only put in a good 10 months of balls out training, and give me a call so we can tweak his program, he would be a 260lb freak that would crush anyone in his path

10.. Rest and Recovery: Yes you want to increase your metabolism, but if you do not give yourself adequate rest and recovery, you might as well take a 10ml barrel of cortisone, inject it and watch your muscles get eaten. Training for 4 hours per day and then doing 2 hours of cardio on a 1500-2000kcal diet while using D.N.P, GH, Cytomel and Clenbuterol will spell disaster!!

On a final note, I would suggest those of you who have yet to compete and diet for a show, but plan on doing so in the near future, set up a mock competition and go through a pre-contest phase. I would follow all of the above steps with one exception: I would over-diet a bit. The reason for this is 2 fold. First, it is often necessary to over-diet in order to get rid of stubborn fat deposits that have been with you for years and years (especially if you spent the necessary years of natural training, power-body-building and eating till you are bulked up to the size of a whale) Second, after a strict and severe pre-contest phase, your body will rebound like a ****ing rocket and you will put on a tremendous amount of new, lean, quality size, plus you will tend to be leaner than you have ever been even when you are at your off-season heaviest. If you remember when Paul Dillet first came out and did the North Americans, he dieted down from an offseason high of around 295lbs, but came in a stringy 240, and very unimpressive. However the following year he came in 20lbs heavy and hard as rock. A lot of this has to do with the fact that this was his first major competition and he was coming down for the first time from a huge off-season bodyweight. He invariably had to sacrifice a good deal of muscle to get rid of the body-fat the first time around. But the following year, his body was already primed and leaner and he was able to come in huge and ripped.

*As a rule of thumb, it is important to have patience and start early and go slowly. This will allow for an even distribution of fat burning and save your muscles.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:43 PM

Nutrition Made Simple

By Trevor L. Smith

Pizza, chocolate, cheeseburgers, french-fries, kentucky fried chicken, chinese food, ice-cream and soda. No, no, this is not the food list for my next holiday party. This is, in fact, what I have come to learn is the mainstay of most succesful and huge pro s diets in the off-season.

Clenbuterol, lasix, cytomel, E.C.A., DNP. These are,in fact, the tools a lot of Pro s use to insure that what they eat in the off-season doesn t result in spare tires, tits and a gut.

I apologize if I shattered anyone s misconception about what the Pro s eat. The fact is, the metabolism of the average high level amateur or pro is kicking at a higher level than your average Ed. Because of this, they can get away with eating whatever the **** they want pretty much all year long with the exception being contest prep time.

Personally I feel that, unless you are holding quite a bit of bodyfat, it is fool hardy to eat clean all the time. You need look no further than all the big-boys in the sport to find out if this theory holds any water (and fat too!)

You look at someone like Shawn Ray. Great bodybuilder no doubt, but great for circa 1987 where his physique seems to have been stuck in the past 12 years. "Eating Clean" has resulted in a number of pro s who s physiques have remained stagnent and unchanged.

I remember a conversation I had with Ian about the difference between the non-american bodybuilders and their american counterparts. He said the one thing he could never understand about the american bodybuilders was their delusion that they had to eat chicken breasts and baked potatoes 24/7 365 days a year. Aside from making dieting even harder than it already is come contest time, it tends to keep the metabolism stuck in neutral. Shocking the system every now and again always keeps the metabolic rate high and in doing this allows more muscle mass to be built, which the last time I checked was the reason bodybuilding became a sport in the first place!

How many pro s started their careers eating chicken breasts broccoli and potatos, only to make zero progress until they started eating everything and anything in site! You don t pack on size eating like a gymnast.

I feel that the smart move to make for an off-season bodybuilder looking to acquire new size is to make sure they get in 450-500 grams of protein per day and then eat whatever the hell they want within reason. I m not suggesting a diet of twinkies and ice cream, but if you desire a little snack after you get in all your nutritional needs go for it. If controlling fat is a concern, you can always cut back on the carbs.

Following this rule has resulted in more freaks than you can imagine. Why is it that someone like Lee Priest carries 20lbs more tissue than Shawn Ray and is a good 2 inches shorter? It s in the eating I guarantee it! Both use steroids, and in fact, Shawn has used them for a longer time period as he is both older and has been around longer. For those who think that the difference lies in the amounts I say simply that you would be surprised how far some pro s get on training and eating like a ****ing animal. People like to chalk steroids and gear use up as the deciding factor on why they don t look like the Pro s when the reality of the situation is that there are multiple factors at play. But it s always easier to point the finger and say "he s a total juice monster and uses a gram of test every day that s why he s a pro and I m only 215lbs" "I m not willing to do that to my body!" Yet these same people take offense when they hear the whispers and assinine comments from the general public who think "I could look like that guy, all I have to do is gobble up lots of steroids everyday".

In conclusion, I would suggest and offseason program that relies heavily on protein (450-500 grams a day) and then eat basic, high calorie foods. Things such as milk, whole eggs, steaks and pasta have resulted in more mass then broiled chicken and broccoli every have. Remember, fat can always be stripped off, muscle is a little harder to put on. Pack on the muscle and let the fat come along for the ride then give yourself time to tighten things up and burn off the fat. Concerning yourself with appearance all year long is a sure fire way to keep your physique from causing heads to turn. There is a time and a place for everything and as the Zen monks say "You cannot serve two masters at once."

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:45 PM

Interview with Lee Priest

EDITORS NOTE*

LEE PRIEST. IFBB PROFESSIONAL SINCE 1993, HAS ACHIEVED AND ACCOMPLISHED MORE THAN ANY BODYBUILDER CAN DESIRE. MEETING WITH LEE HAS ALLOWED ME TO SEE THAT HIS RECOGNITION AND POPULARITY IN THE SPORT OF BODYBUILDING HAS NOT MADE HIM OBNOXIOUS OR COCKY AT ALL. DESPITE ALL THE PRESS LEE RECEIVES FOR HIS "OUTSPOKEN" COMMENTS, HE PROJECTS A MODEST DEMEANOR AND A HUMANE EXISTENCE. LEE DONATES MONEY TO HOMELESS SHELTERS AND CHILDREN AND FILLS HIS HOME WITH RESCUED ANIMALS. HE REGULARLY HOSTS DINNER PARTIES AND BARBECUES FOR HIS FRIENDS STOCKED WITH ENORMOUS SUPPLIES TO FILL EACH GUEST FOR A WEEK. I M SURE THIS IS NOT THE PICTURE YOU IMAGINE WHEN YOU THINK OF LEE PRIEST. HERE IS A GUY WHO IS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO KNOW HOW TO ENJOY HIS SUCCESS, HIS MONEY, HIS FRIENDS AND HIS FAMILY.

WITHOUT QUESTION, WHEN THE WORD HARD-CORE IS MENTIONED LEE PRIEST S NAME IS NOT TOO FAR BEHIND. AT 5 5 AND AN OFFSEASON WEIGHT BETWEEN 285-300LBS (STILL SHOWING ABS!!) ONE COULD EASILY ARGUE THAT POUND FOR POUND; LEE PRIEST IS THE BIGGEST MAN IN THE SPORT. I WAS FORTUNATE ENOUGH TO HAVE THE OPPORTUNITY TO SIT DOWN WITH THE MAN KNOWN AS "THE BLOND MYTH" AND DELVE DEEP INTO HIS THOUGHTS ON BODYBUILDING COMPETITION, NUTRITION, TRAINING AND PHARMACEUTICALS

LEE I HAVE TO TELL YOU, SEEING YOU EVERY YEAR COME IN SHREDDED AND HUGE AND STILL PLACE BEHIND PEOPLE LIKE DILLET AND RAY MAKES ME LOSE ALL HOPE THAT BODYBUILDING WILL EVER BE A TRUE SPORT. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON WHY YOU GET PLACED BELOW SOMEONE LIKE SHAWN RAY WHO HAS NOT GAINED SO MUCH AS 5 POUNDS OF TISSUE SINCE FIRST TURNING PRO BACK IN 1987. I MEAN, IF WE TOOK THE TOP BODYBUILDERS FROM 1987 AND HAD THEM SOMEHOW COMPETE TODAY, NOT ONE OF THEM EXCEPT FOR LEE HANEY---WOULD BE ABLE TO COMPETE AT EVEN LOWER CALIBER PRO-SHOW. BE HONEST AND SHARE YOUR THOUGHTS

I don t know? Some people say it s the height thing with me only being 5 5 , but Shawn is only 2 inches taller than I am. They say he s got the perfect symmetry, and I really don t feel my symmetry is any better or worse than his is, but mass wise I have a lot more mass than Shawn does. I think it s because he s black that he places ahead of me, I mean I am not racist, but if you look over the past 3 years, the I.F.B.B. has stood for the International Federation Of Black Bodybuilders

(LEE WAS WAS LAUGHING HISTERICALLY AT THIS POINT AND TOTALLY JOKING, MOCKINGLY IMPLYING THAT REVERSE RACISM IS THE CAUSE OF HIS PLACINGS, SO PLEASE DON'T EMAIL ME COMMENTS THAT LEE IS A RACIST...HE WAS TOTALLY JOKING)

I also think, with Shawn, since he s been around so long, he walks on stage and automatically gets placed in the top 5. The same thing happens with Flex. Now with Flex he almost always deserves it, but on occasion he has come in less than sharp and still gets placed high, hell sometimes he even wins. Remember the Iron Man a few years ago when Aaron Baker looked ****ing insane and he lost to and out of shape Flex? I honestly think the judges are too lazy to sometimes even look up to see who is actually in shape and who isn t. If an unknown comes along, like Marcus Ruhl, and he is the best on that day, he should win. Yet they place guys who are known and not in shape ahead of him, and this poor guy is left wondering what the **** he has to do to get a fair deal. Again I think it goes back to the judges being too lazy, they know someone like Flex is entering a show and they automatically place him in a top spot before they ever even see what he looks like.

THIS IS TRUE, BUT THE BIZARRE THING WITH SHAWN IS THAT HE IS NOT IN THE LIMELIGHT ALL THAT MUCH, ALL HE DOES IS ONE SHOW A YEAR.

I guess we just have to put it under the category of the Bermuda Triangle or Rosewell ..No one is really quite sure why these mystical events occur, but they do

THE OTHER DAY I GOT OFF THE PHONE WITH A GUY WHO SWORE THAT HE "KNOWS" THAT YOU USE 1 GRAM OF TEST PER DAY 365 DAYS PER YEAR. HELL EVEN MY EX-PARTNER BORRESEN WOULD GO AROUND CLAIMING YOU USED 3000MG OF GEAR PER DAY. WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THESE AND ALL OTHER OUTRAGEOUS CLAIMS THAT ARE CONSTANTLY FLOATED ABOUT YOU, PARTICULARLY ON THESE INTERNET BODYBUILDING BOARDS?

Oh well the experts on the Internet bodybuilding boards well they know everything now don t they. In fact, I go on the boards just to find out what I am supposed to be taking in case I forget. Lord knows that one would be foolish not to listen to guys hiding behind a computer that use more gear than a stable of race-horses and all they have to show for it is a 195lb. piss-poor physique shriveled nuts and a nice case of gyno. The fact is when it comes to training, diet and drugs; I ve always been honest and tell people what exactly I do. And when I tell them that courses for me are something like 2cc s of deca and 2cc s of primo a week for 6-8 weeks, they tell me bull**** 2cc s, more like 2 bottles. What can I say, some guys go way overboard, but I don t. I hate needles and I d much rather just get fat and train heavy in the off-season.
Last year at the Ironman, people complained about my condition and said I was through, but the fact is, is that I did that show totally natural just to prove I could do it. Sure I was 15lbs smaller and not as hard, but I still looked pretty good. I d like to see the other guys do a show naturally. Oh I forgot, Ronnie Coleman is the Natural Mr. Olympia

ALL I CAN SAY IS THAT I HAVE FIRST HAND KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT YOUR COURSES HAVE BEEN IN THE PAST AND THEY ARE LESS THAN WHAT STATE LEVEL COMPETITORS USE. OF COURSE IF I HAVE MY WAY, THAT WILL ALL CHANGE

Like I said, I hate needles and hate taking the ****. I use 3 or 4 compounds ( primo, winstrol, clen and maybe some gh) all in small amounts during my precontest training because it helps me keep my size and helps me recovery

WELL WHAT DO YOU DO IN THE OFFSEASON THAN?

Nothing! Or almost nothing. I typically will do one mass course consisting of deca and primo in the amounts I mentioned before for 6-8 weeks and then I ll have 4-6 months clean depending on when my next show is. I really don t give a **** if people believe it, but that s the truth. If it helps them to justify why I am a pro and they are not, they will believe that I walk around with a blatter pack of test on an I.V. drip all day long. Remember that article on the web last year called the Dead Pool?

DON T YOU EVER WONDER WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU DID A COUPLE OF MORE AGGRESSIVE MASS COURSES DURING YOUR OFFSEASON? CHRIST, YOU D PROBABLY COMPETE AT 230LBS. SHREDDED AT A HEIGHT OF 5 5 (WHICH WOULD EQUATE TO 250LBS. IN THE BODYBUILDING MAGAZINES SEEING HOW THEY ALWAYS LIE ABOUT THE COMPETITORS WEIGHTS) .THAT WOULD BE INSANE

Yeah, when I hear the amounts others are using and the amounts I m supposed to be using, it makes me wonder. Especially since the little amounts I use now have resulted in good gains. But then you run the risk of falling into the "if 2 work then 4 must be better" and where does it stop?

THAT STATEMENT HAS SOME VALIDITY, BUT I THINK YOU ERROR ON THE SIDE OF BEING WAY TO CONSERVATIVE. THERE S A FINE LINE BETWEEN ABUSE AND PROPER USE OF LARGER AMOUNTS AT THE RIGHT TIMES. MY OWN THOUGHTS ARE THAT YOU DO NOT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SOME OF THE NEWER TRENDS AND NEWER TECHNOLOGY THAT COULD MAKE A REAL CHANGE IN AN ALREADY FREAKY PHYSIQUE

I am though (laughing) Look see, as we speak I am eating 2 hotdogs and a diet mountain dew That s my heavy cycle

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:46 PM

WATCH OUT NOW, WITHIN 3 DAYS THERE WILL BE RUMORS ALL OVER THE INTERNET THAT LEE PRIEST EATS 30 HOTDOGS AND WASHES IT DOWN WITH A CASE OF DIET MOUNTAIN DEW ..

I know ..sometimes I start rumors on myself, just to see how fast these ****ing idiots spread them I had an ingrown hair in my head that was removed last year and within a few days I was getting calls from my friend in Texas saying he heard I had brain cancer..

WELL THEN YOU SHOULD GET A BURIAL PLOT NEXT TO ME, BECAUSE ACCORDING TO BORRESEN, I M DYING OF BRAIN CANCER ..
LET S GET BACK TO BORRESEN FOR A SECOND. WHEN I FIRST MET HIM HE SAID THAT YOU AND MILOS (SARCEV) WERE DOING THE BRITISH GRAND PRIX AND SPECIFICALLY WANTED TO TALK WITH PAUL ABOUT HIS THEORIES. IS THIS CORRECT?

No, I didn t even know Paul. Milos and myself were eating ice cream and apple pie after the contest and Kerry Kayes came into the restaurant with some of the guys from Chemical Warfare (his company). They sat at the table next to us and Kerry (who Milos and myself knew well) introduced everyone to us. One of the guys was Paul. I think we spoke 5 maybe 10 words to him, we mainly spoke with Kerry the whole time.

THAT S FUNNY, CAUSE THE STORY I GOT FROM PAUL, WAS THAT HE WAS SITTING WITH YOU AND MILOS AND YOU WERE PICKING HIS BRAIN AND KERRY CAME IN AND INTRODUCED HIMSELF TO YOU GUYS AND YOU TOLD HIM TO KINDLY LEAVE YOU ALONE AS YOU WANTED TO ONLY SPEAK WITH PAUL .

Sorry, but it just did not happen that way. But look at the source.

BACK TO BODYBUILDING, WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THIS OFFSEASON AND UPCOMING CONTEST SEASON?

For the offseason .EATING! Actually I only have 2 months left before I start my contest prep for the NOC

ARE YOU GOING TO DO A MASS COURSE BEFORE THAT?

I don t know .don t push me (laughing) Have I got enough time to do one?

WELL YOU HAVE 8 WEEKS BEFORE YOU START YOUR CONTEST PREP AND THE MASS COURSE WOULD ONLY BE 4 OR 6 WEEKS .

I might then .I might If I am a good boy, I might .Then I ll do the NOC and Mr. Olympia. So if I have time I will do the mass course you map out for me, then I will go into pre-contest for the NOC. Then I have about 2 months off and then start dieting again for the Mr. Olympia.

WHAT IS A TYPICAL DAY OF EATING IN THE OFF SEASON FOR LEE PRIEST. (ACCORDING TO PAUL IT S GOBS OF INSULIN AND 30 BIG MACS) AND JUST YESTERDAY, I WAS SENT AN ANONYMOUS GOSSIP COLUMN THAT CLAIMED YOU WERE SPOTTED EATING 2 LARGE PIZZAS BY YOURSELF. BUT I THINK YOU ARE A SLIGHTLY MORE RELIABLE SOURCE ON THE MATTER

Well seeing how I don t like pizza all that much, that story is pretty much shot to ****. When I go to a place like McDonald s I ll typically order 2 hamburgers, small fried, a shack and 6 chicken nuggets. I never eat large amounts at any one sitting I just eat what I want all throughout the day, constantly picking at food. As for insulin use, I m hypoglycemic and cannot use insulin and have no desire to anyway. If you want I ll give you my doctor s number and he can show you my blood sugar tests.

WHAT ARE YOU WEIGHING RIGHT NOW?

Well I just got over stomach flu last week, which made me lose 12 lbs., so I m currently 242. Getting back to the ridiculous claims about people seeing me eat in a restaurant, I d love to know who the **** they are seeing because I rarely go out to eat. To me it s hit the drive through and go home.

YOU MEAN YOU RE NOT A FIXTURE AT THE "FIREHOUSE"?

**** the FIREHOUSE! The food sucks, and it s overpriced. It s where the "IN-CROWD" goes to be seen eating their chicken breast and rice looking like fat bags of **** and gossiping about people like me. You ever notice that there are always 20 out-of town wannabe bodybuilders wearing spandex tank tops bloated and holding 40 pounds of water trying to be noticed?

YEAH, IT S ****ING SAD. BODYBUILDERS WONDER WHY THE GENERAL PUBLIC DOESN T ACCEPT THEM, YET THERE ARE SOME THAT PRACTICALLY WALK AROUND WITH NEON SIGNS AROUND THEIR NECKS SAYING "NOTICE ME". UNFORTUNATELY BODYBUILDING ATTRACTS A LOT OF INSECURE PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY ARE BETTER THAN EVERYONE ELSE JUST BECAUSE THEY HAVE BIGGER ARMS. GETTING BACK TO GEAR USE. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON IT IN TERMS OF THE SPORT AND WHAT OTHERS ARE DOING?

They re never gonna stop it in any sport. Bodybuilders get accused of being worse than any other sport in terms of use because we look so different. But on a list of steroid use in sports I once read a few years back, bodybuilding was number 8 and soccer players were number 1. My only problem is with the young kids who want to start using them before they have even started training or built up any type of natural base.

WELL ACCORDING TO SOME OF THE RUMORS ABOUT YOU, YOU STARTED USING GEAR WHEN YOU WERE 13 AND IT STUNTED YOUR GROWTH, WHICH IS WHY YOU ARE ONLY 5 5 .

Well the fact is, I did my first cycle at the age of 19, which was 2 cc s of Solay Deca a week for 8 weeks. As for my growth being stunted, I m the tallest in my family. My mom is 5 4", my sister is 5 3 my father is 5 5", my grandfather s 5 3 so there goes that theory.

WHAT IS YOUR TRAINING LIKE? I KNOW IT DIFFERS DRAMATICALLY FROM THE WAY I FEEL IT SHOULD BE DONE, BUT I D LIKE TO HERE IT FROM YOU.

Well, I normally like to keep it heavy if I can, unless I m injured and have to go light which I hate. I like to do between 6 and 8 reps per sets and a minimum of 16 sets per bodypart, sometimes 20 and for legs even more .but that s because I M A ****ING ANIMAL (jesting and laughing ).

YOU GOT IN TROUBLE LAST YEAR FOR MAKING THE OBVIOUS STATEMENT THAT THE JUDGING IS SUSPECT DUE TO THE FACT THAT CERTAIN JUDGES SLEEP WITH THE COMPETITORS BOTH MALE AND FEMALE. FEEL FREE NOT TO COMMENT, BUT WHERE THE **** DO THEY GET OFF FINING YOU, WHEN IT IS PRETTY MUCH COMMON KNOWLEDGE THAT AT LEAST ONE RATHER BODACIOUS AND HOT FEMALE JUDGE HAS SCREWED MORE THAN A FEW BODYBUILDERS. EVEN BEING OVERHEARD TO SAY "I DON T CARE WHAT FLEX LOOKS LIKE, I ALWAYS PLACE HIM AHEAD CAUSE I THINK HE S SO GODDAMN SEXY!" WHERE THE **** DO THEY GET THESE JUDGES? A STRIP CLUB?

Well that s a good question. I wonder where some of these judges come from and why they are judging. I m not trying to put anyone down, but some people are qualified to be judges like Mike Katz and Albert Beckles, and some have absolutely no right whatsoever. Nowadays, a lot of the judging is done even before the competitors hit the stage because they expert that a person will be in shape. And god forbid you express your thoughts and it rubs a promoter or official the wrong way, the next thing you know, you re marked down 4 slots before you even step on stage. To me one thing should have nothing to do with the other. Professionals don t behave that way. If policemen behave that way they are fired or suspended, if businessmen behave that way they are sued for discrimination. But not the judges. I could tell you dozens of stories about some of the judges, but I cannot afford the fines. (laughing)

WHO ARE SOME OF THE BODYBUILDERS OUT THERE THAT IMPRESS YOU

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:47 PM

I ve always liked the freakier types of physiques. Tom Platz, Phil Hill, Eddie Robinson, Mohammed Benazzizia and of course Dorian. I really liked Dorian because of his work ethic. You could see that he busted his ass when he trained. The guys today give you every ****ing excuse in the world not to train and use nothing but machines. Although bodybuilders don t get a lot of money, the money they do get often makes them lazy. If you look, you can see that some of the pros looked better and trained harder when they were amateurs fighting to win a pro card.

WELL EVEN ARNOLD WAS NOTORIOUS FOR TRAINING 3 MONTHS OUT OF THE YEAR AND THEN NOT TOUCHING A WEIGHT FOR THE REST OF THE TIME, AND IF YOU SEE PICTURES OF HIM IN HIS "OFF SEASON" HE S A SCRAWNY AND SOFT 200LBS.

Right. I can respect Arnold for what he accomplished, but to me I really admire and respect someone like Dorian because he always worked hard and busted his but in the gym every day. Now days, I see some of the top pro s training and it s a joke. As soon as the set starts to become uncomfortable they stop. They never push themselves to the point of real pain or discomfort. You never see them crawling out of a gym after training. They look like they just woke up from a nap. It s sad to see when someone has genetics 10 times better than Dorian, but trains 30 times less hard. They are satisfied with less than their best. To me, my best is all that matters .I would be disgraced even if I won the Mr. Olympia and new I only gave it 70% my best. There s no honor in that.

HOW DO YOU FEEL DORIAN WOULD FAIR AGAINST RONNIE COLEMAN NOW?

I think Dorian at his best (1993) would easily beat Ronnie. Dorian might not be as symmetrical as Ronnie, but all over he was more complete and in better condition at his best.

THIS YEARS N.O.C. WAS A ****ING JOKE. HOW ON EARTH DILLET WON IS ANYBODY S GUESS. THE FACT IS, THAT RUHL WAS 15LBS. BIGGER AND IN BETTER CONDITION AND YET HE GOT STUCK IN FOURTH PLACE. WHAT DOES THIS GUY HAVE TO DO TO GET A FAIR SHAKE.

I like Paul alot and he s a friend of mine, but I ve seen him look a lot better and Marcus Ruhl looked incredible. People say that Ruhl s shapes not that great, but to me his shape is no better or worse than Dorian or Nassers and he has as much mass and in great condition. It goes back to the judging and the lack of consistency. If you notice, they ll sometimes place a freakier, less symmetrical bodybuilder first and then give second to a symmetrical physique, then give 3rd to another freak etc. There doesn t seem to be any rhyme or reason half the time and people like Marcus Ruhl pay the price. To me it s worse for the women because they are constantly having to guess at what the judges are looking for. I feel sorry for them.

I FEEL SORRY FOR THE WOMEN TO BUT IT S BECAUSE THEY LOOK LIKE MEN WITH BREAST IMPLANTS .CHRIST SOME OF THESE THINGS LOOK HAVE 5 O CLOCK SHADOWS AND VOICES DEEPER THAN JAMES EARL JONES NOT TO MENTION WARPED SKELETAL STRUCTURE AND BULGES IN THEIR PANTS FROM THEIR OVER GROWN CLITS ..TO ME THEY ARE WALKING VOMIT INDUCERS. ALRIGHT, LET S CHANGE THE FOCUS TO THE WOMEN. WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THE TRANSVESTITE SHOWS MASKED AS "WOMEN S BODYBUILDING"

Well there are a few out there that still look feminine, but there comes a point when they go way overboard. Lenda Murray had a nice balance between being feminine and muscular as did Cory Everson and Anja Langer. I look at some of these competitors and swear they are guys who had sex changes or they are guys who couldn t cut it in the men s division so they just tucked their dicks under, put on some make-up and compete in the women s division. I mean on the Howard Stern show they had Nicole Bass on and they made her take a DNA test to prove she is a women. Nothing against her, she s nice and all, but it s a shame what she did to herself. The general public looks at her and they don t understand about women s bodybuilding so they think she is a transvestite and a man.

WELL COUNT ME IN WITH THE GENERAL PUBLIC CAUSE I SURE AS **** DON T UNDERSTAND IT EITHER. TO ME, A PHYSIQUE LIKE MONICA BRANDT (LAST YEAR AT THE FITNESS O) SHOULD BE WHAT MISS OLYMPIA IS ALL ABOUT. CORY EVERSON WAS ABOUT AS FAR AS THE ENVELOPE SHOULD BE PUSHED IN MY OPINION. FITNESS COMPETITIONS INJECTED KNEW LIFE INTO THE SPORT FOR WOMEN AND YET WE ARE STARTING TO SEE A LOT OF WIDESPREAD DRUG USE EVEN IN THIS ARENA. CARE TO COMMENT?

Tell me about it, I know lots of fitness girls that live on clenbuterol, cytomel, winstrol and primobolan. Then they go around claiming they are natural and put down other women bodybuilders. But then again you have a lot of men bodybuilders and models that claim to be natural and I know who they are buying their drugs from.

ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT A CERTAIN WELL KNOWN PRETTY BOY "NATURAL UNIVERSE" WINNER WHO IS ALSO CURRENTLY ON A "BATTLING" T.V. SHOW.

Why yes I am .I guess you can say you are steroid free when you mostly use growth hormone and clenbuterol

LET S TALK ABOUT THE 1999 MR. O AND HOW YOU SAW IT IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME IT WENT COLEMAN, WHEELER, CORMIER, LEVRONE, RAY, EL SONBATY, DILLET, YOURSELF,( Lee interrupts laughing: you mean there was a white guy up there in the top 10, how did that happen) JACKSON AND SARCEV .. I think that it could have gone either way with between Flex and Ronnie. The only thing Ronnie had better than flex was shredded glutes and to me (and according to I.F.B.B. rules) the ass isn t a judging point, but ronnie walked around with is posing trunks up his ass. To me when my ass is my best bodypart I m gonna quite the sport. As for the rest of the placings, 3rd through 8th could have gone in any way and made sense. Granted I was a little more depleted than I should have been, but I was in as good or better shape than anyone ahead of me and pound for pound I have as much if not more mass, but who knows.

LAST QUESTION: ANY PREDICTIONS FOR THE COMING YEAR?

Yes Lee Priest will get screwed no matter what he does and I guarantee no matter how I look at the N.O.C. there will be someone there they place ahead of me.

THAT WOULD LEAVE ONE TO BELIEVE THAT IT MIGHT BEHOOVE YOU TO LISTEN TO MY ADVICE.

(Lee starts laughing before he speaks) What s that shave my head and paint myself black? Enter the contest as Shawn Ray? I was thinking for the next Olympia I would paint myself black and put my name down as Shawn Ray seeing how the judges usually don t even bother to look up to see who it is that they are automatically placing in the top spots.

ACTUALLY I WAS THINKING MORE ALONG THE LINES OF THE MASS COURSE AND CONTEST PREP COURSE I SUGGESTED

I know, but think about it, even if the judges realize there are 2 Shawn Ray s competing I will probably get placed higher just because of the name recognition.

THANKS LEE, YOU ARE DEFINITELY MY VIEW OF WHAT BODYBUILDING SHOULD BE ABOUT AND IT WOULD BE GREAT TO SEE YOU GET THE PLACINGS YOU DESERVE. HOPEFULLY YOU WOULD BE OPEN TO DO THIS AGAIN SOMETIME.

*NOTE: LEE PRIEST IS NOT IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM A RACIST. ANY REFERENCES TO RACE IN THIS ARTICLE WERE DONE SO PURELY FOR COMICAL PURPOSES. LEE SIMPLY FEELS THAT WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY WHERE AN INORDINATE NUMBER OF INJUSTICES ARE OFTEN BLAMED ON THE COLOR OF ONES SKIN. WHILE THIS IS CERTAINLY TRUE IN MANY, MANY CASES, OUR SOCIETY HAS BECOME SO OVERLY-SENSITIVE AND POLITICALLY CORRECT THAT IF YOU CALL SOMEONE AN ******* BECAUSE THEY BEHAVE LIKE ONE, AND THEY HAPPEN TO BE OF A DIFFERENT RACE, YOU ARE IMMEDIATELY ACCUSED OF BEING A RACIST. IN THIS ARTICLE, LEE THOUGHT IT WOULD BE FUNNY IF HE CRIED REVERSE RACISM AS A WAY TO MOCK THE CURRENT CONDITION OF OUR SOCIETY. I MYSELF FOUND LEE'S SENSE OF HUMOR TO BE REFRESHING IN A WORLD FULL OF BORING ARTICLES THAT GIVE ABSOLUTELY NO INSITE INTO THE HUMAN SIDE OF PROFESSIONAL BODYBUILDERS.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:49 PM

Four Demons

By Trevor Smith

Here is something that I learned in my years of Martial Arts training. It is an interesting little Zen story that applies to everyone, and to everything when pursuing a goal.

Training is not something that should be taken lightly. Each moment in the gym is a gift from the heavens that allows you to focus on yourself and supply yourself with much needed introspection. It is akin to meditation. During your workout, the outside world should not exist. Your concentration should be at peak levels. Mentally, physically and spiritually connecting to every fiber in your body and harnessing all your energy for the task at hand.

Sadly, so few take this opportunity. Yes, they may go into the gym, but for a staggering number of would be bodybuilders, the gym is a place to garner accolades and attention from everyone around them. They walk into the gym in matching outfits, carefully put together so that they are noticed. They stop and talk to 5 or 6 people before they even pass the front counter of the gym, and when on the floor, they talk to another 5 or 6 more. Their focus is split into 80 different directions. For them the gym is a place to impress those smaller or weaker than them, to get people to notice their arms or their legs, or to get people to notice how much weight they can bench. Every girl who walks by in a revealing outfit is approached by these guys, for the gym is more of a social club than a place of sanctity.

When I see these people I laugh to myself. Fools often have no idea what it is they are missing and it is quite entertaining to watch them in action. To me, the gym is no different that the Dojo and there is certainly no bull**** going on in any Dojo that I have trained or taught in.

Beneath all suffering lies the beauty of opportunity .. That saying came to me after a grueling training session in Jiu-Jutsu and as everyone else was heading home to rest their battered bodies, I was faced with the un-welcomed task of heading to the gym for my scheduled workout. I thought to myself what the Zen masters always knew ..that no matter how harsh the situation there is something to be gained..something wonderful .hence I wrote "Beneath All Suffering Lies The Beauty Of Opportunity" and I headed for the gym to complete my workout.

When I am in the gym, I talk with no one, pay attention to no one and basically shut out everyone around me. People do not approach me as they ass-u-me (which makes an ass out of you and me) that I am an ******* or that I am mean. While this never boded well when I was single, it did not matter to me (Truth be known this does not bode well for being married either as I often do not notice, pay attention to and ignore my own wife who, after countless explanations, finally understands that it is not personal). The gym was not a place for me to score dates ..all that existed was myself and the weights. The rest of the world did not exist until my workout was over. I can honestly say that I never saw anyone in the gym that trained nearly as hard as myself which is the reason I was able to get over 300lbs before ever taking a drop of gear. It is very difficult to keep up this level of focus and intensity and sometimes I almost wished I were able to take the approach of others who went to the gym to "play". They seemed so relaxed as well they should because they trained like pussies---as I would get nervous, anxious and scared before my workouts as I knew the pain and "suffering " would not be pleasant. For those of you who train like this and wish to train like this you no-doubt have experienced times when you just wanted to stop doing it and it is for you that this article is catered to. For those who use the gym as their social life go surround yourself with little boys as the following is intended for men.

In the quest of any goal you without question will be confronted by the 4-demons. In fact, they will be in your face daily. The first step in defeating these demons is to know they exist and to recognize them when they come.

The first Demon that one typically meets along their path is the DEMON OF TIRED. The DEMON of tired is most apt to strike when other events during your day have caused you stress or you are pre-occupied with something else. Sitting on your shoulder he quietly whispers to you that you ve had a long day and it s ok not to train balls out or better yet not to train at all. I am amazed at the number of people that succumb to this DEMON and justify their actions by stating "I don t want to overtrain". Understanding that the body is capable of dealing with massive amounts of physical stress helps you differentiate from being actually burned out a bit and overtrained and under-rested as opposed to looking for an excuse to be lazy.

The Second DEMON that you are destined to meet is the DEMON OF PAIN. This DEMON manifests itself right towards the end of a set. Of course he always appears during your perceived moment of failure rather than your actual moment of failure. We ve all seen this demon at work in the gym. You watch somebody doing a set of bench presses and they just "STOP" for no apparent reason other than the fact that the set started to become uncomfortable. "Fatigue makes cowards of us all" .this has been proven by Pavlov and a whole slew of scientists. However, where the DEMON OF PAIN is concerned, with a lot of people "The thought of fatigue makes cowards of many" Actually taking a set to true failure is a foreign idea to most because it is HIGHLY PAINFUL and UNCOMFORTABLE. They have already surrendered to the DEMON OF TIRED before hand. "Bending over" if you will, before even trying to fight back. Most people who do this also seem to confuse the idea of being injured with the idea of being in pain. They are not one and the same. If one is injured, they often experience pain, however if one is experiencing pain this does not necessarily mean they are injured. The DEMON OF PAIN blurs the line between injury and pain so that you can rid yourself of any guilt for training like a pussy.

The third DEMON is the DEMON OF CONCENTRATION. There is a famous story of a martial arts instructor and one of his students that I would like to share because it applies equally to bodybuilding. A martial arts instructor welcomes a new student into his dojo. This student was very excited and very eager to learn, so after the first class he approached the instructor and said "Sensei, how long will it take for me to be your top student?" To this the Master replied "10 years!". Disappointed, the student then asked: "What if I train every day and never miss a class?" To this the Master replied "15 years!". Further let down, the student quickly responded: "Well what if I train twice day for 8 hours a day and never miss a class?" To this the Master replied: "20 years" .Finally the student asked: "Sensei, I do not understand. Why is it that every time I tell you I will train longer and harder, the longer it will take me to be the best student?" To this the master quietly responded: "With only one eye on the path and one eye on your goal of being my best student, you will never find your way." In simple terms, this means that you cannot partially concentrate on what you are doing in any given moment and expect to get to your maximum potential. In the gym, the only thing that matters is the workout at hand and in particular, the exercise you are currently doing. The DEMON OF CONCENTRATION has his way when you are distracted by what someone else is lifting, what someone else is wearing, what someone else is saying of what someone else looks like. I fully appreciate that for men in particular, the advent of thongs and lycra spandex can make battling this DEMON difficult, but knowing the ways in which he operates goes a long way to defeating him. If you feel your concentration lapse, quickly pull yourself back to the task at hand. In the long run you will understand that there is a time and place for everything and you cannot have it all at once if you expect to excel in anything

The final DEMON is the most powerful and most difficult. It is the DEMON OF CONTINUE. Day in and day out you will be faced with the afore mentioned 3 demons only to realize that you have to get up and face them all over again. This realization is the DEMON OF CONTINUE. Here is where the "I ll train tomorrow s" and the "I ll eat good tomorrow s" start playing in your mind. Anyone can stay structured and focused for one month, even three months or six months. But can you stay focused and on your path and face the DEMONS everyday for the REST OF YOUR LIFE? That is the question. This is where you can gain ground on those that are seemingly so far ahead of you now. They won t be able to beat the DEMON OF CONTINUE. But trust me if you do, you will surpass them very quickly. A few years ago people would have laughed at the idea of Ronnie Coleman being Mr. Olympia ..now it appears as if nobody will beat this guy and he will be the best Mr. Olympia of all time in terms of his physique. The same can be said about Nasser. He competed in 30 pro shows before his constant battling of the DEMON OF CONTINUE paid off in one of the most massive physiques to ever step on a pro stage.

In short, understand that you are given an opportunity that many people will never have when you step into the gym. There will be a lot of factors playing against you, many distractions. It is all in your hands whether or not you make the most of your time and subsequently your physique or if you wind up another could have been with your destiny in the hands of one or all of THE FOUR DEMONS.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:51 PM

All Men and Women are Created Equal?

By Trevor L. Smith

Since my last article (The Four Demons) seemed to score highly with the readers I thought I would spend some time discussing the topic of equality and how we can relate it to bodybuilding.

It has long been stated that all men and women are created equal and that "you can be and achieve anything you put your mind too", but how many people actual believe this to be a truism. I mean really, what the heck kind of idiolistic bull**** is a statement like "All men are created equal" or better yet: "You can be anything you set your mind too" Now what a second, I thought this was supposed to be some sort of motivational based article? Well what I am trying to do is get you all to admit that even though we are taught to believe in ourselves few people actually do. And even though we are told that All men are created equal, we really do not believe it and finally even though it is ingrained that we can accomplish anything we set our minds to deep down we know we can t. Now that we have that established let s take each statement and discuss it s true meaning and how it can be applied to allow us to further our goals.

All Men Are Created Equal: True or False? ..TRUE

First and foremost the statement that all men are created equal does not mean so from and external point of view. Being a Martial Arts instructor I got to see first hand the way Mother Nature and Darwinism works. Survival of the fittest is alive and well and unfortunetly some of us are born weaker and more feable and with less intelligence. This is the natural order of things and it is meant in insure that only the cream of the crop from the human animal passes along those wonderful genetics for the next generation. However, man was given the gift of self awareness and also high intelligence in comparison to all other animals. The combination of these two things prevent the natural order of the weak being killed off from existing. So what does life then hold for those of us who are born with average or even below average intelligence and physical gifts? Do we shove them into a room and expect little to nothing from them and do they expect little to nothing from themselves? Of course not. Once you understand that most of the gifts afforded to man exist internally you begin to understand the statement that all men are created equal is true.

Let s take a look at a rather extreme example:

Me versus Michael Jordan in a game of basketball
Me: 6 1" 335-350lbs (depending on how much of a carb consuming pig I can be)
Michael: 6 6" 225lbs of shredded muscle with amazing endurance and jumping ability.

Now that all you guys are done coughing up your Protein drinks (I hope it is Ultra-Pro 5 of M.R.P. Factor 2 I know shameless plug) where do you want to place your bets.Of course you all picked Michael (and if you didn t go get your ****ing head examined) .

Now the game begins and as expected I don t score a single point and I almost have 2 coronaries and a stroke running down the court just once, but somhow I manage to finish the game through sheer determination and Michael wins 200-0

Now seemingly you all would be happily awaiting to collect your easy money but I hate to inform you all that you LOST! Wait now what the **** is he talking about? Yes you all lost! And the reason is obvious to all those who understand the statement All Men Are Created Equal. You see the name of the game the only game that matters is playing to your maximal level in all situations at all times .for the only person that you have to ever beat is the person within. Now I would expect Michael Jordan to be able to score at least 500 points against someone as fat, bloated and horribly equipped to play the game of basketball as I am. The fact that he only scored 200 points means he did not challenge himself. I on the other hand did everything I had to and could do just to finish the game. (Truth be know the reason why Michael Jordan is the greatest of all time has little to do with his physical gifts and everything to do with the fact that NOBODY has ever had more drive and determination in the sport of basketball EVER.)

Why should it matter what the competition is? Why should our output be determined by external factors? Everytime you do something, do it with 100% focus, dedication and commitment. Do this and YOU CAN NEVER FAIL AND YOU CAN NEVER LOSE AND NOBODY CAN EVER BEAT YOU! All Men Are Created Equal means that everyone has the chance to give 100% maximal effort. This does not mean that 100% of my effort will ever result in me being a professional basketball player and beating the likes of a Jr. Highschool kid let alone the greatest of all time, but it means that I will always be a champion.

If you are sad enough to measure your success by external things, your life will never be complete especially in bodybuilding. Especially with todays judges! But if every time you enter the gym you put out maximal effort and intensity trust me when I say many believe they do this and next to zero actually do you will bring to life feelings that there is nobody better than you and that external success is only a result of the times we live in. Let s face it, being good at basketball wouldn t mean Jack **** 500 years ago, but having the ability to stay focused and demand 100% of yourself at all times ALWAYS PAYS HUGE DIVIDENDS NO MATTER WHAT TIME PERIOD YOU WERE BORN IN.

Those who are sad enough to take physical and genetic gifts and use them as a crutch to coast through their lives are not worth spit in my world nor are they spit in the eyes of the universe. I see a guy in the gym who is in their busting his ass every ****ing day and I am talking about just making his way from the car to the entrance of the gym. You see he has no motor control of his legs and gets around with the add of two crutches that attach to his wrists. He struggles just to get into the various machines and yet he is there every day .always in a good mood always happy to be alive and always training hard. I see him and feel like a piece of **** for ever feeling sorry for myself. He puts me to shame and I have never seen anyone that can hang with myself or Ian in terms of training. He is a true Mr. Olympia He is a True world champion powerlifter. I have it easy.

It is when I see people like this that I realize that in terms of internal effort and dedication every man is created with an equal chance to reach their maximal potential. So how does this apply to a bodybuilder? Simple. If given the choice between training at your maximum potential and giving 100% effort everytime you train and diet, and being a genetic freak it will clearly serve you to choose the former. Does anyone doubt this? If so explain why Flex Wheeler could never beat Dorian Yates. Here are two men at opposite ends of the spectrum. Flex possibly the most genetically gifted athlete ever to step on a bodybuilding stage, and Dorian possibly the worst genetics ever to win the Mr. Olympia. Yet history will show that injuries aside Dorian Yates was possibly the greatest Mr. Olympia EVER (I am talking about his 1993 physique, before the injuries). How is this possible? Simple. Dorian chose to "Carpe Diem" (seize the day) and make sure that everytime he stepped foot in the gym, nothing else mattered. His nickname should have been the Zen Machine rather than the Shadow as his focus and intensity and dedication are far more impressive than his Olympia wins and bodybuilding accomplishments. He gives maximal effort and gets MAXIMAL results. Now Flex on the other hand gives half ass effort yet still gets great results, but at the end of the day and the end of his career, Flex will have to go to bed knowing that he could have done more and he could have achieved true greatness. Internally both he and Dorian were given the same opportunity and started from the same place and hence equal, yet he threw away this opportunity every single day choosing instead to rely on his genetic gifts. Where did it get him? It never ceases to amaze how much ground can be made up by ass busting, balls to the wall dedication, focus and intensity and in this lies the lesson for all of us asiring bodybuilders. GENETICS CAN BE EASILY OVERCOME ALL MEN ARE CREATED WITH THE SAME ABILITY TO ASPIRE TO GREATNESS. IF YOU KEEP THE FOCUS ON YOURSELF AND DEMAND NOTHING BUT EXCELLENCE AT ALL TIMES AND KEEP YOUR EYES, EARS AND MIND FOCUSED ONLY ON THE TASK AT HAND, YOU WIND UP SURPASSING THOSE WHO YOU NEVER THOUGHT YOU WOULD CATCH.

So are all men created equal? Yes, but not the way most people think. However, when one understands how true this statement is, it can be like having a secret path that everyone knows about, but few seldom follow.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:52 PM

A Few New Tricks On Getting The Food In

By Trevor L. Smith

We have all been there, in the throws of a really good training cycle and a good pharmaceutical cycle, but the gains are not what you expect and the culprit is eating, or lack there of. Now I myself have gone through phases where I have eaten 12,000 calories a day and then times when I could barely get in 4000. Although supplements make things a lot easier, even these can be hard to consume if you are not particularly hungry. So I decided to take the time to share some of the methods I have used over the years and continue to use to get the food and protein in so I don't under-cut my progress.

As you know by now I am a BIG believer in protein and lots of it. Let's face it though, it is a hell of a lot easier to get in large quantities of carbs than it is protein if you don't have a few tricks, so here it goes. Protein drinks: Now I don't care if you are mixing them with water or with skim milk, the fact of the matter is, is when you blend or shake up a protein drink a huge amount of air gets mixed in with everything. The end result is that you wind up with a product that is almost twice as filling as it should be. Not realizing this, you drink it down and feel like you just had a lead ball dropped in your gut. Two hours later you are still as stuffed as a Christmas Turkey, so you wind up having to skip meals until you can eat comfortable. Either that or you try to force feed yourself and get sick and then really wind up having an aversion to food and supplements. Here's a tip and what I do each day.

Now since I take in around 800-900 grams of protein each day (please do not take this as a recommendation, it is what I do because I only take in 300 grams of carbs and I am also well over 300 pounds) what I do is first thing in the morning, mix 500 grams of Ultra-Pro 5 (you can use any protein powder you want and don't email me saying I am Bill Phillips because I mentioned my product, I mean who the hell else's protein do you think I am going to use) with 30 ounces of water and 40 ounces of skim milk. I use a hand blend to mix everything together and make sure all the powder is dissolved, then I let the whole thing site for 2 hours or so. This allows the massive amount to air that was mixed in with the powder and liquid to float to the top and dissipate. After 2 hours you will actually see all the air bubbles on top of the liquid. This will allow me to consume only the protein powder and liquid it was mixed with and not excess air which bloats the **** out of me. Doing this I can easily consume 500 grams of protein each day just from powders alone.

Ground Beef: Now since I advocate low fat, I use 96% lean ground beef. The only problem is, is that it is as dry a piece of bread dropped in the middle of the desert. Very hard to get down because it is like eating sand. The way I get around this is to mix in some tomato sauce after it is cooked and then throw the whole mixture into the food processor. This mashes everything up into a easy to eat, baby food paste that tastes pretty good too. Eating a pound of lean beef this way is a hell of a lot easier than gagging down a dry burger patty.

Chicken: Again, chicken breasts are difficult to consume when they are just broiled. No taste, no juices equals another gag fest. The solution is to cook the chicken breast and then while they are hot drop them one at a time into a food process and chop them up into a fine chicken powder. You then take this ground up chicken powder and mix it in a pot with half a can of fat free cream of chicken soup and some water. The result is easy to eat, tasty cream of chicken baby food that is easy to spoon in and very easy for your system to digest, which of course means more nutrients getting to where they need to go.

Oatmeal and eggs: Again eaten separately and this can be very filling so what I do is take 10-12 egg whites along with a cup of oatmeal and a banana and some cinnamon, mix it all together to form a batter. I then pour it into two pans making two good sized pancakes. Once cooked they can be taken with you and eaten very easily. The perfect protein carb meal that tastes awesome. Of course, everything else that needs to be consumed in terms of carbohydrates is very easy to do because you can always drink your carbs to get in the excess calories If anybody has any other food suggestions please send them to me and I will post them each month. We'll call it recipe of the month

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:54 PM

Embracing Failure

by Trevor L. Smith

No No this is not an article about why Beyond Failure Training should be the method of training for all bodybuilders. In fact it has little to do with bodybuilding and yet everything to do with it. Often times when I would be teaching my students in the Dojo, the look of frustration and disappointment that washed over their faces whether they were 10 years old or 40 years old would force me to stop that days lesson for some much needed clarification. You see in every facet of life, it is always easier to be on the outside looking in. My students would watch me demonstrate an advanced self defense concept and watch the way I moved and executed things and then compared the way they were doing the same move to that and invariable the would become completely deflated.

Men and women of huge accomplishment, whether they were heads of powerful companies, in charge of 100 employees or even if they were in charge of protecting the president of the united states, would all turn into frustrated little boys and girls that came down harder on themselves then a brick wall when they perceived they were failing with the task at hand. I want it, and I want it now and if I cannot do it perfectly right away, I will not do it at all. This is what was written all over their faces, simply because they felt out of control and felt they were failing at the task at hand. My solution was simple. First I would point out to them, that the ease and efficacy with which I performed was due to the fact that I lived on the Dojo mat. I spent many, many hours training and teaching, but yet still there were thousands of things I did wrong and in many cases, had an even harder time grasping the concepts that were plaguing them.

The point was simple. Do not fall into the habit of comparing yourself in a situation unless all other things are equal, and even this is a problem, because all other things are never equal since no two people are alike, much the way no two snowflakes are alike. Taking this into the realm of bodybuilding, an inordinate number of people make the mistake of comparing their physiques and accomplishments to those they admire and because of this wind up getting impatient and trying to circumvent the "failure" that they perceive they are experiencing It is important to understand that "failure" is a wonderful thing. It is what allows us to succeed.

The point was simple. Do not fall into the habit of comparing yourself in a situation unless all other things are equal, and even this is a problem, because all other things are never equal since no two people are alike, much the way no two snowflakes are alike. Taking this into the realm of bodybuilding, an inordinate number of people make the mistake of comparing their physiques and accomplishments to those they admire and because of this wind up getting impatient and trying to circumvent the "failure" that they perceive they are experiencing It is important to understand that "failure" is a wonderful thing. It is what allows us to succeed. Imagine how boring and un-eventful and un-challenging life would be if everything came easy to you. You would enjoy nothing, for you would know nothing but ease and success and success without failure is not success. It just is! To my little students I would say, "You cannot truly appreciate ice cream until you know the foul taste of asparagus" But it goes even deeper than this. Once while training with Benny "The Jet" Urquidez perhaps the greatest full contact kick boxer that ever lived he said something very interesting to me, while I was getting pissed off because I kept screwing up a particular sparring sequence. "Why are you getting angry because you are missing it?" "You should be having fun and laughing everytime you screw up, because that means you are getting one step closer to mastery." And he was totally correct! All "failures" and "mistakes" should be viewed as little "coaches" that point out to you along the way where you need to focus your efforts. When looked at in this manner, one comes to embrace every failure as yet another chance to improve. Each bitter taste of "asparagus" will only make that bowl of ice cream taste that much better.

Bodybuilding, just like everything else in life is about the journey, not the destination. I was having a discussion with Ian Harrison last weekend about this very thing. We sat in my back yard and Ian informed me that he knows he could do well in competition, but that he was burned out from trying to please other people in terms of what his physique should be. Because of this, he lost the passion and had to step away from the sport. My response to that was to ask him to recall the passion he had when he was 16. Back then, the only thing that mattered to Ian and to most of us was the workout. The training, the journey, that is where the magic lay hidden, awaiting for us to discover it by pushing past the pain and leaving nothing left in the gym. There was no thought about what the judges would think. Who the **** cares?! The beauty lies in the journey along the way and the mistakes and "failures" that come with it. Realizing this, Ian now has a totally different outlook on bodybuilding, and one that will pair the 16 year old Ian Harrison, who did odd jobs to pay for his gym membership and supplements just so he could get a chance to train, with the 300lb freak that will step on stage for nobody but himself.

Bodybuilding, just like everything else in life is about the journey, not the destination. I was having a discussion with Ian Harrison last weekend about this very thing. We sat in my back yard and Ian informed me that he knows he could do well in competition, but that he was burned out from trying to please other people in terms of what his physique should be. Because of this, he lost the passion and had to step away from the sport. My response to that was to ask him to recall the passion he had when he was 16. Back then, the only thing that mattered to Ian and to most of us was the workout. The training, the journey, that is where the magic lay hidden, awaiting for us to discover it by pushing past the pain and leaving nothing left in the gym. There was no thought about what the judges would think. Who the **** cares?! The beauty lies in the journey along the way and the mistakes and "failures" that come with it. Realizing this, Ian now has a totally different outlook on bodybuilding, and one that will pair the 16 year old Ian Harrison, who did odd jobs to pay for his gym membership and supplements just so he could get a chance to train, with the 300lb freak that will step on stage for nobody but himself. It is our "failures" that make everything possible. Once you realize this, you will start to achieve your goals faster than you ever thought. Now before I end this article, I would like to point out the other thing that I would tell my students when they would compare their abilities to mine in utter frustration. That is, that each of us shines in different ways. Everyone that is reading this article does something much better than I do and if you put me in their environment I would be the beginner, ****ing up left and right. There is nothing wrong with this. You must simply understand that everyone has a gift and shines in a particular way and the arena s in which we shine are interchangeable and matter not. Often times they are a function of the era we live in. Do you think being good at Golf meant jack-**** 500 years ago? Yet today the media holds up Tiger Woods on a God like pedestal and ****s all over bodybuilders. Does this mean that Tiger Woods is better than Dorian Yates or Ronnie Coleman? The point I am trying to leave you with is that if you are getting frustrated in your bodybuilding or life goals, simply take the time to understand two things:

1: Each "Failure" is a gift that if embraced will take you one step closer to your goal
2: Each one of us is a master in some particular area when compared to others. If you look at Dorian Yates and say you can never be like him, that he had it much easier than you, then think again. Because there is something that you can do that he cannot do quite as well. If it is needlepoint then so be it, but understand that you can take the same effort that you applied to needle point and apply it to bodybuilding and then you will be like Dorian and the results that have been alluding you will be just around the corner. What one man can do, another can do .

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:56 PM

Recipes....That Make Trevor's Life A Little Easier

3. Power Dinner:

1 lb. of 96% lean ground beef, 1 red tomato chopped and diced, 1/4 small onion chopped and diced, 1 red pepper chopped and diced. 2 cups (dry weight) of white rice--basamati or jasmine are best--2 tablespoons of Tabasco sauce, 2 tablespoons of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and 1 cup of non-fat cottage cheese..

Cook beef in a large pan until completely browned. Drain all the excess water and fat from the beef. In a large bowl, combine tomato, onion, pepper, Tabasco sauce, cottage cheese and Olive Oil. Cook the rice in either a rice steamer or on the stove and also drain the excess water when done. In a food processor, combine the ground beef and the rice. Press the Pulse button 10 times until rice and beef are thoroughly processed. Then empty the processed rice and beef into the bowl with the other ingredients and stir until everything is combined. Serve hot or cold and eat with a spoon for easier consumption.

Servings: 2
Calories: 1026
Protein: 65 grams
Carbs: 143 grams
Fat: 22

4. Hash-Browns And Eggs: (simple and delicious and economical to boot)

In a small pot crack 8 egg whites and 4 yolks. Mix with a hand blender. Cook on medium to low heat, stirring frequently to prevent overcooking and burning. Cook slowly until eggs are still moist and a little runny (rule of thumb with scrambled eggs is, if they look done while still in the pan, they are overcooked....take them off the stove when they still look a bit runny and liquidy as they will continue to cook to perfection on your plate). With a cheese grater, grate 2 large potatoes (skin and all). Take grated potato and place on a large skillet (that has been sprayed with non-fat cooking spray)in a thin, even layer (this will make cooking time faster) Cook on each side for 5 or more minutes on high heat (cooking time will vary with personal preference)

Servings: 1
Calories: 812
Protein: 52 grams
Carbs: 106 grams
Fat: 20 grams

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 03:59 PM

The Eye That Sees, Cannot See Itself
By Trevor Smith

Again, with this article, I will draw upon some eastern philosophies to illustrate a point that I, myself, was again-and thankfully so-made aware of. "One cannot perform brain surgery on oneself!" This is a rather famous expression, which wonderfully illustrates the point of this article in such a simplistic and straightforward manner. You see, the benefits of having an unbiased outside observer to help you better yourself and keep you focused on your path is invaluable in so many ways and this is no different when speaking about bodybuilding and achieving ones physique goals. Now I fancy myself to be pretty knowledgeable person in the area of bodybuilding. I have worked with hundreds of people to help them stay focused and better achieve their physique goals. However, all the while, I knew that a dangerous trap for me to fall into would be the thought that I knew it all, that I was "The Master" and that I would no longer be "The Student". About 2 weeks ago, Ian Harrison relocated to Southern California from the U.K. Both Ian and myself were anxious about this moment, which seemed to take forever to actually happen. We were both excited about pushing and driving each other to the next level and also exchanging our knowledge and experience with each other. Now after 2 weeks of grueling workouts with one another, I can honestly say, "The Eye That Sees Cannot See Itself" Training with Ian has brought me back to the role of "student" in so many ways that I am buzzing. Subtle changes in form, angles, rep speed etc. have taken my own training to areas that it has NEVER been before and all this is made possible not just by the fact that Ian is extremely knowledgeable when it comes to training and intensity, but that I have absolutely no problem at all accepting criticism and "coaching" from another regardless of the fact that I critique and coach others myself. "Even the Masters have Masters" is something I have been made well aware of through my Jiu-Jitsu studies and thankfully I am able to realize this point as well with training and bodybuilding. I wrote a training system a number of months ago called Beyond Failure Training. Many of you are familiar with it and using the system to achieve greater results than you ever got before. But, I can tell you this: The system I wrote down is just scratching the surface! There are so many variants, so many subtleties, and so many things that can be done to increase the intensity while keeping with the basic premise of B.F.T. In writing the original article on B.F.T., I realized that I had to make many blanket statements and insure that people were, in fact, going to go way beyond failure in their training. I had to overcompensate for people's tendencies to stop before actual failure is achieved. I knew that it had to be simplistic and straightforward the first time around, because otherwise people would get highly confused on the small, subtle details. This is not unlike learning a particular Jiu-Jitsu technique. When I first teach a new technique to a student, I do not bombard them with all the subtle intricacies that make the technique flow and look like magic. If I did that, sensory overload would occur, and the student would learn nothing. In the beginning, I am merely looking for the basic look and feel of the technique, and as the student progresses, I sprinkle in things about the technique that really make it fly. With B.F.T. I did the exact same thing, but I have to admit, that even I had no clue how subtle and how advanced and how insanely intense things could get until I started training with Ian. And how could I? I am always limited in what knowledge base I exist in until someone or something comes along and adds to that base. This is what has happened and is happening in training with Ian. In the next few months, I will attempt to put pen to paper and pass along variants and subtleties to the B.F.T. system so that even greater levels of growth will be achieved by all. And for those of you out there that think you know it all, have seen it all, or are the most intense, hardest trainer you have ever come across; understand this: There will always be someone bigger, stronger, faster, and more intense and you can either look towards these individuals for knowledge or you can stay in your own little pond, stagnant with the idea that you can, in fact, perform brain surgery on yourself, you do, in fact, have no master, and your eyes can, in fact, see themselves.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:06 PM

Beyond Failure Training

It seems every day someone comes along with a new and improved system of weight training scientifically designed to stimulate the muscle fibers unlike any other program ever could. I am so amazed that people are that stupid as to buy into this bull****. The magazines don t help matters either. One month you read a fake training article on how your bodybuilding hero built his biceps Hopefully you realize all these articles are Ghost-Written the next month you get another routine from another Pro that is even better. Those of you who save your magazines need only go back and glance at the last few years of your collection to realize that it is all the same **** with minor changes. Let s face it, a truly informative magazine that had unique articles each month would be about 25 pages max, so the editors feel compelled to go for quantity instead of quality.
To me, when it comes to reading an article that is talking about a new system of training or nutrition or steroid use, a general rule of thumb to follow is that if the article is layered with a lot of big, scientific terminology, then crumple it up and save it for the next time you run out of toilet paper. A good writer or teacher has the ability to speak to all facets of society at the same time and a really good writer has the ability to use very simple terms and examples to explain highly technical concepts and theories. A bull**** artist on the other hand likes to use these big words in an effort to confuse and baffle as many people as possible because people tend to give credibility to people who use big words.
Let s give a quick example: Upon grasping the cylindrical carbohydrate, fat and protein source, the organism used it s copious muscles of mastication along with sufficient temporal mandibular locomotion to activate the digestive enzymes and begin the process of nutrient absorption which was to take place in the mucus lined acid pouch within the bowels of the creature.
That s a bull****ers way of saying the following: The guy picked up a cheeseburger and took a big bite, chewed it up and swallowed it. Keeping this in mind, I would like to explain a little bit about the way I train and how it might benefit you in your gym efforts. I call it beyond failure training, because the general rule of thumb is that when the body fails, the set just begins, and it is this philosophy that will cut through all the bull**** of slow twitch, fast twitch, rep speed, training for size, training for strength bull**** that people like to write about.
First and foremost it is imperative to understand that the body is capable of a lot more than we tend to give it credit for. Somewhere along the line in the past few years people have been screaming OVERTRAINING to the point of making me want to vomit. Mike Mentzer s original heavy duty theories were rather unique and quite sound, but since the release of Heavy Duty 2, the theories have been in outer ****ing space. Training a bodypart once every 14 days!!? Give me a break. The body is capable of handling huge amounts of stress and it is true that it needs adequate time to recover, but 14 days is a bit extreme. Past failure training is very simple and very self-explanatory and few people will ever do it because it hurts just too damn much. Sooner or later one of the four demons comes along and claims another victim who attempts to travel down the path of Past Failure training. It is not fun, it is uncomfortable, it causes pre-workout anxiety and fear, AND IT PRODUCES MASSIVE RESULTS. The number one element that must be present in past failure training is 1000% Maximal Effort. No being a *****, no laughing and conversing during or between the sets. It s **** or walk time! The other thing that is necessary is a training partner and a one that knows how to spot correctly sometimes I think I should offer a ****ing seminar on how to be a good spotter because every time I ask for one at the gym I invariably get a ****ing moron.
Past Failure training demands that when you are doing a set, as you begin to go to failure, where you cannot complete a full range of motion on your own and you are at momentary failure, your training partner assists you in completing an addition number of repetitions with the same weight say 6-8 before you are allowed to stop. At this point you are in total agony and are pumped beyond belief and whimpering like a little girl who lost her dolly, yet it is not over yet! Your partner immediately drops the weight down around 40% and you continue with the set until you cannot get any more reps. Your partner again assists you to get and additional number of reps until you are fried. Then once again your partner drops the weight so you can continue your journey into no-mans land and once you begin to fail he again assists you in getting additional reps. Then and only then is your set complete. You are in tremendous pain, you are nauseous and dizzy and you want to go home. You feel like you cannot go on, and this is only after 60 seconds of work, yet the workout has just begun ..
Next time we will delve deeper into this level of intensity and training and give examples of how one would train each bodypart using this style of training

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:08 PM

Beyond Failure Training Part 2

By Trevor L. Smith
O.k. let's get right into it and pick up where we last left off. Remember this is a rather different way of training and even for people that are used to training in an intense manner it will be a shock to the system as there is intensity and then there is I N T E N S I T Y
Now some of the basic rules of thumb with this style of training are:

1.You will tend to need an hour or so to recover from the workout so that you can perform daily functions.
2.You cannot train in this manner for more than 6 weeks if you are doing it properly
3.You can only train once a day for a maximum of 4 times per week.
4.You can only spend a maximum of 45 minutes in the gym per session
5. It is EXTREMELY painful and you will tend to have anxiety before your workouts
6. You must keep all other physical activities to a bare minimum during your 6-week training cycle to insure maximum recovery and energy available for the workouts

t is important that you adhere to these basic rules as they will go a long way to insure that you stay on the path and do not monkey wrench all of your hard efforts in the gym. O.K. now that we have the basic principles of Beyond Failure training, let s take a look at what a typical leg workout might look like Starting on the leg extension machine and after warming up thoroughly, select a weight that will allow you to get 10-12 clean reps on your own before you would typically fail and end the set.
Begin performing the extensions in a steady manner (1 second up and 1 second down is a good example). Once you start to go to failure, your partner will assist you in completing an additional 8 repetitions past your failure point. At this point it feels like someone is blowtorching your quads. Your partner immediately lowers the weight by around 30-40% and you continue performing repetitions until you once again achieve failure by yourself. Again your partner assists you in completing and additional 6-8 reps and then immediately lowers the stack by an additional 30-40% and you continue performing repetitions until failure at which time you partner once again assists in you completing an additional 8 reps.
FINALLY, the set it over. You may tend to feel nausea and will definitely have trouble standing, but even more trouble sitting as this is doubly as painful. The first set is always the easy part because you have nothing to compare it to and you will find your anxiety levels building when you are about to start your second set of leg extensions. Repeat the exact same procedure as the first set. At the completion of the second set of Beyond Failure leg extensions you will more than likely be ready to call it a day after a total of 10-15 minutes of gym time, BUT it is not over yet.
Next choose a pressing movement for the legs such as squats, leg presses or hack squats. Load up the bar with enough weight that will insure you get 8-10 reps. Have your partner VERY close by to insure a safe spot and perform your set. As you get to failure have your partner assist in you getting only a few reps beyond failure .say 5 or 6 and call it a day. That is it for the quads. Next it is on to hamstrings which I can guarantee you have no desire to work.
You will only perform 2 sets of leg curls and you will follow the same principles as you did during the leg extensions. However, you have to pay attention to your body and it is quite possible that after one set of leg curls you will be totally fried and have nothing left. This is because the quads are SO pumped and engorged that it is very painful to perform a curling motion with the legs. At this point crawl your ass out of the gym and try not to puke, but if you have to .let it fly. That s all she wrote for your leg workout. If you have anything left, you did not train properly. I can guarantee after following these principles your bottle will jump to new levels of growth. Remember if you are going to be in the Venice area and need clarification on these training principles I am occasionally available to put people through my style of training so they can go home with the proper intensity and techniques. Next time we shall take a look at Chest and Calves.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:09 PM

Beyond Failure training Part 3

O.K. Let s hop right into a Beyond Failure Workout (a.k.a. Demon Training) for the chest and the calves
Now it is important that you first understand the problems that can occur while training certain muscle groups. In this case we will be talking about the pecs so let s get right to it. How many times have you noticed that people rarely have both great arms and shoulders AND a superb chest? Conversely, how many times have you noticed someone with a great chest that had great shoulders and arms? There are lots of pros out there that come to mind with this strange phenomenon. Dorian and Lee Haney both had superb upper torsos back and chest but left a little to be desired in the arms and even the shoulders department to some extent. Gary Strydom had a great pair of delts and a great set of pecs, but sub-par arms. Guys like Dennis Newman have very poor pecs and over-powering delts. Now genetics play a large part in this to a certain extent, but the thing I have discovered about BEYOND FAILURE TRAINING Demon Training is that is cuts through all the genetic predisposition s because it completely annihilates the muscle group worked and does not allow for any one group to over compensate for the other.
If you have over powering shoulders, they are going to do the bulk of the work every time you do a pressing movement for chest. Likewise if you have great triceps they will get most of the work. The problem is when they give out during a set, you can no longer continue to give the stimulation necessary for the pecs to grow. This is where Arthur Jones comes in. One of the things Arthur was a big believer in was pre-exhaustion and it is also used extensively with Beyond Failure Training. We shall then start our workout with a set of Machine fly s .personally I find the Flex pec dec machine to be the best, but whatever is available will be fine. Now I do not recommend using dumbbell flys with this, as your rests and elbow and shoulder JOINTS will tend to give out before the muscle is thoroughly trashed.
Following the same principles as the leg workout, we start with a pre-exhausting set on the pec-dec machine with a partner right there to offer assistance. Now use a weight that allows 10-12 reps and once you hit that point and cannot complete another rest in other words when you have hit failure the set is only beginning and it is time to go BEYOND failure. Just like with legs have your partner or spotter assist you to get 8 more reps. Once the screaming has stopped, you will drop the weight by 30-40% and continue with the set get as many as you can on your own usually no more than 3-5 reps then your partner will again assist you to get between 6-8 reps .then even though you are numb, drop the weight another 30-40% and continue with the set having your partner assist you to go beyond failure once you can no longer get a full rep on your own. Then you are finished. After you are done crying, rest a few minutes and complete another set in the same manner .Then you move on to a pressing movement..Oh let s say incline barbell presses. Now I like to use the Smith Machine because it is a lot easier to work with when doing this type of training. We are going to do one hellacious set of incline presses in the same manner as above when failure is achieved, the set just begins and your spotter will help you go past the pain barrier and into the torture zone. Now your chest should feel like you just had a set of 44-DDD implants put in. In other words, they should be hurting and pumped beyond belief. That is it, you are done with chest and it is time to move on to calves .another muscle group that people don t train properly mostly because they are afraid to feel the pain.
Now the thing you have to remember about calves is that they are incredibly strong muscles. Think about it, if you weigh 250 pounds say or even 300lbs, the calf muscles have to be able to support that entire weight by themselves in fact each individual calf muscle must be able to support that weight and does in fact do so with great ease. Now once you start running or jumping, the force that is exhibited on the calves is many times greater than just your body-weight and still they manage to do their job. If you doubt this, just ask yourselves how many fat, obese people you have seen with awesome calves My guess would be many. In fact, the biggest and best calves I have ever seen were on a ****ing massively obese guy who was in line in front of me at the grocery store. The reason for that is because the calf muscles on that whale HAD to respond to his massive weight and grow, otherwise he would not be able to walk. He was putting them through a vicious workout each time he stepped towards the refrigerator to get another box of fudge-sticks. Now if you want to have great calves you have to subject them to the same type of torture and doing 3 sets of 10 on the donkey calf machine ain t gonna cut it. You have to destroy them with beyond failure training. So let s move on to 2 sets of say seated calf raises. Load the machine up with enough weight were you will fail on say the 10th or 12th rep .then you will have your partner repeat the same procedure as with legs and chest. Go Beyond Failure and then drop the weight and Go Beyond Failure again then when you have had enough pain drop the weight and GO BEYOND FAILURE AGAIN .I call this DEMON TRAINING, because during the course of each session you will invariably be faced with each of the FOUR DEMONS. It is up to you whether you face them with courage, or use the ***** crutch of "Over-training" or some other excuse to convince yourself not to push so hard and enter into the torture zone with each training session ..If you are one of those types, go type in the address of anyone of the dozens of other bodybuilding sites as 99.9% of them all suck and are for ***** wannabe s..
Next time we look at shoulders and triceps

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:10 PM

Beyond Failure Training Part 4

By Trevor L. Smith
O.K ..Now that the chest and calves have been thoroughly trashed we have to realize that the complimentary muscle groups- delts and tris have also received a good amount of work. For this reason, it is important to finish them off within 24 hours of chest so that you get optimum recovery time for the muscle groups. The logic is quite simple. If you spread out chest shoulders and delts throughout the week you wind up screwing yourself in terms of recovery time and they quickly become over-trained. Everytime you work chest, you are hitting delts and tris and vice versa, so in a perfect world you would hit everything together on the same day, put it is just not physically possible with Beyond Failure training and if you are one of these idiots that thinks you are tougher than everyone else and can do it go right ahead and enjoy your have ass shoulder and triceps workout because if you really hit chest properly, you won t be able to lift your arms let alone do any specific work for shoulders and triceps.
Now on to the training:
Following the same principles as above we want to completely trash the deltoids so that when we go to a pressing movement, the triceps don t give out first and leave us with understimulated shoulders. To accomplish this we will do single arm cable or machine laterals. Again, you will pick a weight that will allow you to fail on your own at rep 8 or 10. At this point your trusty partner assist you through an additional 8 reps by grabbing by your wrist and going through the movement with you. At this point we again drop the weight and continue the same cycle and when your post failure 8 reps are done you do yet another drop and repeat the cycle. Do 2 sets in this fashion. Then move over to front presses on the smith machine.
Your delts should be thoroughly hammered so I only suggest one set here. Again follow the same principles as above. Hit 8 reps on your own and have your partner assist you to get more I cannot be specific with the rep range here because it is difficult to spot on this exercise if the weight is heavy. It would be great to have 2 people spot you here because they could each get one side of the machine and assist for an additional 8 reps and then strip the weight for you..but that is often a difficult task I have a hard time getting one person to spot me correctly. One of these days I am going to find a reliable training partner that isn t a *****, but that day has yet to come. At any rate, after the 8 reps past failure are complete, strip and continue to failure, then 6-8 more..then strip again, continue to failure and then 8 more and you should be dead. That s it for shoulders The triceps are next and here I suggest no more than 2 sets of a machine exercise for ease in spotting in the same fashion as above once failure is hit, you get assistance for 8 more beyond failure, then drop the weight, repeat, then drop the weight again and repeat.
At this point your delts and tris are done GO HOME now before you even ask, NO you don t have to hit rear delts, because you already did. Beyond Failure training causes the ENTIRE muscle group that is being worked and a lot of others as well to be brought into the mix and thoroughly destroyed. No more specific muscle group targeting. If you really and truly hit the entire muscle group as hard as humanly possible to the point of nausea and collapse, every part of that muscle will be worked..trust me. The body likes to work as a unit and that goes for each muscle group as well. Pointing your toes inward or outward on leg extensions is ****ing nonsense .once you go into no-mans land of Beyond Failure Training .every fiber in your leg is screaming in agony and working equally as hard to fight through the torture it is receiving. Do you really thing that the teardrops will only be working if your toes are pointed out? Please, once failure starts on the teardrops the outer quads pick up the slack because they are FORCED to no matter where your toes are pointing. Keep it simple: Pick an exercise, take it to a level of complete, absolute and beyond failure and I guarantee it will be completely stimulated! Next time we finish the body with back and bis and talk about potential problems that may be encountered with Beyond Failure Training.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:11 PM

Beyond Failure Training Part 5...The Conclusion

O.K. now it is time to blast the back and biceps. It is imperative that these two muscle groups are worked together because they are intrinsically linked to each other in their function. Any time you are doing any pulling or rowing movement for the back you ALWAYS incorporate the biceps. The reason is quite obvious since you need to use your arms to pull and the biceps is what allow the arm to pull. I get a lot of complaints from people with stubborn biceps and as soon as I take a look at their training, the answer jumps right out at me. Incorrect training sequence, and insufficient intensity. They will work their biceps on separate days from their back training and inadvertently wind up overtraining them because of lack of adequate recovery.
Conversely I get a lot of complaints from people who cannot stimulate their back and when you see the size of their biceps you immediately find the answer. Huge biceps will often take on the burden of the workload when training back and since they are a lot smaller muscle group .they will give out and reach failure way before the back does. This results in overstimulation of the biceps and understimulation of the back. Both of these problems are solved with beyond failure training.
Starting off with the larger muscle group (the back) we will need to find a way to sufficiently trash and pre-exhaust the back so that when we go to a rowing and pulling movement the back will fail at the same time as the biceps. Now the only way we can achieve pre-exhaustion of the back without including the biceps would be with a pullover machine (or dumbbell pullovers but the machine is better)
So sitting in the pullover machine with a reverse grip (palms facing up so as to take the triceps out of the movement) we will keep out head and chest pointing up towards the ceiling at all times to totally isolate the back. As with the other bodyparts, we will select a weight that allows us to hit failure at the 8-10 rep mark. At this point your partner will assist you in getting 8 more beyond failure reps. Then the weight is dropped and you continue the set without rest. Once you hit failure---which will be in 3-5 reps your partner assists for 6 more beyond failure reps. Again the weight is drop and the set is continued and once you hit failure your partner pushes you to get 8 more reps beyond failure. Do this for 2 sets
Next you want to go to a rowing movement. Single arm dumbbell rows or barbell rows are good. Select a weight that will allow you to get 8-10 strict perfect reps. Only do one set here. These are what I call high breather exercises and I find that it is counterproductive to do drop sets and forced reps with these exercises because you wind up sucking wind way before you actually stimulate the muscle.
Next go to a machine movement for the back some sort of pull down movement. I like some of the hammer machines, but it doesn t matter. Again we will do 2 sets in the beyond failure style.
That is it for back. Now we move on to biceps, which are, pretty much fried from the back workout. Because of this we will only need 2 sets in beyond failure style to completely destroy them. Machine curls work best here so select a weight where you can get 8-10 and perform the set in beyond failure style with the drop sets and forced reps as you did for back.
At this point your back should be engorged, tight and pumped and you should have difficulty straightening your arms. A job well done. Go home and rest and enjoy your well-earned 2 days off.
So to review, the sequence would look like this
Day 1: Chest and Calves
Day 2: Shoulders and Tris
Day 3: Off
Day 4: Back and Bis
Day 5: Legs
Day 6: Off
Day 7: Off

Now some of the things you want to keep in mind with this type of training is that due to its intense nature, it is imperative that you have adequate nutrients in the system at all times. You need to make sure you are getting 2-2.5 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight each day along with 2 3 grams of carbs depending on your metabolism (if you are carb sensitive cut it back to 1.5-2 grams and compensate the calories with extra protein. Fats should be minimal 40 grams or under.
Rest is highly important when training in this manner, so make sure you are getting at least 7 hours of straight sleep a night along with a good hour nap at some point in the day or evening. If this is not feasible..try and get 8-9 hours of sleep per night. Lastly you will find that after 6 (8 weeks max) that you will start to get burned out training this way. At this point simply scale back the number of sets and triple drop beyond failure reps. When I trained Robbie for the Master s Olympia he did not touch a weight the week before the show and the 2 weeks prior his workouts were scaled back to 1-2 sets total. His workouts typically lasted 15-20 minutes at this point, but it was necessary to make sure he wasn t going to go catabolic. Now if you are not coming into a show .train in this scaled back manner for 3 weeks .cut back on the protein and carbs because you will not need them and try and get extra rest, maybe even a massage or 2 or sitting in a Jacuzzi hot tub.
In closing I would like to make it perfectly clear that I do not think Beyond Failure training is the only way in the world that one should train. There are many paths up the mountain some are more painful, yet more productive and some are less painful and take a little longer. It is your choice. The difficulty most people will have in attempting to train in this style is generating sufficient intensity to make sure they are actually going beyond failure, and trusting that the system will work and fighting the urge to train more (i.e. 6 days per week) All I can say is that I took a 54 year old man who was burned out and washed up and transformed his physique into it s all time best condition .and it was done with beyond failure training. When Robbie stepped on stage at the Master s Olympia it was clear that he won. They may not have given him the title (and in fact insulted him by placing him behind a clinical dwarf) but he knew he won and so did Vince Taylor. Look at the pictures in this month s Flex and read between the lines in J.R. Rosenthal s report. Robbie Robinson shocked the world that day and was the rightful winner of that show and it was all because of Beyond Failure Training. Train harder then the next guy, and one day nobody will touch you!

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:13 PM

Beyond Failure Training Intensity tips Zero Momentum reps
By Trevor Smith

Ask anybody who has ever lifted weights for an appreciable time period and they will all agree that the most common question asked by the average person on the street is ."Hey how much can you bench?"
I hate this question. I mean what does it have to do with the price of tea in China anyway? As if the average person will even know whether or not the numbers you tell them mean you are strong or not. Strength is a relative thing and so whenever I get asked this question, my stock reply is usually something along the lines of "A bit more than your average housewife and a lot less than your average Gorilla"
O.K. so where am I going with this? Actually, I am using this example to try and have you understand that weight is not all important and nor is it the only way to increase the severity and intensity of a set even with something as severe and intense as Beyond Failure Training. Let's face it, we have all seen guys in the gym cranking out reps as fast as they can and making a weight literally fly off their bodies. What I am going to suggest is that by taking a weight you could seemingly "toy with" for 15-20 reps and altering the style the reps are performed in, you will increase the intensity 10 fold and cut the number of reps you can perform down to 3-4. Together this will yield both bigger and eventually stronger muscles because you will eliminate sticking points and will not have to rely on momentum to get past them. Let's use the Bench Press as our exercise of choice for the purposes of example and explanation of Zero Momentum Reps.
The Bench Press is a movement that pretty much has universal sticking points for anyone that performs it. The first quarter of the movement is the most difficult because the pectoral muscles are forced to work almost exclusively until the triceps and deltoids are able to be of assistance in the last half of the movement. Now if one can get past this rather short sticking point, one can effectively incorporate assistance muscle groups like the triceps and the deltoids sooner and thus handle more weight. Now if you are a powerlifter, this is exactly what you are looking to accomplish. If you are a bodybuilder, this is not necessarily the case. Why? Because as bodybuilders, we want the bench-press to completely trash our pectorals and stimulate maximum muscle growth in that area. Now in order to get past this said sticking point and move heavier and heavier weight, explosive power and thrust is developed. Maximum exertion as quickly as possible is the name of the game. (It is this maximum exertion incidentally, that causes pectoral tendons to rupture and explode. If you successfully master the use of Zero Momentum Reps with your pressing movements, it will be impossible for you to tear muscles and or tendons.)

What is being proposed here is that you completely eliminate this explosion and thrust and make a steady, slow and controlled movement for the first quarter part of the exercise. This is the most difficult part of the Bench Press and rather then look to BI-pass it, I am suggesting that one will benefit greatly by savoring every single solitary millimeter of this part of the exercise.And this is how one would do this:
ZMR's (zero momentum reps) will begin with the person slowly lowering the weight down to the chest in a deliberate and controlled manner that takes approximately 2-3 seconds. Once at the bottom part of the movement, the participant should make an effort to exaggerate the stretch and have the hands go below chest level. Once there, the participant will hold for a count of three. It is at this point that the positive portion of the rep will begin. Now this gets tricky to describe without having seen it performed, but one must fight the tendency to "toss" the weight up and literally move the weight as slowly and as little as possible so that the first quarter of the movement takes 1.5-2 seconds. Once the first quarter of the rep is complete, you accelerate the pace and complete the rest of the movement where you once again will pause, this time at the top part of the movement. In this position, one should consciously cramp and squeeze the pectoral muscles together as if one were trying to hold a 5 pound plate between their pecs. After this occurs, the set continues, again with a slow and controlled descent, a pause and exaggerated stretch at the bottom and then a very slow and controlled ascent for the first quarter of the movement. This really is not rocket science, but in terms of muscle growth it will be like discovering plutonium. You will be lucky to get 4-6 reps in this manner and in many cases, 3-4, but if you understand anything about Beyond Failure Training you will know that the sooner you can get the muscle to failure, the sooner you can go Beyond Failure, and the sooner you go Beyond Failure, the sooner the set will be over and the sooner the set is over, the greater the intensity which will yield greater gains!
If you are serious about experiencing extreme intensity, extreme pain and eventually extreme results, give ZMR's a try. You will have to check your ego at the door and get comfortable with the idea of 100-200lbs. less with your bench but having it look and feel 100-200 times more difficult. And for those who think that you will not get strong this way understand this You are only as strong as your weakest link .Strengthen the weakest link and you strengthen the entire chain. After a few months you will be back up to the same poundage you were using before, except rather than throwing the weight off your chest to impress the local fitness beauty doing lunges in the corner, you will be taking a slow, solitary and unbearably excruciating dance with the Demon of Pain .and trust me he don't give a **** what you can bench.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:15 PM

Beyond Failure Training Intensity Tip:
Extreme Forced Reps (E.M.R's)
By Trevor Smith
One of the key components to Beyond Failure Training TM is the correct understanding and application of assisting your training partner. In other words, you need to be a good training partner. What defines a good training partner? Simply, it is one who is in tune with your set as much as they are with their own set. It requires total focus and attention for you to derive maximal benefits from your set, and minimizing any chance of injury. I wish I had a dollar for every moron I have encountered that initially agrees to give me a spot, then upon my explanation of what I need from them, they get this look of irritation on their face as if I have some nerve expecting them to actually pay attention to me and do a little more than standing there. At one gym, it got to the point that if I asked someone to spot me and they agreed and I then detected the slightest amount of annoyance from them after my explanation (assist with forced reps when I failed and then help me drop the weight and continue), that I would say, "You know what, go away from me, I don't need your help." Okay, my language may have been a bit harsher but I'll leave out the flowery details. It got to the point where it was just easier for me to bring my wife along so that my training time would be shortened (successfully finding a person to spot me could take 15-20 minutes at times).
It is difficult to focus 100% on your set if you are worried about the competence of your spotter or training partner. Assuming you have a competent spotter, I want to discuss the idea of forced reps and how you can transform them into an amazingly powerful Beyond Failure Training TM Intensity Tip. Stacking Z.M.R.'s, (Zero Momentum Reps) with forced reps will allow you to do Extreme Forced Reps (E.F.R.'s). This method will provide a one-two punch that is the training equivalent to a stack of Sustenon 250 and Anadrol.
Have you ever taken the time to really focus on one single, seemingly insignificant, aspect of training? Something everyone in the gym does since the day they first stepped foot in the gym door? It is my experience that if you do this, you open up a world that rarely is ever examined because people foolishly assume that something as simplistic as spotting, requires no thought or detailed attention. Remember, BOREDOM IS A LACK OF PAYING ATTENTION TO DETAIL! A single strand of hair can simply look like just a piece of hair. However, if examined under a microscope, you would marvel at the world unveiled. My point is, that those who look past the surface and go deeper than others will experience and learn things that few ever do. This same thing applies to training and in this case, partner assisted forced reps.
Yes, E.F.R.'s seem mindless enough, "When your partner fails, help him with the weight, so he can get a couple more reps." Nothing could be father from the truth with E.F.R.'s. The premise of E.F.R.'s and how they will change the afore mentioned description to: "When your partner fails, make him suffer miserably and keep him under the weight for as long as humanly possible, only assisting him so you can prolong his suffering, never taking the stress off him, only keeping him going in a positive direction or a static direction anything but a negative direction, so he can understand and experience a true definition of pain and torture." Sounds rather sadistic I know, but B.F.T.TM is sadistic and the muscle growth it yields is also sadistic!
We are going to make one exception with E.F.R.'s. E.F.R's, for the most part, can only be performed with machines. When you perform them, you will understand why. Safety is a key factor in this exception.
Machine biceps curls will be our example. We will stack E.F.R's with another Beyond Failure Training TM intensity technique that I have already discussed in prior articles: Zero Momentum Reps (Z.M.R.'s).
As you grip the handle (I personally find having the hands closer together is more effective at stimulating the entire biceps) slowly begin performing your reps in a manner that has a pause at the bottom of the movement, a slow and deliberate contraction and a pause at the top of the movement. Continue in this fashion until you hit absolute and complete muscular failure on your own (which should be about 4-6 reps). At this point, as you attempt another rep, you should start to stagnate in the first quarter of the movement. You should not be moving forward, or going backwards, but rather "stuck" in place, struggling with the rep. At this point, your partner will place his or her hands on the handle and with the slightest amount of assistance possible, allow you to minutely move forward in a positive direction until the minimal amount of assistance he or she is giving you no longer allows for positive movement and you are once again "stuck in place". Your partner will, once again, allow you to stay stagnated for a few seconds and as they notice that your body starts to tremble and you are about to start moving backwards in the movement, they will once again offer just enough assistance to get you "un-stuck" and allow you to move a bit more in a positive manner. This "Hell-Zone" will continue until the rep is completed to the top part of the movement. The best part is yet to come, however, as you must complete another 1-2 reps in this same manner to insure absolute destruction of the muscle fibers. At this point, the weight is dropped a substantial amount, and the set is continued without rest. Again, once you hit muscular failure on your own, and only then, your partner will follow the same protocol as above. Again, after the 1-2 E.F.R.'s you will drop the weight a final time and continue with the set (at which time you will be praying for a quick and merciful death).
Once the set is completed close to five minutes should have passed on the clock. 5 minutes of continuous pain and torture. Five minutes of hell that left your biceps with so much blood in them, that they are engorged to the point that you cannot bend your arm and most definitely cannot flex them. If you can do either of these things, you did not do the set right and your partner did not do the E.F.R's correctly. Learn to pay attention to detail, for it will yield infinite possibilities with Beyond Failure TrainingTM, which will afford you many more avenues of muscle growth to travel down. Stay strong, stay focused and suffer well.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:20 PM

The Road Less Traveled

Mr. America s Gym 1986
by Trevor Smith

The year is 1986. The month is June, June 24th to be exact my birthday. After a couple of years of walking 2 miles to a bus station to take a 35 minute ride to a racquetball club that has a weight room, I had finally proved that I was serious about lifting to my father, who had agreed to buy me a membership at the local bodybuilding gym in my town.

Now this wasn t just any gym mind you, it was the famed Mr. America s gym in Farmingdale, NY. That s right, the very gym owned by Mr. America and lunatic trainer Steve Michalik. The very gym that John DeFendis spoke about each month in his Intensity or Insanity articles in the now defunct Peak Training Journal. This was the big time as far as I was concerned. A real ****ing dungeon with a reputation that was just as bad. I had to prove to my father that I was going to be serious enough to warrant entering such an insane asylum, hence my two years of time spent at the pansy racquetball facility across from the Sunrise Mall in Massapequa, NY.

Mr. America s had the reputation of being without question the most hard-core bodybuilding gym on the planet. Inside, the walls and equipment (which was all hand made) were painted black to keep with the hard-core, dungeon motif. The rules were simple: Train Hard, or don t train at all. Michalik cared little about earning any money with his gym and certainly didn t give a rat s ass about appealing to the fitness craze of the 1980 s. If anything, he tried to dissuade people from joining. Now my father was/is an imposing man of few words. The fact that he was a police chief made sure that I was always a bit on guard and nervous in his presence. When we walked through the fogged up double doors, the acrid smell of sweat poured over you like a breeze blowing over a landfill. Pure nastiness, and I immediately new I was home.

Now at this point, I knew little of steroids, as did most people. The only thing I knew is that they were bad for you and that I would never, ever use them, so when we reached the front counter to speak to the manager about a membership, both myself and my father were a bit freaked out by the fact that the sign in pen was a 3cc syringe with a ball point pen shoved in it. I also remember being perplexed at the dozens of milky white vials (which I now realize was gold old Winstrol) that lined the back of the small refrigerator that was used to keep the sports drinks cold "I ll take a cold Gatorade and 2 vials of winstrol please" .sounds ****ed I know, but it is the total truth.

Now my Dad could give a **** about embarrassing me, so the first thing he did was tell the guy at the counter that he did not want his son exposed to Steroids...as he called them. The second thing he did was lean over the counter and ask this monster who was sitting down (well to me he looked like a monster, in actuality, I **** bigger than that guy now and he was a total dick-head) whether or not this gym would be a good place for his son to work out in. I cringed knowing that my dad would never see any of these jerk-offs again, while I would have to walk by them every damn day.

It was right around that time that my Dad turned to me and asked "Now are you sure you are going to use this membership?" I nodded my head as I was still speechless from embarrassment and he plopped down the 225 dollar membership fee. I was then given an appointment to be taken through a workout. At this point I was all excited figuring I would be trained by the legendary Steve Michalik. The king of lunatic bodybuilders! However, that feeling soon faded when I realized I was given an appointment with his brother Pauly. Now you have to understand that Pauly was the complete polar opposite of Steve. A complete geek who soaking wet weighed 135 pounds. My father, deciding I had not been embarrassed enough looks at Pauly and says. You don t work out, how the hell are you going to show my son what to do he s already bigger than you! Looking back on it, it is funny as hell, but at the time, I figured he just signed my death warrant especially when a visible annoyed Pauly looked at my father and said "Believe it or not sir I have been working out for 10 years" as he then washed down his cheeseburger with his 2 liter bottle of cherry Pepsi cola.

If memory serves me correctly, my appointment with Pauly was set for the following Tuesday, and since we were all paid up, I had nothing left to do except go home and wait for my "brutal" session that no-doubt awaited me (I am being sarcastic in case you cannot tell) So Tuesday comes and I drive my Redline BMX bicycle up to the gym (also about 30 minutes from my house) in eager anticipation of doing some "serious" training. Pauly, about as excited as a blind man at a laser light show, greets me at the front desk and asks if I am ready. I thought I was, but clearly I was not. What followed over the next two hours was the biggest waste of my time I had ever spent in a gym. This guy didn t know jack about **** and constructed a routine that didn t even include training calves. When I asked him about this he stated. That will come later when you get more advanced. It was at this point that I knew I was on my own, so I finished up my "session" with Pauly and went home knowing I would have to learn things on my own.

Turns out the only thing I really did know was that I could focus and push myself harder than anyone else in that place except maybe for Steve Michalik, but at that point it was a rarity to actually see him train as his time was over. I was actually doing more harm then good. I would watch what the other big intimidating guys were doing and would simply copy it for no reason whatsoever. Train long and Train hard that was the motto of the day. And for the next 18 months that is exactly what I did and I grew very little because of it. I would train until I was sick go into the back room, puke up in the toilet all the while noticing the plethora of syringes in the waste basket then go back out and finish my workout. Then I would go home, and lay down without eating because I had gone way the **** over-board. Not exactly the smartest thing in the world to do, but hey there really wasn t all that much information out there, and there certainly weren t any 300 pound monsters walking around. Back then if you were 260lbs you were a freak of nature and there were only a handful of guys in the country that were that size except powerlifters of course.
Next time we will continue with my training days at Mr. America s and how a tragic event in my life resulted in a 30 pound weight gain in less than 2 months! Drug free of course!

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:23 PM

The Road Less Traveled Part 2

Let s see where were we? Ah yes, Mr. America s gym circa 1986. During my 18 months of less than fruitful training, I was always amused by the fact that most of the "Big Boys" in the gym at that time were some of the biggest losers I had ever come across. Guys that I had thought were big in part because I was a young kid and in part because their egos were ****ing enormous, were, in retrospect, ****ing jokes. Years later I would run into some of them and while they stayed the same, I obviously did not and it kind of reminded me of the first time I went back to my elementary school as an adult. Just as I could not get over how small in stature some of my teachers were and how small the desks and tables were (because I remembered them as being GIANTS), I could not get over that I was actually impressed with the guys that were in the gym during my early days at Mr. America s. But that is neither here nor there. The whole point I am trying to make is that during that 18 month span, nobody and I mean nobody was there to help me. There were plenty of delusional egos, but that was about it. I remember going up to the counter and asking this jerk off by the name of Kenny (who was 3-4 years older than me, and juiced to the ****ing gills) if he had any suggestions for me to put on some size. Without so much as looking up at me he pointed to the cabinet that contained some MLO Milk and Egg protein powder and that was the extent of his interaction with me.

I, of course, checked off the "DICK-HEAD" box in my brain. Funny thing is, about a year or so after that event, this tool shed came up to me to congratulate me on putting on the size that I did. I again checked off the "DICK-HEAD" box in my brain because it showed me the type of person he was. I was not worth his efforts when I was a 185-pound kid looking for advice ..but when I was 235lbs. and the same size as him, I warranted the respect of him saying something to me. It was events like those that made me realize if I ever had the opportunity to help someone who was just starting out, achieve their goals a little faster, I would. I knew what it was like to have nobody to turn to and nobody willing to give me advice. I guess it was a good thing because it made me rather self-reliant and introspective. **** THEM ALL became my motto. I was going to do it by myself and more importantly I was going to do it harder and better and all without succumbing to the temptation of taking the easy path that this Kenny and the others took by hopping on the sauce at an age when their body was producing more than enough testosterone on it s own. No sir, I was going to do something that nobody ever took the time to do, I was going to maximize my natural potential before ever even considering playing around with gear.

Thus, began my quest. It was 1987 at this point, my senior year of high school. At the start of football season I weighed in at 196lbs. at a height of 6 1" and I was 17 years old. I was still over training and more importantly under eating. During this time I was consumed with getting a football scholarship, yet all the while I dreamed about being able to pursue bodybuilding on a full time basis. As anyone who plays football knows, you only get about 6 months out of each year to devote to serious training and that is assuming you don t get any injuries. So even back then I knew where my heart lay. But, I was stupidly playing to the wishes of other people and succumbing to the pressure. Football was a good thing, an honorable thing, something you could be proud of in the world I lived in. Where as bodybuilding was looked at as a joke and just for guys that "took lots of steroids". This always bothered me, but hey I was a young kid and it would only be a few more years before I broke free of other peoples desires and spent time doing what I wanted to do and loved.

Got sidetracked a little bit there. O.K., so it is the late fall of 1987 and football season is coming to a close and wrestling season is about to begin. My buddy Mike was projected to win the state championships that year in the heavyweight division and needed someone strong to work out with. I always wanted to go out for wrestling and figured why not give it a try. Turns out it was something I wished I would have started sooner because I was a bit of a natural at the whole grappling game. However that is another story, the point I am making here is that I was immersed in another full time exhaustive sport for 3 months that was not conducive to the bodybuilding life-style. I still wasn t eating anywhere near much as what I needed to be eating and still over-training to a great extent.

As the wrestling season started to come to a close in the early winter of 1988, my family was faced with a great tragedy. Five years earlier, my Aunt Kathy, who was full of zest and full of life and always one my favorite people, aside from being my mom s best friend and sister, was diagnosed with stomach cancer. After 3 years of intensive ChemoTherapy, she had gone into remission, at least so we thought. It basically came out after she died that she was given only a couple of more years to live back in 1986 when she said her cancer was gone and this brought us to January 1988.

Everything seemed to be fine with my Aunt and then all of a sudden she was in dire straits. Of course I now realize that the "all of a sudden" was merely her being strong and not showing the pain she had been in on a constant basis for the past year or so. All along she knew what nobody else knew, that she was dying.

I remember being awoken one night at about 11:00pm and told by my father and brother that we were going to have to go up to my Grandmothers house (where my Aunt Kathy had been moved to when her condition worsened) to join the rest of our extended family in saying goodbye to her. The truth was cold and emotionless, I was going to have to go and say goodbye to a woman that I had known and loved all my life. I was going to have to watch as her once strong body and spirit (now an 80lb. shell of itself) slowly and painfully drifted into deaths cold hands, never to utter another kind word of support to me and never again to come to my defence when my mother and father were being a bit to heavy handed in their disciplinary beliefs with me.

She was the one relative of mine that always believed in what I was doing and thought my love of bodybuilding was the greatest thing in the world even when everyone else though it was nothing more than an adolescent pipe dream.

I can recall how I went up to the couch that she lay dying on and leaned over to give her a final kiss and say goodbye. I tried to be strong and talk about my future plans, but it was of no use. She was too weak to lift her head up and too weak to put her arms around me. I lost it. I have little problem with the entire issue of death, but to watch someone who was so strong be stripped of all that they were and lay in an almost skeletonized state before my very eyes with each gasping breath bringing them one step closer to death was very hard for me to take. I wanted to take away her pain, but I knew I couldn t. My mother stayed by her side and she died several hours later. I never cried for her again, for I knew her suffering was over. Even at her wake and funeral when people were in such drastic states of hysteria and pain, I was emotionless. I knew she was in a better place and I knew her suffering was over. I was not going to cry for my loss or for anyone elses loss because that would be selfish. She went through hell and back again and I was glad her journey of torture was over. However, the one thing that I did do, was promise myself that I would make her proud. It became almost an obsession. I was not going to let her down and I was going to prove to everyone that her unwavering belief in my love for bodybuilding was not for nothing!

I can remember sitting in the funeral home with my freshly purchased copy of Arnold s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding. All my other relatives thought is was disrespectful and tasteless, but I knew it was what my Aunt would have wanted; for me to use her death as a pillar on which to devote myself to my dream. From that day forward that book had become my bible. I read every page over and over again. More importantly I payed strict attention to the section on diet and gaining weight and it was that day in the funeral home that I made a promise to both my deceased Aunt and myself that I was going to get super focused with my diet and training. The first step in that focus was to put on some much needed weight and to do that I had to start getting structured and to start eating. When I had first started lifting weights, one of the police officers that worked under my father had given him a bunch of old Flex magazines to give to me. I was mesmorized by them, and in particular one issue.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:24 PM

There was a small article in this particluar issue on an up and coming teen sensation named Shane DiMora. Some of you may recall Shane as I believe he was the youngest man ever to turn pro at the age of 19. But this article was written a few years before he turned pro. I think he was 16 at the time it was written and I remember seeing his picture standing next to Cory Everson and I was shocked. At age 16 he was 202lbs. (he was only 5 3") and his thickness was astounding. That image always stuck in my mind, so when I made the pact with myself to get serious and start putting on size, I dug up that old picture of Shane Dimora and cut it out. I pasted it to my wall. I decided I was going to be proportionally as big or bigger than that little freak Shane DiMora and that meant I needed to reach a weight of 230lbs. since I was 6 1".

I marked off on the calander when I would accomplish this by. It was the beginning of February, one week after my Aunt Kathy s death and I was giving myself until June 15th of 1988 to achieve my goal. I was 194lbs. (two pounds lighter than when I started my senior year of High School) and had just 4 months to put on a solid 36lbs. For the first time in my life everything was crystal clear. I had a clear purpose, a path that I needed to adhere to and one that I would travel all alone, and that is what I liked about it the most.

Next time we will pick up where I left off and discuss what it was that I did during that 4 months, the things I encountered along the way and whether or not I was able to achieve my goal.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:25 PM

The Road Less Traveled Part 3

by Trevor Smith

So I made my pact and now I had four months to get the job down. Little did I know it would be a lot easier than I thought! You have to understand that at this point in my life, I was still under the delusion that one could achieve the kind of physiques that you saw in the bodybuilding magazines without steroids. Hard work was all I thought I needed. The mountain of mis-information that was around about steroids was enough to fill the ****ing Grand Canyon. So things like: "steroids really don t work, they re just dangerous and will get you sick" and "all steroids do is help you achieve the physique at a faster rate" so on and so forth. I didn t know any better. I knew steroids worked, and knew they worked big time just from watching the guys in the gym, but I honestly thought you didn t need them. Turns out I was both right and wrong, but my blind faith was a massive blessing because I never had the least bit of doubt on what I could achieve without the use of drugs. I pulled out the training routine that was briefly outlined in Arnold s Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding and put it together with the one I had been following. Basically that meant scaling back the number of sets I was doing and therefor getting more rest. I began my new routine, but more importantly I began my new focus and new eating pattern. I became religious in achieving my goal. This meant continual feeding, and for the first time in my life I actually did so. Young kids are funny. They think they are eating a lot if they eat a lot at one sitting. They don t factor into account that they don t have another crumb of food for 4 hours, but they think because they ate 6 slices of pizza that they eat a lot. Then they wonder: "How come I can t gain any weight?" My answer is always the same: "You may think your eating a lot, but you are not! A starving dog could probably eat half of a ****ing dead cow in one sitting, but that don t mean it s gonna gain a massive amount of weight from that one meal!" And that is what has to be done, continual gorging! Stretching the stomach wall by stuffing yourself with so much food that you feel sick. After a few weeks of this, you will be able to utilize more and more food, will have a bigger and bigger capacity to eat and therefor be able to take in a greater amount of calories and nutrition. Now at age 17, my metabolism was a ****ing blast furnace, as it is for all kids at this age who are not obese and who are very active. My concern, was simply to get in a high amount of nutrients and more importantly calories. 6000 calories per day to be exact, and that is what I did every day for the 4 months. Because my metabolism was so high, there was no concern for counting fat content in my diet (although I was not cramming donuts and cookies down my throat). My calories came from lots of red meat and lots of dairy products and lots of fruit juice. Typically I would wake in the morning and eat 6 whole eggs with a buttered bagel along with 2 glasses of whole milk. Then I would go off to school. My schedule in my senior year of high school permitted me to go home again at around 10:30am because I had a free period. So, everyday, I would come home for 40 minutes and consume 4 glasses of whole milk and a bagel with 6 slices of american cheese and a healthy smearing of cream cheese. Back to school I went and would eat again around 12:30 in the cafeteria with my buddy. I would get a double lunch of either pizza or hamburgers with 4 glasses of whole milk. Then I would go home after my classes were done, which was around 1:30, and I would have a half pound of ground beef along with a few glasses of apple juice or fruit punch or iced tea. After I digested and relaxed a bit, I would go to the gym and train. Just the basics: Incline presses, flat dumbbell presses, standing military presses, curls, squats, leg presses, hack squats, calf raises, tricep extensions, etc. I went as heavy as I could and kept the reps in the 6-8 range. Within a few weeks, **** started changing. I remember going to my family doctor for a check up and when I got on the scale which was the first time I was on a scale since February, I was 214lbs! I had gained 20lbs. in four weeks and I didn t even realize I did. This did nothing but fuel my motivation even further. Now I was pumped. My bodyfat was staying the same, but I was just filling out, literally exploding! My XL T-shirts which fit comfortably and roomy were now getting tighter and tighter. Another month went by and I was up another 10 pounds. At this point, I started to feel the ramifications of achieving your goals: Jealousy! I began to hear whispers of "He uses steroids, there is no way he could get that big that fast!" or "He s on something, I know it for sure!" I was amazed and hurt at the same time. It really bothered me that people thought I was using gear. I was dead set against using steroids at the time and here I was busting my ass, training and eating like a man possessed, and people were ****ting on it and trying to take my achievements away by crediting steroid use. Around the middle of May, I was 230lbs. and now everywhere I went I would hear the rumors about how much steroids I took. It really made me angry and sick. I guess I should have taken it as a compliment, but I did not. What really started to bother me was when I was in one of my classes and the teacher said in front of the whole class "stop popping those pills Trevor". I was totally ****ing shocked. I asked him to repeat himself and he did, but he tried to make it like he was joking with me, but the damage was already done. Now I had another 30 people who were convinced I was a "Roid Head" as they so aptly put it. I would hear stories about people telling other people that they saw me go into the locker room at Mr. America s and get "shot up" by the owner, or that they saw me buying steroids from one of the guys in the gym. Complete and total fabrications every ****ing one of those stories, and I was just amazed that people would have so little going on in their lives that they would completely make up a total lie to try and tarnish my achievements. To this very day, if you spoke with people who were in my graduating class you would have a great number of them tell you that I used steroids way back then and they would "Know it for a fact!" As much as this bothered the **** out of me, it was nothing compared to what I felt when I found out my really close friends were telling people that "I had to be using something." That really hurt. These were people who witnessed day in and day out what I was doing and putting myself through yet they not only believed the rumors other people were spreading about me, they were confirming them to these ****ing idiots! Of course, they denied saying anything, but I found out from people I knew and trusted and who were older, that they did, in fact, say those things. I guess that is the price one has to pay for any type of success. There will always be someone there waiting to kick you down. It is a rare person that chooses to build themselves up so they achieve more, most people spend their lives tearing others down so they can appear to be higher up. In any event, it was now June 15th. I had already achieved my goal, so stepping on the scale was only a formality, but it was a fun one. When I got on the scale, it read 237lbs.! I had gained nearly 45lbs. in four months. Regardless of what others were saying I was very happy with what I achieved. And like a true bodybuilder all I wanted to do, was see the scale jump even higher. Now as I look back, the reason why I was able to gain so much size and weight in such a short time without any drugs was simple: For two years I was over-training and under-eating, and once I started feeding my system , getting adequate calories to grow and getting adequate rest, I rebounded like a bodybuilder after a competition. The size I gained was size that I would have had spread out over the past year and a half had I eaten sufficient nutrients and calories. Interestingly enough, my "friend" who I found out was telling everyone that I was using steroids, tried to convince me that it would me smarter to go into college football camp not weighing more than 230lbs. His exact words were: "Trevor, 230lbs. is more than enough for you to weigh as a freshman college football player." I immediately told him "Yeah, but 240lbs. would be even better!" Of course, at the same time he was asking me for all my "secrets" so that he could put on size. That kind of put a kink in our friendship for a good 4 years. We were still friendly, but not the same. Eventually though, after we graduated college and were both a lot more mature, we got close again. After I reached my goal, I began to realize that I could excel in bodybuilding or anything for that matter if I just focused. Nothing was going to stop me. Before that point I thought 250lbs. was the heaviest weight in the world and certainly never envisioned myself at that weight. Now I had my mind set on just growing, growing and growing. I had no idea where the train was going, and I did not care, I was loving the **** out of the ride. One month later I flew down to the University of Central Florida, to fulfill everyone else's expectation of playing college football. Even so, I was already obsessed with bodybuilding and spent every free moment reading everything I could on it. I knew it was only a matter of time before I pursued it full time, but that is another story for another time. If you take away anything from this article I hope that it is above all else, human will is the most powerful tool at your finger tips. Steroids work yes, as does proper nutrition, training and rest, but without the will to walk the path and it can be a very solitary and lonely path all the drugs, training and food in the world won t do a damn thing to get you where you want to go. Stay Focused!

**kronik85** · 06-08-2006, 04:44 PM

"6.Over-use of thermogenic compounds: D.N.P. is the latest range in the quest to get ripped. It can increase your BMR by up to 50%. The downside is that muscle will be burned in the process if you are not careful and oh yeah, you might cook yourself to death. I am currently researching D.N.P. further and will hold off on any general suggestions until that research is complete. As a rule of thumb though, I would not go over 6 miligrams per kilogram of bodyweight and in fact, I would suggest less. I would also use it on a 2 day on 2 day off pattern with-in a week on week off schedule to maximize safety. Remember this is rat poison and can and will kill you. Be weary of where you get it from if you plan on using and always do as much research as possible. Ian Harrison will tell you himself that it was responsible for catabolizing at least 25lbs of pure muscle in the last three weeks before the 97 Arnold. I would avoid its use and opt for a longer dieting period and the use of clenbuterol and T3. These 2 compounds are excellent tools and are relatively safe as long as you don t over-do it. With clen there are many different theories on how to use, but the great number of people I deal with use it on a daily basis at 40-80 mcg per day. With T3, I would suggest not going over 150mcg per day during your dieting and not using it for more than 6 weeks in this fashion. Even with this, I would use it for 5 days and then have 2 days off.

7.GH: This will increase fat burning by up to 20% in some cases and will help you hold on to your muscle mass. For dieting purposes between 2 and 4iu per day seems best as more GH results in water retention. Again I would use it for 5 days in a row and then have 2 days off, although in some cases using it straight through works great."

sounds like an idiot. heart necrosis ftw. he talks about the problems people do when cutting and then says "i do all this dumb **** and here's what i do".

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:44 PM

Mat DuVall

4/6/02

Month 1: Shock, Anxiety... PAIN.

There are type's of pain that warrant anxiety when thinking about it. I am not talking about the brief pain experienced when one stubs a toe; no, I am talking about the pain felt when lactic acid has reached maximum levels in a muscle. The pain felt when muscle fibers are tearing apart at a rate that you do not have time to even catch your breath, much less, start to feel better. This pain is what builds champions in the gym. This is the pain I asked Trevor to bring to my world in my pursuit of the Mr USA title. My reason for moving to Vegas was to have the opportunity to step into hell everytime I trained with Trevor; to know I was leaving no stone unturned in my journey. Each month I will give you, the reader's a chance to experience in word the pain and torture that I ask for. You will have a front row seat as Trevor unmercifully breaks my body down in the gym. I will not hold back in my description of the pain I feel; please know this is being done not to discourage you, but rather to encourage you to go beyond the thresh hold of pain in your own training. Beyond Failure Training is not just some fly by night training system that will be forgotten in a month or two. It is a training system that when done right can yield gains like one has never experienced! It is a system that the trainer or trainee is encouraged to make subtle changes.. rep speed, range of motion, the possibilities are endless, yet all lead to the same place.. Shock as to the gains you will make, Anxiety when you are waiting to do your next set, and the constant Pain you will feel.

I arrived in Las Vegas on February 27th, a month late! Why was I upset? In being late, I missed the opportunity to go through a cycle of BFT with Trevor. He was on the last week of his training cycle, and I was coming off a 10 week lay off. My second reason for being upset?, I was as mentioned feeling untrained and flat, while Trevor greeted me at a bodyweight of 370 pounds! Trust me when I say, I have never witnessed any pro or amateur bodybuilder at this weight, while maintaining a beyond respectable level of conditioning! Damn! I needed to get my ass in gear and be ready for the next training cycle. To be honest, it was best that I was not on track with Trevor when I arrived. Why?, as it was put to me, " You would have died, you are not ready..." I felt like a bald little kid, only answering to the name, " Grasshopper", but in truth Trevor wanted to have the chance to guide me through some training while he was off BFT so that I could be ready for the Hell that lay ahead. The first week was tough. I knew that Trevor was taking it easy on me a bit, he knew that I needed time to re-adjust to training in this style. That week's workout that best describe's the pain felt by BFT is the leg training done on friday the 1st of March.

We had gone through the other bodyparts and only had legs left to finish the week. I was hurting, alot, from the prior 3 workouts and as I sat waiting for Trevor, a horrible feeling of anxiety consumed me. Had I timed my arrival with Trevor, it may have been better, but I was early that day, and left to think about the pain that lay only minutes ahead. Moments later I saw Lucifer, (Trevor), pass through the door. As he passed by me, he did not stop, or greet me with a "good morning". I believe the words were, " I feel like ****, let's go..." It was decided that due to his body's state, on that day I would be the center of attention. Trevor was there only to bring the pain. How nice of him you say? to come in for me, even though he was off? Understand that his presence was to, yes, help, but in doing so to make me feel every set that I had missed in the 6 weeks prior! With each hint of regret I felt for being there, I reminded myself that this was what I needed, what I wanted and what was going to bring me to July 26th looking like a mutant! Leg extensions, 1 warmup, and 2 worksets... I hear your thoughts, "that's all, just 2 worksets?" What I felt in the next 10 minutes is only comparable to having my thighs pounded by sledge hammers. The weight seemed easy enough, only the stack to start, a slight 300 pounds, big deal, right? I was then introduced to true no momentum reps. Explain you say?, TRUE no momentum reps, are slow, squeezing every fiber possible reps, then holding it at the top of the movement for a full 5 seconds. After the 5 second hold, it is a slow, excruciating negative that should take no less than 3-4 seconds, and you are not to rest on the bottom. The rep is stopped for a count of 3 just before the muscle fiber's of the legs can relax, thus keeping them in the contracted position. That was one rep; 4 seconds up, 5 seconds at the top, another 4 on the way down and a hold of 3 on the bottom. Sixteen seconds of pain and it was just one rep! I went on in that fashion to about 8 on my own,it was then that I had to do 3 barely assisted reps. I say barely to illustrate that the assistance given is just enough to complete the rep. At no time is the weight taken from me and finished by Trevor. After the 8 on my own and the 3 assisted, my legs were screaming! I actually heard myself wimper! Me, wimper! I know there will be some that say, only 11 and you were wimpering!? Hah! "what a pussy!" Those 11 reps took close to 3 minutes to do!!, and now came the first drop! now I had 210 pounds on the stack, and I could not perform one rep on my own. I opened my eyes just long enough to see Trevor glaring at me, reading his thoughts I heard, " I am not supposed to be training today, suck it up pussy!" Hearing his actual words he told me to keep squeezing, even though the weight was not moving. I did 3 assisted reps, another 40 seconds of pure, evil, pain. In all honesty at this point my motor skills were failing. My quads were not firing and I felt breakfast bubbling from deep within me.... Drop #2! Yes, from 210 to 140 pounds. I was numb, remember this was the first set! Numb to the point that my ears were popping, I heard little other than Trevor's encouragment to keep squeezing. In making sure that I was squeezing, he would give my leg a slap. A slap from a 370 pound freak, not a little punk! A fraction of me wanted to jump up and plant a 45 pound plate right between his eyes! "Why?" you ask, "Is it becasue I was in so much pain?", no, it was becasue I knew this was nothing compared to the 18 weeks that lay ahead. The 140 pounds on the stack felt like a car coming down on my legs. I gathered enough stength to complete one on my own, but for some resaon the 2nd rep was not moving. Again, I opened my eyes and saw Trevor leaning on the pad that my feet were under! He was adding another maybe 100 pounds of pressure to the 140 that I was barely moving! Remember, it is called, Beyond Failure Training, not Go to failure training! I managed to get through another two reps, thus making it to the 3rd drop, 90 pounds..... I should be able to move 90 pounds like a pillow!?, then why are tears forming in my eyes as I strain to complete just one rep?!, Oh!, again, Mr Smith is leaning on the pad, as if it was not hard enough. Doing 3 reps with the 90, reminded me of the opening scene to the Incredible Hulk, you know, when David Banner was trying to lift the car off his wife... That was a car, this is 90 pounds! Why am I grimmacing?, and why are my eyes tearing up? I was roughly 4 1/2 minutes into my first set, yes the first set, and there was no longer a mind to muscle conection. My mind had told my muscle to get ****ed a long time ago! this was now instinct and the desire to prove I was worthy of the title I wanted to earn. The 3 reps performed with 90 pounds were more Trevor than I, yes, I was squeezing, trying to squeeze for all I was worth, but at that point I was worth little to nothing. As I came down on the 3rd rep, a feeling of relief started to come over me, I was done?, right? I mean 5 1/2 minutes for one set is enough right?, What is enough? Does enough excist? Not today, Trevor dropped the weight again to 50 pounds! That's right 50 pounds. Had you been there to hear the wimpering done on my part, you may have believed I was pushing up 500 pounds, but it was not. With only 50 pounds I struggled through maybe another 5 reps of agony until I was allowed to stop. As I looked up and realized that close to 8 minutes of my life had passed, all I could do was look at the floor and ask, how bad do I want this?, how much work am I willing to do to achieve my goal? One set? Two sets?, by the way, on this day there was no second set of leg extensions. My quads were gorged with blood, and shaking to the point where another set was on that day, pointless. Realize that in one set of leg extensions I did more work than any idiot who loads the squat bar up with 500 pounds and bounces out 4-6 half reps! This was work, real work, and as much as I was in pain, I knew that my body would not deny me the gains I needed

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:46 PM

!...... From there, we went to the leg press, an exercise that I normally would be able to pound out reps with more than 2000 pounds loaded! That was then, on this day, due to the state of my quads, I was performing with a mere 4 plates on each side!! A little over four hundred pounds, but you have to keep in mind that my goal is not strength. The primary goal is to build muscle tissue and this is done by destroying as many fibers as possible. Once I was able to get into the machine, the 8 plates, total, actually felt a bit heavy. I was instructed to slowly lower the weight and hold it on the bottom. I was not holding it on my chest, no, that is cheating, I was holding it right off the chest, just enough to keep the fibers in my quads stretched to the max! 4-5 seconds on the bottom, and then a slow, controlled squeeze all the way to the top. The top is where it gets interesting, I was told to rotate to my heels and flex for all I was worth. Hold, hold, flex, harder! this is what I was hearing. After holding in a full flex for five seconds, it was another slow disent to the bottom. After 6 reps, in all truth, I was toasted! I finshed with 5 more reps at a faster pace, but still flexing at the top for all I was worth. When reading these words, it is hard to imagine the pain that is felt. I have trained in many stlyes; power training, high rep training, etc. and this is by far the most pain I have ever experienced in the gym. I was able to finish 2 sets of the leg press and 1 long work set for hamstrings before knowing on that day I was done. There will be some that may scoff at this training, as it is described in print, but I challenge anyone to participate and feel what I am talking about.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:47 PM

With each week that passes I see my physique changing for the better. I am getting fuller, harder and larger! Many, if not all, involved in the world of bodybuilding know that the formula for success is hard training, proper nutrition/ supplementation, rest, and on some levels well prepared courses. Starting at 12 weeks out from the USA's I have asked Trevor to post pictures of my progress. This is done more to prove the effectivness of BFT. My nutrition never changes that much when preparing for a contest, nor do the other aspects of my preparation. Having Trevor guide me through daily sessions of BFT is the most drastic change I have made to my pre contest training. It is my hope that I serve as living proof as to the effecitvness of BFT! Do not go day to day wishing you could be one of the champions in the world of bodybuilding. Challenge yourself to become a champion. Challenge yourself to perform BFT the right way!, By looking at life and your training as a constant challenge, and asking what you can do to win that challenge you have already won half the battle. The other half is won by being consistent and never, ever, quitting!

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:51 PM

Originally Posted by kronik85

"
sounds like an idiot. heart necrosis ftw. he talks about the problems people do when cutting and then says "i do all this dumb **** and here's what i do".

Keep in mind that some of these articles were meant for top level competitive bodybuilders and arent meant for the average person.

He is far from an idiot, he helped many BBers like Jay Cutler, Matt Duvall, Robbie Robinson, and so on.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/trevorsmith.htm

I edited it out

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 04:59 PM

Mat DuVall

Ground Zero; Article 2

Nuclear Nutrition, Gear UZR

"DOUBT, the enemy?, or the motivator?"

In the last installment of Ground Zero, I spoke about 3 of the elements one can and will experience when using BFT training. Those three things were SHOCK, ANXIETY and PAIN. In this article I am going to explain how one can take doubt, a powerful enemy to any trainee and turn it into a friend. Instead of allowing doubt to defeat one in their quest for size, one may use it to motivate them. The same has been and can be said for fear, but that is another article all together. Self doubt has ruined many an athlete. They allow doubt to pollute their brain by asking themself some of the following: "Am I good enough?", "Can I win", or "Is this too much for me to try?", these are but a few examples of self doubt. When considering this topic, I had to ask myself how this had anything to do with Trevor and my time in the gym. In the following article I hope you will see how doubt, in my case, on the day discussed was used to blast through a plateau, and how you the reader can do the same.

The day we will discuss is Trevor and my last chest workout. As usual it was a monday, but unlike the last monday, Trevor is now back to BFT. He was on a 3 week hiatus when I arrived in Vegas, but now on this monday is back to going through the realm of sanity in our quest for size. What is it about monday's? To most, monday represents the first day in a long work week, after a not so long weekend. Monday is the day that most things do go wrong in the week. I am not a fan of mondays, but I do love training chest and calves. Since arriving in Vegas, I have done my best to be early to the gym, but on this day I am about 5 minutes late. As I entered the gym, I could see Trevor crouching by the pec-dec, he seemed to be meditating. His eyes were closed and he was for the most part motionless. Upon reaching the machine, I was instructed to warm up. The machine was already maxed at 220 pounds. I cranked out a slow and controlled 10 reps and stretched for a minute. It was now time to go to work and that means loading up the pec-dec with an additional 320 pounds, bringing the machine to 550 pounds! That is the stack, with (4) forty-five pound plates, and (2) 75 pound dumbells balanced on the top. Trevor's ability to focus is something to be seen. He closes his eyes as he sits down on the machine and as he swings the handles around in front of him, his eyes open, glowing a golden color. His stare goes straight through me as he is preparing to rip every fiber in his chest wide open! With each rep, he stretches to a maximum at the rear and slowly squeezes the wieght together until the handles touch. After the handles touch, he squeezes his pecs together even harder. With each rep his color changes too, he has gone from red, to purple, and he spits a lot. Good thing I am not prissy about getting wet!, each time a rep is completed I get a wave of saliva! After the 6th rep, it is time for the forced reps to be done, I offer only enough assistance to get the rep done. Trevor does 2, and it is time to drop the weight. I unload the (2) 75's and take off (1) of the 45 pound plates, now the wieght is at 365 lbs. Again, Trevor methodically squeezes each rep, one, two, a third and he is spent, again I assist him through 2 more and we drop the wieght back to the stack. The stack being 220 pounds is rarely if ever used by others in the gym. I do not know if it is the weight being used, the groans that are coming out of Trevor, or the massive amount of spit hitting me, but a crowd has developed behind us. When most would justify a faster pace, Trevor actually slows his pace and squeezes each rep even harder to insure that every fiber in his pectorials is ripped apart. I offer little encouragment, in part to not disturb Trevor's set and second because I do not want a mouthful of spit, still frothing from his mouth! He has completed 5 reps and his chest is again failing, we perform two forced reps and it is time for the last drop. I drop the weight to what I think is 150, the numbers are faded and hard to read on this pec dec. Trevor loses no intensity despite the lowering of the wieght. He is still focused and still making every rep work for him. He is no longer just purple in the face, but his entire neck and upper chest are purple as each rep forces more blood to his pecs! Those watching are either laughing nervoulsy as they suspect his head will explode from his shoulders, or they turn away in disgust as they notice the soaking down I am getting! (just kidding about the soaking down). After 6 reps and 3 forced the set is done and Trevor falls from the machine, he is justifiably spent. The title of this article mentioned DOUBT, well, I am now doubting myself. Am I doubting my ability to train in this style, NO! Doubt is making me nervous about how much weight I will add to the pec dec. The stack is too easy, and I have done the four plates before. I load up the machine with (4) forty-five plates, but I do not load the 75 pound dumbells; I am doubting myslef! As I stand in fornt of the pec-dec, I know I can do more than what is loaded, but I do not act on it. Instead I begin my set, and as soon as I bring the handles around, I know I should have loaded more! Does this mean my set is ruined?, no, but it is a distraction as I try to focus 100% on making my chest grow! I perform 6-7 reps before Trevor must assist me through another 3, now the weight is lowered to 330 pounds. My chest is screaming due to the fibers pulling apart, but in the back of my mind I know I could have started with more! The 330 pounds feels heavy and I only get 2 before I need assistance, I only get two because instead of focusing 100% on the set, I am doubting my decision from step one! Trevor forced me to get another two before he rips off the other (2) forty-five pound plates. I am back to the stack and trying to regain my focus. In doing so I am making mistakes, I am allowing my elbows to drop which takes pressure off the pecs and transfers it to the shoulders. Trevor reminds me to keep the elbows up, and to focus. I perform another 4 reps and again 2 more forced before the weight is dropped, I am not sure what Trevor dropped it to, but it looks to be around 130 lbs. I manage to squeeze out another 7 and finish with an excruciating 3 forced. As I finish my set and feel my pecs throbbing in pain, I cannot help but me disappointed in myself for not managing first to maintain focus and second for not using the weight I should have. I remind myself that this is only the first exercise, and that we still have two more exercises to go. I will not allow doubt to ruin my training; if it ruins my training, it will surely ruin my day!

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 05:04 PM

Now that we have finished with the pec dec, it is time for incline barbell press on the Smith Machine. The bench is set to only a slight angle, just enough to shift the pressure to the upper chest. This is an exercise that when done proper, can, in my opinion, yield tremendous gains on one's chest. It is my favorite exercise for the pec's. This is another exercise that attention must be paid to rep speed and control of the weight. I have witnessed many a lifter bounce reps off their chest in hopes of building shelf like pectorials. When training in the BFT style, reps are done in a zero momentum fashion to insure that every rep is ripping apart as many fibers as possible. Trevor is ready and we have loaded the bar to 455 pounds. I know that many out there will say, this guy does this much and that guy did this many, but you must witness these sets to appreciate them. When I say that our reps are zero momentum, I mean that the descent can take as many as 5-6 seconds, then after a 2-3 second pause on the bottom, a 3-4 second squeezing up of the positive part of the movement. This adds more intensity than many care to experience. It is truly a helpless feeling when after completing 6 reps, you are pushing as hard as you can on the bar only for it not to move; instead, it will start to sink back towards your throat! After saying all of this, on this day, Trevor thorws a monkey wrench into the works. Instead of starting with zero momentum, he starts his set with at least 8 if not more explosive reps. His rep speed is normal, up and down, not bouncing, but not as slow as I have been accustomed to. After doing the first reps like this, he then slows the bar to zero momentum reps. I hate to say it, but again, when many would end the set it is only beginning for those that follow BFT! Trevor does about 3 ZMR's (zero momentum reps) and then I assist with 1 forced rep. The weight is now stripped to 315 pounds and he continues with slow, controlled reps. He finishes another 3 and again I assist with 1 forced rep. The weight is dropped to 225, a weight that usually could be thrown through the ceiling, but after brutalizing his chest, Trevor is only able to manage 3 reps before stripping the bar to 135 lbs. At this weight, no matter how fatigued it is hard not to blast through the reps. Trevor slows the weight down on the negative and even has me lean on the bar at the bottom to increase the stretch on the pecs. He is able to do about 5, then the only weight left is the bar. This is where a training partner is involved in not only assisting on the forced, but in this situation making the negative a bitch to endure! Once the bar is pushed to the bottom with Trevor resisting, I lean on the bar and fight him on the way back to the top of the movement. He does 3 reps like this before waving the white flag and being forced to give in to complete pec failure. Having Trevor go first is always motivating. I have kept in mind that due to my doubting my abilities on the pec dec, I need to make it up here on this movement. During the past 3 weeks, I had to get used to the type of reps Trevor wanted me to perform. The reps are slower than I was used to, which made them more excruciating. The emphasis has not been on how much weight, but how much pain I could bring to the body part being trained. I have until this day kept the wieght on this exercise at no more than 365 to start. I need something today, I need to prove to me that I am not doubting my strength. There was a time when I could do 500 pounds for reps!, and here I am with only 365 lbs. on the bar. Today I load 405 pounds and know that this set is going to be my best set for chest since I arrived in Vegas. After a moment of psyching myself up, and allowing for Trevor to breath again, I start my set. I start straight into slower, controlled reps. I use no momentum off the bottom, I want each of these reps to count in a way that they have never counted! As my arms charge up and down like a piston; I am happy that the weight feels light in comparison to previous weeks with less weight. I am able to complete 5 reps on my own and almost a sixth before having Trevor and the other spotter help me to the top, I then do 1 forced and it is time to drop the wieght. The weight is dropped to 315 and by now my pectorials are really hurting. Pounding is a more precise description of each rep performed. I do only 2 with this weight and again force out 1 assisted rep. The weight is brought down to 225 and I cannot believe how heavy it feels! Understand that at this point, I am done, but done is not enough. With 225on the bar, I managed only 1 rep and that 1 had to be assisted. Once I locked out with 225, the bar was brought down to 135 lbs. Many would think that at this point I would start cranking out the reps?, not so. My motor skills are now beyond failing. My arms are twitching as I push the bar towards the ceiling. Two reps are performed and I can push no more. As my eyes start to open and re- adjust to the light, I hear Trevor tell the spotter to remove the weight, leaving only the bar. The bar!, hell, I can do the bar all day, no matter how tired I am! Sure, if I did not have a 370 pound freak leaning on it and yelling at me to keep pushing. That familiar feeling is returning; I want to jump up and plow a 45lb plate in to Trevors head!, but let's remember, he is HELPING ME. Allow me to paint this picture for you, Trevor leaning on the bar, telling me to keep squeezing, and of course pushing, yet nothing is happening. The weight is not moving, I only am managing to increase the pain I feel deep in my pecs. Well, on this day, the task master, or better described as Lucifer himself, allows me up after only 2 reps with the bar, Oh yeah!, and his 370 lbs. leaning on it!

This is normally when the chest workout would end, but Trevor has discovered a new way to finish. We go to the Hammer incline press, and do reps one arm at a time. This way, we can force even more blood into the muscle! My pecs are beyond swollen and I am trying to get even more blood into the muscle!this is why I train with Trevor. We do not do drops here, just as many as we can do with 2-3 forced reps. One set and it is finished! The pain of chest trainingis done for a week!, now it is on to calves!, but that is a whole other article and a whole other subject. That article may be called, "Not walking, how it feels..........."

There will be no more doubts for me, none. Since writing this, I have put all doubts to rest, and I continue to get stronger each workout. I have 13 weeks to do what I consider apart of my fate, become Mr USA. All the training that has been endured, and the other shows that have been competed in, lead me to that stage. July 26th, and 27th are my focus each day in the gym. I picture the stage, the way I will look, even the smell of the arena; there is no room for doubt in this picture or in my training.

**chris2489** · 06-08-2006, 05:11 PM

Mat DuVall

Ground Zero; Article 3 (part 1 of 2)

Nuclear Nutrition, Gear UZR

" Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas..."

Do I loathe my friend and training partner Trevor Smith?, No, of course not. Do I fear my training partner Trevor Smith, um, well, no, well.... sometimes. Loathing one, or fearing them can and has ruined many a relationship; however, in my quest to win the 2002 Mr. USA, Fear and Loathing here in Las Vegas is helping to fuel my intensity in the gym.

The training day in question? The longer I am here, the more material I have for this column. As each workout remains fresh in my mind, for this particular installment of Ground Zero, I chose several examples from different training sessions.

FEAR! Damn, Trevor has a way of intimidating someone. He even intimidates me when arriving early in the morning to the gym in which we train. I usually watch the front door from whatever machine we will be using first. As Trevor comes through the door; darkness comes over the gym. A dark cloud of pain, misery in the minutes that follow, a fear inducing cloud. I usually do my best to greet him with a smile and a, "How you doin, buddy Ole pal?" On a good day I am greeted with, "fine, did you warm up?" Do not get me wrong, outside of the gym, Trevor is the best. He is full of wisdom, direction, a great friend all around. In the gym, it is a different Trevor, there are times when I expect him to turn to reveal a red tail coming out of his ass, or when he removes his BFT hat, two sharpened horns to protrude from his head. These things of course do not happen, but trust me when I tell you that Satan himself would cower when crossing the path of Trevor in the gym. This helps me in that people do not approach to ask questions of Trevor or myself. One time it happened. I do not think that Trevor noticed, but it took all my patience to not erupt into a rage. As Trevor was fighting through the tail end of an excruciating set of preacher curls, two guys come from behind him to ask me if we use weight gain? ****ing weight gain!? I wanted to say, "No, I eat humans whole, and I am hungry!", but I refrained and implied that he may want to move on. He did not take the hint and said, "No, seriously, I am serious, do you?" Now please understand, I enjoy helping, and will when I can, but when my training partner is turning purple as he struggles and is expecting me to be there to spot, I cannot answer such lunacy. I then made eye contact just long enough for the guy's wiser friend to realize what was about to happen and they scuffled off. Did I feel bad? no, we were working. As mentioned, I do not think Trevor even noticed, good thing. Anyway, I digress. Fear can be a great help in the gym, or of course it can destroy you. Watching Trevor perform a set can induce fear, but it is the type of fear that motivates me to be stronger and get freakier than ever!

When does one Fear for their training partner or fear that their set is next? The day is another leg day, and it is time for Trevor and I to use the power squat machine. This machine holds 9 plates on each side. I have been in the gym when people are doing the machine wrong with 9 plates on each side and they have a crowd watching in amazement. Now, read carefully as I tell you how Trevor loads the machine. We start by loading the expected 9 plates per side; then we add a second bar and load another 9 plates on each side of the bar. This brings us to a total of 18 plates per side. 18 plates a side means 36 total plates, this equals 1,620 pounds!, and that does not include the weight of the machine. Well, surprise, surprise, it is now time to add a THIRD BAR to the top of the machine and add another 6 plates per side. This brings us to 48 total plates on the machine plus the two 45lb bars and plus the actual weight of the machine; that is over 2300 pounds and we are using a power squat machine, not a leg press. After taking more than 10 minutes to load the bar, which by the way is where the loathing can come in, it is time to get psyched. I watch Trevor as a nasty, focused, evil look comes over his face. He looks from side to side in disgust as the mere mortals bitch about the now lack of plates in the gym. They dare not say a word, as they know it will bring instant pain, hospitalization actually. Trevor now approaches and gets under the weight, his intensity is coming off him like an electrical current. As he lifts the machine and disengages the safety handle, all around him take notice that he is about to go into a zone that no one, and I repeat no one goes to. He lowers to parallel, pauses for a moment, and slowly squeezes back to the top. These are perfect reps, slow, squeezing, non bouncing reps. Six reps are done in perfect form before he racks the weight. What is scary is that he does not rack the weight due to muscular failure, instead it is due to a lack of oxygen. At Trevor's bodyweight, it takes a lot more wind to keep your sails stretched, meaning? his lungs are spent. It is awe inspiring, it is awesome to see before I must get on and follow suit. Am I ready to use the same weight, no, but I have gone from a measly 22 plates total to this occasion at 36 plates! With this much weight on the bar, I do not bother thinking, I just get under it and go to work. As I dis engage the safety lever, I feel the tremendous weight bear down on my shoulders. I know I will have the welts to prove the amount of weight I was holding after the set. As I drop down for the first rep, I feel my quads start to scream; mind you we have just completed two agonizing sets of leg extensions. Up and down like a piston, slow and controlled though, there is no momentum used in completing these reps. As I go through my set, I start to feel so powerful, I want to let out a massive scream, but I use the energy instead to control this massive amount of weight. As I reach a wall, my quads are pumped beyond belief! I am not a lover of shorts, but on this day I wish I were wearing them so I could see the veins pulsate as I go through each rep like a fine tuned machine! I am inspired by the fact that much like Trevor, I reach cardiovascular failure before I do muscular failure. At 10 reps, I am done, but I know I have more for the next training session! Was it scary?, hell yes it was! A quad can tear, rupture, but this is not allowed in our realm. We will not succumb to such negative thought, instead we stay focused on that intense energy that is created by fear. Damn!! after a set like this I want to grab the nearest female and like a caveman carry her off to praise my manly strength!! Just kidding, but it is a great feeling to move that much weight with authority!

Thread: Trevor Smith Articles

Thread Tools

Search Thread

Trevor Smith Articles

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions