Do 100 repetitions, two sets of 50. If you feel comfortable doing 100 you can try 150 or 200.
BENT LEG RAISES—Bent leg raises warm up the muscles of the trunk and lower back and burn the fat off the lower abdominal area. Sit-ups train the upper abdominals, the upper two rows, and leg raises work on the lower abdominals. I suggest leg raises with bent knees because they’re easier, you can get in more repetitions, and it’s better for the back. Lie on the floor with your legs straight out, your hands under your buttocks, and your chin on your chest (this position of the head and neck causes your abdominals to flex when you are in a prone position); then pull your knees all the way into your chest area.
Remember the rule about breathing—exhale as you bring up your legs, inhale as you lower them. Do as many repetitions as you can, so the flexing and extending can burn the fat off your midsection and tighten up those muscles. In this exercise the amount of resistance is not nearly as important as how many repetitions you do.
Try to do a minimum of 50 repetitions.
BENT-OVER TWISTS—Twists are for the obliques, those muscles at the sides of the waist, and for the lower back. They’re a great exercise for trimming off excess fat. I suggest you do them in the following manner: Take a broomstick and put it behind your neck, gripping it wide with your hands. Hold your legs stiff, your feet about shoulder width apart, and bend forward until your upper body is at a 45-degree angle to your legs (as in photo). Now twist your body in half-circular motions, bringing the ends of the stick down to touch your feet, alternating right and left, right and left. You’ll feel this one start to burn immediately.
As with leg raises and sit-ups, it’s the number of repetitions here that really counts. Go for at least 50 reps and work up.
Remember what I said about cheating. Just to remind myself, I slip in an extra rep or two. Try it. It’ll make you feel better about your program.
DEEP KNEE BENDS (SQUATS)—Squats will build up your thighs and strengthen your hips. They can be done in different ways. One way is to stand with your heels on a book, go all the way down, and come all the way up. The other is to stand flat-footed on the floor and go all the way up and down. I suggest you use a book, as you see me doing in the photo. Stand with your feet 12 to 15 inches apart and place your hands on your hips. Squat down until your thighs are parallel to the floor, then raise yourself slowly up again. Remember to keep your body upright and your back straight throughout the exercise. Breathe deeply—inhaling as you squat, exhaling as you come back up—and hold your chest high and square. One method of making the repetitions smooth and even is to choose a point on the wall and look at it as you do the exercise.
Do 50 to 70 repetitions.
CALF RAISES—I think the calf is the most beautiful muscle in the body. Certainly the calves are the prime muscles of the leg. Think for a minute, if you saw a man at the beach with big muscular thighs but scrawny calves, you would say he had bad legs. However, if he had poor thighs but fantastic calves, you would probably say how good his legs were. Unfortunately, the calves are difficult to develop. They are made of dense muscle fibers that must really be bombed to be altered.
You should do calf raises standing on a book, only now your toes should be elevated so they are higher than your heels. Hold the back of a chair lightly for balance. Your feet should be parallel and a few inches apart. Lower your heels to the floor, stretching the calf muscle, and then raise all the way up on your toes. This develops the whole calf.
Do at least 50 repetitions.
CLOSE-GRIP BICEPS CHINS—This is probably the only exercise you can do without gym equipment to build impressive biceps. However, you will need a chinning bar. You can buy an inexpensive bar that fits between doorjambs. Take an underhand grip (palms facing toward your body) on the chinning bar, with the hands about 12 inches apart. Starting with your arms straight, pull up until your chin is over the bar and your biceps are fully contracted. Lower your body slowly until your arms are straight. Chin-ups are tough when they’re done right, but they will really pack inches onto your biceps. Go all the way down and all the way up, making full movements. Stretch when you reach the bottom and pull all the way up to the chin. Do not kick with your legs to put you that last few inches to the top. This robs you of the benefits of the exercise.
Do as many repetitions as you can, trying for a total of 30.
After The Workout—Jogging and Swimming
Practice these exercises throughout the entire bodybuilding program. They accustom the body to its new weight and configuration and help you avoid becoming “musclebound.”
Bodybuilding can stiffen the body. It happens this way: Blood rushes into the muscle, gives you a pump, and makes you stiff. To counteract and correct this you should try something different from the exercises you do in the gym. Jogging and swimming will satisfy these needs by helping to stretch and lengthen your muscles and eliminate the danger of becoming “musclebound.”
JOGGING—There are different kinds of jogging. Running around the block is okay, but I would suggest something more imaginative, such as cross-country running, which is running up and down hills, jumping over trees, and other things that really get the body moving. (Jumping on and off curbs, dodging between parking meters and cars can give a similar result.) Also interval training, where you sprint 100 yards, jog 100 yards, sprint 100 yards, will get the heart working and the blood flowing. Vary the running so that you don’t get stale. Sometimes you’re forced to jog indoors, where you just stay in one place and imitate running to get your heart going. You should do this only when you’re traveling or on winter days when it’s impossible for you to go outside.
SWIMMING—Swimming is a highly effective muscle toner. The smooth reach and follow-through of swimming lengthens your muscles and keeps them flexible. I love swimming and I’ve been doing it almost daily for the last 15 years. Swimming is one of those activities that force you to use your muscles in such a way that they flow together and make your body work as a total, integrated unit. It is even more beneficial if you can swim outdoors in the sunshine and fresh air.
Some Hints about Training
1. Give your full concentration to each exercise. Feel what the exercise does to your muscles as you move.
2. Good form is more important than the number of repetitions. Add more resistance as you get stronger, but never at the expense of good exercise form.
3. After your workout stand in front of a mirror and check your body. Do a few poses. Make an honest assessment of your progress.
4. Maintain a positive mental attitude at all times.
5. You must eat well and get adequate sleep when you are on a serious bodybuilding program. You need eight to nine hours of sound, restful sleep every night. Mending and growth take place during these periods of rest. If for some reason you miss your quota of sleep, take a half-hour to one-hour nap after you get home from work. This will refresh you, help you recuperate more fully, and speed your progress.
6. Anything worth doing at all is worth doing well. Put your heart and soul into your training, diet and sleep programs. Success in bodybuilding could be a key to other successes. It has been for me. I believe you can do anything you want—build a great body, obtain wealth, be a success in life—if you want it badly enough and are willing to work for it with all your heart.
Chapter Three: Progressive Resistance Weight Training
Choosing Your Gym
You’ll be doing at least a one-hour workout in the beginning, and eventually a two-hour workout, so it’s important that you choose a place where you feel one hundred percent comfortable and where you will be inspired to do hard work.
In the last fourteen years I’ve found some gymnasiums I’ve felt incredibly good in—where I immediately got wonderful vibrations and a sudden flow of energy because of the way they looked—and other gymnasiums that depressed me as soon as I walked through the door. I especially don’t like the kind of gym that gives a sense of relaxation.
One con
sideration in evaluating a gym is who works out there. It helps if a lot of bodybuilders are training for competition. That’s the kind of atmosphere you want. You can relate to these people and let them guide you in attaining the proper workout spirit. I personally choose the places with heavy wheels and cables and machines, heavy-duty stuff that looks like torture equipment. That kind of gym gives me the incentive to do a serious workout. I’ve found that, generally speaking, home gyms can have a negative effect on concentrated training. Your kitchen and living room are too close. You find yourself thinking, “Should I do another set or should I watch television?” There are too many temptations. But if you make the commitment of traveling to the gym for half an hour, you will most likely decide that you’re going to put in some work so you won’t have gone there for nothing.
The gymnasium you choose should have good ventilation. Next to your mental attitude, plentiful oxygen is actually the most important thing while you’re training. Without an adequate oxygen supply you will tire easily and be unable to handle a vigorous one- or two-hour workout.
The gym should be cool—it it’s too hot you will grow languid and feel your strength has been sapped. Preferably you should get fresh air, not air-conditioned air. That’s why I like World’s Gym in Santa Monica; it’s close to the beach and fresh ocean air, which I think gives you a little bit more energy than regular air. If you have the chance to work outdoors (as I sometimes do when I go to the outdoor weight-lifting platform at Venice Beach) do so. Working out in the sun tightens your skin and gives you a good color. Which in turn adds a great deal to the way you feel about your body.
Mental Attitude
Do not underestimate the part your attitude plays in bodybuilding. Mental strain and worry can drain the body and adversely affect both your workouts and muscular growth. A good positive mental attitude ought to go beyond the gym. It should extend to your eating habits, your sleeping habits, and the way you conduct your life in general.
Use the time on the way to the gym to outline some immediate goals for yourself, to decide what you want to accomplish in this particular workout session. Don’t just go to the gym and say, “Oh, no, another workout.” Your attitude should be: “Okay, this is another training session, and today instead of a 100-pound bench press I’ll do 105 pounds. I feel stronger today; I can do it. I can do more chin-ups. I can do more sit-ups.”
You should set goals for yourself that turn you on and make you eager to go in and do bench presses, or squats, or barbell curls. Have a definite reason for wanting to do bench presses. Not just because you want to look better next year. That is a long-range goal, which is very important—but you should also be setting little short-range goals all the time. For example, tell yourself that tomorrow morning you want to get a good pump in the pectoral muscles. Or, yesterday you saw a picture of a bodybuilder whose waist was 29 inches, and you would like to have really good abdominals, so today you’ll do more repetitions: by next Monday you ought to be half an inch smaller in the waist. These little goals are fantastic. They’ve helped me a lot. Of course I always said I wanted to be Mr. Universe or Mr. Olympia. But that was long-range thinking. In addition I always had day-to-day goals, which included measurement increases of a quarter of an inch, two or three more repetitions, and five pounds of added weight on the barbell.
The Warm-up Period
Very few people have jobs that require much physical exertion. You sit at a desk. You move a lot without being conscious of your muscles. So when it comes time to exercise, it’s important to let your body warm up. You can use that period to tune in mentally as well as physically.
Give your body a chance to adjust to the new activity. It’s a way of saying to the body, “I’m giving you a warm-up now, take your time, fall into it easily. In a few minutes I’m going to hit you hard!” That should be your attitude toward your muscles. Do a warm-up of push-ups, pull-downs, squats with no weights, circling your arms around and a series of stretching movements.
I always warm up the specific body parts I want to train. For example, for the shoulders and arms I take a 30- or 40-pound weight, which is really light, and do twenty or thirty repetitions to get a lot of blood into the area. I do curls with light weights, then some triceps bench presses and behind-the-neck presses to warm up the elbow area and the shoulder joints and loosen up my shoulders and arms. I don’t try to build the muscle, I only get the blood flowing. The danger of not warming up and preparing your body for heavier resistance training is that you may tear your muscles and get aches that will discourage you from continuing.
When I was training for contests, I’d sometimes be so psyched up mentally I thought I didn’t need a warm-up. I’d go directly into a heavy workout. Without fail, I’d pull muscles needlessly and set myself back two or three months.
Training Partner
I have found that the best way to get great workouts is to have an enthusiastic training partner. You’ll be amazed at how much harder and faster you can work when you have someone to work out with. A good training partner pushes you to handle more poundage and gives you the incentive to grind out more reps per set with a minimum of rest pauses in between (which is real quality training). Workouts are more fun with a partner as well as more competitive. On those days when you feel lazy, your partner pushes you to keep working hard, and you end up with a good workout instead of an incomplete one.
Your partner should be someone you like and respect, someone you want to respect you. You can have little competitions. You say to him, “I feel good, today. I’m going to put 200 pounds in the bar and do ten repetitions instead of eight.” And he says, “If you do ten I’ll do twelve.” You challenge each other and yourselves. You bet a mug of beer or a bottle of wine. All these little gimmicks, as childish as they may sound, make a workout exciting, interesting and much more rewarding.
The Basic Exercises
Let me say a word about the ten exercises in this chapter. They are geared for the major muscle groups—not for little muscle groups. They are basic to the development of the major areas of your body. They will give you the foundation and mass you’ll need for later refinement. You must use them in the beginning, and you must continue to use them as you progress. The first exercise, the bench press, is absolutely necessary for a big chest. There is no exercise to replace it. I started doing the bench press when I was fifteen and I’ve been doing it now for fourteen years.
These exercises are to be done three times a week, with one day between workouts for mending and setting. Basically, the theory is simple. In the beginning you will be training your whole body in one day. This should be followed by a rest day because it takes forty-eight hours for the muscles to recuperate, to rebuild to their normal size and grow bigger. If you trained a muscle every day it would slowly deteriorate—you would be just tearing it down and not rebuilding it. Also, you need forty-eight hours to let the joints recuperate. Since, in the beginning, you will do basic movements for every muscle at each workout, you need a day of rest between your sessions in the gym.
The basic exercises will appear throughout the entire training program. There are no alternatives to these exercises. For example, every bodybuilder has to do squats from the time he starts until he finishes. You can’t build your legs without the squat. The detail stuff that gives you more definition is fine, but the basic thigh muscle can only be developed and maintained by doing heavy squats. If you try to get away from them the size of the muscle will go down. Barbell curls, triceps extensions behind the neck, calf raises, sit-ups are the same—you can’t get around them. Basic exercises work directly on the muscle. You fall into a groove and don’t even have to think about anything except the pump and the form of the exercise. With the complicated exercises, you have to concentrate all your thought on the exercise and not the muscle. I think the reason some bodybuilders use delicate exercises, which I call chicken exercises, is that they don’t feel confident with the basic movements or with themselves. The bench press seems so sim
ple, they think they should do something more complicated. But you can’t use as much weight when you make the exercise difficult, so it takes away from the meaning of heavy training.
It all goes back to mental attitude, back to being confident in your program. You have to believe that sooner or later you will achieve the body you want. You won’t waste your time searching for programs, exotic food supplements and “secret” exercises. There are no “secret” exercises in bodybuilding. The secret is not what exercises to do but how to do them.
Sets and Repetitions
In the beginning—unless stated otherwise in the specific exercise—I would suggest doing three sets of 8 to 10 repetitions of each exercise. Thirty sets altogether should be done in 45 minutes, or at most, an hour. This allows for a 30-second rest period between sets.
1. BENCH PRESS—This is the number-one exercise for increasing the mass of the upper body, especially the pectoral muscles. Lie down on the exercise bench with your feet approximately 18 inches apart for support. Using a fairly wide grip (as in photo) lower the barbell until it touches your chest about nipple level and then ram it back up overhead. Lock your elbows at the top. Inhale deeply on the way down, exhale going up. Use the add-weight system (add a small amount of weight at the beginning of each set) for five sets (8, 8, 6, 6, 6 reps respectively).
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