If you watched the webcast of the 2009 IFBB Mr. Olympia contest (or followed the results on any of the many websites covering it), you probably noticed Jay Cutler return to the stage with a lifetime best conditioning, and at a very light body weight to boot. He wasn’t the mass monster of years past. In 2003 or 2004, he would have been lucky to grab 6th place with a physique like that. However, in 2009 he won the Sandow trophy with this new level of shape – not size. Even though he still had a certain level of blockiness unavoidable because of his frame, he still managed to win the whole show. It wasn’t only Jay. Look at Branch Warren, Phil Heath, Kai Greene, and Dexter Jackson. They rounded out the top 5, ...

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Winning bodybuilding a show isn’t about who can bring the most muscle to the stage on any given Saturday night. It’s not about which man is the most conditioned. It’s not about who is the best poser, the best looking, or who can move the most weight. Instead, the winner of any given bodybuilding show is the man who arrives onstage with the best possible combination of muscle mass, conditioning, symmetry, shape, and presentation. In the professional bodybuilding ranks, it’s difficult to pick out a winner, in many cases. Every man in the top 6 at any show has a perfect combination of body parts, delivers great genetic shape, and has attained a great degree of conditioning. In other words, everyone at that level has everything put together right. At that level, flaws just ...

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Pre-Contest Sodium Manipulation As the competition date looms closer for competitive bodybuilders, sodium manipulation becomes essential for presenting the driest package possible onstage. Sodium is normally present in the body at very high levels. A balance occurs which allows potassium to be pumped into the body, and the (dietary intaken) sodium to be pumped out. This requires potassium levels to be very high as well. In the two weeks before the show, add salt to every meal. Keep your potassium levels high as well thru supplementation. This process is called sodium loading. The day before the show, cut out all sodium sources. Since potassium is still pumping at a high level, it will excrete all the sodium from the body overnight and you will present a dry package onstage Creatine Loading Drop all creatine from your diet 5 ...

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Bodybuilders like Bill Pearl and Casey Viator exemplified outstanding forearms in the 1950s and 1960s.  In the 1970s, Serge Olivia was king of the forearms.  The 1980s saw thick, insane forearms on men like Bertil Fox.  In the 1990s, Steve Brisbois had perhaps the best ‘hamhocks’ in the business.  And today, top pro Phil Heath is known for his almost cartoon-like forearms. First off, it should be noted that some bodybuilder never train their forearms.  Their forearms receive secondary stimulation from gripping the barbell, on exercises such as deadlifts and barbell rows. They also become highly involved in arms exercises such as barbell and dumbbell curls, and on triceps movements, to a lesser extent.  Seeing as they are professional bodybuilders with a wealth of contributing factors (proper nutrition, amazing genetics, and superior steroid stacks), the combination of these factors plus the ...

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Q:  I’m what you could call a life-style bodybuilder. I’ll never compete but, being over 30, I really need to watch what I eat. With a busy lifestyle, this is no easy thing. Any advice on how I can construct a lifestyle diet plan that’s practical for a busy guy? A: What we’re talking about here are lifestyle modifications that will stick with you for the rest of your life. There are a number of principles that need to be applied in order to achieve a healthy lifetime bodybuilding-eating regimen. Of course, it also requires a hell of a lot of discipline, especially at the outset. So, if you’re prepared to supply that, then here’s what you have to do . . . (1) Devise a simple menu adjustment and repeat it: Rather than going hell for leather and burning out early, ...

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Q:  What is an appropriate age for kids to start lifting weights? A: For decades we were fed the line that kids under 15 were not yet ready for weight training – apparently their bones were too brittle. Meanwhile, the western world has stumbled into an obesity epidemic that is threatening to devour our children. Fortunately, most informed specialists now realize that properly supervised weight training is not an unsafe activity for children. According to Dr. Avery Faigenbaum of the University of Massachusetts in Boston, “the risk of injury while strength training is actually lower than many other children’s sports and activities.” In fact, nearly all major medical and fitness organizations in the United States now support some form of supervised strength training program. So how old should the kid be? Dr. Faigenbaum suggests that if a child is ready for organized sports, then ...

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Contract with major supplement company… $100,000 Prize money from last major body building show… $75,000 Annual take from guest posing stints… $40,000 Amount saved from having strippers give you lap dances for free… $200 Running into jr. high class bully at Ralph’s pulling food stamps out of dirty jeans… PRICELESS! Is body building as glamorous as you once imagined? Is it all that, or is it all that and the bag of chips you never bargained for? Does it read like a “Mastercard® Priceless ad” or does it read more like this: Annual personal training salary… $30,000 Money from nude posing stints… $5000 Last cycle price… $10,000 Monthly rent at beachside apartment… $2000 Credit card debt when personal training was slow… $5000 Guest posing -minus clothes- for gay men to buy food, and earn additional $10,000 for attorney’s fees to beat recent steroid charge… PRICELESS! If you’re one of the legions of ...

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