2Ripped4U

I copied this off IM with Dantes permission..in his own words...

"I really dont understand this. Ive answered these questions over and over and over so many times in the last 4 years. Im starting to think I should just never write a post again as noone ever reads the damn things anyway. I went over all these in the 4 articles on Anabolic Extreme. They are answered time and time again on the Dogg Logg and Cycles for Pennies and the stickys up top.....Ive commented too many times already to people to stop the goddamn overanalyzing and worrying on statics and counting the negative seconds of every rep, yet every month people are still freaking out about these 2 factors.

1)CONTROL THE FREAKING WEIGHTS DOWNWARD DESCENT--thats all--forget the stopwatch, the stupidest thing I ever did was try to get people doing this correctly by telling them to go 4-6 seconds down---but I had too because when you got shit heavy weights in your hands and are fired up for your rest pause set and breathing like a locomotive, you tend to count off seconds really fast so 4-6 means actually in true life 2-3 seconds--my fault, I had no idea that everyone would get so anal about it and use stopwatches and training partners to count their negative part down

2)Statics---everyone freaks out about statics, am i doing them right? am I doing them wrong? I REALLY COULD GIVE A SHIT IF YOU DO STATICS OR NOT--THEY, I REPEAT THEY ARE THE LEAST PRODUCTIVE THING IN ALL MY METHODS. They might mean 2% and thats about it yet everyone on all these boards are freaking out about the statics. IN CAPITAL LETTERS BECAUSE I WANT THIS TO GET THRU EVERYONES HEAD, YOUR WEIGHT PROGRESSION (AND NOT STATICS AND EVERYTHING ELSE YOU WORRY AND OVERANALYZE) THAT YOU USE IN TRAINING IS THE ULTIMATE DETERMINING FACTOR IN ALL THIS. If this year your using 100lbs and you worry all about the negative and statics and next year your using 105lbs--GUESS WHAT....Your going to be small!!!! Crap gains! Zilch, nothing! If this year your using 100lbs and next year you busted your ass and are using 200lbs your going to be very close to double the muscle size you had! Are you getting it now? Just control the descent of your weights and be steadily explosive (but not bouncing) on the positive. With statics, they are an afterthought in your arsenal here. You use them for time under tension reasons and more so mentally to pysche yourself and convince yourself that you can toy with this weight. Yet some of you guys look at statics like its the be all end all. Beating your logbook is the priority here, statics is nothing more than a very slight extension of your set and should take on no more importance than that!

3)Slow negatives on deadlifts, heavy back movements and really heavy squats. Cmon guys who keep asking this same freaking question over and over---Do you think its very prudent common sense wise to do a 500lb deadlift and take 6 seconds on the negative?????? I want control--i want you always feeling like you are powering the weight instead of it powering you. On a deadlift I dont even want you thinking about counting negative seconds, I want you just being safe, in good form, and a human forklift.......One more time--CONTROL!!!! You control the weight down with the determining factor being safety of the exercise and proper form. On a shoulder press that might mean a true 3-4 second negative and on a deadlift that might mean a 1 second negative--on a squat that might mean a true 2-4 second negative, on a preacher bench curl that might mean a true 6 second negative--I WANT CONTROL

4) Rest pausing on heavy back thickness and leg movements. The newbies keep questioning this over and over. I AM MAKING YOU INTO SOMETHING REMEMBER THAT. IM MAKING YOU INTO THE STRONGEST BODYBUILDER YOUR GENETICS WILL ALLOW AND WITH THAT WILL BE A TREMENDOUS INCREASE IN MUSCLE SIZE. Theres a huge and i means huge difference in doing a 185lbs deadlift for reps that some weak beginning bodybuilder is starting out doing and a 400-550lb for reps floor deadlift that an advanced bodybuilder will be doing. (im going to make you into an advanced bodybuilder so get it right now!) If you rookies out there think that you can do a 450lbs deadlift to failure for 8 reps and then take 15 deep breathes and start pulling again without huge risk of injury, your sadly mistaken. Your form because of the fatigue, tiredness and most of all trying to pull from a dead stop again 15 breathes later, is going to be so whacked trying to get that bar moving again that your asking for a major injury. With heavy leg movements the young, weak, starting out bodybuilders have no idea where your going with this again. Your 225lb squat for 8 reps to failure means shit compared to where your going to end up in the long run. So you might be able to do 225lbs rack it and take 15 deep breathes and do 3-4 more and then rest pause again and do 1-2 more. Do you think you are going to be able to do that with 400-500lbs on your back with your knees wrapped up tight with Inzer wraps........and doing everything in your power to stay in proper form so you dont get injured? This is why there are 2 sets for legs, a brutal 4-8 (or 6-10 if its leg press or hack) and then the widowmaker set of 20 reps?
I mean can you tell im getting very very frustrated here. All of these things have been said time and time again by me and a whole slew of my trainees on boards yet its not clicking or they arent reading it......or they just want it spoon fed to them. To see the guys on this board have to answer the same repetitive questions over and over to every new guy when the info is a click away, pains me to no end.
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Cruising--I want to clear some things up about this. As much as I like people to keep the training in correct format because Ive experimented with this stuff so much and I think I have a feel for what is working best, with blasting and cruising it can be individualistic.

With Natural guys, they usually go 5 weeks to 14 weeks blasting and then take a 2 week cruise--the norm seems to be somewhere between 7 weeks blasting and 12 weeks blasting. You read this by being in tune with your body and when you start feeling worn out and not really wanting to give the logbook an ass kicking--its time to cruise. But dont make a major mistake that some nattys do which is simply refusing to take a day off. Sometimes that rectifies the whole situation right there. At that moment because of various problems, lack of sleep, stress, etc you read that as a time to cruise but basically all you need is to skip a workout and pick up the schedule on the next day and your right back to normal. Now if you take a day off and you get that 3-4 days of straight rest and still feel listless and unmotivated, hey then its time to cruise. I will give you some examples of what some of my nat trainees do

7 weeks blasting 2 weeks cruising
12 weeks blasting 2 weeks cruising
5 weeks blasting 7 days cruising
8 weeks blasting 7-10 days cruising

As you can see above its personal choice how long you want to blast and cruise. Some guys take the 2 weeks cruise some guys like it shorter. Its up to you. I also have some guys that train pretty hard with straight sets during this time (but short of failure) and some guys that kind of just wing it (either way is going to work--your just maintaining)_______

continued

2Ripped4U

Again from DC...a post on "OVERANALYZING"
"Im seeing a repetitive phenomenon with the people I train that I want to state here. Ive trained alot of people now in the last 2 years on the net and also in person previously. I keep noticing the same things-basically on how various trainees brain's work. When people contact me for training, the guys who have a big work ethic and believe in a system of training whether its mine or westside or 5x5 or whatever, and hammer it and hammer it hard come to me as big people already. These are the bodybuilders you see out there in the street. Big guys that you know lift, there is no doubt that they are bodybuilders. On the other hand I have gotten alot of guys who have been lifting 5-10 years and you would never know they lifted even once unless they made it a point to tell you about it (and many do--LOL). And Ill tell you what the overwhelming continual trait those guys have. THEY OVERTHINK THIS, OVERANALYZE, keep second guessing themselves, follow this routine this month and that routine the next, and Flex magazine the third month. It all depends on what they happen to read that week. HOW THE HELL DO YOU KNOW WHAT WORKS IF YOU SWITCH IT EVERY DAMN MONTH? Ive showed TPC some of these emails in the warehouse and he didnt realize the extent of what I was telling him about. Ive had a couple guys in the last 2 months who have been lifting for 5-10 years and by their pics it would be embarrassing to tell anyone that they actually lift. Both of these guys are sending me emails talking about iso-tension at the top of bicep curls, worrying up and down about the statics, should i flex the pinky finger inward to make more of a contraction on my alternate curl, should my forearm be perpendicular to the earths axis at the bottom of the shoulder press (you get the drift). I went off on one guy and felt bad about it after but he kept saying "well how I used to do it is..." and "well Ive always done it this way" My answer was "well why do you look like shit if your old way worked so well"? Noone will ever know who these trainees are because its my business only but I want them to read this to get it clear in their heads. If you double triple or quadruple your training weights in good safe form over the next year/s or so your basically (with diet) going to be double or triple your current muscular size. If your going to sit there and overanalyze this shit like its rocket science (which it isnt I dont care what anyone tries to make it out to be) and worry about things that really arent going to add up to pounds of muscle mass, then blame yourself when you never get there. Are you going to be a happy man at 50 years old when you look back and think "Wow I screwed up, I never looked like a bodybuilder, never achieved my goals, never got dramatically bigger, and its gone now.....IM too old to make up for that lost time" because thats where alot of you are heading if you dont get your heads on straight. I blame alot of the muscle magazines for this. Alot of articles are ghost written for pros or are solo articles by people who are 165lbs who never made a huge change in their physique themselves. They try to portray lifting weights as this huge science (and they splurge up their articles with 8 vowel words and searching thru the thesaurus to find a word that makes them look extremely intelligent)--I go back to the beggining of cycles for pennies on this---The absolute strongest you can make yourself in all exercises, coupled with food intake to eat your way up to the new musculature will allow you to hold the most muscle mass on your body that your genetics predetermine. You want to worry bout something? Worry about that damn logbook. Worry about staying uninjured in your quest. Worry about not missing any meals. Worry about somehow someway making yourself the strongest bodybuilder you can become. Im not talking singles here. Im talking 9-15 reps rest paused. A brute. A behemoth. A human forklift. I guess i had to use this post to vent because TPC saw me pissed off in the warehouse today after answering emails such as "Dante should I try to isolate the upper portion of the pec muscle and hold the peak contraction and flex hard at the top of every rep for about 5 seconds?" If you have been lifting many years with no muscle mass to show the last thing you need to worry about is peak contraction--GET THE DAMN WEIGHT UP AND BEAT THE LOGBOOK WITH BIG WEIGHT JUMPS (and then Ill and you will be happy)"

DC again.
"I probably should of written this a while back but I see alot of people asking about it now. Schedules. Most of the people I personally train I have them on the monday wenesday friday monday scheme with bodyparts split like this
a)
Chest
Shoulders
Triceps
Back width
BAck thickness

b)
biceps
forearms
calves
hams
quads

What is important about that is there is always a day between workouts and that lends itself to all important recovery/rest. Another variation of this above that some of the really heavy trainers I train like is Tues (full workout) Thurs (full workout) Sat (half workout) Sun (other half workout)

But some people have hectic haphazard schedules and they either have to do extremely short workouts or they skip lifting altogether. Obviously I would rather not have them skip workouts. What I do with those people works right along the same lines as the M W F M scheme I always use--almost the same frequency with extremely short workouts. And if anyone I personally train likes this schedule better I have no problem with them going over to it. It is Mon Tues Thurs Fri (with weekends off) or something to that effect according to their schedule and the body is split up like this:

A)
biceps
forearms
back width
back thickness

B)
Chest
Shoulders
Triceps

C)
Calves
Hams
Quads


So you see that on Friday biceps and back is hit again and then the next week workout b will be hit twice and during week 3 workout c will be hit twice. The frequency of bodyparts hit is almost like the original M W F M plan. The downsides to this way are the obvious non day off between workouts and you have to be very very careful with order of exercises on this plan. For example I would never have you doing full range deadlifts the day after a squat day--you would be destroyed. You have to look over the whole scheme and make sure your back thickness exercise is not going to be effected by your hamstring or quad exercise. I would probably skip stiff legged deadlifts for hamstrings totally during this routine because of the heavy back thickness exercises. I would probably rotate seated standing and lying leg curls for someone doing this. Your workouts though would be 25-45 minutes tops and thats tops and your out of there. The bad points of setting it up this way is that you lose that whole day of rest between workouts and Ive seen over time that most people seem to gain a slight bit better with that full day of rest. The other bad point is although the frequency of bodyparts trained is similiar, its a bit less over time (bodyparts trained 80 times a year in the M W F scheme and 69 times a year in the second scheme above) .........So you guys with busy busy schedules who need to get in there and out fairly quickly could feasibly use the latter schedule. TPC uses the second schedule and loves it and reluctantly, Im going to have to go to this new schedule soon even though my best gains are off of the original MWF--my daily schedule is getting overwhelming with work and my time is getting very very limited.

PS: I put back/bis before chest/shoulder/tri in the rotation because alot of people get really sore in the shoulder/chest area the day after chest. This can make it very hard sometimes on back width and back thickness exercises (especially back width) and Im trying to keep injuries to a minimum. The downside to this is when leg day falls directly after chest day, you are going to have to stretch out thoroughly in the delt/chest area to get your shoulders/arms on the bar for squatting."

DC on contest prep training..
"Lets face it dieting down for a show or just getting all bodyfat off you can be brutal and I wanted to show you guys how Im doing this with people. As carbs get real low its so hard to train nevermind trying to beat the logbook (impossible) during this time and I make provisions for that to keep the most muscle mass on someone. This kind of goes in stages determined by the individual and not me. The individual himself/herself switches over when he feels its neccessary.

[b]continued

2Ripped4U

Continued
"Stage one: Joe bodybuilder keeps doing what he is doing mon wed fri with restpausing just like its done in the offseason and he tries his best to keep beating the logbook for as long as he can. You definitely want to stay with what got you all that muscle mass in the offseason as long as you can safely do it. Im noticing more and more that my heavest training guys like the tues (full workout), thursday (full workout) and saturday (half workout), sunday (half workout) scheme better than the mon wed fri one. I would definitely be recommending that to people like the Inhuman one and Friggin Huge who toss around slag iron like human forklifts. For various reasons its a little easier on the mind and feels like your doing only 2 superhuman workouts a week and getting alot more rest in.

Stage two: Joe bodybuilder is really feeling the effects of everything and is starting to tire rapidly during workouts. So at this point he goes over to this scheme.

Monday: Chest shoulders triceps
Tuesday: biceps forearms backwidth backthickness
Wed off
Thursday: calves hams quads
Friday: Chest shoulders triceps
Saturday off
Sunday off
Monday: biceps forearms backwidth backthickness
Tuesday: calves hams quads
Wed off and so on and so on

He keeps on rest pausing during this time. His workouts/stretching will be very very short and this will rekindle the fire somewhat. He could also do the above scheme on the Mon Wed Fri regimen but I would rather he do it the above way if he could so he could still keep on a advanced timeXbodyparts hit schedule but either way will work

Stage three: This is usually anywhere from 6 to 3 weeks out from a show and all the way in --when a bodybuilder is really depleted and feels like a walking zombie. At this point for safety reasons and just severe depletion/exhaustion reasons we no longer restpause. Your not going to be gaining muscle mass the last 2 months before a show so for gods sake dont push the envelope and get a muscle tear or bad injury here trying to do something thats not going to happen anyway. At this point you stay on this scheme

Monday: Chest shoulders triceps
Tuesday: biceps forearms backwidth backthickness
Wed off
Thursday: calves hams quads
Friday: Chest shoulders triceps
Saturday off
Sunday off
Monday: biceps forearms backwidth backthickness
Tuesday: calves hams quads
Wed off and so on and so on

but you no longer rest pause so I want you to do 2 different exercises for straight sets for every bodypart. For example monday is chest shoulders triceps, you would go in and do something hypothetically like this

Chest: Incline smythe for 10-20 reps and then flat dumbell presses for 15-30 reps both straight setted
Shoulders: shoulder press machine for 10-20 reps and then maybe upright rows for 12-20 reps straight setted
Triceps: dip machine for 12-20 reps and pushdowns for 12-20 reps straight setted

Thought you guys might like to see how I have guys do this. Also during precontest its a pretty good idea to always be safe and by that i mean be extra careful with things. With restpausing always try to stay in the higher of the rep range. Which means if I have you going 11-15rp for something in the offseason, try to keep around the 15rp (of even higher if you have any nagging injuries). With stretching, lower your stretching weights and just stay really flexible but dont be doing stupid things like using 120lb dumbells in the fly position to stretch your chest. Its a vulnerable time and its a time that you be smart and careful."

Posted by Massive G
http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache...himself.&hl=en

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