Let's talk - Natural Mr Olympia gives advice

[Natural_O]

Thanks John!!! Much appreciated especially coming from you!!!! I wouldve never thought if someone told the older you get the better it gets. Damn I love it!!!! I will do my best at the Universe.

Oh, you're still young! You've got your best years ahead of you plus, after taking that short layoff, you probably responded even more when you started training again. Best of luck in the Team Universe!

[Natural_O]

His website: http://www.naturalolympia.com/

and the link to his store (it's a little hard to navigate to): http://www.naturalolympia.com/frameset_proshop.html

John - you should put this website address in your signature file. I'm sure a lot of people will be interested.

Thanks Dan, I just added that in my signature. Also, thanks for supplying the link to my pro shop on my website.

[eharte1]

Um, I have only one comment for you John... I was reading through some of your recent posts and noticed you posted at 3:00am!!! Are you insane?!?! LOL. I'll come visit you at the Optimum booth at Jr's. I'll be there around 6ish tomorrow night.

[Natural_O]

Um, I have only one comment for you John... I was reading through some of your recent posts and noticed you posted at 3:00am!!! Are you insane?!?! LOL. I'll come visit you at the Optimum booth at Jr's. I'll be there around 6ish tomorrow night.

Oh yeah, that was the night you kept me out all night drinking margaritas and martini's. I was so wired after seeing dancing on the bar after last call, I couldn't sleep that night!

[eharte1]

Liar. Liar. Liar. And it was YOUR idea to go to the second bar!!!! My goodness, my friends couldn't believe it when I told them I had 2 margaritas and 3 martini's!! That is alot for me!

And yes, everyone, Mr. Perfect John Hansen DOES indeed drink every so often. Don't let him fool you....

[Natural_O]

Liar. Liar. Liar. And it was YOUR idea to go to the second bar!!!! My goodness, my friends couldn't believe it when I told them I had 2 margaritas and 3 martini's!! That is alot for me!

And yes, everyone, Mr. Perfect John Hansen DOES indeed drink every so often. Don't let him fool you....

Yes, a little drink now and then never hurt anyone. Damn, is it 2:00 in the morning again? LOL

[Duckenheimer]

Heya John. I've been training for 10 weeks now, and although I might never have the genetics to be truly competitive, I'll definitely be standing on a stage someday at my best.

Just a question of curiosity though when it comes to shredding... is there a big difference between how ripped the average natural bodybuilder can peak at vs. the average non-natural on stage, while maintaining muscle?

[Kiyoshi Moody]

John, any links to where I can purchase your book or training DVD?

& word to the NaturalOne. Absolutely awesome hamstring development. Sick sweep that reminds me of Tom Prince.

Thanks for the kind words. I keep working hard to improve them even more!!!

[Kiyoshi Moody]

Your avatar pic is awesome! What do you estimate your bodyfat was at that show?

Also, what does your hamstring workout look like? You have awesome ham development and I'd be curious to hear what you found works best for you.

Thanks.

Thank you very much for the compliment. My BF at the show? Honestly I couldnt tell you. Why I can't tell. I really don't keep track of my BF. I go by look and feel. I use to keep track of it and I was to concerned about my bodyfat and not how I looked when I got ready for shows. So now I go by look and not worry about the BF. I just try to get as lean as possible. I do step on the scale though. Why? If i am starting to look leaner in the mirror but my weight is staying the same then I know I am losing BF. If I look the same in the mirror and my weight goes down then I know i am losing muscle. So I up my protein. You have to know your body. Everyone is different.

As far as Hams. I am a former world class sprinter, so I have always been blessed with great hamstrings from sprinting and still to this day I stick with sprinting when Iam getting ready for shows. Thats what helped the most.

Kiyoshi

[Sultan Abs]

Hey John. Great Inspirational character..

I don't really have a question, heheh. Although I would like to ask how important you think genetics is. Because often I feel like giving up as some parts of my body (bicep etc) never peak.

[Natural_O]

Heya John. I've been training for 10 weeks now, and although I might never have the genetics to be truly competitive, I'll definitely be standing on a stage someday at my best.

Just a question of curiosity though when it comes to shredding... is there a big difference between how ripped the average natural bodybuilder can peak at vs. the average non-natural on stage, while maintaining muscle?

The biggest difference I notice in the appearance of a natural bodybuilder vs. a non-natural is the degree of hardness in their physique. Natural bodybuilders can get ripped with very low bodyfat but guys who use drugs have more of a rock-hard look to their physique. It's not just low bodyfat, it's a different look. They can even have a little more bodyfat and still appear harder and, usually, more vascular.

As far as attaining that ripped look, I also think it is easier to achieve using drugs as opposed to being natural. The drugs allow you to hold onto your muscle when you are dieting or doing cardio. When you are natural, you have to be VERY careful about not losing muscle when you are losing bodyfat. In fact, I think that is the biggest challenge to natural bodybuilder who is competing, keeping all their muscle while getting ripped and showing up onstage ripped but with full, hard muscles. If you don't eat enough calories or you do too much cardio (or both), it is very easy to sacrifice muscle tissue when you are natural.

[Natural_O]

Hey John. Great Inspirational character..

I don't really have a question, heheh. Although I would like to ask how important you think genetics is. Because often I feel like giving up as some parts of my body (bicep etc) never peak.

Genetics is obviously important but sometimes you don't know how good your genetics are until you train really hard for years. In my book, "Natural Bodybuilding", I devote a whole chapter to genetics and I break it down so you can understand what type of genetics you have. For example, you have your bone structure, the shape of the individual muscles and the ability to develop muscles quickly. An "easy gainer" or someone who develops very quickly is said to have great genetics but what about their individual muscle shape or what their bone structure looks like.

For example, Tim Belknap, 1981 AAU Mr. America, had the ability to develop incredibly thick, massive muscles very easily. When Belknap first came onto the scene, he was one of the thickest bodybuilders ever seen at that time. However, he did not have a great structure because he had a narrow shoulder structure and wide hips on a 5'4" frame. Although he created lots of interest as an amateur bodybuilder, he didn't have much of a career when he turned professional because of his subpar structure.

On the other hand, Frank Zane and Flex Wheeler did not have the same genetics to get big and thick as easily as Tim Belknap did but they had much better structures and more of a pleasing look to their physiques. Although it took them much longer to develop their muscular development, when they did finally build the size and thickness they needed, they rose all the way to the top of the sport - Zane winning 3 Mr. Olympia titles and Flex winning 4 Arnold Classic titles.

Someone like Sergio Oliva and Lee Haney had it much easier because both of them were blessed with great bone structures (wide shoulders, small hips and the right size joints to make the muscle bellies look bigger) and they were also blessed with the ability to gain muscle very easily. I remember a writer commenting on the amazing development of the then 22 year old Lee Haney who just won the Nationals and Universe. The writer said so amazing was his development at such a young age that Haney must have grown from every workout he ever performed.

So, it's hard to tell what type of long term genetics you have until you start training and then break it down. It might be better than you think!

[Vakas]

Hi John, nice to have you on the boards.

Can you tell me what is a good meal for breakfast? What did you used to eat when you were bulking? Right now I'm not sure and my breakfast changes daily so I would like one meal to stick with.

I read through your thread and you've given a lot of great advice, but if you were giving advice to beginners only what would you say are the most important aspects involved in getting bigger?

[MassIsAhead]

John,

Just read a long Platz interview - he also discusses the importance of ankle flexibility in this interview!! Which confirms what we already know- that you know what you're talking about!

Take care

[PRKing06]

Hey John,

I have a question. I heard from another bodybuilder that the IFBB takes points off bodybuilders if they have tattoos. Is this true? I only ask this because I have several tattoos and I am planning to compete.

Thanks,
Wolf

[Natural_O]

Hi John, nice to have you on the boards.

Can you tell me what is a good meal for breakfast? What did you used to eat when you were bulking? Right now I'm not sure and my breakfast changes daily so I would like one meal to stick with.

I read through your thread and you've given a lot of great advice, but if you were giving advice to beginners only what would you say are the most important aspects involved in getting bigger?

For breakfast, you want to eat a combination of protein and complex carbs. I personally eat 1 egg plus 8-9 more egg whites for my protein and 1 cup of oatmeal and 1/2 cup of blueberries for my carbs. When I was 20 years old and bulking up, I used to eat 6-7 eggs (not whites, just whole eggs) along with some type of cheese and I would make an omlette. That would be my protein but by using the whole egg instead of the egg white, I would be eating a lot more fat which would give me the extra calories I needed to gain weight. For my carbs, I would have 2-3 slices of whole wheat toast with butter and jelly on top. The bread would be the complex carbs along with some simple carbs from the jelly and more fat and calories from the butter.

For advice on getting bigger for beginners, I would suggest using the basic exercises with weights heavy enough to limit the reps to 5-8 reps so you get bigger and stronger. Train a maximum of 3-4 days a week and rest on your off days. Try to sleep at least 8 hours a day and don't do any other activities on your off days so you slow down your metabolism and gain weight. Of course, this is for the beginner who has a hard time gaining weight. If you are beginning bodybuilding and you are older (late 20's or older), you might not want to eat as much because you might get too fat as your metabolism is slower as you get older.

When you are a "hardgainer" and need to get bigger, you should really eat a lot of food. Eating 6x a day might not be enough, you might need to increase the amount of food you are eating with each meal. This is what I had to do to bulk up when I was younger. I ate lots of foods that were high in protein, complex carbs and fats. It was a lot of work eating that food but it worked. I bulked up from 205 lbs. to 230 lbs. in 8 months and I dramatically changed the look of my physique.

[Natural_O]

John,

Just read a long Platz interview - he also discusses the importance of ankle flexibility in this interview!! Which confirms what we already know- that you know what you're talking about!

Take care

Either that or I'm just so damn old and I've been around so long that I've read all these old interviews with the old time stars and I still remember them. LOL

[Natural_O]

Hey John,

I have a question. I heard from another bodybuilder that the IFBB takes points off bodybuilders if they have tattoos. Is this true? I only ask this because I have several tattoos and I am planning to compete.

Thanks,
Wolf

Hey Wolf,

Bodybuilding judges used to take off points or look down on bodybuilders who had tattoos but that was the old days and not the current scene. There are so many bodybuilders now who have tattoos that it is not judged as harshly as it once was. I just got back from the Jr. Nationals in Chicago and most of the male competitors had tattoos, including the overall winner. If the tattoos you have are very noticable or are in a bad area so they cover up your development, there is some body make-up that you could use to cover them up and make them less apparent.

[irocktheyellow]

John-

You've had an amazing career. You are a real inspiration. Anyway, i've competed once already and i plan on doing the junior class at the Emerald Cup next spring (natural). Last time i had a problem holding on to muscle and i really want to fix that this time. Since i still don't know enough about the competition diet and process, can you recommend anyone that could help? Do you help people with diets or anything?

[Natural_O]

John-

You've had an amazing career. You are a real inspiration. Anyway, i've competed once already and i plan on doing the junior class at the Emerald Cup next spring (natural). Last time i had a problem holding on to muscle and i really want to fix that this time. Since i still don't know enough about the competition diet and process, can you recommend anyone that could help? Do you help people with diets or anything?

Yes, I help both men and women online and in person. If you want to contact me online, go to my website at www.naturalolympia.com. How long did you diet the last time you competed and what type of diet did you follow? Do you know how many calories you were eating for that diet? Also, were you doing any cardio and how many days a week were you weight training?

[irocktheyellow]

Right on, sounds good. I dieted 12 weeks with a pretty standard competition diet (brown rice, broccoli, chicken, steak, fish, oats, protein shakes, occasional bar). That is pretty much what i ate spread over six meals. I was eating around 2100-2300 calories per day. At the time i was 5'9'', about 180 before dieting. At first i didn't do cardio but i got behind and was doing it twice a day 30 min a day for a good 6 weeks while training 4 days a week.

I am about 30 pounds heavier now so i am looking forward to competing again. I will definately try to acquire your services when it comes showtime.

[Natural_O]

Right on, sounds good. I dieted 12 weeks with a pretty standard competition diet (brown rice, broccoli, chicken, steak, fish, oats, protein shakes, occasional bar). That is pretty much what i ate spread over six meals. I was eating around 2100-2300 calories per day. At the time i was 5'9'', about 180 before dieting. At first i didn't do cardio but i got behind and was doing it twice a day 30 min a day for a good 6 weeks while training 4 days a week.

I am about 30 pounds heavier now so i am looking forward to competing again. I will definately try to acquire your services when it comes showtime.

Sounds like you were doing way too much cardio at the end. Twice a day, 30 min a day for 6 weeks will eat up muscle off of any natural bodybuilder. I always try to lose the fat with NO cardio if I can so I can keep all of my muscle mass.

[MassIsAhead]

John,

Have you ever done any HIGH rep (20+ reps) squatting (with moderately heavy weights)? It seems like a tried and tested and true way to build the quads and legs as a whole, so just interested in hearing what experiences you might have with it.

[irocktheyellow]

Sounds like you were doing way too much cardio at the end. Twice a day, 30 min a day for 6 weeks will eat up muscle off of any natural bodybuilder. I always try to lose the fat with NO cardio if I can so I can keep all of my muscle mass.

Interesting. But how long is your prep without cardio? Over 16 weeks?

[Natural_O]

John,

Have you ever done any HIGH rep (20+ reps) squatting (with moderately heavy weights)? It seems like a tried and tested and true way to build the quads and legs as a whole, so just interested in hearing what experiences you might have with it.

Yes, I have done high rep squats to build the legs and it's pretty brutal because of the high reps. It's a totally different type of training than going heavy with low reps. The best I did was sets of 315 for 20 reps. Another good way to incorporate this training technique is to do a high rep set of 20 reps after you are finished training heavy, sort of as a pump set.

[Natural_O]

Interesting. But how long is your prep without cardio? Over 16 weeks?

Yes, I would normally diet anywhere from 16-20 weeks, depending on how much fat I had to lose. I would aim to lose about 1 to 1 1/2 pounds a week and at least 1/4" off the waist each week. The fat loss was slow but I was still able to eat a good amount of calories and keep my muscle size and strength up as I lost the fat. If you try to lose the fat too quickly, you inevitably end up losing muscle.

[glwanabe]

Guess I missed this question. In my book, Natural Bodybuilding, I give a rough estimate of what your bodyparts should measure in order to be in proportion to one another.

1. The neck, calves and arms should measure within an inch or two of each other.

2. The chest measurement should be 95% of both thigh measurements. A bodybuilder with 25 inch thighs should have a chest measurement of 47.5 inches (25 x 2 = 50 x 95% = 47.5 inches).

3. The forearm should be approximately 80% of your upper arm measurement.

4. The waist measurement should be 70-72% of your chest measurement during the off season and only 65% of your chest measurement when you are competing.

These were the measurements I tried to adhere to when I was competing. Someone with a smaller hip structure than mine would probably have a smaller waist measurement than me.

I also had goals for my training poundages. For example, I tried to keep my barbell bench press and my barbell bent-over rows the same poundage. If I was doing reps with 315 on the bench press, I should be doing reps with 315 on bent-over rows. My squat and deadlift should be around the same weight. If I was doing deadlifts with 405, I should be doing squats with 405. Also, if I was doing one arm db rows with the 130 pound dumbbells, I should be using the 130's for flat db bench presses. My seated db press should only be about 20 lbs less than my flat or incline db presses (110 lb db press for a 130 lb flat or incline db press).

These were goals I set for myself to keep myself in proportion and push myself to use heavier poundages to get bigger.

I found your comments about how much weight to use for various antaganistic bodyparts interesting. I had a similer thought process, but was glad to see it written down by somebody with more knowledge.

What is your feeling about allowing certain movements to get much stronger as opposed to keeping a movement stagnent to let the antaganist catch up.

As an example. You said that rowing and bench press weights should be the same. Most people are probably stronger on the bench press. Should you halt progress on upping Bench weights to allow your rowing strength to increase?
This not to say that all your benching would stop. You would just not continue to increase your strength in this area. Or should you allow growth to happen till it stagnates on its own, or at desired a size, then work to balance the antaganist?

[Natural_O]

I found your comments about how much weight to use for various antaganistic bodyparts interesting. I had a similer thought process, but was glad to see it written down by somebody with more knowledge.

What is your feeling about allowing certain movements to get much stronger as opposed to keeping a movement stagnent to let the antaganist catch up.

As an example. You said that rowing and bench press weights should be the same. Most people are probably stronger on the bench press. Should you halt progress on upping Bench weights to allow your rowing strength to increase?
This not to say that all your benching would stop. You would just not continue to increase your strength in this area. Or should you allow growth to happen till it stagnates on its own, or at desired a size, then work to balance the antaganist?

That's an interesting question and I guess the answer would depend on what your goals are. If you are trying to develop your physique and keep everything in proportion, you would have to look at your body and assess your current development. For example, if you were a very strong bench presser and you had big, thick pecs that developed easily but your back was flat and lacking in thickness and, at the same time, you were pretty weak in barbell rows and other back exercises then yes, I would suggest keeping your bench press weight the same (if you feel that this is the movement that most directly contributes to your pec size) while simulataneously working very hard to bring up your back. Then, when you step onstage to compete (or take your shirt off at the beach), you will have a much more symmetrical physique and not be out of proportion. However, if your bench press is not a real strong movement for you and the reason you cannot do barbell rows with the same weight as your bench press is because you don't do barbell rows as much as bench presses (which is probably the most likely reason), then I would continue to work hard on your bench press while also working to increase your barbell rows.

[glwanabe]

I realize it is a much more complicated scenario than I put forth, and that there are a lot of variables to consider. In the end there may not be one right answer for this question. The advice on the poundages to shoot for was in itself a great gage as to where some emphasis should be placed, and where to work to improve.

I take it you don't see any great issue with being out of balance as the catalyst for increasing the chance of an injury.

I look forward to your continued advice and knowledge here on the board.
Jeff

[Natural_O]

I realize it is a much more complicated scenario than I put forth, and that there are a lot of variables to consider. In the end there may not be one right answer for this question. The advice on the poundages to shoot for was in itself a great gage as to where some emphasis should be placed, and where to work to improve.

I take it you don't see any great issue with being out of balance as the catalyst for increasing the chance of an injury.

I look forward to your continued advice and knowledge here on the board.
Jeff

That's a good point you bring up about the chance of injury with two opposing bodyparts being out of proportion strength wise. To be honest, I wasn't even thinking along those lines, I was thinking more about how the physique looked. But there is the chance of injury if two opposing bodyparts are out of proportion in size and strength, particulary the abs and lower back, the front and rear delts and the quads and hamstrings. Still, like you said, it's a good gauge to go by to keep your strength levels in proportion to one another. I see so many guys focusing on the bench press but they have wafer-thin backs and they don't even look like the same person when you see them from the back. Also, many bodybuilders neglect their legs for their upper body training so attempting to keep the deadlift and squat in proportion is a good way to keep that balance.