Mike Mentzer

Mike Mentzer was one of those professional bodybuilders that inspired profound thought as much as – if not more than – jaw-dropping awe. He was the epitome of the cerebral strongman, in the same league as Frank Zane.

Mike was not just an awesome bodybuilder; he was a gifted writer, too. I loved reading his articles about High Intensity Training (read one here – Part I: Actualize Your Potential in One Year!, by Mike Mentzer).

Mike almost made it to the top of the professional bodybuilding mountain, coming in second in 1979 to Frank Zane and in fifth the following year to eventual winner, Arnold Schwarzenegger in a hotly-contested 1980 Mr Olympia competition. He retired from competition after the event at the age of 29.

Mike's greatest contribution to the sport was his High Intensity Training (HIT) philosophy, which prescribed low-volume, high effort workouts, using various bodybuilding methods like pre-exhaust, super sets, training to failure, negatives, and the like.

Sadly, Mike Mentzer died in 2001 at the young age of 49. In a strange chain of events, his twin brother, Ray Mentzer, who found Mike dead in their apartment, died two days later.

Mike Mentzer played an instrumental part in my development, not just in my bodybuilding but in my overall personal development. I salute him!

The Metabolism Monster: Teaching Him That Fire Is Good

by Steve Miles

The poor Frankenstein monster! He was so afraid of fire. Granted, you would be afraid of fire too, if you were being constantly harassed by villagers with torches and pitchforks. Now, think of your metabolism as a little monster living inside of you — one that you need to teach to behave the right way. Like the Frankenstein monster, your metabolism seems to be afraid of fire because he is just not burning off the calories like he should be. It is time to teach your inner monster that fire is good.

Whenever you eat anything, it is your metabolism that is supposed to kick into gear. When your metabolism is working correctly the food that you eat will be used for fuel. Anything that is left over after your energy needs are satisfied will be stored for later use or if there is already enough stored energy, stored as fat. The whole goal then becomes to eat what you need for energy and nothing more. If you eat the right amount of food and get the right amount of exercise, the metabolism monster is a good boy and does everything he is supposed to do. However, if you give him too much food to deal with, your metabolism monster will overreact and race back to the tower room, knocking down villagers as he goes. Old Franky might have feared fire, but your metabolism monster has got to learn to love it.

The higher your metabolism, the less likely you are to store excess food in your fat cells. But, keep in mind, the metabolism for all his monstrous possibilities is really timid and shy and can be scared into inactivity in no time at all. Luring him out of the tower room and back to work is the goal. Start by giving him a little less to work with one day. Most diets start off with a really restrictive phase which is meant to get your metabolism kicked back into gear. Once you have your metabolism monster back under some semblance of control (which is evidenced by slow and steady weight loss) you will move into the next phase of the plan which gives you a little more food and a few more options. Adding exercise, especially strength training, at this point will keep your metabolism revved up and moving along. Keep him busy enough and the metabolism monster will not be able to rise up and scare the villagers at all.

If you overeat one day, you may stall your metabolism which will slow your weight loss as well. Ironically, if you under-eat you may do the exact same thing to your metabolism monster. The point is to keep the metabolism monster working at a steady pace. The more he is used to working, the more he will expect to work. Mr. Metabolism monster is not a bad guy, more misunderstood than anything. We eat a dozen cookies and three full glasses of milk and then blame our weight gain on our metabolism. We skip meal after meal and then blame our lack of weight loss on our metabolism. The poor, misunderstood metabolism monster gets the blame in both situations.

Understanding how your metabolism works should be one of the first things that you do when you embark on a weight loss plan. You should arm yourself with knowledge so that you do not chase your poor metabolism monster back to his tower room once again.

About the Author: Steve Miles is a man that finally got in shape in his older years of life. Now he wants to encourage others like him that it is never too late to start working out. Steve's next goal is to finish the workout called Tony Hortons P90X, then he'll work his way up to the Shaun T Insanity Workout by Shaun T.

Meal Planning

Meal Planning for Building Muscle or Losing Body Fat

Here's a reply to an often-asked question:

I'm a big fan of baselining anything and everything. After all, how can you judge progress if you don't know where you started? In that light then, I'd suggest you record what you eat over a 7 day period. I won't tell you to go so far as to weigh and measure everything, but certainly make an attempt at being fairly accurate. The reason I use 7 days and not just one is because people's weight and calorie intake naturally vary day-by-day.

The idea in this 7-day period is to maintain your weight so that we can know your “maintenance caloric intake.” If you gain or lose a pound, don't worry much, but if your weight changes by 3 pounds or more, then we'll have to start over.

It's easiest to eat pre-packaged foods during this time period because those food sources already have the calories, protein, carbs, and fat grams already determined for you. There's a great book called Nutrition Almanac that has all sorts of data about thousands of different food sources. Check out your local bookstore or Amazon.

Keeping a log is fairly simple. I suggest Excel or some other garden-variety spreadsheet; however, writing it down on paper works, too.

The things I would track are portion size, calories, protein, carbs, and fat. At the very least, get the cals. Create a spreadsheet or a piece of paper with calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat, and portion size as columns, the things you eat per meal as rows.

Log everything each day. At the end of the day, add it all up. At the end of the week, take the average of each day. If you maintained a steady weight, you now know your maintenance caloric intake.

As for your wife and your different objectives, I'd take a roughly similar approach. To change your weight (in gaining weight you want to increase mass while maintaining or losing fat, ideally; in losing weight, you want to drop fat while maintaining or adding muscle), vary your daily maintenance caloric intake by an average of 500 calories.

For example, if your maintenance caloric intake is 2500, and you're goal is to gain muscle, then up your caloric intake to 3000 on average.

Here's the twist: Over the course of a 7 day span, your caloric intake ought to be 3000. BUT, vary this amount. Your caloric intake might look like this:

Every fourth day, go back to “normal.” The body is terribly resistant to change and if you just up your calories from 2500 to 3000, you probably won't gain an ounce! So, don't let it adapt by changing your levels every day.

Now, this isn't as hard as it sounds. Because I assume you eat different things every day, you'll never eat exactly the same amount of calories each day.

How do you add calories? There are a few ways:

• Increase portion sizes slightly
• Add a meal or snack
• Add a protein or weight gain drink pre- and post- workout

How do you drop calories?

• Mainly, decrease your portion size
• Cut out fatty food
• Eliminate juice and bread and “add-ons” like butter, dressing, and condiments

Your caloric intake for losing weight looks similar to gaining weight, only back off the calories by an average of 500 per day, but remember to vary that number so that it is an average.

Building muscle and/or cutting fat is mostly a math problem. You either need to create a caloric surplus (gain muscle) or deficit (lose fat).

Exercise plays a vitally important role here, too. If you want some help there, let me know. The short story is that your training can be mostly the same, whether you're attempting to build muscle or lose fat.

Remember intervals, circuit training, and high intensity. Long aerobic sessions are out (think jogging for miles on end).

If you want some really good meal plans that address specific body composition needs, let me know via the Contact Form. Be extremely specific about your objectives.

Lou Ferrigno

Lou started out as a very skinny 6'5″ kid from New York. He began working out as a way to overcome a disability that he suffered as a toddler when he lost his hearing due to an ear infection.

He basically stormed onto the bodybuilding scene as a 21-year-old prodigy, winning several Mr America and Mr Universe contests, then battling Arnold Schwarzenegger for the Mr Olympia in 1974 and 1975. He never beat Arnold.

Lou played a big part in the film Pumping Iron, which pitted him against Schwarzenegger in the 1975 Mr O. While a lot of the movie was theatrics, the documentary did bring the sport of bodybuilding into the limelight and gave it some much-needed exposure to the general public.

Ferrigno then went on to become the Incredible Hulk, starring Bill Bixby.

Lou has also been in quite a few movies, including Hercules and Sinbad, as well as playing a role in The King of Queens, playing himself.

He also made one appearance in The World's Strongest Man contest. He participated with fellow bodybuilder Franco Columbu and they both showed that bodybuilders weren't just about showy muscles; they were indeed very strong.

Lou, of course, has his own web site and does a strong mail order business. He's also written several books, including my personal favorite, The Incredible Lou Ferrigno.

Losing Fat Gaining Muscle

Question: How do I figure the calories I need to gain muscle and lose fat?

Answer: Ah, wouldn't it be great if there were an easy answer to this question? I'm going to take this as a two-part question, since it's VERY difficult to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously.

The answer is the same on both sides, meaning either add 250-500 calories per day to gain muscle or subtract 250-500 calories per day to lose fat.

Any more (or less) than this, and you're going to be trying too hard.

So, if you currently maintain your weight by consuming 2,500 calories, then eat 2,750 to 3,000 calories to gain muscle. Vary the intake; don't keep it the same every day. The body is VERY resistant to change, so keep it guessing.

MORE is NOT better! Don't think that if 5000 calories is good, then 1,000 calories is twice as good. It doesn't work that way. You'll wind up putting on too much fat and you'll feel sluggish throughout the day.

It works the same on the fat-loss side. Instead of adding 250-500 calories, subtract them!

The only distinction between adding and subtracting calories is the following: When trying to build muscle, your added calories should be mostly in the form of protein and when trying to lose fat, your calories should be cut from fat.

Don't go to a no-fat diet, however. Ironically, you need fat in your diet to lose body fat. So never take your fat intake down to zero.