Dave Draper’s Musclebuilding Q&A

I followed your career in the ’60s and am thrilled to find your website today. Can you tell me in a nutshell the major differences in your nutrition and training between then and now?

There was a two year stretch in the mid sixties when carb intake was near zero and protein was in the 500s. I was working with a 22-year-old body weighing some 240 pounds.The carb intake came from low-fat milk products (milk, cottage cheese, yogurt, cheese) which I sort of neglected to count.

Through the years the carbs have come up in the form of vegetables and fruit and some low-gylcemics (wild rice, barley and such), the protein is in the 300s and the body weight is 220-225.

I finesse my food intake to match my workouts and daily activity including sleep. Protein is the Man. Pre-workout carbs are dialed in to satisfy energy and appealing pump and to prevent tissue catabolism. I’m surprised at my fat intake. Hard workers with healthy metabolisms need the good fat for energy, anti-inflammation and repair. Nothing’s changed, really.

The volume: 80% supersets driven by our own hands-on-the-wheel.

The basics: some heavy workouts (power style low reps on deads, squats, rows, dumbbell inclines, barbell curls every third week) throughout the month.

The setup: I generally recommend twice a week per muscle group; reps at 12, 10, 8, 6 sometimes 4 pattern.

The cardio: 3X 20 minutes aerobics in a 6-to-7 intensity range.

Fuel to train and feed to build, positive over-viewing without obsession, consistency, time, confidence (don’t be deflected by the new age thinkers born early this morning) and spirit equals muscularity.

Carry on… and on… Dave

I have a pinched nerve and my lower vertebrae are compressed from an injury. At a recent visit to my chiropractor, he told me to avoid the elliptical and stair master, and to avoid all back exercises… specifically to stop doing squats (one of my favorites). What exercises do you suggest?

Not good news… critical area and you don’t want to abuse or damage it further. Beware and be aware.

Did your DC take pictures to confirm his findings? I’m scheduled for an MRI of the lumbar for a similar problem, which is getting severe. For me, squats are out, but the leg press is no problem till I sort things out.

No major loss giving up the Stairmaster and the elliptical (tough on knees and hips); you can replace them with the stationary bike — practice intervals. Great stuff.

Squats and lunges might have to give way to the leg press, extensions and curls. You might carefully bring in hyperextensions for the lower back health and strength. Dunno about very light deads…

Can’t tell you how many favorites I’ve had to give up due to limitations from injury and age. The beat goes on; we improvise, we adjust, we find joy in the bountiful remnants. Growth comes from accidents, injuries and failure. Smile, you’re on a roll.

Go, girl… Godspeed… Dave

I have light pain in my right shin near the knee after squatting with a weight for 20 reps. I elevate my heels when I squat. Where am I going wrong? Is it OK to do few reps even after getting slight pain near the joints?

Your structure — femur and tibia length and upper body to lower body ratio — might preclude you from squatting healthfully with heels raised. The issue of raised heel squatting comes up from time to time because of an old photo of Arnold and me squatting that way. That practice was discontinued decades ago in my case.

Here’s a page where you’ll find a bit more discussion on squatting with raised heels.

Try flat-foot squatting, a preferred position for quad engagement — less knee-sheer. Always warm up and consider the practice of a lower-rep system (15, 12, 10, 8, 6).

Knee wraps might be in your future as heavier weight is loaded on your bar.

Proceed with caution. Pains come and go and travel about like vagabonds. Don’t feed ‘em and don’t mistreat ‘em. They often go away on their own.

Go… DD

I am a 45 year old male. My workout routine is three days of weights and two cardio per week. I lift heavy with four sets per exercise and several different exercises per muscle group per body part… lower body training consists of squats, lunges, deadlifs with some leg extensions… all’s good, yet the upper inner thighs rub together and are irritating. At 6′2″ 210 lbs, fat is not what is causing the irritation. What can I change in my routine to stop the upper thigh growth and get that pop back around on the backside where I need it?

We all have our pet peeves and curses, often stemming from our inherited blueprint. You’re workouts are right on and I suspect you will continue them with wise innovation and fortitude… the best you can do.

In time the bulky thigh mass will be replaced by a desirable muscle density and accommodating shape.

You might want to settle in at a bodyweight that is five to ten pounds less than your current average. I’ve noticed when I periodically modify my food intake to assess overall muscularity, the first few pounds shed are from the upper thigh and mid-section area. Presto.

Of course, the wee sacrifice in menu, general size and strength are quickly evident.

Can’t win unless we persist…

Go… Godspeed… Dave

At 54, I find I can just cope with two intense 45-minute workouts a week. In fact, even with lots of good solid protein (tuna, salmon or sardines two times a day), as well as six to eight hours of sleep a night, I still sometimes feel bushed two days after my workout. I often have headaches, even though I try to drink lots of water during my workouts. What am I doing wrong?

Try training less intensely four times a week — robust, yet more lovable workouts — tough, but not harsh. Conditioning, without the max overload . This might be more sensible, valuable and open the door to some intense workouts in the future.

Consider the value of nutrient-packed carbs in your diet. You might be lacking in B-complex, too, as I see no red meat.

You don’t say when you get headaches, but since you’ve mentioned it in the same sentence as drinking water while training, I’m guessing your headaches are coming during the workout. If that’s the case, first step is to pay more attention to your breathing. It sounds as if you’re holding your breath during the heavier lifts. Second step, see a doc, particularly if the headaches are intense… rare but life-threatening brain/vascular problem is possible.

If instinct and common sense don’t resolve the problem, might be time to visit a doctor for a check-up… some blood tests.

Go … God’s strength… DD

What’s your opinion on all-out, super intense effort that you can barely sustain for 5 seconds? I am an old gym rat and love to be in the gym.

I believe in intensity and often point out that I don’t see enough of it on the gym floor. You certainly can apply some version of the super intense principal to your workout scheme, but as a routine to live with and train by it would be dismal.

My thoughts: This severe plan is for a certain aggressive personality that has distinct needs to satisfy — not freedom of form, motion, rhythm, pace and muscle shaping. It appears to be a plan best suited for younger bodies, and already conditioned; I suspect straining for sustained periods invites nasty injuries and muscle tears.

I’m thinking the method will remove all love-of-the-gym and lifting from one’s spirit.

Does it work? In theory it satisfies the physics of hypertrophy. In reality I believe it’s a powerlifter’s system trying to penetrate the musclebuilder’s territory. Different animals.

I’d become mean and they’d have to drag me into the gym for my next workout.

You’ve got to love it… God’s speed… Dave

I am a 20 year old Indian, and have been going to the gym for four years, but have not achieved much. I am a regular at the gym and do my workouts perfectly. People in India train six days a week, one muscle per day. When I talk about the cyclic training they tell me that it won’t suit me. People outside Asia train different muscle groups in a single session, four days a week. Help! Please tell me which method is beneficial?

I challenge you to train according to your needs and common sense and instincts, and not as directed by the conventional, narrow-minded do-it-my-way hotshots outside your very personal sphere. Current waves of training are didactic and blunted.

Stick to IronOnline and be filled with truth and encouragement. Join in the fun and learning of the IOL forum, a gathering of great people, a hungry and instructive lot with a wonderful capacity to share and enlighten.

I offer you direction through some brief, straight-forward davedraper.com links, a great summary of training advice…

Six Keys to Successful Bodybuilding

Sample Weight Training Workouts

General Nutrition Guidelines

This Slumpbuster page will offer you a sample of how to add a little fun to your workout. Try one of these combinations to discover joy in your training this month.
Live and learn and train hard always… Be strong.

Go… God’s strength… Dave

I’ve heard about off-season & in-season training, but I’m quite confused. What do these mean? How many seasons are there in bodybuilding? And how should one train during theses seasons?

As a free and unbridled weight trainer, you have the privilege and right to train as you please and discover firsthand the attributes of different lifting methodology.

Try each program for four to five weeks and see how you respond and how you enjoy one compared to the other. You have plenty of time for the greatest teacher of all, trial and error.
The training styles are all good, worth the investment of time and energy, and you will move forward. Sometimes trainees will choose a program that suits his or her nature. Are you a high rep or low rep personality?

High reps can be good for trimming, conditioning, pumping or treating injuries. They can be also excessive and boring.

Medium reps fit all purposes.

Low reps are generally used for bulking and increasing power, but can be also an injury risk.

That’s why I like to mix the reps — to get the benefits and rewards of all three.

Carry on… God’s speed… dd

I’m 59, lean, been weight training a long time… just wish I could grow some lats.

With no other info, I suggest the following exercise choices to keep you busy, maximum risk-free intensity and full range-of-motion being accented:

Widegrip chins to front and rear

Widegrip pulldowns

Full range of motion seated lat rows

Widegrip bentover barbell row — pull bar to pec area

Full range of motion one-arm rows — lengthy stretch

Higher reps, 10 to 12 range on cable work with some 6-8 thrown in — 4 sets per exercise
10, 8, 6 reps on bar work — 4 sets per exercise

Choose 2 or 3 exercises and give them 4 to 6 week cycles to maximize lat modification possibilities.

The older we are the tougher it is to affect structural improvements.

GROW (Go… Rejoice… Overload… Work)

DD

I am 30, with two children by c-section. I work out every day, have lost a lot of weight, but am not getting the results that I want in my stomach and lower ab section. Are there any exercises you can recommend to help me get rid of the overhang I have, or am I stuck with having a nice body and no abs?

I suspect I have little to add to your acquired knowledge to improve your abdominal area. The muscle in the lower ab area is best toned by leg raises — lying on a flat bench with your arms extended the length of the bench, hands palms down and positioned comfortably under your tailbone for stability and low-back protection from over-arching.

These can also be done on the floor on a mat or on a bench that is inclined by placing an appropriate block under the upper-body end. The exercise also serves as warm up and as a great thigh flexors (hip-flexors) exercise.

Bend legs at knees to decrease resistance and extend legs fully to increase muscle load. Do a number of sets of max reps according to your time, enthusiasm, discipline and toughness.

These can be supersetted with crunches as a change of routine, again according to your feel.

Hanging leg raises from a chin-up bar are very effective for obliques and the lower ab region. Hanging free hand is tough, but toughens (strengthens and tones) the grip, arms and torso. Again, hip flexors get a great workout. Bend legs to get a tight tuck (muscle contraction) and do them without hesitation, that is, rep after rep — no pause, to prevent a swinging, pendulum effect of the body. Persist till you have it.

The dog might be the skin thing that is difficult to tighten. Got me on that one. Overall training, lowering one’s body fat, developing lower abdominal muscle and good nutrition are the keys.

Kick things are a waste of training time and spirit; extreme aerobic is counter-productive to healthy muscle development. That’s all I can think of, Mom. Go.

God’s speed… Dave

I was on your site recently and it occurred to me that I didn’t know what it meant to be a bomber. How can I tell if I’m a bomber?

Davedraper.com (IronOnline) has been alive and kicking for eight years and bomber is simply a fun reference of identity. We who train hard, eat right and strive to build muscle and might by following the basic precepts put forth on these pages are bombers.

We persevere, we fight, we encourage. In the free weekly newsletters now in their eighth year, I give us the attributes of daring pilots, reaching for great heights, soaring, diving, rolling, cruising and gliding, stalling and repairing and seeking refuge in sheltered hangars.

A bomber knows when he or she is a bomber… Welcome… We are seriously silly.

Go… Godspeed… Dave

I never much liked barbell rows, always seemed to get a better contraction from dumbbell or cable rows. But in a recent article you were praising BB rows, so I have been doing them. My question is, what are barbell rows good for? I really prefer deadlifts and power cleans. Also, if I keep doing wide grip pulldowns, do you think I will eventually get wide lats?

I, too, like dumbbell rows. But I need or prefer a variety of movements over time to gain the rewards each offer. Barbell rows are for power, thickness, density, shape and width. They are different enough from one-arms to make them valuable; they provide more demand on the lower back and system.

Wide-grip chins and pulldowns will help with width, but skeletal structure is ruling factor here. Another super back builder is the seated lat row. In all your moves be personally creative — suit yourself and gain all the movements have to offer. Focus.

Deadlifts and cleans are terrific.

Byron wrote a comprehensive discussion of barbell rows in the IOL blog, here.

God’s speed… DD

I’m frustrated by the crowds in the gyms these days. It seems the only way I avoid most interruptions is by wearing a head set and ignoring everyone. People really don’t understand how to behave in a gym anymore.

A good neighborhood gym with a responsible and devoted owner can certainly influence the clientèle positively by the attitude and atmosphere presented. I sold my gyms a few years ago, and they are still no-nonsense gyms, handsome and orderly and clean.

No cussing, no wise guys, no banging and clanging of weights. Put your weights back, Bub, and no, we don’t play loud, obnoxious music. Most everyone loves the respect and care and friendliness. Those who don’t are jerks and are persuaded to go to the gym down the street. Everyone trains, no one grazes. The place is self-inspiring. Very cool.

It hasn’t changed much in the past four years. Laree and I still train in and appreciate The Weight Room in Santa Cruz, renamed from The World Gym we directly managed day to day for 15 years.

One can turn people on to real training if one cares and takes the time. I simply could not tolerate it any other way.

Keep going… God’s speed… dave

Could you tell me more about Vince Gironda? What was he like in person?

In my day it was cool to know and associate with the guys (Larry Scott, Zabo, Don Howorth, Bill MacArdle, Labra, Mozee and Vince and countless other characters) in a life-does-not-center-around-weights environment. We hung together, but didn’t talk shop.

Remember, I didn’t train at Vince’s North Hollywood Gym and that crew didn’t train at the Muscle Beach Dungeon. We were comrades, an unspoken weave of pride stitching us together. Musclemen were a vapor. To talk muscles amongst each other was not common. Personal training and dietary particulars drifted in the air like elemental particles ­ mythology, hearsay and stories.

Vince was always quiet, serene. I see him sitting on a curbside sharpening a stub of a pencil with a pocket knife. That’s us; we lean against a Hollywood studio’s brick wall (KHJ on Gower) waiting to be called for a screen test for The Gladiator.

He’s wearing a black long-sleeved wool shirt in another impression joining the fun in a car commercial, all of us packed in a sedan as the cameras roll.

He’s sitting back in the corner of his shadowy gym, observing and waiting in a white t-shirt. I heard he doesn’t like squats so I don’t dare do them when I visit if I could — no squat racks for miles. I’m not quiet; I have no mouth. My mind is in a can of tuna… it’s under my shirtsleeve.

Vince likes protein and intensity and perfection and form. Strictness is power. A big ass is the sign of a fool. Full range of motion, extend and contract, isolate, concentrate and it’s no laughing matter. He didn’t say so; he exuded it.

Vince, like many we know, is an image bigger than life. It’s all those years of chins and dips and relentlessness and mystery and acquired admiration.

Shoulda took notes.

I’m having shoulder pain lately. It could be tendinitis, but I’m not certain. Is this something to be concerned with? Should I rest it? Do you have any suggested workout or stretching routines for a shoulder problem?

Join the club. We struggle and strain and eventually get an injury for all our noble efforts. It ain’t fair.

I continue to train when pain rears its ugly head, working those muscle groups unaffected or least affected by the injury. This MO often assists in repair.

After warming up I work close to the pain and injured region to engage my own therapy. Most doctors can’t help till a real problem develops. They often suggest a layoff, water-boarding to a devoted nutsie lifter.

Do common sense warm-ups, light weights and so forth and go onward with bold caution… website full of info… look around. Here are a few links to get you started:

Handling weight training injuries

Tendinitis

Repair of shoulder injuries, part 1

Beware of heavy bench presses.

Go… Godspeed… DD

I’m trying to gain weight for football and I need at least 30 pounds. Could you help me with that?

No big secret here, my friend:

Lift hard and heavy without injuring yourself (any weekly arrangement of presses, deadlifts, squats, barbell curls, cleans + favorites, for example — 3-4 sets x 8, 6, 4 reps).

Eat lots of good food often and regularly (reduced-fat milk products, red meat, as well as eggs, chicken and fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, nuts and legumes and low-sugar, high-value carbs, no grease).

Add essential fatty acids, a vitamin/mineral daily, and a quality milk-based protein powder before and after any workouts.

No pigging out, no junk.

Drink lots of water, rest well, live right, stay healthy and don’t overtrain.

Those are the basics, Rawhide. Triumph is in the performer and his performance. Apply yourself with heart and soul, and with growing discipline, growing enthusiasm and growing understanding. Be consistent, persistent and insistent.

Be, also, realistic. 30 pounds is way out there. You’ll gain mass and strength during your quest, and — beware — you’ll get frustrated, bored, overworked and fat if you don’t watch out.

You’re young and eager and flexible, a wonderful combination. Be encouraged. Be tough.

Go… Godspeed… Dave

I read you were doing the intravenous chelation. Did you do any research into oral chelation? Would you recommend any product that can be taken orally?

I haven’t heard favorable reports on oral chelation treatment. As I understand it, only 5-10% of the EDTA chemistry is absorbed when taken orally. Some believe this is an option for long term preventative therapy, not too useful for extreme cases that need the IV boost.

Stay tuned to the newsletter, as I will give updates regarding my chelation experience as it unfolds. I’ve undergone 23 of 40 IV EDTA chelation sessions thus far (3+ hours, twice a week).

Last I wrote about it, I had little more to say, but here’s a reprint since you missed it.

“As promised, here’s a brief update of my dazzling and exciting therapy: I’ve completed 18 of 40 three-hour IV treatments administered twice weekly. They’re not painful and I ruthlessly kill time resting, reading or searching for keys on my laptop. I’d rather be performing acrobatics or stacking my gold bullion, but a guy’s gotta do what a guy’s gotta do. There have been no evident changes in pain, energy or well-being, though blood tests indicate improvement in certain markers. Something’s happening somewhere.

Fact is, nothing substantial is expected until the full treatment has been administered, or some time (weeks) later. I knew this going in and have found the process to be a test of resilience, patience and faith. Insurance doesn’t cover the costs and I’ve found a swell space under the Santa Cruz Town Clock to set up a beach chair and beg. Hey, buddy… got a dime… 1,500 dimes to be exact?”

No news yet… Takes time… Dave

I need an exercise that will hit my middle (or upper-middle) back — the area between the shoulder blades. The rest of my back is coming along well, but this area is lacking some.

My favorites for your problem area and more are the dumbbell rows, barbell rows and seated lat rows. Target the area by positioning the body and properly affecting the groove of the movement.

Go with 3-4 sets x 10, 8, 6 reps as weight ascends each set.

Don’t do them all in one workout, rotate them sensibly. Mix one with your lat work, pulldowns, chins and such.

Squat and deadlift in your spare time.

Go… God’s strength… Dave

I’m overweight and out of shape. I need to lose a good 45-55 pounds. Is it too late for me to get in real good shape, or am I too old now?

It’s not too late to have a lot of fun trying. I’m at a disadvantage not knowing details, but barring abnormal limitations, I’ll say you can lose the weight, you can build muscle and you can substantially improve your strength, health and vitality through basic weight training and right eating and living. That’s saying a lot about getting in real good shape.

It takes time, regular effort and the right attitude in applying the basics you learn at davedraper.com and absorbing the encouragement you receive from the IronOnLine weekly newsletter.

Your training is to include proper nutrition, fundamental lifting and aerobics and discipline and spirit.

I wrote a book, Brother Iron Sister Steel, that tells you what to do and how it is and everything else you might want to know without feeling like you’re reading a bunch of words from a page.

I offer you direction through some brief, straight-forward davedraper.com links, a great summary of training advice…

General Nutrition Tips

Keys to Bodybuilding — Beginning Weight Training Tips

Sample workout routines

And finally, I draw you attention to the fine folks in our forum who will answer your questions, encourage you and keep you steady.

Start now, while you’re hot… Godspeed… DD