Dave Draper’s Musclebuilding Q&A

At first I was going to write to ask you to make a video of this:

my cunning musculo-cardio, quasi-aerobic training technique, the chair pull… I grasp a pair of 35-pound kettlebells and I’m off… . As I plod, big grin on my kisser, a cheapo plastic deckchair, attached to my waistband by a 10-foot cord… .”

But the more I think about the possibilities, the more I think no video could measure up to the image you created in my head!!  As usual, the way you write, even about dragging cheap plastic deck chairs down and up your driveway, has inspired me again. Thanks for that!

You’re welcome. Thanks for writing and thanking…

I have foregone the chair-pull and instead do a 40-pace loop up and down an agreeable grade, starting and ending at the above cheapo deck chair.

Dragging the thing was a nuisance. Did 10 sets of 40 paces yesterday… felt good then — feel good today.

We’re in there… Godspeed… Dave

Do you have any tips or exercises to relieve elbow pain that feels like it’s right in the joint? Thoughts on the wide chins? Or upright rows?

The solutions are as numerous and complicated as the problems… need assessment…

Warm up, be aware of proper form, allow plenty of time for recovery.

I have an elbow wrap I use regularly for the past years that allows me to go heavier and get more reps. Hint: I devised it out of a knee wrap cut in half, a loop sewn on one end to slip onto my arm and fixed with Velcro at the right places at the other end as a fastener.

Elbows take a load from every direction as we insist on making our muscles grow. Pressing, dips, triceps extension. Whatever exercises hurt, modify them or go lighter for reps or dump them for a while or for good. A modern and tuned physical therapist has answers (repair and prevention), but they need to know and assess the problem.

Dump the uprights (bad for shoulders and elbows) and abbreviate the full extension on chins, maybe the width… try it for awhile. Use overhead pulley pulldowns as an alternate…

Godspeed… DD

I am 67-yr-old training regularly with one-minute rest between sets. I’ve read 90-seconds rest is required for people in their 60s.  Do I have to rest 90 seconds between set to get better results? Have I to finish the workout in 30 minutes, or can I work out for an hour and still be in the limits of growth hormone? Can I do aerobic exercise in the morning with an empty stomach even without taking protein diet to protect my muscle from burning along with fat? What is the fat percentage in boiled chicken breast, and how can I remove the fat in chicken breast or meat?

In my opinion you are being far too critical of your training pace. Train according to your ability, will and desire. Train with form and focus and 80-percent maximum exertion while being careful of risk of injury. Forget the clock.

Have a suitable protein drink and do your aerobic in the morning as you please, followed by your weight workout.

Worry and fuss less. Apply commonsense and instinct and awareness and less intellect and study. Eat plenty of EFAs and no fried food and do your best to trim fats from animal foods… quit counting this and that and train hard, be consistent and be happy.

Training will set you free… Be strong… Godspeed… Dave

I am a retired engineer, 67 years old, and have been doing workouts for four years with few breaks. I changed my lifestyle completely. But I could not reduce fat below 18% and can’t grow muscles. Will you guide me?

I cannot add to what you are already doing. You’re training hard and eating right and living, I suspect, a healthy and positive lifestyle. There comes a time when the best we can do with our weight training efforts — and it is a lot — is prevent muscle loss, maintain strength and reasonable flexibility and contribute to our mental and physical health.

Our improvements are more than skin deep. Without the workouts and the striving and the reaching we would diminish. Our time with the iron is our refuge and our disciplines in our eating and living are major contributions to a long and wholesome life.

I can suggest this exercise or that, but I’m sure you’re already doing them.

You might view our forum… or join in… a smart and friendly bunch.

Go… God’s Might… Dave

I’m starting my 3rd combat tour here in Afghanistan and have some time to devote to physical fitness. I was wondering if there was any training advise tailored more to a soldier’s requirements than just bodybuilding. A soldier’s physical fitness test is currently graded by how many pushups and situps we can do in two minutes and then how fast we can complete a two-mile run. Being in tune with the bodybuilding and performance community as you are, can you direct me to a program that is more in line with performing this test as well as possible?

Two links to view to get you started: Nate Morrison’s Alpine Tactical and our Police and Fire Testing fitness overview page.

To enhance your performance as a runner, I  suggest you run regularly, including sprints and hills and stairs. Time your two-mile runs on occasion and seek to improve your numbers. Don’t flog yourself.

Same for pushups. Practice them every other day to avoid overtraining, and apply x sets of  y reps (perhaps 5 sets of 80-percent-max reps) to build muscle and power and technique. Once weekly go for a set of max reps. Modify my set-rep and weekly max according to your own abilities and common sense.

All basic bodybuilding (I prefer the idea of musclebuilding) exercises are effective in increasing muscle and strength.

God Bless America and our amazing military… Big Thanks for your sacrifice and service… Dave

Having been infected with the disease requiring the need for iron more than 30 years ago, I have come to a crossroad. I was recently diagnosed with PV (polythycemia vera) and mitrial regurutation, and have been told by my hematologist “no more weight lifting.” I’m awaiting my visit to the cardiologist to see if I need to have surgery. Silly me, I thought the shortness of breath and chest pains were just a sign of an older guy still being able to hold his own. I ask no medical advice of you, only that if you have the time, can you answer me this? I’m a deeply spiritual person and have prayed over this, yet I have no clear answer. I feel I have to give up a part of who I am. If it is necessary, is there really life without lifting?

Absolutely. Health and family first. There’s a path…

But Still.

Ask more than one doctor, more like 10, if you can you do a little curling and pulling and pushing… any is better than none for the BMS — body, mind, spirit.

I would find the elimination of resistance exercise less distressing if I wasn’t the actor behind the curtain of davedraper.com and had an image and rep to putz with. Drop the bodyweight, seek yoga-type meditation and performance in my own zone of refuge. Gee, sounds like fun, especially when it’s life-sparing. Any viable reason (excuse) not to clink, clank, clunk.

I face a similar dilemma, being a small wreck for the past three years. I push too hard (child’s play) and it concerns me. Thank God I have the keyboard and find expression and fulfillment in writing. Thankfully, I have God (Jesus), who cares for all my problems.

A quickie google search tells me exercise with PV is limited to mild performance, such as walking. Once you’re certain the iron is out of the picture, then you walk and watch your diet and adjust, which includes seeking another avenue of expression.

I understand there’s a lot more to Yoga than we ironheads realize.

Time, common sense, creativity, encouragement, gratefulness, guts and moving ahead… Look to the reality and joy and promise in the wife and kids and the horizons… God loves us… DD

What’s the best meal for recovering after a real strenuous workout? For example, I find that after a tough leg workout, I get fatigued and listless for two or three days afterward, even though I immediately follow my workout with a protein drink and, a half-hour later, a 12-ounce steak sided with brown rice. Should I be eating anything else? For the record, I’m 56 and have been working out fairly seriously for 20 years.

Hard leg workouts knock the energy and wind out of young men and gorillas, and 56 is not exactly a young man. Lots of major muscle in action.

Your food intake sounds smart and desirable and sufficient.

More energy-supplying, nutrient-high carbs surrounding leg days might be a good idea… some aerobic for conditioning on off-days might help. Back off occasionally, modifying intensity or sets or reps or weight when you feel low. You’re good, son, and going strong

We press on… Godspeed… Dave

Question: per your weekly article, how come incline benches are bad, but incline dumbbells aren’t?  Also, remember that Moses was 80 years old when he led the children of Israel out of Egypt..so you’re still a kid at 68.

The bar is fixed, a rigid handle causing stress in the hands, wrists, elbows and shoulders and associated muscle regions and their insertions as they try to respond to the natural tracking of the pressing action. The dumbbells allow the needed freedom of movement, eliminating the injury-producing strain and malfunction.

Plus, the individual resistance of the free-groove seeking dumbbells demands greater control and permits specific control, advancing the building and forming of healthy muscle and might. Huh?

Or, as they used to say in the old YMCA boiler room gyms, lift and shut up…

Gee, he’s getting cranky in his old age…

The desert life and manna soup and the nearness to camels is extraordinarily wholesome. And I understand the water springing from the rock was high in minerals and had life-enhancing qualities.

Godspeed… Dave

When you write, “The absolute best movements for shoulder health are overhead presses and horizontal rows,” is a horizontal row the same as a bent-over row? That is, is a horizontal row where you are bent at the waist, torso parallel to floor, with the proper curvature of course, and you’re pulling the dumbbell up from the floor?

That is a one-arm dumbbell row for a thick and powerful back and lat region… great exercise… but…

Horizontal row:

Lie on the floor, stiff-bodied and wide-arms length under a properly racked bar and pull yourself upward — chest to bar — and lower.

Exercise recruits the muscles that stabilize the scapula and thus contribute to a healthy shoulder structure and balance.for hefty injury-less-likely shoulder training. These are also called body rows.

Treat them as you would chins — sets, reps, focused pace and form…

Pressing on… Godspeed… Dave

I’ve got a couple of questions about training.  The first one is a bit of background on the inspirational photo of you doing front squats with 3 plates each side—what was your typical set and rep scheme with that weight?  You make it look easy in the picture! The next question is related: On compound movements like the squat and deadlift, do you think you can make good gains in strength and muscle stopping short of momentary failure, something in the region of stopping at the eighth rep, when you could probably make about nine to ten at the ragged edge?

Can’t remember about the squat photo. That was a heavy set.

It went something like this:

135 warm up x10 reps, 185 x 8, 225 x 6-8 reps, 275 x 4-6, 315 x 1,2 or 3

About pushing on the heavy movement, I’d stop short most of the time. You’ll last longer, though it’s tough to hold back sometimes… then, again, it’s tough to push it all the time. Hit heavy days or sets when you get the urge and feel healthy.

dd

I am having trouble clearing heavy dumbbells up for inclines and shoulder presses. I have nobody to spot me and the only other person at the gym when I go is the poor guy who has to clean up behind everybody and he is busy enough with that job. I do the old heave with the dumbbells on the quads but when they are in position I just about blew all my energy. What do you think of Hammer Strength equipment?

I’d say it was time to handle only those dumbbells that make you happy and don’t threaten you with injury, doubt or frustration. The Hammer shoulder press is a decent apparatus once you determine the seat adjustment and grip and groove and range of motion and rep rhythm.

For similar reasons I have turned to seated steep-incline front presses on the Smith Press. Give those a try as part of your exercise repertoire. We do what we can to get where we’re going… wherever that might be.

Go… Godspeed… Dave

I am currently experiencing trouble with motivation to train and eat clean. The strange thing is, I know how beneficial training is for my health and appearance, but over the past month junk food and being lazy is what the mind is telling me it wants and I am sick to death of it!! I’m ready to explode back into my training and kick the junk food habit once and for all. Dave, could you please recommend me a book, or any tips on motivation? I am desperate to reclaim the body I once had and any help you can please give me will be greatly appreciated.

Allow me to repeat myself. It’s worth it, it’s the best advice I have to offer: My book, Brother Iron Sister Steel, is a great presentation of straight talk for the bodybuilder of all ages. Fun to read, packed with photos from good old days, overflowing with training and nutrition information, musclebuilding tips and hints and motivation.

You can buy a slightly marred copy for 15 dollars. I suggest you get moving now; it only gets worse as time goes by.

A simple fun routine 3x a week to light the way. Do not expect too much and don’t try to catch up on lost time by joyless, frustrated training and dieting. Slow-but-sure and moderation are the pathways to walk. I also suggest you ignore all recent most bodybuilding input and supplementation. as it is hype and irrational and discouraging. Brother Iron is real and fun and rewarding…

Go… Godspeed… DD