How did the term “pythons” get lost from our collective bodybuilding vocabulary? Those of you old enough to remember Hulk Hogan in his Wrestlemania heyday recall how in his interviews, he would flex his ridiculously tanned arms, slathered and glistening in baby oil, shouting about his “24-inch pythons, brother!” I don’t know about you, but those over-the-top histrionics motivated the hell out of me to go run and do some curls with the chrome EZ-curl bar in my basement in hopes of having pythons like the Hulkster. At the time, mine were most definitely more like garter snakes. But times change and sometimes catchphrases simply don’t catch on for good. However, since power and pump both start with “p” just like pythons, I’m bringing it back just this once. Feel free to use it if you like. Aren’t you all getting a little tired of saying “guns” all the time?
Destined to Have Huge Freaking Arms
Some of us are meant to have humongous arms and some of us aren’t (dammit). Gustavo belongs to the former group for sure, and the signs were there pretty early on. As a teenager, he was an amateur boxer hoping to turn professional. His coach still believed in the old myth that weights would ruin his speed and flexibility, so the only strength training Badell did was push-ups, dips and chin-ups. By age 18, he was a wiry but muscular 5-foot-7, 140, with 16-inch arms. After a few amateur matches, his coach decided he would be better off moving up a weight class, and at last gave the green light to some weight training. Two months later, he had indeed gained 10 pounds of muscle and over an inch on his arms. The Arnold-like peaks he has today began to emerge and friends and strangers alike began to comment on them.
Gustavo was at a crossroads as to whether or not he wanted to continue boxing, but soon threw his gloves away forever. “I had to be honest with myself,” he says. “I was good, but I was not great. I knew I wasn’t good enough to go to the Olympics or to fight internationally, so there would never be any money in fighting for me. Plus, I saw all these guys who had been boxing for years. Their faces were all deformed and scarred, and they had these cauliflower ears. Some of them, the ones who had been fighting a long time, seemed a little slow from being punched in the head a million times. I decided I wanted to become a champion bodybuilder.”
Venezuela was not the optimal location to accomplish such a goal, as Gustavo learned. “I knew that in America there were better gyms, better supplements, everything that would help me do what I wanted to do,” he says. “Bodybuilding in Caracas was about 10 or 12 years behind the USA in most ways.” For two years he lived in Dover, New Jersey, before a two-month stay in Orlando changed everything. He met a gorgeous young lady named Jessica Rodriguez who was there on vacation, and struck up a romance before she returned to her home in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Since he had family in San Juan himself, it took Gustavo about five minutes to decide to move there to be with his new love. Now they have been married for five years and have a two-year-old daughter.
Gustavo turned pro in 1997 at the Caribbean and Central American Championships and has spent the past few years dreaming of the day when he would be all over the magazines like the other top pros, sharing his training secrets and becoming one of the recognized names in the sport of bodybuilding. Hoy es ese dia, mi amigo (today is that day, friend)! Come on now- you don’t think I could be married to a Cuban for 13 years and not pick up a little Spanish?
This month we break down what Gustavo does for his powerful pythons. At his off-season weight of 265, they now tape out at 22-1/2 bulging inches. Even dieted down to his contest weight of 240, they are still 21-1/2 inches. “And it’s weird, when I am lean, they actually look a lot bigger; I guess it’s an illusion,” he notes. As usual, I will preface the following by saying that Gustavo has exceptional genetics for building very large arms with great shape and roundness to them. While duplicating his routine is no guarantee you will duplicate his results, see if you can pick up some ideas you can use.
Barbell Curl
Biceps in particular have never been a problem for Gustavo to build, and the number-one exercise to which he attributes most of their size is the basic barbell curl. These biceps are just as strong as they look. After a couple of high-rep warm-up sets, Badell will often start with as much as two 45-pound plates on each side of the bar. Sometimes he does straight sets, but a favorite technique for his barbell curls is drop sets. He will begin with two 45s for six to eight reps, then take a 45 off each side for eight to 10 more, and finally swap the 45s for quarters and pump out a final eight to 10 reps. “Man, the pain of the lactic acid burn is intense, and my bi’s get so pumped from those sets,” he laughs. “Sometimes, I look at them in the mirror right after and they don’t even look real to me.” If he does straight sets, it’s four rounds, but with the big drop set, no more than two of those killers are ever done in one workout.
Incline Dumbbell Curl
Next, Gustavo likes to let each arm work independently with dumbbell curls. At times he will do them standing, but more often he prefers performing them lying back on an incline bench. “You get a much better stretch at the bottom of the rep,” he points out. Since he goes very heavy with barbell curls, he doesn’t concern himself with trying to use a lot of weight in the rest of his exercises. Instead, he focuses on perfect form, getting a good contraction at the top and a controlled stretch on the way down. His progression on this exercise is usually 40, 50 and 60-pound dumbbells, all for 10-12 reps each arm.
EZ-Bar Preacher Curl
Now that his biceps strength is starting to falter, it’s time to do his biceps exercises with his upper arms braced and supported. Otherwise, it would be too easy for the front delts to step in and take a lot of the workload away from the beleaguered biceps. To make sure that doesn’t happen, he moves over to the preacher bench. Again, the weight is fairly moderate, especially in light of how enormous his biceps are. A quarter or a 35 on each side for four sets of 10-12 reps is all it takes to get the job done right. “I see a lot of bodybuilders doing this seesaw motion on preachers, but I keep my ass down on the seat at all times where it belongs,” he declares.
Dumbbell Preacher Curl
Rather than an EZ-curl bar, Gustavo sometimes likes to get a little better isolation by using a single dumbbell and concentrating on just one arm at a time. “One tip I have is to go all the way down; some guys want to use these big heavy dumbbells and they only lower their arm halfway. Don’t waste your time. I only need a 50-pounder to do this one right, so you probably don’t need a 60 or 70.” 
Concentration Curl
And in the tradition of many a top bodybuilder before him, Badell often likes to finish off biceps with concentration curls. If he has done his preacher curl with a bar that day, he is more likely to include this movement. “You get the best results with this one when you go nice and slow, almost in slow motion,” he says. “If you have been flinging the weight up, try it slower and see if you don’t feel it a lot more in your biceps.”
Skull Crushers
It’s time to move on to tri’s now. Skull crushers are Gustavo’s all-time favorite mass builder and he never trains triceps without making sure this one comes first. He does this so he can work it while his energy and strength levels are at their highest, and he can give it 100 percent both mentally and physically. Gustavo feels that lying extensions, which he calls French presses, are the absolute most effective exercise for adding mass to the triceps. He warms up with just the bar for 20-30 reps to start the blood flowing and grease the gears up properly. He will do one more light set of 20-30 reps before getting into the work sets.
He starts with one 45-pound plate on each side for his first set. Fixing his elbows so they point 
skyward, he lowers the bar all the way down in back of his head (so I guess he would never have to worry about actually crushing his skull), then extends straight up for 15-20 reps. His grip is fairly narrow to make the tri’s work even harder. He doesn’t concentrate so much on squeezing here; that will come later with the cable movements. With heavy free weights, he feels good form is enough to stimulate the muscle fibers. He adds weight as the sets progress, a bit heavier for 12-15, then he finally finishes with two plates on each side for 10-12 reps.
Gustavo alternates between doing these on a flat bench or an incline bench from week to week. Aside from the change in angle, it’s essentially the same movement. Gustavo is a big proponent of trying different exercises and angles until you find the ones that feel right for you, rather than just aping what others around you do. Lying back on the incline bench does deliver a much better stretch for the triceps in the bottom position. Again, he lowers the bar to his forehead and does three progressively heavier sets, decreasing the reps as he goes on. He is quick to point out that even he doesn’t use as much here as he does on the flat bench, so keep that in mind if you decide to try it.
Cable Pushdown
Gustavo will usually do one or two extension movements with free weights and finish up with some type of cable pushdown. Most often it’s the standard two-hand version you see here. Though it’s a similar movement to skull crushers, it’s different enough in certain ways to justify doing it in the same workout. “You get constant tension with no sticking points,” 
says Badell. “And because you have tension at the peak contraction of the rep that you don’t really have so much with French presses, you can really squeeze the horseshoes out and get that deep soreness way down in the belly of the muscle.” He keeps his elbows pinned rigidly to his sides and pumps out three or four sets of eight to 10 controlled reps.
Breakout Year, but…
2004 has been a breakout year for Gustavo after his strong showings in the spring shows, but he is not yet where he wants to be. “I want to be one of the top pros, both in terms of how I do in the contests, and the financial side of things,” he says. “I work as a personal trainer in San Juan and Carolina. My first client is usually at 5:30 in the morning and I don’t finish up my last one until 10:30 at night. I know if I were able to rest a little more I could improve a great deal.” But don’t get Badell wrong; he’s very happy to be a part of the sport he loves. “It’s not easy, and there isn’t a lot of money to be made until you get way up the ranks, but I love it. And I know I still have a lot of potential to fulfill.”
Gustavo’s next show is the Olympia, where he definitely plans on doing better than his Vegas debut in 2002. “I was just happy to be on that stage, but this time, I want to do some damage,” he shares. “Together with my coach and friend Milos Sarcev, I will put a package together that’s even better than what you saw at the Pro Ironman. We are gunning for the top 10 this time.”
I’ll be there to see you flex those monster pythons, Gustavo, so go get ‘em!
SIDEBAR
Gustavo’s Top Three Tips for Arms
- 1. Never train biceps after back, or triceps after chest or shoulders. If you do, they won’t be able to work as hard as they could if you hit them fresh. Hitting them on their own training day is a good idea.
- 2. Always mix up your exercises from week to week. Any muscle group quickly adapts, then growth stops. But at the same time, keep free weights in your routine at all times. Focus more on using barbells and dumbbells and less on cables and machines if you really want big arms.
- 3. Don’t worry about measurements. Someone can have 23-inch arms with no shape to them, and another guy can have arms with better shape that look as big or bigger, even if they’re 17 or 18 inches. And also remember, the fat lady at the circus has 20-inch arms, but you wouldn’t want to see her flex them. Don’t gain a lot of blubber and tell yourself it’s muscle.
Training Split*
Monday: shoulders and biceps
Tuesday: chest, calves, abs
Wednesday: quads (A.M.)
hams (P.M.)
Thursday: OFF
Friday: back, calves
Saturday: triceps and traps
Sunday: OFF
*This is a sample of how he may divide his body parts. Gustavo’s actual split changes on a regular basis to keep the muscles guessing.
source:musculardevelopment.com
