By Charles Poliquin
Q; I’m a personal trainer, and I get a lot of resistance from potential female clients who think that increasing their muscle mass will have no real benefits. How can I answer them?
A: Increasing your muscle and bone mass offers myriad health benefits. The very extreme muscular women you may have seen have had hormone “support” to build their overblown muscles—better known as “East German acupuncture.”
Here’s what you should tell those who frown on gaining a few kilos of muscle mass:
1) The more muscle and bone mass you have, the greater the acid-buffering power you create; that is, you now have more protein, potassium, magnesium and calcium to buffer the acidity in your body. The more alkaline you are, the greater the endurance potential of your body and the greater your immune power, thus the better your chances of surviving cancer or the swine flu.
2) According to research out of Tufts University, the greater your muscle mass, the greater your longevity potential. It is, in fact, the number-one biomarker of longevity, a far better predictor than total cholesterol or blood pressure.
3) The more muscle you have, the more insulin receptor sites you have, and the more sensitive they are. Increased muscle prevents diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Translation: The more muscle you have, the easier it is to have low bodyfat.
4) The more muscle you have, the more you burn calories at rest. It’s estimated that for every pound of muscle you gain, you burn an extra 50 calories a day.
5) The more muscle you have, the more strength you have, which is the number-two predictor of longevity, according to the same researchers from Tufts University. Strength is always empowering. You never know when that new level of strength may come in handy.
6) In my 30 years of experience as a strength coach, for every pound of lean tissue gained, there was an equal amount of bodyfat loss. In other words, the body composition changed dramatically. For example, a female executive weighing in at 132 pounds with 20 percent bodyfat has about 25 pounds of fat. So if she gains about eight pounds of muscle mass and loses eight pounds of fat at the same time in 10 weeks, her bodyfat will be 13 percent at the end of the 10 weeks. Her body will look tremendously better.
Q: My arms have been at a sticking point for a long time. What do you recommend?
A: I would put your arms in jachère. That’s a French word used in agriculture that means to put to rest for a brief period. A long time ago, farmers figured out that crops grew better if you rotated them on a plot of land. So when a piece of land was not sowed, it was called terre en jachère—in other words, “land resting.”
I’ve found that one of the best ways to make arms grow is to abstain from doing direct work for them about four months out of the year. That’s right, not one single set of curls or extensions for 16 weeks. During that period you should concentrate on improving your poundages on pressing, rowing and chinning exercises.
Don’t freak out. Yes, you may lose some size on your upper arms, but it will be no more than one-quarter to a half inch. Most individuals, however, actually experience a growth spurt in upper-arm circumference during the rest period.
If you want to try a four-month layoff from direct arm training, set yourself a poundage goal for six reps maximum for one flat-bench pressing exercise, one incline or overhead press and one chinup exercise.
A sample goal profile for an intermediate 195-pound bodybuilder might look like this:
• Flat-bench presses, 260 x 6
• Incline dumbbell presses, 115s x 6
• Chinups, bodyweight + 30-pound dumbbell x 6
If you have a goal for those lifts, you’re going to be more committed to your training plan. Also, your arms may actually reach new heights of development.
Once you return to direct arm work, cut back your chest and upper-body training volume by 40 percent in terms of total sets and do eight to 12 sets each for the elbow flexors and the triceps. That will definitely send your arms into a new growth spurt.
Q: A friend of mine just attended one of your seminars in Denmark. He says that you stay in very good shape. What’s your secret for maintaining discipline?
A: There is no such thing as discipline. There is only love. You are the result of what you love most. You either love finely etched muscular abs more than doughnuts, or you love doughnuts more than having washboard abs that you could do your laundry on. It’s as simple as that.
Don’t beat yourself up about having no discipline and further drown yourself in a sea of refined carbs. Just admit that you like crappy food more than you love strength. Or ask yourself, What do I really love?
Self-esteem is the reflection of self-judgment. One of the best ways to raise self-esteem is to make truly loving choices that lead to increased strength of body and mind. For example, if you truly love yourself in the gym, you choose the full squat with chains over the leg extension machine.
At the restaurant, if you truly love yourself, you pass on the heavenly smelling basket of bread and creamy butter and ask for some more limes for the water so you can further alkalize yourself, which helps your bones and muscles and your ability to deal with cortisol, a hormone that works against building muscle.
When you’re facing difficult choices, ask yourself—in context, of course—What would the expert acting as a loving parent recommend? For example, when working chest, would a loving strength coach recommend the pec deck or full-range dumbbell bench presses? Another example: When choosing desserts, would the loving nutritionist recommend a bowl of berries or the triple-decker brownie submerged in vanilla ice cream?
Here’s how to free yourself from the outdated concept of discipline:
1) Accept that all of your choices are reflections of what you truly love.
2) Love is the greatest creative force in the universe. Use it wisely.
3) Choose to love yourself more than external things.
4) Treat yourself outstandingly well to accelerate the growth of your self-esteem.
5) When people comment on your results and say things like, “Wow, you have a lot discipline,” answer, “No, I just make loving choices for myself.” Reinforcing your own positive behavior will make you grow in strength.
6) What you appreciate appreciates. Whenever you make a truly loving choice, say to yourself, “Oh, thank you for taking care of me in a loving way.” The more you talk to yourself like a loving parent, the faster you will grow. Let’s say, for example, that you just did a single on the squat with a load you did not feel like doing but still did. Say, “Wow! I’m impressed with your strength of mind; that’s why you’re a champion.” If you document and reward your success, it will grow in magnitude and frequency.
Whenever I meet a goal, I reward myself with positive things like a vacation or a new piece of equipment. When I get something better, I make the choice of giving away the old piece to someone who will appreciate it. Living a clutter-free life makes for more growth.
7) The more you believe in yourself, the more objectively you’ll be able to analyze the advice of authority figures.
8) “Use your faults” was French singer Edith Piaf’s motto. I don’t like to stretch athletes—too time-consuming, requires too much energy. À la Piaf, I developed a system that uses myriad body-work techniques, such as acupressure points that instantly increase flexibility. No wonder it has always been the fastest-selling course we offer.
There is an old Hindu saying: “The world is as we are.” Are you tired of seeing obese people around you? Start by changing yourself—be the change you want to see the world make.
source:www.ironmanmagazine.com
