Dave Draper’s Musclebuilding Q&A

In a recent newsletter, you mention both shoulder and chest incline dumbbell press.  I’m not clear about what the difference might be in those two moves.

The steeper the incline, the greater the load on the shoulder regions. Conversely, the lower the incline the more the pecs are engaged.

As a young lifter, I quickly discovered barbell inclines were murder on my shoulder cage, and dumbbells were just right — powerful muscle engagement in cleaning the weights into position and more control in directing action toward power-groove and away from injury.

The bench press is a universally favorite exercise and hard to resist, but is famous for developing severe and lifelong shoulder problems. Works okay — injury to musclebuilding ratio — if it is executed as a thoughtful exercise and not a blood-spurting-from-the-eyes power movement. Trouble ahead, safety and longevity first.

Blast to last…  Bomber

What do you think about the fewer reps, higher poundage workouts? I’m 56, train at my home in Nebraska and have found I don’t quite recover quite as fast as I  used to.

Must get lonely in rural Nebraska with few if any to share your iron tossing madness.

I like to mix the reps and weight in the sets of each exercise. For example, barbell curls: I choose a weight that allows me to preform 10 solid reps with a little body thrust to expand the muscle engagement. I can maybe get one more if I gag, scream, bleed and lose my groove — not good — I hold it at 10.

I then add weight and go for eight reps, same rules apply.

Next set, I add sufficient weight and go for six reps.

By this time I’m rockin’ and make another weight addition and go for another six, accepting 5 if I must.

I find the variation in resistance and repetitions is challenging, inspiring and otherwise beneficial to muscle growth.

Yes, recovery is slower as we get older. Our training needs to modified accordingly to avoid injury, overload, fatigue and disappointment.

Train hard and always… God’s Might… Dave

I’d like to compete in bodybuilding or in a figure contest . I’m disciplined enough to follow a rigorous routine, but my concern is the timeline. I need to put some more muscle on and bring bodyfat down for sure.  What is a reasonable deadline?  How do you feel about bulking and cutting?  When is the time to cut?

I have little advice for competing bodybuilders. My efforts and persuasion has been towards building big, strong and shapely muscle. I’ve tended to compromise my health in the process — intensity, daring, overload. When competition, even thoughts of competition, come into the picture and on the plate of goals of a trainee, red lights go off… intensity, daring, overload.

Hold the bodyweight, stick to the basics, amp your pace, introduce supersets, train to build muscle, not to lose fat and bodyweight. The latter will happen as muscle grows in good old-fashioned time.

Timetables shouldn’t be a foremost issue for an intelligent and determined trainee. Who knows the answers, really, until one has put years into the musclebuilding process? Menu, recuperative powers, capacity to work and endure, muscle shape and size potentiality. Everyone is different from head to toe, metabolism to genes, structure to hormones, moods to attitudes.

I suggest one not distress the mind, body and life in the pursuit of muscular curves… Soon. Injuries are around the corner when we over-overload. Disappointment and discouragement lie waiting in the shadows as we scrutinize. They corrupt progress, stall the sails.

It is the journey along the way… they were right.

Determination and persistence before strong shapely bodies.

Smile and be happy: train smart, eat right, be strong, live, learn and grow in all manner and direction…

Godspeeds… Dave

 I have a very labor intensive job and at 55 years old old I am currently working out 3 days a week, full body workouts 4 sets of 10 with a change in workouts every 30 days. I am tired at the end of my work week as I go to the gym at 5 am. Do you have any hints for this old dungeon gym rat?

A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do: Quit your job.

Or, you might have to alter your workouts to accommodate your weariness, which I suspect is due to the mounting years. 55 is wide open to years of strong training ahead, but recoup time becomes the trick. You might spread the workouts over a four-day period (includes a weekend day, perhaps) or try a new approach… exercise combos, rep scheme 12, 10, 8, 6 or all 6s or 8s, split routines…

Often, when bound by job and schedule and convention, we stick to what we know, what we trust. Be creative, be risky (clue: there’s no risk), have fun, mix it up… just press on, always.

Bomber Blend before and/or after workouts… Go Godspeed… Dave

If you are planning to pyramid your weights, should you start at your heaviest weight and go up from there or pyramid lower building up to your heaviest?  Also I do squats, lunges, deads, good mornings and weighted leg lifts or romanian chair leg lifts for legs but am still not getting the definition like I have on my upper body.  Should I do more sets? As a female, what else can I do to get this area in to some form of shape?

I start with the lighter weight of which I can do a hardy 12 to 15 reps. This set prepares me for the heavier sets to follow: warm-up, find the groove, excite and focus my mind. I proceed from there increasing the weight sufficiently to follow a 10, 8, 6, 4 rep pyramid. Love it… do it on most exercises.

Train, train, train. Experiment with the higher sets (4) and reps (12-15, try 20s) with attention on form, pace and effort and less on achieving heavier weight or more strength. Walking lunges with dumbbells in hand… cool and healthy shapers. Run sprints…

Eat right… there’s the hardest one for many. Most effective part, though.

Thanks… dd

There are pictures of you using a Power Twister Bar and I am really intrigued. Do you believe they serve a valuable purpose? How about the Bullworker? I’m also interesting in bending steel and other types of strength feats.

The Samson Power Twister is not commendable for any real musclebuilding or power building; more of a pumping tool used backstage before local competition. In fact I thought they were by now designated to their proper place in attics across the globe. The Bullworker I suspect is okay for certain mentalities or if one is limited in space or desperate to exert oneself.

I’ve never applied myself to strongman steel-bending (spikes, coins, horseshoes, bars) and thus have no suggestions.

Start with Dave Whitley at irontamer.com… he’s immersed in bending steel and you might pick up a scent to follow…

Go… Godspeed… Dave

 I am writing this because I am growing disappointed with my efforts to grow a massive physique.  I have been working out for close to 4 years and I work hard to achieve but I seem to get minimal results.  I eat lots of protein, whole foods and shakes.  I am beginning to feel as though I should cut the weight and work on fitness because I cannot accomplish my goal like I would like to.

Not everyone can be huge and muscular, just like not everyone can run a mile in five minutes or play concert piano or hit a bull’s eye at 100 yards. You’re doing the right things, but if it’s dragging you down, reassess your goals, your potentials, your strengths and weakness, and reassert your goals with renewed commitment, or redefine them.

Disappointment is as common as fleas on a hound, but if it persists, life becomes a heavy weight and joy is seldom realized.

No tricks… ill-gotten gains are costly.

dave

I have a question about what weight belt you use. I really would like to use one, but don’t know which brand to choose or thickness measurement to get, leather or nylon ply. 

Depends on need… I like a double-thick, 4-inch belt end to end. Use the belt only on heavy lifts or when necessary to protect the area on special occasions… don’t want it to take the load when you should…

EliteFts is where many of the guys are getting them, and looks like they have them on sale right now. Here’s the link to the weight belt sales page, and here’s how to pick the size.

Just for sport, a nylon 4- or 6-inch will do for firming-up the region in testy situations. Kinda girly.

dd

I’m getting a lot of soreness in the hands,  elbows and lower back and hip areas. Lifting slowly with control to get back into the program, but feel like the Tin Man at times.Supplements you recommend? Good drugs? Old fashion rack to be stretched on?

Pain and soreness — more or less — come and go like hooded warriors on horseback with big sticks. You can run, but you can’t hide. I’m always finessing my workouts to accommodate joint and muscle pain. I sit here a heap of throbs and stings and stiffness. Can’t wait till my next workout.

Warming up helps big-time, containing your level of exertion (last rep, extra sets) is important, rest and eating for repair and recuperation are major factors.

Add Omega 3 oils to your diet. Check out Body Ammo, particularly popular and effective for some consumers. I use both.

Any of the over-the-counter basics: Tylenol, Aleve, ibuprophen. These work, but there are downsides, and it’s best not to use them regularly.

There’s a lot to myofascial message therapy. Laree’s big into such pressure message and writes about it almost weekly as her training experience and instruction. Good stuff - excellent - and can be self-administered, but requires fascination and attention. Check her blog entries, here.
We adapt, physically and mentally, but the pain continues to rear its ugly head as we plod through the iron jungle.

Don’t forget your machete if you have far to go… Godspeed… Dave

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the gym, and I’ve come across a lot of conflicting information in my research.  Because of the release of cortisol, in order to get the most out of your workout before your body releases an excessive amount of the hormone, it’s said you should keep it at most an hour. Someone once asked Ronnie Coleman the duration he thought and indeed he said around 45 minutes. Generally the more popular view is that two hours or even longer is fine in the gym.  I’m fine with that if that’s what needs be.  I generally enjoy my time in the gym, feeling satisfied and better about myself for having gone. Still, I’m not sure what I should do to get the most out of my workout based on this conflicting information.  Do you have any ideas that could help me?

I have trouble with the science and the iron of musclebuilding. An hour in the gym never did it for me as a young, hardcore muscle-maniac. Sixty minutes? Fine for older folks and fitness-heads, but to arrange and focus and fight and pump and burn and blast the sets and reps and movements, I’m only half way home.

Never know what or who to believe: That’s why I never read any mags or how-to books along my cast-iron journey. We’re all different, with differing advantages and limitations — chemical, metabolic, genetic, structural, aptitude, affinity, attitude. Hence, our needs differ.

What one does in 60 minutes — exercises choices, exercise form, exercise volume, performance intensity, weight used, pace applied, methodology — is not what another might do.

Do what you need and want to do. They’ll probably match. I swap the science for good old instincts and commonsense. Call me dumb. Too much data and research and science and I wanna go home. Let me lift.

It’s complicated. Cortisol is a life-saving hormone created by stress within the body by our own hands (excessive system overloads) or from stressful circumstances surrounding us (war). Too much cortisol can certainly be damaging when produced to alter our cellular chemistry.

I see from your email address your military commitment, and I consider that a number one producer of cortisol. Toughest job in the world, for which we are deeply in debt, thank you.

I’d use the gym to build muscle and might, as best you can, while relieving the multitude of stresses around you. This means enjoy it, trust it and love it, and hate it only slightly. Dig in, but don’t bury yourself.

Rest as much as you can and eat as well as you can, often. Got some dough? Invest in some good supplements to fill the gaps. Protein powder, tuna and such…

Again, thanks for everything… God’s strength… Dave Draper

To train to maintain only seems to take away the incentive for training. I feel lost and worry  it’s just a matter to time before all of it goes away. I finally got to look good and it happened when I’m in my 60s. Can you offer some words of wisdom?

I sit and ponder your questions noting I’ve experienced it all before, and anything I have to offer is a retread of what I’ve offered before. Your concerns are legitimate and not foreign to any of us over 40, then 50, and then 60. We struggle and we strive and we achieve what we can, only to reluctantly let go with the passing of time.

I’m a few years ahead of you in the daunting and inevitable process and I press on to press on. Our health is the main object, and our focus should be there. We need to be joyful and content and grateful with the level of achievement we have. Now is the time to nurture ourselves with creative, fun, variety workouts to pump and burn the muscle and keep the heart happily beating and the mind active and engaged.

No more injuries, less intense overload, more appreciation, more rest, improved attitude, more understanding and acceptance of our mortality and compliance to aging… and less dwelling upon it.

Discouragement and disappointment and defeat are negatives that stress and age us. Beware. It takes courage and active mental and emotional effort to fix or counter these negatives that crowd us as the years mount.

There are tons of fulfillment in the workouts to come.

Growing big was easy. Growing up is hard.

We press on… fewer sets, less weight, longer rest between exercises, more tender loving care, serious prayer and Godspeed… and a big broad smile… Dave

I am trying to make sure I understand your shoulder rehab exercise. When you said you let your arm hang and you made small circles, I am assuming your arm hung straight down and you made circles very close to your hip bone. I am envisioning your hand stayed pretty close to your hip.

The movement is meant to warm-up and “lube” the area with oxygen-rich blood and prepare it for more direct action.

Assume a bent-over position, support yourself with the one arm and allow the arm of the injured shoulder to hang and rotate clockwise and counter clockwise with five pounds for ten rotations each direction.

Focus, feel… 1 -2 sets.

Care, rest, time… Godspeed… DD