[Alcoholiday]

q&a of the day:

Mike Ruggiera: Just to clear things up, by suppliments I was refering to creatine, glutamine, protein, and I plan on adding just a little bit of caffine to speed back up my motabalism from this rediculous lack of sleep ive been gettin (Four eleven hour workdays suck)! Anyways, since you really didnt have a preference between the 4 and 5 day split, is there any other workout regimine you might recommend? Just a little background, I've really only been lifting hard for about 15 months, so I suppose I gots lots of improving yet to do. I got my workout from a friend Joe Pacello who was a former body builder. I switched up my workout a while back once my gains started slowin down, but Im back on it now. Since Im still so new to lifting, would you recommend just keeping this routine, eating alot, and just lifting hard, or do you think there may be something else benificial for me?!? I do plan on tryin to walk on and play some DI football a year from now (still tryin to come back from an acl, mcl, miniscul tear) so Im really tryin to kick it up a notch with my lifting. Thanks for your time and help, and sorry for this long ass post!!!!

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Ben,

What I would recommend is switching your routine up from time to time. Instead of a four day, switch to a three day, then maybe to a five day. When you're training each muscle group just once a week I don't think it matters much how many days a week you go into the gym. However, make sure your calorie intake and rest are up to snuff for those days when you're in the gym 5 days a week. Recovery is the key.

Personal experience... I used to train 6 days a week. Why? That's what all the Muscle&Fitness magazines said to do back in the 80's. I didn't know any better and I believed all the bullshit that they were publishing. Sure, I looked great, had a lean look that resembled a surfer out in California. That's not what I wanted. I wanted to look like a NFL lineman... big traps, neck, thick upperbody and tree trunk legs.

Well, in 1988 I was living in York PA making a living doing construction work. I just got done reading another 'great' article out of M&F, this one about arginine and ornithine, two amino acids that were guaranteed to help boost gh levels in the body. I said "Shit! I gotta have this stuff!" So I drove up to Silver Springs, just outside of Harrisburg. There was this flea market that had a place that sold supplements and health food pretty cheap, not to mention there was a pretty hot babe that worked there. When I got there, the hot babe wasn't there but her husband, Bob, was and who just happened to be one of the biggest guys I had ever seen. He asked if he could help me and I said sure, and started to ask if he had any arginine and ornithine. He wanted to know what I wanted with these two amino's and I started to tell him about the article I just read. Bob said I should be taking something that had all the aminos in it and then started to ask what I was training for. I told him I was training for strength and size. Then he questioned how I was trying to achieve this. "How many times a week do you train?" I said six. "No wonder you looked all ripped up. You should only train three days a week." I looked at him a little strange. Hell, the all knowing M&F mags all say 6 days is prefered for maximal muscle hugeness. He then asked "How many times do you train your chest and how many exercises?" I said twice a week and 4 or 5 exercises. "How many sets of bench do you do?" I said 5 or 6 not including warm ups. He started laughing. "Train each muscle group once a week, no more than three sets per exercise and no more than three exercise per bodypart." Bob emphisized, that by training each muscle group just once a week that I need to hit it hard, heavy and with intensity. That only going to the gym 3 days per week and training each muscle group once a week that I was allowing for optimal recovery. Instead of burning calories left and right from doing physical labor and then going to the gym those 6 days a week that I was allowing myself to consume more calories with the extra time I had off by training just three days, allowing for weight gain. I said to him no way that would work, I needed to be in the gym six days a week to give my body the work it needed to get big. Bob then invited me to come up to Silver Springs to train with him to show me that three days a week was all I needed. I never took him up on his offer, it was a bit too far to drive from York but as big as this guy was, who was I to say he was full of shit. I took his advice and trained that way for ten years. My bodyweight went from 195 to 310 or so. Bob really changed my life with that visit to his store that day. I got bigger, stronger and with that I got interested in powerlifting. I wish one day I could run into Bob so I could shake his hand and say "Thank you."

Now, go lift some weight would ya?!



Live Strong!!!,
Mike Ruggiera