Workouts at Sea - Derek

Now that I've had a week on the ground to catch up, I'll go over my improvised workouts while on the ship. "Improvised" because the spacious fitness center on board had ample cardio equipment and floor space, but only about 8 weight machines and dumbbells up to 10 kilos (22 pounds).

Marcella and I tried to stick to our current training regimens as best we could, but with the limited equipment, lecture and seminar-filled schedule, exotic destinations, and lengthy meal schedule we were left doing whatever we could when we could. We actually wound up working out 2-3 times per day.

My 'easing back into training after injury' routine looked like this as we prepared for the cruise, but what I wound up doing was keeping the schedule while selecting completely different exercises, looking something like:

"Machine available for target muscle": 5-8 sets of 8-12 reps with increasing weight each set and varying grip position when applicable.
"Light dumbbell work for the target muscle group": 3-4 sets of 15-20 reps. I used super sets several times to keep it challenging even with the light weight.

I also finished off whichever muscle group I was on with some calisthenics in several workouts, using my bodyweight to burn out the muscle.

In addition to this basic layout, whenever Robert Cheeke was training with me we ended up doing posing pictures afterwards, which was certainly an added challenge!
You can see the full set of Robert and my training photos in his facebook album here.

So in spite of our hectic yet fabulous vacation

schedule, Marcella and I managed to find the time to work hard in the gym, so the next time you are on a trip, remember that "they didn't have the right equipment" is no excuse!

I'll go over some of the lectures we attended in my next post, so while you wait anxiously don't forget to munch on some produce!

Building More Muscle - Derek

Preparation for our contest is underway! My goal at this stage is simple : gain weight. As much muscle as possible of course, but I want to number on the scale to go up.

Routine wise, it was back to the total body heavy weight training. Being the creative person I am I tried to alter/improve on the previous routine and this is what I came up with.

There are 3 variables I employ with a weight gain routine such as this: Frequency, Volume, and Intensity.

• Frequency refers to how often you work a muscle group in a given week
• Volume refers to how many sets and reps you do for a muscle group per workout
• Intensity, in this case, refers to how much weight you use relative to the maximum amount of weight you are capable of using.

When training to gain weight, I increase the frequency of my training to nearly everyday for most muscle groups, and I follow a High intensity program (low volume and as much weight as possible). I increased the volume slightly for this routine compared to my last total body one

which improved my results, and caused problems I will mention below.

Traditional High Intensity programs follow low volume AND low frequency, but I have found my method to work very well for me. I also make the adjustment of training total body every workout rather than separating muscle groups because the more muscle you stimulate in a single workout, the greater your Growth Hormone and Testosterone release will be. (These are natural steroids your body makes in response to training).

WARNING: While this training has worked very well for me,

mixing High Intensity training with high frequency is a recipe for injury. The reason volume and frequency are normally kept low is to allow not only your muscles but your joints enough time to fully heal. I tend to recover quickly so I push the limit on these variables, and by the fifth week on this program tendinitis began to plague me in several joints.

The Lesson Here: If you want to gain muscle, a program like the one I've listed may work wonders for you. Just be careful and pay very close attention to your form and how your body feels. If anything hurts, back off. I would not recommend following a program like this for any more than 4 weeks at a time.

P.S. Eat your Beans & Greens!

Marcella Shoot Prep, Phase 3 - Derek

The final pictures are coming in today, so without further delay I want to go into Marcella's final phase of photo shoot preparation!

To recap a little: after Marcella's Phase 1 routine she was losing body fat quickly, but also a lot of muscle. We quickly changed things up and her Phase 2 routine restored a lot of her muscle size, and she kept losing body fat so she was right on track for the shoot.

Her third phase had all the same focuses as mine (muscle definition, fat loss, etc) so I won't go into too much of the strategy detail on that. You can check out her routine here.

A major difference from her 3rd routine and my own is the upper body pace. While I was focusing on very high pace, high 'burn' workouts, Marcella kept to a more standard upper body breakdown with more rest and heavier weight to continue maintaining as much muscle as possible there.

Nutritionally we followed a carbohydrate-depleting and carbohydrate-loading cycle timed right before the shoot. What that means in plain English is that we went ultra low carb for the last 5 or so days before the shoot to really deplete our muscles, then a day and a half before the shoot we began 'carbing up' by eating large servings of things like sweet potatoes, oat bran, quinoa, and even a piece of pie! Hey, we earned it :). As the theory goes, in our depleted state our bodies were more efficient at absorbing carbohydrates, so this helped our muscles look more full and firm. To avoid the dreaded 'puffy' look that everyone should be familiar with after a night of sinful eating, we simultaneously dehydrated ourselves (minimal water and zero sodium intake) for about 18 hours before the shoot. This allowed us to have big, full looking muscles while keeping all the definition we had slaved so hard for. This carb cycling process is commonly used by bodybuilders to peak on show day, and I strongly advise caution with anyone wanting to try it. I will even go so far as to suggest avoiding the dehydration step entirely as dehydration is a very dangerous condition to play with.

So, there you have it. All our secrets of hard work and often painful dieting to get into the shape we were in. I will post the end results later today so stay tuned and keep training!

Photo Shoot Prep, Derek Phase 3 - Derek

ANNOUNCEMENT: The final pictures will be released and posted shortly thereafter this Tuesday 5/18 so stay tuned! In the meantime I will describe Marcella and my 3rd phase of prep for that big day, starting with mine.
After my Phase 1 and Phase 2 routines, I was feeling right on track to where I wanted to be. I had gained an appreciable amount of weight and worked hard to build a good aesthetic balance. All that was left to do was maximize my muscle definition and get 'shredded'. Check out my routine here.

To accomplish this I used the following techniques:

• Added Cardio almost every morning (eek!), especially the high intensity variety, which I did on an empty stomach to ensure I was burning as much bodyfat as possible.

• Performed an ab or calf only workout every morning after cardio. Calves are by far my weakest muscle group and I wanted to do everything I could to improve them. Abs were a focus for this phase to etch out the best 6-pack possible come shoot day.

• For my weightlifting, my focus was burning maximum calories and achieving the most definition. To do this I decreased my rest between sets and started performing supersets and triple sets. I also added more isolation exercises and unilateral (one side at a time) exercises to really hit every muscle fiber and make everything show. I even threw in a couple Tabata Sets (queue scary music) per week to really burn out the target muscle(s).

All these techniques will burn fat and improve definition, but it is also very easy to lose muscle during a cut down phase. I prevented this somewhat with Nutrition: To aid in fat loss we reduced overall calories, but to maintain as much muscle as possible we actually increased our protein intake so that if the bodies were going to use any protein for energy, it would be from food and not muscle. This is a technique used by bodybuilders as they diet for contests, but I don't recommend it because it is very stressful on the body, particularly the kidneys. Keep in mind we only used this tactic for 3 or 4 weeks.


To get this extra protein we actually selected some processed foods (again not recommended as a staple) that were high in protein and low in carbs and fat. These were Gardein meatless products and Purefit protein bars (my new favorite protein bar).

We also greatly decreased our fat intake and our simple sugar intake. This meant less fruit. I want to stress that fruit is extremely healthy and packed with vitamins, minerals, fiber, antioxidants, and phytochemicals; but in our effort to completely deplete our bodies and force the use of bodyfat we eliminated all fruit but the low sugar options strawberries and grapefruits. These choices had the added perk of tons of vitamin C to keep the immune system running during all our hard work.

If this sounds like a pain, it was. But it was also well worth the struggle and if any readers are interested in looking your absolute best for an event important to you, you might give these tricks a shot. Until next time, eat your greens and beans!

Marcella Shoot Prep, Phase 2 - Derek

Great News! The final edited shots are starting to come in (behold one above), so I will be able to post them in all their glory soon. In the meantime, I'd like to continue with our shoot prep work.

Marcella's first phase had caused a rapid loss in weight, including muscle, so for this routine I made several changes to help maintain muscle while losing fat. You can see her routine here.

• I greatly increased the volume of all her lifting by increasing sets, number of exercises, and scheduling 2 workouts per muscle group each week.

• Rest intervals were increased and reps were decreased on everything but leg exercises to ensure heavy weight could be used and muscle could be built/maintained. Legs were kept high rep and low rest because this is an area she wanted to lean up in the most.

• Nutritionally, I realized small portions of our regular diet might not be precise enough, so I began digging through my assorted muscle magazines searching for meal-plans to base a template on. After finding some reasonable pre-contest eating schedules used by successful bodybuilders and figure competitors I picked them apart on excel to find calories, protein, carbs, and fat per pound of body weight we should be shooting for. Naturally, Marcella took the idea and ran with it, and the Interactive Meal Planner was born!
• This tool took the guess work out of our meal schedule and greatly improved our success during this preparation.

As mentioned with my own phase two routine, I erred on the side of way too much work with this one. Since we usually work out together, Marcella also took part in some unscheduled rest days and skipped workouts due to my programming optimism, but all in all the vast majority was completed and she quickly was back on track to her goal physique.

Derek's Shoot Prep, Phase 2 - Derek

I would now like to continue my series on our March barbarian photo shoot preparation by going into the second phase of my own program. Below is another unedited shot (my favorite solo one). The final copies should be coming in next week so stay tuned!


As I mentioned in my last post on this topic, by this point I had gained the weight I wanted, but my body fat was higher than I anticipated. With these facts in mind I shifted my routine to a bodybuilding style split schedule, as described here in an older post, and made it very high volume (lots of sets and reps) to get the detail and definition I wanted. Check out the routine here. My strategies were:

• High volume to really 'kill' all my muscles and burn some extra bodyfat.

• Lots of exercise variety to hit everything from every angle and get a more complete workout.

• Still some heavy weight moves in there to maintain muscle size and keep my strength up.

• Nutritionally, I kept my calories high, but I cut the bean shakes out and replaced them with regular protein shakes, which instantly dropped my fat intake and aided in my bodyfat loss.
  

As there was with the first phase, a drawback quickly appeared as I began this one. I was so gung-ho as I wrote up my weekly routine that I ended up biting off more than I could chew. I listed so much work that I usually ended up missing at least one of the workouts per week, and I often had to add a second rest day and push everything back due to fatigue.

In spite of all that, even attempting to stick to such a routine forced me to work hard and push my endurance, and ultimately my physique improved for it.

Marcella's Shoot Prep, Phase 1 - Derek

While I was busy eating to bulk up, Marcella's phases were geared quite differently. She has been making steady gains in strength and muscle size for the past year and she wanted to continue doing so, but her main objective for the 12 week process was to lose body-fat and gain muscle definition. The strategies of her first phase may look familiar to many of you who have sought my help in reaching similar goals. She used:

• Small portions of our normal diet with absolutely no 'cheat food'

• Lots of cardio, including cardio intervals during weight training

• Super sets, to burn more calories while weight training

• High repetitions on her exercises, for the same reason. You can see her phase one routine here .

As with my first phase, this was a learning experience. Marcella did lose weight and body-fat quickly, but we also noticed her hard-earned upper body muscles shrink just as fast. This caused me to alter her routine sooner than I had planned to get her back on track. Her programs from this point on did contain a lot of cardio, but also used strategies to maintain muscle mass.

Derek's Shoot Prep, Phase 1 - Derek

At long last, the shoot is complete! Not only that, but it was a great success and a lot of fun too. Above is a sample of how the pictures came out. We are currently going through the shots and picking our favorites to be finalized, so before we have those to post I will begin the breakdown of our long preparation.

Our initial date set for the photo shoot gave us 12 weeks of preparation (it actually wound up being 15, but the extra time paid off) so I set us up with 3 four-week phases to address separate goals.

I wanted to come in a little more muscular and heavier than I was for my December shoot, so I designated my first phase a muscle gain phase. The strategies I used were:

• A high calorie diet (4000+ calories per day) consisting of extra large servings of our typical whole food meals plus two bean shakes with added peanut butter and an almond butter sandwich on Ezekiel bread per day. I also added peanut butter to my morning oatmeal.

• A heavy free-weight total body routine. For this I used the total body plan I designed and have previously posted on, which you can view here.
  

While I was successful in gaining both weight (I reached my heaviest weight yet as a vegan) and strength during this phase, I also observed my body-fat jump to its highest level since I became vegan. From this I realized on future muscle gain phases I need to be much more cautious of my fat intake to ensure that I am gaining as much muscle and as little fat as possible.

Bodybuilding Pics Are In! - Derek

The aforementioned pictures of my very first bodybuilding shoot have arrived. Check them out (here). Please remember that despite all the practicing, I am far from a master at posing technique yet. That shoot was a great chance for me to practice dieting and exercise techniques on myself, rather than as I usually do on my clients : ). It was a valuable learning experience to say the least, and as Marcella and I prepare for the next one this March I have a refined game plan that will hopefully get both of us into even better shape.


For those who are interested, I will soon be posting our exercise strategies, routines, and diet strategies as we prepare. While likely few readers have a physique photo shoot as their upcoming goal, our plans will hopefully be helpful to those both looking to gain muscle and/or lose bodyfat. And speaking of physique photos, it may also prove useful for any readers that are participating in this years' 12 Week Challenge. To you and everyone else, good luck, work hard, and keep eating your produce!

New Weight Set!

I finished classes last week (yay), but have still found posting difficult, so I don't think I will be able to more than once or twice a week. For our workouts, we bought a used weight set and have been working out more than once a day, which is great for our progress, but very hard to keep track of for posting. I have been roughly following my same split, but now my workouts are shorter and more numerous.

In addition to making up to date posting harder, the new gym has allowed me to get more creative with exercises since I am not as crunched for time. For the past week I have been using a lot of dynamic resistance (ie stretch bands) to add a different feel to many of my favorite exercises. By attaching a band to a weight so that lifting the weight stretches the band, the weight becomes heavier the farther you move it. This dynamic resistance is generally used by strength and speed athletes to improve performance, but it also provides a great peak contraction at the top of every lift, which can aid muscle growth.

Birthday Muscles

The strain of my birthday was such that I could not post until now. I have had a couple hurried mini workouts, but my last real one was on the 15th, and is listed below.


Aside from the workouts being less-than-optimal, it has been a fantastic few days with much fun and frivolity. Well, okay, a little fun and frivolity. Now you might ask yourself, what does a personal trainer/almost bodybuilder/nutrition 'enthusiast' get for his birthday? The answer should be obvious: Arnold Paraphernalia!! As you can see below, this year I must have been good because everyone really delivered:


So the birthday was clearly a success. Now our weight room will be properly adorned with the inspiring images of Arnold. Stay tuned for some amazing gains.

More big weights, and now on to something better

My final routine of this power phase is completed. I threw legs in with arms because the routine for them will remain the same until my knee feels 100%. I'd like to give more thanks to Marcella for her great spotting while I attempted and achieved my new 135lb barbell curl 1 rep max. The rest of the workout was lackluster, as you can see below:



Tomorrow I get to move back to my favorite, the bodybuilding phase. The Bodybuilding style of training is focused around maximum muscle stimulation and fiber recruitment to stimulate muscle growth. This is achieved by lifting a moderately heavy weight for 8-12 repetitions through the longest possible range of motion and over the greatest variety of angles. I also like to superset opposing muscle groups (such as biceps with triceps) during this phase to keep intensity high while simultaneously stretching whichever muscle I'm not using. I picked up these techniques from a book (The Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding) written by one of the greatest bodybuilders of all time, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

A brief, though important, nutritional note:
Many viewing this may wonder why I advocate avoiding animal products. I plan to discuss the 'how's and 'why's in as much detail as I can when I have more time, but for the moment I'd like to start by saying that animal products are scientifically proven to be dangerous to long term health. I am certainly not saying animal foods are the only unhealthy foods out there, but they are high on the list of foods to be reduced and/or avoided if long term health and a better figure are your priorities.

Dr. T Colin Campbell, Chair of the Department of Nutrition at Cornell University and author of The China Study puts it well when he states:

"...animal protein has a quick and major impact on enzymes involved with the metabolism of cholesterol. Whether it is the immune system, various enzyme systems, the uptake of carcinogens into cells, or hormonal activities, animal protein generally only causes mischief"

I will supply more information, as well as supporting graphs and information in future posts, but suffice to say that the researchers I cite and the studies they themselves cite all indicate that animal products are a danger to your health. If you are a vegetarian consuming dairy products or an omnivore, it would be wise to reduce your intake in these harmful foods in favor of... you guessed it - fruits and vegetables! (and legumes, raw nuts, mushrooms, and whole grains of course)

So until next time, eat your beans & greens!