Opportunity Knocks
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I use my computer to send and receive email, to write and occasionally browse the internet. There stops my engagement with the amazing creation. My computer is quite adequate and has all the bells and whistles the very best have -- yours, your spouse's, your son's and your daughter's. The screens I use are covered with icons and indicators providing endless features, functions and facilitators. Frightening! Driven by curiosity I dare to tap one now and then, which brings up a mini-screen of more icons, possibilities and depths of the mystery contraption before me. I stare, my forehead wrinkles, I promptly locate the escape key and I’m back in familiar territory. I breathe once again.
Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.
Today’s vehicles are gifted with similar attributes, countless extras to provide a safer, swifter and more comfortable ride. Hop in after uncoding the security system; electrically adjust rear, front and side mirrors, seat and backrest positions and warmth ranges, start the engine and go. Oops! Adjust the steering wheel and strap yourself in. Once on the highway, set the cruise control, air control and GPS system. We have cassette, CD, DVD and radio. Have a minor collision; we have shock-resistant bumpers, front and back, and airbags everywhere. Icy windows? There are hot water defrosters. Hot pants? There are refrigerated cushions. A drop of rain engages the windshield wipers. Make a wrong turn and a voice from somewhere warns you of your error. Did you know you can have a temperature-controlled glove box now?
Whatever happened to get in, start, go, stop and get out?
It’s no different with exercising this day and age. Pushups, calisthenics and a jog have given way to the gyms from techno-hell. I’m not real old fashioned, bombers, I’m just real. We don’t need gyroscopic aerobic machines, treadmills to run on (hello earth) or a different apparatus for each of the three heads of the triceps and two heads of the biceps. We’ve gotten so modern, it’s killing us. Why, just the other day a fitness geek was walking on the treadmill, pressed the wrong button and was launched out the back door and into a dumpster. He lived, but a witness died laughing.
I must admit I do love my electric windows in the truck, and writing a book with a yellow-lined pad and pencil gets old fast... hello word processing. But building muscle can be done no more efficiently, quickly or enjoyably with hi-tech equipment than with barbells, dumbbells and simple cables. In fact, the advanced gadgetry might confuse the procedure and retard progress.
This week I promised to divulge my routine for building 20.5-inch arms at 64. I was kidding, of course, when I made the ludicrous statement, but I’ve since discovered that some two out of five subscribers are waiting with bated breath, water bottles, gloves, wraps, chalk and lifting belts at hand for my presentation. What can I say? Have I let the cat out of the bag? Am I trapped by my own whimsical words? Where my arms have shrunken, my mouth has grown large.
I might have to recant my strong declarations about barbell and dumbbell training and reveal my recent explorations of more sophisticated methods of building strong and large muscles. I, too, am full of contradictions and misconceptions. Bear with me, crew; this is hard for one steeped in tradition and the fundamentals of training. Time moves on and what was sharp years ago is dull today, as dull as other protein powders when compared to Bomber Blend. You need to go beyond the basics.
Gasp!
You need the Arm Magnifier Persister (AMP) by Para-bio Nuclon Industries. It’s designed for wrinkled and shriveled and deteriorating biceps and triceps often experienced by musclebuilders over 63 years of age. It works. Unlike other advanced bi-tri builders, AMP stimulates immediately, almost suddenly, the deep and yet-to-be-activated tissues -- virgin tissue -- nearest the bone by ultra-intensified self-applied super-resistance.
Allow me to explain. AMP is composed of several individual components: 1) two short bars of solid steel with heavy iron weights secured to either end with a space in the center for the placement of the hand; 2) one long solid-steel bar (five to six feet) with heavy iron weights secured to the ends, with space in the center for both hands; 3) smaller fractions of the heavy weights to be added or subtracted to adjust the resistance of any of the three separate AMP units. Versatility and adjustability are the primary AMP features.
Engineering genius... says IronMan Magazine
State of the art... declares Muscle and Fitness
Advanced Technological Breakthrough... reported MuscleMag
The AMP concept is simple, but the application is considerably more effective than other complex machinery and equipment devised within the past 10 to 20 years. Imagine: AMP will replace the rows of imposing, complicated and costly apparatus. No more decisions, studying plaques or stumbling over obstacles with adjustable weight stacks where dust collects and kids and singles congregate.
Just AMP it, anytime, anywhere and any way. If AMP doesn’t work for you, if you can’t build 20-plus guns with AMP, you can’t build them.
Small reminder: Three things you must do in your quest for huge arms are bulk up to 420 pounds eating tuna and water, AMP it regularly and get plenty of sleep.
Here are some tips and hints you already know (repetition is priceless, or as some might say, cheap):
~ For the sake of continued simplicity, let’s call the AMP short bars, dumbbells; and the AMP long bar, a barbell.
~ There is absolutely no better biceps building exercise than the standing AMP long-bar curl, or, for simplicity sake, barbell curl. Some will disagree, but we’ll just ignore them.
~ There are a variety of ways to affect the exercise depending on the positioning of the body or the placement of the hands, or by leaning over a bench to perform preacher curls. One may stand rigid and upright to isolate the biceps action, or bend any agreeable degree forward and apply a regulated body thrust to achieve fuller biceps engagement, and to enlist the work of other associated bodyparts -- back, torso, whole system. Hands can be placed close together or wide apart -- within a healthy range -- to affect typically uninvolved muscle tissue. Wrists can be cocked forward or positioned in a hand-backward hold for notable change of biceps action. Any of these modifications can be applied when, where and how at the trainee’s whim (within a set, even) or need or instinctive direction or to accommodate an injury or overload. Variety is a physical and mental escape mechanism, and nuances of variety can extend our exercise output considerably. Be creative.
~ There are without a doubt no better biceps building exercises than AMP short-bar curls, or to be concise, dumbbell curls. Who would disagree? No matter; we don’t hear them.
~ Variety is wide and tantalizing with dumbbell curls and there are no angles of healthy and productive action that cannot be achieved: seated, standing, from different degrees of incline, curling one arm at a time or curling alternately, with or without assistance; the list goes on. The choices are there, gratefully, but should not be made haphazardly. Order in one’s workout is important, indicating purpose and direction. Exercise overload is ultimately essential and not to be confused with overtraining, which is dangerous and counterproductive. Know and grow.
~ Knowing the exercises available to a lifter takes practice, attention and time. Any exercise is more than its basic physical performance done repetitiously. In the beginning, yes, this is sufficient. But in time knowing an exercise must move from merely knowing it to understanding it and the muscles it’s working: the area of resistance, the good pain and the bad pain, the load on insertions, healthy exertion and danger zones, the pump, the burn, one-more rep or one rep too many, modify the movement slightly to affect greater productivity or eliminate the movement to prevent injury, thrust or not to thrust... that is the question, and those are the considerations.
~ No one will challenge the statement that full and complete triceps development depends entirely on AMP training principles.
~ There are three heads to the triceps muscle, though I have never able to distinguish one from the other. I see triceps as thunderous horseshoes and horseshoes of steel from the blacksmith’s fire are what we want. And it’s all in the extension of the arm. The mass builders are lying and overhead triceps extensions with the barbell. Close-grip bench presses thicken and strengthen the tris, while packing muscle on the front deltoid and pecs as well. Pulley systems provide the means to engage the triceps from subtle angles and shape the sweeping muscle like a sculptor. Dips are a preferred freehand movement to advance the muscular region in the back of the arm unlike any other exercise, advantageously including shoulders, chest and back as well.
~ Tris are a larger muscle area than bis and typically require more reps and sets than its two-headed companion. Where I do one set of biceps, I do two of triceps. Where I do six to eight reps of bis, I do 12 to 20 of the three-headed mongrel. I most often superset the two muscle areas, one biceps followed by two triceps. Years ago I worked arms two to three times a week, and today -- even while seeking 21 to 22 inch cannons -- I’m down to once a week. We must keep in mind the extensive work we do on both muscles in our pushing and pulling for chest, back and shoulders. Overtraining the established areas is a danger at our well-worn doorstep.
~ Lest we forget, I shall remind you: Work your grip and forearms with wrist curls, reverse curls, grippers, hanging, and avoiding hand straps in exercises unless reaching ultra-heavy limits.
~ Thick bars provide grand advantages to building big muscles. I stand before a dumbbell rack and curse the skinny handles offered as musclebuilding tools. The scrawny grip wobbles and slips in my hand, torquing my wrist and diminishing my thrust. What were they thinking, my noble predecessors? At least with barbells we have solutions -- Draper and Torque Thick Bars.
One last thought: Are you sure you want 20.5-inch biceps? I mean, what will the neighbors think? The things flop around and get heavy just transporting them from place to place. Personally, I’m settling for what I have, streamlined as they may be. I suspect it’s easier to gain an inch in height at 64 than it is to gain 20-inch arms.
Excuse me; I see a pair of wings and a propeller surrounded by air sitting on an open field. Opportunity knocks. I’m off to God’s wonderland, the endless blue sky. See ya later... DD
DO YOU REMEMBER…
Last July we held a seminar at the Santa Cruz Bomber Bash with Bill Pearl as our guest and Eddie Corney making a surprise visit. We recorded the 2-hour QnA talk with three cameras from different angles and points of view... 6-to-8 hours of recorded material. Swell. The following month Laree and I visited Bill and Judy at their home in Oregon and recorded Bill and me in another two hours of compelling (cool word, compelling) conversation.
This stuff is priceless, we're thinking: Now to throw it all together and offer it to our internet participants, a small army of authentic musclebuilders, and fans of the golden era. They’ll be jazzed.
No problemo; a dozen editing-specific computer programs later and a hundred hours on the how-to-edit help line and Laree is ready for action. The roar of trucks driving by, hums of overhead fans, the clattering of ladders to turn off overhead fans, periodic jingles of incoming phone calls and my persistent coughing and sniveling had to be removed from the soundtrack to make it comprehensible. The junk, redundancy, lengthy questions and extensive answers, and embarrassing moments had to be cut. Order to the disorder that comes from random conversations among 225 enthusiastic and hungry bodybuilders had to be explored and sensibly arranged. Entertainment and substance and professional presentation were the elements pursued. Good luck. Add music where it works, add stills where they work and throw in a couple of slide shows for the fun of it. Presto!
One day a month ago Laree emerged from her hellish computer station in the lonely loft for food, water and human contact. The production was complete. I tried to be sensitive as she was given to outbursts of tears and incoherent babbling. Still cute, I pat her on the head, assured her a shower would help, some Bomber Blend... she nodded helplessly.
The finished product was sent off to the pros to be duplicated -- stamped, printed and encased... whatever -- and will be in our hands in a week.
The Package includes a one-hour-and-fifteen-minute tape of the July seminar, two muscular slide shows, plus a 32-page booklet outlining the subsequent interview between the mighty one, Bill Pearl, and me in which we discuss some favorite subjects untouched by the seminar.
Be the first one on the block to own this indescribable entertainment and informational extravaganza starring Oscar-winning performers from around the world
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We just got word of shipments coming in from both the dvd replicator and the booklet printer; the Bash 05 Seminar dvd with Dave and Bill Pearl is D O N E. Hey, man, I've got *stuff* to do!
Now, I know you've heard this before, but that was all a prelude to the real thing… today's announcement. I put up an order link -- above -- we'll ship the DVDs immediately upon receipt early next week. And guess what? It was worth the wait!
Grab your copy Brother Iron Sister Steel here
Click here to order Iron On My Mind
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