At The Crossroads

WHERE'S BENNY?

First of all I'd like to clear one thing up I've always remained natural. I have never up to this point in my career taken any steroids or any such like drugs. I have always stayed within the boundaries of the organizations rules. But that's not to say I've never been tempted.....
After every show I do I always try to get feedback from the judges or the organizers of the show. I usually get good feedback from them however the same statement without fail always come up. You've got the complete package you just need more size. So I go away and do my homework and turn up for the next show bigger and more cut than before, still to no avail. What do the judges say, just a bit more size Lee. So begins the same cycle of trying to get pack on more size but still retain the proportions for the next show. However I'd be lying if I never thought about taking gear, I expect every natural guy has at some point. Also when you compete against guys in a 'natural' contest who come in at 250lbs you've got to think well he's on gear so why can't I. So here I am once again at this crossroad in life. Down one route is the natural way, the other is to go on gear and slap on some serious size. Now I 'm not here to discuss the moral or ethical views of what I did or anyone else. I'm just going to lay it out pure and simple with no holds barred.
I'd just completed the '98 Pro Natural Worlds in the WNBF where I placed a respectable 14th from 45 line up and I'd also just taken the scalp of the previous years world champion. I'd came 14th due to size, I think was mentioned, no kidding. I returned to training as soon possible after the show when was I hit by a most unfortunate accident. While performing some heavy dumbbell incline presses my anterior deltoid, pectorals minor and subclavious decided to part company with the rest of my body. While no tendons were completely shorn I had done quite a lot of damage to the area. Of course the implications of such an injury were devastating to my training and the pain was unimaginable. Now my 3 year old daughter could arm wrestle me and win. This left me with a big headache because how the hell was I going to pack on size when I only had one arm to train with. After many physiotherapy sessions and a couple of cortisone shots, the injury still hadn't abated. A close friend then suggested a course of Deca, "that'll fix you up" I was told. Once again I'd hit that crossroads, one way I could put on the much needed size and alleviate the pain in my shoulder or I could keep natural. I kept natural.
his would mean I'd have to take a completely new strategy to train now. Someone in the gym, knowing my shoulder problem, suggested I take a look at a video they had. It turned out it was one of Paul's own video where he did seminar with Ian Harrison. In it though was a method of training I'd only dabbled with in the past, pre-exhaust. Here was a suggested method of training whereby I wouldn't need to do really heavy compound movements.
My training up until my injury had always been along the lines of
arge muscle group :- 3 exercises with 2 sets per exercise
mall muscle group :- 2 exercises with 2 sets per exercise
tretching was usually carried out between every set.
I trained 4 times week using an antagonistic approach whereby a muscle would be trained with another muscle that had no relation on the first i.e. chest and biceps, back and triceps, legs and shoulders. The whole body would be trained in the first 3 sessions and the 4th would be a repeat of the first session. This meant that one session would be repeated in a week however every week the repeated session would change.
A typical week
onday - chest and biceps
uesday - back and triceps
hursday - legs and shoulders
riday - chest and biceps
The following week the back would be trained twice and on the 3rd week the legs twice.
After an initial warm up each set would be carried out to failure with the first set allowing me to complete 8-10 reps while the 2nd set I'd use a weight that would allow me to carry out 4-6 reps before failure. For years this had been sufficient, I had put on loads of mass and was quite strong as well. Hell, I'd won the Britain this was so it couldn't be that bad.
Due to the injury I couldn't do any compound exercises with any significant kind of weight. This is the beauty of pre-exhaust and where is could really be used to its fullest extent.
After an initial warm up I'd use an isolation exercise with a weight that would allow me to complete 50 reps, obviously very light. The 2nd set would be a triple drop with the first using a weight that would allow 8 reps, followed by a weight that would allow 12 reps and lastly drop to weight that would allow me 20-25 reps. Being pre-exhausted from the first high rep set it meant that on the triple drop I couldn't start as heavy especially if I kept my rest between sets to an absolute minimum. This of course protected my injury.
My training now looked like the following
arge muscle group :- 2 exercises , 1 high rep set followed by 1 triple drop on the first exercise followed by 2 straight sets on the next exercise
mall muscle group :- 2 exercises , 1 high rep set followed by 1 triple drop on the first exercise followed by 2 straight sets on the next exercise.
ecause I didn't want to stress the injury too much I decided to cut back to 3 times a week and work agonist muscles. i.e. chest and triceps, back and biceps. Each body part would only be trained once a week
Potentially using the first routine a certain muscles particularly biceps and triceps would be trained three times a week. This was purely accidental however being natural it meant it didn't give the arms enough time to grow properly. By using the agonist approach it meant that the muscles were only truly trained once a week.
So that was my training in a nutshell. I could still train to failure although it did cause me some pain. I managed to train for the Super body 2000 in New York , may 2000 where I came in even bigger than my previous outing at the worlds and just as cut. I didn't win but I did place 7th in a hard line up.
Hold on you're thinking that can't be it, there must be something else, some special ingredient that he's not telling us about.
Well the diet was pretty standard nothing special at all. Eat about 6-7 times a day keeping calories between the 3000-4000 range, protein being quite high by RDA standards at about 300g per day. A typical day would probably be like this
Breakfast
shredded wheat
/2 pint skimmed milk
avager 5 with 1/2 pint of skimmed milk
Mid-Morning
piece of fruit
andwich (no butter) either 70g of ham or turkey
/3 tin of tuna (water packed)
Lunch
oz meat (chicken/ turkey/ pork )
oz potatoes/ 5oz rice
grapefruit
After Lunch
avager 5 with 1/2 pint of skimmed milk
Afternoon
piece of fruit
andwich (no butter) either 70g of ham or turkey
/3 tin of tuna (water packed)
Training
Straight After Training
50mls orange juice with 15g The Guardian
20 Minutes After Training
avager 5 with water
Evening Meal
oz meat (chicken/ turkey/ pork )
oz potatoes/ 5oz rice
Last Meal
/3 tin of tuna
piece of fruit
XB
So how can I manage to come in each year bigger and more cut than previously without resorting to chemical inputs. Well last year I had to put it purely down to my training changes. Now comes the hard task of doing some more homework and a new plan for next year when I will once again go back and face the Americans, but I'll guarantee you this. I will be back and I will be bigger!