Dave Draper’s Musclebuilding Q&A

I find that your emails are so infrequent that I cannot take them serious, please provide me with something that will actually grab my attention as a trainer.

I suggest you browse my website. It’s full of info about all aspects of training.

It’s true; I’m not profound… neither is lifting weights ‘n eating right. “Just do it’ pretty much wraps it up.

After 650 newsletters, one a week for 11 years, I’m quite serious. Lifting is a heavy sport. I just like to lighten it up a bit.

You want something that grabs your attention? Read this: Slumpbusters

God loves us… Draper

I recently started “Draper’s All Time Favorite” as well as the 3000-calorie balanced menu… first time I am following such a higher protein low carb diet as well as so little cardio. My muscles and muscularity seemed to deflate. I am going to give your program a seven-week shot, but am nervous about putting on body fat at 3,000 calories. I suffer from “Analysis Paralysis,” meaning I have a whole bookshelf full of workout books.

The fewer the resources sometimes, the better—you being the main one.

You’ve chosen a tougher, more aggressive musclebuilding training approach. Great time of year to explore the territory. It’s more fun, but you might want to adjust your fat-critical eye. A little winter mass is healthy and will support the muscle growth and adjust you to adjusting — stretch you, test you.

Get too rigid with the iron and something’s gotta give. And don’t forget, any unlikable bulk-gain is easily corrected.

Train hard and have fun… Dave

My biceps are the most lagging bodypart. They respond best to certain types of movements, mainly cheat barbell curls and any heavy weight on the concentration curls. Are alternative types of curls better than the barbell curl for adding mass?  What do you think of the seated barbell curls?

The standing barbell curl beats them all for size and hardness and power. However, you need alternatives to avoid burning out. Seated dumbbell alternate curls, reverse curls, low dumbbell incline curls are top notch.

Be sure to achieve full range of motion in your movements. Seated bar curls are okay, but full ROM is not possible. Stick with any choices for at least 3-4 weeks to saturate yourself, varying rep ranges (12,10,8,6) to suit mood, physical feelings, and etc.

Train madly, but don’t overtrain. Pack in the protein… regularly.

Carry on… God’s speed… Dave

I’ve been weight training for about fifteen years and despite my skinny frame I’ve managed to put on a solid 45lbs of muscle. However the one bodypart that’s given me the most problem is my arms — although they have greatly improved there still not quite proportionate to the rest of my physique. Would you have any suggestions on how I could significantly improve my arms while just maintaining the rest of my physique for a period of time to allow more recovery for whatever arm training you might suggest?

Arm priority is sensible and fun if you’re not pushing the over-the-hill wagon across no-man’s land. Serious blasting can lead to damage, destruction and injury. Just sayin’.

Were I you, providing I passed the flex and vigor and courage and passion test, I would take a month-long alternate route to get where I wanted to go. Often, straying from the normal path is interesting and enlightening, and the  scenery can be breathtaking. Watch your step.

I like supersetting biceps and triceps. My favorites for big and strong arms:

• Standing barbell curls and overhead triceps extensions – 4, 5 sets x 10, 8, 6 reps and 15, 12, 10 reps
• Seated alternate dumbbell curls lying  triceps extensions – 4, 5 sets x 10, 8, 6 reps and 15, 12, 10 reps

Not enough for arms? Add forearms — wrist curls, thumbs up curls and pulley pushdowns – 4 x 12 -15 reps, 8 reps, 12 – 15 reps

Here we have a twice-a-week arm-priority routine that might do the trick. I’d say “certainly will do the trick “only if you were following the Bomber nutritional plan. The question is, what “trick” is.

Clean reps, total focus, sure pace and obliging body thrust and rhythm where needed and where entertaining.

On the days aside from the above plan, do heavy dumbbell inclines for chest and shoulders and tris, heavy one-arm dumbbell rows for back, bis and core, heavy squats for legs, according to your own schedule and commonsense. These will generally build the body and contribute to the body’s systemic muscle growth, a desirable hormonal effect.

Rest, repair and reap… God’s speed… Dave

Currently I am weight training on a bulking program around 2PM. I would love to train early before work, but am lost as to what I should be eating before such an early workout. Is it better to wait until later in the day, thus having additional meals in my system to help me train?

Here’s a thought: Train in the AM as you choose after an ample protein shake. I did this for most of my training career (bulking, cutting, power training, pre-contest) and loved it. You and your nutritional system adjust in a short time to the schedule.

Remember, your night-before meal is ready to go (assimilated and ready to serve you fuel and muscle building support) when you get up for the day.

You’ll have the rest of the day to feed yourself like crazy.

Try it… Live, lift, learn and grow.

Get Huge.

Godspeed, Dave

I keep trying to improve my rather pathetic strength on the exercises I mostly do. I usually do deadlift, bench and row — not much else,  rest three days, work shoulders and arms hard, rest three days and go again. Any suggestions?

You’ll be sorry you asked.

I’ll reserve getting fussy over your workout and remind you… eventually… progress is not enjoyed in increased weight handled, but the consistency and quality, feel and focus of good workouts. Time’s going by and trying to keep up the poundages can be frustrating and damaging and dismal. I’m not a quitter and I don’t let go, but I learned ASAP that well-controlled lighter weights are more effective and agreeable and safer (less injuries) than the joint-busting, muscle-tearing heavier weights.

Keep up the drive, but welcome common sense and wisdom to your training and discover a renewed appreciation for muscle building, strength and health. Adapt to a drop in heaviness of weights used, apply as much force and intensity as ever and customize your workouts. You won’t plummet, you’ll rise up…

Advice for now or the future…

I don’t have an answer to your original question… not a healthy and smart one… Take a swim…

Go… Godspeed… DD

I’ll be 55 in couple of months, work out 3x/wk for 70 to 90 minutes, weights and some cardio. I work out in the basement, free weights, resistance bands and speed bag, pretty Spartan, but the price is right. If I mix it up more for a little more variety and only do some of the exercises once a week is that enough to maintain strength, weight and (what little) definition I have?

Once you’ve invested the years in the iron and have developed ample muscle density and training savvy, you’ve earned reasonably wide training margins. This allows time to experiment and to enjoy and to learn and grow. Those 75 to 90 minutes three ties a week must not become long, dragged-out affairs void of wandering and experiencing and playing.

Trust yourself. If after a month of mixed and instinctive training you are pudgy and weak, we were wrong. Oops.

A good musclehead is never really wrong for very long.

Godspeed… Dave

I work out in my garage by myself, so I will not do squats and I don’t have a leg press. The deadlift seems to tax the entire upper leg and even seems to be identical to the squat, except in the squat goes down a little farther. Can deadlifts be a good quad builder?

Sure they are.

Try squatting with a pair of dumbbells for more complete thigh action… fuller range of motion, slightly different exertion and motion. The squat bends a little more at the hip joints than deadlifts do.

There are lunges, in place, to a platform or box, walking and done with light dumbbells.

Check out Dan John’s goblet squat, too.

Have fun… Godspeed… Dave

My work schedule has changed and I now have to go to the gym during lunch. It’s packed with people who don’t know their way around the gym, and my training partner can’t change his schedule. I’m banging my head against the squat rack. Should I try to train at home or something? Should I find a new training partner?

Stay focused, don’t scowl or glare, keep moving and have contingency workout plans if you’re unable to move according to routine. Beats rage or anger, which is stress — catabolic. Hard, I know. Practice patience and understanding.

I train when it is least crowded. Trained at 6am for 20 years… now early afternoon is perf.

I had great training partners in the past (life and times were different), but would not consider it today. Don’t want to be responsible to another personality or wait for him to arrive when I’m itching to go.

Gotta go, ya just gotta go… God’s speed… dd

What’s the best time of day to work out?

Whose to say? When you feel like, when you can, when you’re strongest and most energetic, in the morning before life’s priorities take hold, after work with the crowd, the lunch-hour squeeze, late at night when the family is tucked away, when everyone’s looking, when no one’s looking …

These days I train at 2 PM for energy and muscle response and quiet space at the gym.

For 35 years (1965 to 2000) I trained at 6 AM to get my share before anyone else did, and be done with it.

Your choose and adapt… Go… Godspeed… Dave

I’m thinking about taking July off from training. What happens if you don’t train?

What if I don’t train? Holy smoking guns! Just presenting the notion causes me to cringe, like I made a blasphemous statement before the raging spirits of muscle and power. The thunder I heard, that flash of light — tell me they were my imagination.

Let’s try that again. Ask yourself

>> What if I don’t train?

• You shrivel up and die within seconds. Just Kidding! It takes days. Still kidding. Personally, I’m hoping humor will protect me from obliteration, an old-fashioned superstition steeped in mysterious fact. When I don’t train (never happens) I wisely wear a wooden cross around my neck to guard me from demons.

• Guilt is immediate, and eats away at the soul.

• The muscles die from lack of stimulation and tender, loving care.

• You become confused ­ life and things become less clear. Disorder rules, collapse is inevitable.

• You care less, as there is less to care for and care about.

• Stress mounts, as that which dissipated the dreadful disease is no longer present.

• People point and stare and whisper about your squishy arms and jelly belly. People can be cruel.

• What once was light in weight becomes indescribably heavy. Oooff is an unappealing (and most revealing) sound you make more and more frequently, like, when carrying out the garbage.

• Your snug T-shirt fits like a sack and your baggy sweatpants like a leotard. Cute.

• You find it fatiguing to order pizza and beer from Joe’s Place. You wish they’d just send it automatically.

• Great energy is expended moving from the recliner to bed after the late show, nevermind moving the iron from the squat rack to the benchpress after work.

• The only discipline you exhibit is when your dog drags you around the block for the evening poop ‘n scoop. Down, Spot.

I’m thinking of starting a superset training program for most of my lifts, but keeping priority set training with the full body movements. How fast should I go between sets?

I have supersetted since my early training days at the Muscle Beach Dungeon Gym in Santa Monica in the ’60s. I don’t hurry and I  treat each set of the superset with a singular and deliberate approach.  80% of my training is superset training. Single sets fit in when deadlifting or squatting or going very heavy in certain moves. You’re on the right track.

Superset training is intense and takes continual attention and drive (takes guts), thus one must become conditioned to the workload. This is good. Prepare yourself with this characteristic.

You need to practice supersetting to understand its performance and benefits.

Go… God’s speed… DD

Where is the money made in gyms and where are the true bodybuilders?

The neighborhood gyms with the atmosphere ironheads (you, me and our buds) dig are falling to the wayside. A number of factors: big corporate gyms are swallowing them up or displacing them, or wherever it is desirable to open a gym, two or three open and drain the membership pool — the one with lowest pricing and most resources to endure the tough times wins. There are no bucks in the gym biz anymore… too many players, too much competition, too much deception and not enough loyalty and honor. Even the chains are suffering.

The real bodybuilders who understand the iron and sacrifice and bulldoggedness are in clusters, but being outmoded by quick-fix imitators, here today and gone tomorrow when their source is dry. Glitz and techy, clubby gyms are in and the mom-and-pop gyms are hanging in by their arthritic finger-tips.

I’m wondering if more and more “true bodybuilders” won’t be heading back to their garages and basements for strong and uncompromised, convenient and inexpensive training.
Hang in… God’s speed… Dave

I’d like your advice about squats. I’ve been training for a over 20 years, and have been doing various styles of squats, going to full depth.  Over the past few months my knees have got really sore. Do you think I should stop full depth squats and go to parallel instead?  I don’t want to stop squatting, but the sore knees are starting to get too much.  I’m 46 years old.

Nothing like full squats!

A little change of pace, perhaps. Stimulate and revive: mild to moderate extensions, decent curls and walking lunges provide a suitable workout as you focus on the rest of the body. Ease into bench squats after awhile, for awhile. Leg presses for thoughtful reps without going too hard or heavy make for a good squat substitute.

Do you warm up your knees with extensions before squatting?

Around your age, I found wrapping the knees for each set was essential and wise and damage and pain-preemptive. Warm up and wrap — apply commonsense and perfect form.

Hmmm… squat heavy less frequently — squat once a week and augment with a lunging or leg-press workout for a second weekly leg training session…

Eat right, rest plenty, be happy, by God… Dave

I am in my late 30s and had baby number seven 10 months ago. I lifted weights in my past but never got to my ideal weight and ability to lift. Where do I start to lose those last 10 pounds and train to get headed in the right direction? My time is limited but I really want to succeed. My oldest child is in a wheelchair and I lift her daily to care for her physical needs, as I age I want to make sure I can be there for her…she is now 20 and weighs almost 100 pounds. Is it too late to become a woman bodybuilder?

I honor your noble roll in life… what can be more powerful than mothering and raising seven children in a lifetime… And, though a 100 years old in experience, a youthful gal in age and time.

I seldom use the term bodybuilder, preferring musclebuilder in its stead. You can and will build muscle and strength and endurance as you apply yourself to a thoughtful plan of basic weight training (30 minutes every other day), blended with walking/jogging (20 minutes, hills and stairs included) on off days. This is a scheme you develop over time, as you learn and improve and gain momentum and self-perpetuating courage and inspiration.

Be strong, girl… you can do this. You will appreciate yourself and life so much more as the days go by… your family will adore you evermore.

Don’t stress over the wonderful deed. Stress kills, joy builds. Eat right, exercise regularly, be positive and be happy…

Here’s some nutritional and training direction through some brief, straight-forward davedraper.com links, a great summary of training advice…

• Keys to Bodybuilding
• General Nutrition Guide
• Sample Workouts

Please sign up for our free weekly newsletter, IronOnline, for valuable tips, hints and encouragement. A non-commercial companion to your daily workouts.

Brother Iron Sister Steel, written by me some years ago, is a great book 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. Trust me… get a scuffed copy at 15 bucks and you will learn — understand — more about the elements of the sport that can’t be learned unless wisely and honestly guided.

You might view our forum… or join in… a smart and friendly bunch… they will help…

Go… Godspeed… Dave

I’m baffled by the pace of the reps and sets. Some people say two seconds up, four seconds down, other say faster… or slower. What’s right?

Find the set and rep rhythm that suits your personality and purpose.

Skip the clock and counting seconds — too much mind, too little instinct. Go with the feel of the muscles (burn and fatigue), oxygen and wind, strength reserve, mood and purpose (heavy weight or swift pace — best is in between somewhere).

Don’t go so slow — you don’t pump or burn or cool off, and don’t go so fast that you can’t increase weight in exercises, get powerful reps, be thoughtful and focused and precise in set and rep execution.

Go with your perfect pace… dd

Question for you regarding supersets: Let’s say you are doing four supersets for arms. Should you rest after each superset or should you complete all four supersets before resting? I have seen it recommended both ways.

The rest between sets within the superset are short, the rest between supersets is a few beats longer to allow agreeable re-breath and re-assertion assert. Often weight incrementing and matching rep-decreasing accompanies supersetting.

Commonsense, mood, energy level and insanity-factor are variables effecting the action.

Have fun, survive… Dave <Godspeed>

Today’s bodybuilders talk of working one bodypart once per. week. Is this enough? Shouldn’t a person train a bodypart at least twice per week? Some bodybuilders have said in numerous articles that they have trained a bodypart up to three times per week. Three times seems excessive. I know this theory of training one bodypart per week hinges on the rest or recuperative period.

Slowly but surely read all the articles (former newsletters) listed in davedraper.com for information to some of the questions crossing your mind. They run the broad subject of muscle-building, nutrition and exercise methods, and keep you encouraged and on track. You can pick up a copy of Brother Iron Sister Steel or Your Body Revival at the library or local bookstore or through this website store — full of answers, encouragement and routines and nutritional info. There’s too much hype, wrong thinking and too many lies out there.

The best training methods include volume in sets and reps and mix in heavy training days each month and use the basics as the most important part of their muscle mass building. Twice a week per muscle group is best. Intensity is important and smart frequency is needed. Ignore the ignorant “once-a-week training for 45 minutes” theories. Rubbish.

Learn to love your training, commit to it, be consistent, be confident and don’t expect miracles. As long as you’re training, you’re growing and going forward, though it may be that painful step back that is so mysteriously necessary.

Press on. The truth will set you free. Yeah, sounds corny.

God’s speed…dave

The thing that bothers me the most is: Why is there so much contradictory information out there about how to train? After reading all this contradictory stuff, I am confused. How can it be that people with great bodybuilding know-how can hold such diametrically opposite views? Obviously, someone has to be wrong. The only way I gain is to add weight onto my exercises (benching more, curling more, chinning more). But inevitably I reach a plateau and cannot go higher. I guess I am not searching the perfect way as much as just to ask: how can it be that people hold such widely differing views? It is extremely confusing and frankly hard to comprehend.

You’ve got to invest in one basic, logical training style and adapt it to your needs — dial it in — here and there, a little and a bit over time. Get to know your training, trust it and go and go hard.

Remember, you’ve got to love and enjoy your training, tough and relentless as it might be. It should be functional, healthy and practical.

Plateaus (slumps) are the athlete’s Nemesis. We don’t just improve and improve, develop and grow, skip, jump and play. It’s two steps forward and one step back if we’re lucky. Lifters – muscle builders – look too closely for results, doubt, and wonder. The head gets in the way of the body.

That you do not continue to lift more weight in the bench does not mean you will not continue to grow in size, shape and definition. Side note: Keep up the heavy bench work, going for one-rep-maximums, and you are bound to incur chronic shoulder problems. Then you’ll have something real to suffer over.

Put in your training time with appreciation, affection, intensity and confidence. Concentration and focus and joy and progress are diminished by doubt and the stress that accompanies it. Spit the poisons out.

Become your own trainer with all your built-in systems for understanding and advancement. Become your own best friend with tolerance, your own fan with high hopes. You’re the man, I’m your buddy.

I’m real corny, too. Push that iron and go with God… Dave

I am not physically big in any sense of the word, but I am muscular, having trained since I was 12 years old.  Could there still be room for growth after all these years?  Being 29 years old, should I continue to strive to pack on more muscle, or should I quit training for size?

Not unless you find it frustrating and loathsome. Training for size is a sound and spirited methodology, delivering musclebuilding improvement and fulfillment, whether size is gained or not…

You might still grow…

dd