Look Ripped

The five minute work out

What a joke who can in their right mind advocate that someone could make gains with a five minute work out? Michelle Bridges that's who! It beggars belief that in these enlightened time that a person that has placed herself at the top of the fitness food food chain could espouse such utter shit.realistically you cant even take a shit in 5 minutes let alone get fit.

The Crap comes thick and fast

Fifty sit ups would take you longer than five minutes, bench press would take you longer than five minutes boiling an egg that would take you three minutes.So you could boil an egg and with the other two minutes try and figure out how the hell your going to get fit with 5 minutes a day i assume seven days a week.Even seven days a week equates to 35 minutes. Michelle Bridges is going ot get you fit with her new book doing exercise for 35 minutes a week, give me a fucking break!

Gurus with little idea other than selling the book

So many books so much miss-information and unfortunately the masses are swollowing it hook line and sinker, if you were to forgoer food and eat the book you may lose weight.There's nothing you can do in 5 minutes that is going to improve your fitness your muscle strength or your attitude to being fit.Michelle Bridges get a grip you may be the biggest loser but advocating these diatribe is just marketing bull shit take 5 minutes and give yourself a real good reefing up the coit!    

What women want is not what most bodybuilders think

 

I see it all the time guys looking in the mirror pumped with pride that their huge and chunky it’s all about size or is it? Ask any body builder what they would like to be and most often the response is Bigger! But bigger is not necessarily better and if you’re trying to attract the opposite sex bigger may not be the key.

On the juice

It’s a fact guys take more notice of other guys size than women do, what girls really like is to see is a nice chiselled frame not to big not to small just right, i like to call it the Goldilocks syndrome. And there’s the nub once guys start pumping the iron they become so self focused and consumed by the anabolic effects of resistance training they fail to check for aesthetics of their work in progress. And before you can say my cocks shrunk their on the juice.

Naturally built is better built

I don’t care whether you are training for a beach body or one to climb on stage with the quintessential ingredient for a great physique is the aesthetics of it. Time and time again i see guys building muscle for the sake of building muscle it’s not pretty if it isn’t sculptured give me the muscle bound jerk and i will give you back the sculptured athlete. Most of us have a particular body part that is either stubborn or responds excessively well to stimulation. Building the physique that others will admire and woman will swoon for is about identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your body.

The bods that prove looking good isn’t just about the size

The bodybuilders that i most admire are the ones that would be termed small in comparison to guys like Ronnie Coleman or Dorian Yates. A the top of my to be like list are Frank Zane, Francis Banfatto, Rory Leidelmeyer  and Serge Nubret  to name a few these guys had the muscle and the aesthetic appeal that not only rattled the cages of the bigger beasts but also made the girls hearts skip a beat.

Maybe milk isn’t just for babies!

 

Arnold Schwarzenegger was credited with saying “Milk is for babies” well it would seem that may not be entirely correct. A new study on post exercise nutrition specifically drinking milk has identified that when pumping iron a glass of milk can be the most effective way to replenish spent stores of glycogen. Half a litre of flavoured milk post work out replenishes the glycogen lost through weight training by converting the sugars to glycogen which is then taken up by the muscle. Another bonus is that the sugars increase the amount of insulin released from the pancreas, this increases the amount of amino acids being taken into the muscle tissue as protein.

The recruits

20 women that hadn’t trained with weights for over 9 months they were put on took on weight training regime for 12 weeks and given sports drinks post work out, they gained 1.1 kilo of muscle and 0.3 kilo of body fat. When the sports drink was supplanted with flavoured milk they gained 1.9 kilos of muscle and lost 1.6kg of fat.

Milk isn’t just for babies

It would seem that all the expensive post preparations on the market aren’t much better than the old flavoured milk if not even less effective. So it would seem that what most of us are digesting rather than effective post work out protein is a propaganda campaign by those with a vested interest and selling expensive post workout products.  

The mirror sometime lies

I recently trained at another gym and found the wildlife not so much different but just a variation of what i was used to seeing. One guy in his late fifties came strutting towards me looking like he had watermelons under his arms. He was wearing a baseball hat with hair sticking from under it like it may have been sown into the lining of the hat. He obviously figured that he was massive the way he strutted from one mirror to the next arms out wide and taking shooting glances at himself.

The emperor’s new clothes

I'm not sure what he was seeing when he looks in the mirror but I'm sure it most definitely wasn't what i saw. Sloppy lats covered in pock marks no shoulders skinny arms dangling from a torso that was more at home on a sofa eating chips than perusing the mirrors of the gym. It was not long before my attention was drawn away by another peacock, big black dude with a little tuft of hair on his pumpkin head. He wasn't showing anyone his physique until he was pumped to the max. Once the Michelin man was blown to full capacity off came the sweat shirt and out fanned the lats. I think after a few glances he was disappointed with what he saw so the sweats went back on.

The eclectic gym rats

It’s interesting sometimes to just look around and see what’s going on in the gym it would seem there's always a few characters that provide monetary entertainment in between your own sets. The gym environment is really a strange eclectic mix of individuals that under any other circumstances would never share the same space, that's what i like about the gym it’s a great leveller we all have our peccadillos.

Climate of obesity

Although people may assert that health is their top priority, when it comes to everyday life it would appear that concern is for medical interventions rather than personal responsibility . The 60% of the population that are either overweight or obese are testament that health although an important consideration when it comes to treatment, isn’t translating to action on an individual level.  Conversely the assertion that people are taking home the environmental message and reducing their energy, water, food waste and rejecting plastic bags is also an unsubstantiated assertion. People are getting fatter the environment degraded and natural resources exhausted, clear evidence our insatiable appetites aren’t just confined to making us fat. Petroleum and food calories are inexorably linked from production on the farm to transportation to our tables there is a plausible correlation between rising sea levels and increasing waist lines.

 A research paper published in the International journal of epidemiology has asserted that a lean population such as Vietnam consumes up to 20% less food than a US population, where over 40% are obese. The London school of hygiene have stated that a lean population of 1 billion would emit I billion tonnes less Co2 annually than a fatter one. Obesity is on the rise in almost every country and being overweight is metaphorically like driving around in a gas guzzler.

It would seem that the only energy being conserved by our society is through lack of physical activity, although we all want better health and a sustainable environment it won’t happen until we acknowledge obesity and environmental degradation are inextricably linked.

Losing the love handles

It’s shaping up for summer that has the overweight in a tail spin they figure that come cossie time the last thing you want adorning your midsection is a layer of winter warmth. So what’s the best way to shape up lose the love handles and look tight and terrific on the sand this season.

Get moving

The thing we need to keep in mind that most of what has gone on around our waist has accumulated over time and having unrealistic expectations of losing it at an exponential rate just isn’t realistic. The consensus amongst health professionals is that you shouldn’t lose more than a kilo a week, any more and you run the risk of pushing yourself to hard getting an injury from overtraing or under mining your enthusiasm by not acheiving your goal.

 But its only weeks out from summer  

In an ideal world we should maintain ourselves through winter and up the ante as summer approaches, this approach makes getting in shape for summer that much easier. I know from my own experience that training up for contests each year around this time although i no longer compete still find my body and mind going into hyper drive.   

The best way to shape up

If your 10 kilos over your ideal weight may think that losing only a kilo a week will mean summer isn’t looking to good, but any weight loss is going to make you feel better and more inclined to bare it on the sand.

Start walking NOW! Start off slowly 20 minutes a day and then increase it 40 minutes. Once you have conquered the footpath start to add in some other activity cycling, running and hitting the weights. Watching the food is as important as the physical activity stick with protein accompanied with a smaller proportion of carbohydrates, and lose the cakes and biscuits! I guarantee within 4 weeks that you will lose weight feel better and be ready to take that first step onto the sand. Get out there and do it !!!!!!!!!!!!

Saturated fat may not be the bad guy

Recent studies have found, Wait for it ! saturated fat isn't the bad guy it has been made out to be when it comes to cardiovascular disease.We have had it drummed into us for several decades that saturated fat is the reason for much of the incidents of heart attacks and blocked coronary arteries, well guess what its not the saturated fat but possibly the exclusion of other better fats that is the problem.

 

HDL and Triglycerides

what the study also uncovered was that if we were to reduce our overall fat intake and increase our CHO (carbohydrate) intake it would actually be detrimental.By increasing one and reducing the other it was found that subjects in the study had higher blood triglycerides and lower HDL (good cholesterol) so rather than being good ultimately we are doing ourselves harm.

Eating smart  

Once again it gets back to most things in moderation and saturated fat is amongst those things, what i would suggest is reducing the amount of saturate fat with other fats , monounsaturated fats(olive oil),polyunsaturated oils (sunflower oil etc) so its not the overall amount of fat that you eat but more the variation.So fat isn't the enemy !

Bigger is not necessarily better

Well once again the bodybuilding fraternity is mourning the loss of one of its favourite sons, Luke Wood 6 times Mr Australia and international competitor passed away during surgery to address organ rejection, he apparently had been on dialysis for some time then had had a kidney transplant unfortunately (and i don’t know the time line) he’s body rejected it, he died on the operating table.

The harbinger for Bigger is better proponents

The upper echelons of body building must be shaking to the very core of their mitochondria they know that size beyond the realm of what is naturally possible sometimes comes at a price and that is often the cost of one’s health. I remember sending an email to one of the past Olympia competitors(also a winner) a well known US body builder in the shadow of another untimely death. I asked if he had any reservations about what he had needed to do to achieve his passage to bodybuilding’s highest dais. He replied “I pray to God i don’t” obviously in his retirement he realised the implications of his actions and the potential to impact on his health.

When will the penny drop?

I’m not sure where the bigger is better mentality came from but with so many bodybuilders of yesteryear succumbing to ill health and early death i wonder when the penny will finally drop, compromising your health for a few moments of glory at the expense of the rest of your life is really just a false economy. When news came to light that Luke was having problems with renal system, a misguided blogger wrote “there’s no proof that steroids damage your kidneys man!” I think he must have conveniently forgotten about what high blood pressure does to your kidneys.

Great bodybuilders don’t make old bones

I have seen them come and i seen them go, fantastic on the outside and garbage on the inside, its incomprehensible to think that what we see in the mirror is an indication of your internal health. Massive muscles don’t equate to massive kidneys and huge legs are not an indication that you have great cardiovascular fitness. If you don’t heed the limitations of the human form yet strive to exceed them by exogenous substances you’re not planning for success your planning for failure.  Train smart “The best revenge is living well”

Ripped rooster

R.I.P Luke Peter Wood 2/8/1976- 31/8/2011  

Being in great shape is possible at any age

  I just returned from California and whilst i was there i trained whenever i could, i find the gym environment a great opportunity to meet people and more importantly to stay in shape, not that i ever get out of shape but psychologically i need to get the pump. I wandered down to muscle beach on Santa Monica boulevard there were to Afro American guys pumped to the max, the problem was they had great upper bodies but their legs were challenged to keep them upright. Why guys train their upper bodies and leave their legs to waste is beyond comprehension.

 

Hotel Gyms

 

The days of the crappy hotel gym with a few pieces of equipment and stationary bike are long gone. Most of the larger hotels have very comprehensive gyms with the latest equipment and staff to show you the ropes. Whilst i was in San Francisco i was going to train at the Fairmont there was a pretty good gym in the basement but i erred on the side of caution. I thought that if there was an earthquake i would never get out of there, so no work out that stay i just worked the hills and San Fran has plenty of those i soon found.

 

Welcome to Vegas

 

I stayed at the Wynn and the gym on the pool level was really good not only did they have cardio but also some reasonably good cables and weights. While pumping up the stuff one morning before i hit the buffet, a guy came up and asked “if you don’t mind me asking how old are you?” now you gotta be careful with this one leave it open and you could get a kick in  the teeth. So i told him my age. He said “Wow! I want to look like that when i get to your age” I said thanks mate and under my breath “fuck i thought you were my age!”

 

Looking good is just a matter of doing the hard yards

 

Some times when I’m putting in the hard yards i wonder what has driven me for so long and why i have never lost that desire to be the best i can. It’s because i want to look good at any age, on the way out of Vegas i was standing in the queue at the airport when i guy yelled across the airport “hey Jack Leland!” I’m thinking is he talking to me? He came over and said i looked like an old time body builder only 30 or 40 years younger (thank goodness for that). It’s the little comments and being noticed amongst the crowd that are the icing on the cake for a bodybuilder make body building, looking good at any age is obviously its own reward.

 

Rippedrooster

 

Junior Universe Perverse or Perfection

When you think of young body builders most often what comes to mind is the ground work being laid for a great physique in years to come. well it would seem the new genre of young bodybuilders are to impatient to wait for the fruits to bear from the hard yards of years of work and judicious eating, rather they would appear to have jumped straight on the roid wagon.The new era of bodybuilding would seem to have dawned junior competitors climbing on stage with physiques that would rival many of those elite athletes from time gone by.Is the dawn or the sunset for body building when our youth soak their internal organs in excessively dangerous and toxic levels of anabolic substances in the pursuit of a gold plated plastic trophy.

Bloated Guts and Overblown Organs

Without naming names because we know how sensitive these guys are to any suggestion they are doing it with drugs they also believe they know their bodies and the amount of juice they can do without deleterious effects.Yes these guys are sensitive to constructive criticism but also naive,the cemetery is full of guys that slipped this mortal coil much to young all because they kidded themselves they new what they were doing . The most tell tail sign these guys are heavy on the juice is the distended abdomens, steroids are not specific to your skeletal muscle they also enlarge your internal organs.Relaxing in between abb poses usually presents like sack of shit hanging over your trunks.

Phenomenal physique or freak!!!

I have seen come and seen them go those that take the short cuts either end up disillusioned or dead.Cycling on and off the gear for most is psychology nightmare, most of us take up body building for a reason and most often if we were sat on a couch and questioned by a shrink they would probably conclude we have some deep seated issues.Its unfortunate that wisdom only comes with age and the young Universe competitors climbing onto the dais full of more than just hubris if their fortunate enough may live to get wisdom and see the folly of their way.For some the epitaph may read "Here lies Junior Mr Universe he had a great physique but died before experiencing life"