Building the metabolism…Turning popguns into howitzers…Rampage as Mr. T

Mr. Steele,

How is it possible to “build the metabolism?”  I understand that this is one of the premier Parrillo precepts but I don’t get it – my father is a doctor and he says the idea that you can manipulate the metabolism to any significant degree is ridiculous. He is a podiatrist and not a sports physician and I admit that he is quite a bit overweight and smokes; still, he’s a medical expert and I would like a scientific explanation. You got to admit the idea seems whacky.

Don, San Diego

The “idea”  is hardly “whacky” and we’ve got thousands of flesh-and-blood examples of elite bodybuilders that have successfully built their metabolism through the expert blending of diet and exercise. Tell Pop that if he can put his Marlboro down for a moment he might want to check out The Parrillo Papers, assuming he is truly interested in the science behind the idea. Dr. Arthur Robinson has written eloquently about ‘metabolism building’ and regardless if you believe it or not, elite bodybuilders under John Parrillo’s supervision have been increasing their baseline BMR for nearly four decades. The procedure is based on the expert blending of intense exercise and Parrillo-style nutrition. Even your old man will have to admit that intense physical exercise accelerates the human metabolism. Think of the metabolism as the body’s internal thermostat and the higher the body’s thermostat is set, the more calories the body burns. Conversely the lower the bodily thermostat is set the fewer calories that are oxidized. A sedentary obese person has a slow metabolism and barely burns any calories. A champion athlete has a raging metabolism and his thermostat is set so high that calories are burned at an accelerated rate.

Intense weight training causes all body functions to accelerate and this creates a need for evermore calories to fuel the intense work. Intense cardiovascular exercise stimulates the body’s metabolism. If an individual runs, jogs, sprints, swims or uses an aerobic machine with great intensity, the body burns calories at quadruple the rate it uses at rest. In addition, the bodily metabolic burn rate stays elevated for hours after the conclusion of an intense workout. In the Parrillo System it is recommended that intense, hypertrophy-producing weight training be performed 4-6 times, each and every week. In the Parrillo System it is recommended that intense, fat-oxidizing cardio be performed 5-7 times, each and every week. That represents upwards of thirteen weekly exercise-induced metabolic spikes. In addition to intense exercise sessions that cause the metabolism to increase, the Parrillo nutritional system also has metabolism-spiking attributes running all through it. Ask your father if he’s aware that certain foods cause the metabolism to increase. This is related to digestion; while certain foods are easy to digest and have zero impact on the metabolic rate, other foods, like greens beans, carrots, broccoli, lettuce, cauliflower, bell peppers, spinach and kale, present a difficult digestive task for the body. In order to break down a green bean or a carrot, the body must elevate the metabolism in order to break these difficult foods down digestively.

Ditto lean protein: the body has to “gear up” in order to break down protein. It is no accident that the classical “Parrillo Meal” consists of a portion of hard-to-digest protein and a portion of hard-to-digest fibrous carbohydrate. The final piece in the metabolism-building puzzle is the use of the multiple-meal eating strategy: if hard-to-digest foods are consumed at equidistant intervals throughout the day, the metabolism receives a bump each time the bodybuilder eats a meal. If a bodybuilder eats five Parrillo meals per day that equates to 35 metabolic food spikes per week; combine this with a dozen exercise-induced weekly metabolic bumps and all of a sudden the bodybuilder is self-administering upwards of 50 combined metabolic jolts each and every week! Keep that up for months on end and the metabolism is built! Mention to your Dad that we have thousands of flesh-and-blood examples, real live humans that have built their metabolisms using this procedure. One recent example of a well known sports star that built his metabolism was swimmer Michael Phelps. This kid swam upwards of eight hours a day, six days per week preparing for his eight gold medal onslaught: he needed to consume 10,000 calories a day to recover from his intense training – yet he was taunt and ripped. Phelps inadvertently created his own variation of this classic Parrillo procedure.

Hey Vic,

What’s the best way to bring up lagging arms? My guns are .22 caliber peashooters and I want .44 caliber howitzers! I train my arms once a week and typically perform 4-5 sets for my biceps and 4-5 sets for my triceps. They haven’t budged in a couple of years: they barely stretch the tape to 16 1/8th and I want to push them to 17 inches. Do you have any ideas?

Paul, Denver

Performing 4-5 sets for the arms once a week is a maintenance program! If you are serious about bringing up your pipsqueak popguns you’ll need to shock them into growth by quadrupling the amount of work you are currently doing. You will also need to add bodyweight. One of the biggest myths in all of muscle-dom is that by finding some magical arm routine a bodybuilder can suddenly grow his arms from 16 inches to 19 inches in a matter of months and do so without adding any bodyweight. WRONG! A man weighing 190 pounds packing 16 inch arms will need to push his bodyweight up to 200 pounds + in order to add an inch of arm muscle; talk about an inconvenient truth! In addition you will need to embark on a sustained and comprehensive “arm specialization” program: blast the biceps and triceps twice weekly. Arms lend themselves to super-setting (alternating) like no other body parts. Super-sets allow the bodybuilder to double the amount of work done within the same amount of time. Here is how I would lay out a six to ten week arm specialization program….

• Day I

Incline dumbbell curls super-setted with…

Single dumbbell overhead tricep extensions

Preacher curls super-setted with…

Tricep cable pushdowns

Cable curls super-setted with…

Reverse grip cable pushdowns

• Day II

Standing barbell curls super-setted with…

Dips

Concentration curls super-setted with…

Lying barbell nose-breakers

Machine curls super-setted with…

Machine tricep pushdowns

Each exercise should be done for a minimum of 3 sets and as many as 5 sets. Use a progressive set strategy; take a set or two using sub-maximum poundage to get grooved in before using max weight on the 3rd thru the 5th set. Some days you will be able to match or exceed your current best and other days you will not; that’s okay – we can’t exceed our all-time best in every single workout on every single exercise – but what we can do is work up to our capacity on that particular day. I would suggest you add one pound of bodyweight per week in conjunction with this program. Keep this up for six to ten weeks. Adding bodyweight ensures anabolism: keep the extra calories clean and weight gain will be muscle gain. I would also insist that after every arm session you consume a double serving of 50/50 Plus^™. CapTri^® is the ideal weight gain supplement for bodybuilders seeking to add muscle size. Drizzle a tablespoon (or two) over each food meal and add 500-1000 clean calories per day. CapTri^® and 50/50 Plus^™ are critical to building big arms. To grow bigger guns you’ll need to add size – worry about delineation, definition and muscle clarity after you have something worth delineating or defining: no one cares about a ripped and shredded 13 inch arm.

Vic,

I know you are a big mixed martial arts fan – I heard that Rampage Jackson suddenly and without notice quit fighting. I also heard a rumor that he was going to go into the movies?! What’s up with that? Have you seen any of the heavyweight action on this year’s reality TV show “The Ultimate Fighter?” Pretty disappointing I think you’d have to agree. I thought the big guys would be great but it turns out they suck!

Tad, Nashville

My sources tell me that Jackson got so pissed off big time at UFC major domo Dana White that he “retired” from fighting and messed up the Ultimate Fighter finale where he was scheduled to fight opposing coach Rashid Evans. It gets better: apparently Rampage had secretly been made an offer by a famous Hollywood movie producer. The offer was too good to pass up: in a bit of casting genius, Rampage Jackson will become the character played by Mr. T. in the big screen remake of the 80s TV show “The ‘A’ Team.” Rampage is perfect for playing a modern version of Mr. T – who by the way was a genuine bad ass. Mr. T got his big break when he appeared as a contestant in a short-lived TV game show called “The World’s Toughest Bartender.” In this goofy show contestants (that had to be real bartenders or bouncers) competed in feats such as busting through doors, beating up customers and boxing one another. My favorite event – and I kid you not – was tossing dwarfs for distance! Mr. T won the whole show and was crowned “The World’s Toughest Bartender.” That would have been the end of it and Mr. T would have headed back to his bouncer job at a tough Southside Chicago dive had not Sly Stallone happened to catch the finale on TV. He was searching for a new villain for Rocky IV and when he saw the burly, Mohawked bruiser, he contacted him about auditioning for the part. Mr. T ended up as one of the most memorable and convincing villains in cinematic history.

I am as disappointed by this year’s Ultimate Fighter reality TV show as you are: I had thought that with several former NFL players and knockout artist Kimbo Slice, this year would be the best year ever. On the contrary, this is the worst season ever because none of these guys can fight a lick. One episode was particularly revealing: one fight contestant was a nondescript college wrestler and the other guy was a former NFL player that looked, acted and trained like a world beater. The NFL guy stood 6-5, weighed a lean and muscular 275 pounds and moved like a big cat. The trouble is the guy couldn’t fight worth a damn. The wrestler beat him in a boring bout. This reaffirmed my long held view that just because you are big and strong and fit and lean and athletic doesn’t mean that you can fight. It also explains why the heavyweight division in MMA has the least amount of talent. On a related Rampage Jackson note: I saw a TV show a few months back where scientists set out to determine what created the highest impact upon the human body in all of professional sports. By using sensors hooked up to lifelike human dummies, the scientists determined the hardest hits: they tested a hockey player crashing an opponent into the boards, a quarterback being tackled from the blindside (for this test they had NFL megastar Ronnie Lott do the tackling) and the third test was Rampage Jackson administering one of his patented MMA body slams.

There was a famous MMA “incident” in which Rampage was being choked out by a Brazilian jujitsu expert in a fight. The Brazilian was on the ground and had Jackson in a triangle choke when Mr. Rampage proceeded to pick his 210 pound opponent clean up off the ring floor. While the jujitsu expert hung on, Rampage, in an inhuman display of pure strength, lifted the clinging Brazilian up over his head and slammed him back to the mat, knocking the jujitsu expert unconscious. On the sport show they had Jackson replicate his lift-and-slam with a 200 pound test dummy loaded with sensors. They determined that Jackson’s slam created the hardest impact ever recorded in all of sport: he propelled his opponent downward with an impact that clocked in at a staggering 152 miles an hour – ouch! I love Rampage and think he exemplifies a classic fighter, a real fighter. Being big and strong and athletic does not make you a fighter.