You go Girl! Want a big bench? Square up your nutrition… Bored to tears…Football fundamentals…Building a bigger gas tank

Vic Steele,

I am going to get back into fitness – not that I was ever really into it. My husband is a big fan of yours and he is fit and lean. I am fat and overweight. I want to do this on my own. I hate training with my husband. I find him overbearing and too critical. I tried the local fat girl facility, but while my husband expects too much, the trainers at this sissy spa expect too little so I never make any gains – there is a lot of talk about ‘self esteem’ and ‘being alright with being overweight’ and ‘positive self image’ at the sissy spa. I AM NOT alright with being 50 pounds overweight. BTW my husband has a whole cabinet full of Parrillo supplements and we have a full gym in our two car garage.

Linda, Flagstaff

You go girl! I am proud of you and your dissatisfaction. You don’t need the overbearing old man and you sure as hell don’t need the “I’m okay, you’re okay, we’re okay with being fat and out of shape’ gals at the pretend gym. We need to ease you into the mix – the further in we get the more you can do and the more momentum you’ll

develop. Here’s what we do to get you started…

1. Before breakfast: every morning hit a twenty minute cardio session. Initially you could power-walk around the neighborhood or jump on one of the cardio machines you have in the garage. Because you are overweight and out of shape, it won’t take much to elevate your heart rate and cause you to sweat. Sweat is King in Parrillo World. Each session push yourself without killing yourself. No need to jog or run or do anything intense and crazy right off the bat as that could rip or tear soft tendons and unused ligaments. Each week add three minutes to the duration of the session until you are at 45 minutes. Do this every day as soon as you get up; coffee or tea is fine before but no food. Over time, as your bodyweight drops and you become fitter, walking will not be enough to jack up the heart rate and make you sweat. Morph into more intense aerobic exercise modes when walking or power walking no longer suffice. Walk before you run, literally and figuratively.

2. Weight training: three times a week do the following (have the husband show you these exercises)….bodyweight squats, deep and upright, no leaning over; lying leg curls, slow and steady; calf raises on a stair-step, deep stretch at the bottom and all the way up on toes; dumbbell bench presses, lower all the way down, pause and press; overhead dumbbell bench presses. On both bench presses and overhead presses, inhale as you lower, exhale as you push; wide grip lat pulldowns to the chin; seated narrow grip rows. Perform three sets of 8 reps: on the 1^st set use 50% of the 3^rd set poundage, on the 2^nd set use 75% of last set and on the 3^rd set use 100%. In each session add two reps and when you are able to do 12 reps with particular poundage on the 3^rd set, add five pounds and drop back to 8 reps.

3. Nutrition: Parrillo-style nutrition requires you eat something acceptable and allowable every 2-3 hours. This continual grazing “builds” the metabolism. For example, oatmeal mixed with Parrillo Hi-Protein^™ makes a great breakfast; a Parrillo Energy Bar^™ and an Optimized Whey^™ shake is a great mid-morning meal; how about a chicken breast and a salad for lunch? 50/50 Plus^™ and a Parrillo Cupcake^™ mid-afternoon and some sort of fish and some green vegetables for dinner. Parrillo Cake^™ with Parrillo Frosting^™ makes a terrific evening treat. Use Parrillo engineered foods to overcome any sweet tooth addictions. Look to lose 2-3 pounds of bodyweight per week for 10-15 consecutive weeks. Systematic weight loss is the key.

Lock this approach down across the board and you’ll feel better by the end of the first week. You’ll look significantly better by the end of the first month and you’ll blow minds by the end of the third month. Write back anytime for advice or corrections. Let’s show family, friends, neighbors, acquaintances and the husband that you are an independent self-starter and completely capable of engineering your very own physical transformation. Train hard, train consistent, eat with discipline and hold the course!

Iron Man,

What’s the best way to get my bench press up? I have been stuck at 315 for 1 rep for years. I would love to be able to bench 365 and eventually 405. Is this realistic? I have been pumping iron forever. I am 6 foot and weigh 200. I am fit and in-shape and recently completed a mini-marathon. So that part is the good part. The bad part is it seems like everybody at the gym I workout at can out-bench me. Any ideas for upping my bench would be greatly

appreciated.

Stan in San Diego

Likely you are benching all that you are capable of at 6 foot and weighing 200 pounds. There is no magical bench press routine that allows a guy to miraculously jump from 315 to 405 without adding a significant amount of muscle. Unless you resort to performance-enhancing chemicals or unless you use one of those hideous bench shirts, the only logical way to significantly increase your bench press is to significantly increase the amount of muscle mass you have to push a bench press. Let’s say at 6 foot and 200 pounds you currently have a 46 inch chest and a pair of 16.5 inch arms: you have built a nice, legal bench press of 315. You are maxed out for the amount of muscular firepower you currently possess.  In order to hit 365, a 15% increase in poundage, you’ll need to beef up the muscle mass of the chest, arms and front delts roughly 15%.  In order to bench press 405, a 30% increase in poundage, you’ll really have to beef up chest, arms and front delt muscles. I would guesstimate that you’d need a pair of 18 inch arms and a 50 inch chest to bench 405. The trick is adding muscular bodyweight and not adding a bunch of body fat. Oddly, the solution to improving your bench press lies not in finding some miracle bench press routine, but innutrition. Want to bench press 405? You’ll need to add 15-20 pounds of pure, lean, fat-free muscle. How do you do that? Get on a high-calorie, clean calorie, Parrillo-style nutritional game plan.

Vic,

I am bored with my food. I am beginning to develop chicken breast hatred and tilapia is really starting to get old. Any ideas?

Ready to binge, Dallas

Human beings are creatures of habit and the hardest thing to do is to break out of old habits and patterns. Insofar as bodybuilding proteins, you have two choices: widen the selection or learn new preparation tactics for existing protein choices. Let’s take a look at expanding the protein selections: are you using eggs, canned tuna, lean beef, turkey and differing types of seafood? How about buying a pound of shrimp for a weekend treat? I love scallops, oysters, mussels and just about any type of shellfish is acceptable and unusual. Try some new types of fish. Canned tuna is probably the second most used protein in the history of competitive bodybuilding – chicken breast being number one. Eggs are cheap. Insofar as preparation techniques, you got to school yourself! Watch the Food Network for protein preparation ideas. I learned how to make flank steak and skirt steak eatable and delicious watching episodes of Alton Brown’s Good Eats TV show. I learned from Emeril Live a great way to make giant quantities of white meat chicken and rice Cajun style and totally acceptable in the Parrillo system. Learn how to bake eggs and vegetables in the oven to create soufflés. Slow roast turkey and tough beef cuts to make them tender and flavorful. How hard is it to steam some shrimp or make a fabulous tuna salad? Don’t forget the huge variety of Parrillo “engineered foods.” It seems that every few months John and Dominique Parrillo devise some fantastic new food creation. Have you tried Contest Cookie Mix^™, Protein Ice Kreem Mix^™, Butter Flavored CapTri^®, Parrillo Chew Bars^™, Hi-Protein/Low Carb Pudding^™, Hi-Protein Pancake and Muffin Mix^™, Hi-Protein Cake and Cupcake Mix^™, Contest Brownie Mix^™ or Protein Frosting Mix^™? Plus let’s not forget Parrillo Sports Nutrition Bars^™, Energy Bars^™, Protein Bars^™ and Hi-Protein/Low Net Carb bars^™…you need to jump outside your comfort zone and try some new things out – the only thing holding you back is a lack of imagination.

Iron Vic Steele,

I am getting in shape for football camp held at the end of summer –  any ideas on how to get into better shape? I am a three year starting linebacker and tight end and have a pretty good shot at a college scholarship if I have a good senior year. I am 6-1, weigh 195 pounds and run a 4.7 forty. I can dunk a basketball (with one hand) and also run track as a high hurdler. I need power, speed and size.

Ronnie, Dayton

You sound like an excellent athletic specimen with a lot of great genetics and innate athletic ability. Speed is a gift and cannot be improved upon to any great degree. While a great training regimen might drop a fully formed man’s time by a half second, no amount of training is going to cause a mature man running a 5.5 forty to drop to 4.5 weighing the same. My generation of ball players was best exemplified by the great Pittsburg teams of the early seventies. The Steel Curtain and that great offensive line trained in the basement of a bar using barbells and dumbbells. They relied on the most basic of movements. Hall of fame center Mike Webster (RIP) is widely considered the best center to ever play in the NFL. He was 6-2 and 280 with 9% body fat. Webster could bench press 550, squat 800 and was the only man to ever run every set of steps in the old Three River Stadium without stopping. Webster, Kolb, Mean Joe Greene and the other Steelers used heavy squats and bench presses, power cleans, deadlifts, curls, rows, dips and nose-breakers to near exclusion. I think this approach is ideal for low-tech high schools that are lacking in fancy exercise machines. Run your ass off, sprint till you drop, run steps, do field length crabs and generally push yourself like a demon in the summer heat. The harder you push yourself leading up to summer camp the easier camp will be and the bigger jump you’ll have on your opponents and teammates. I would invest in canisters of 50/50 Plus^™ and drink this restorative shake down in double servings after practice and training. I would also advise taking five to eight Max Endurance^™ capsules before summer practice. If you smell ammonia in your sweat you are creating urea and this is not a good thing. Max Endurance^™ will help clear ammonia, which robs endurance. All the best. Working hard before camp will make camp seem easy.

Vic,

How come UFC fighters “gas out?” I know they engage in savage training sessions and do all sorts of crazy stuff to prevent gassing out – yet they still gas out. What’s up with that? I saw Shane Corwin beat the ever-loving snot out of Brock Lesner in their recent title match during the first round then completely run out of gas in round two and get choked out! I saw Corwin train in a TV special on Spike TV and the guy was training like a crazy man…lifting objects, carrying training partners, tossing heavy medicine balls, wrestling fresh opponents when he was tired; he was doing everything possible in training to prevent gassing out in the fight and then he gassed out!

Jack, New Mexico

You might increase the size of your endurance gas tank (to use a car analogy) and you might be able to replace a 15 gallon gas tank with a 20 gallon gas tank – but when the 20 gallons is used up the 20 gallons is used up! Energy is finite. I saw a TV show where a dude was driving a brand new McLaren Mercedes on the German Autobahn at 200 miles per hour. The driver commented that to maintain this speed meant that he would have to stop at a gas station every 22 minutes! While UFC fighters can increase the size of their endurance gas tank, they still have a finite amount of energy. Shane Corwin no doubt built a much bigger energy reservoir with his intense training. Still, when you are swinging, punching, pummeling, pushing, tugging and throwing with all your might, when adrenaline and endorphins are being dumped into the bloodstream in torrents, it is the equivalent of that Mercedes screaming along at 200 miles per hour – the fuel goes fast! The elite UFC fighters have even taken to conducting training camps at high altitudes in order to force the body to adapt to thinner oxygen; the idea being that when they fight at sea level and can inhale much richer oxygen, they will be able to go longer before gassing. Still, there is no escaping the physiological reality that every human being has a finite amount of energy and going all out exhausts available energy at a dramatically accelerated rate. Hell, a man might be able to build a 40 gallon gas tank – but when the 40 gallons is used up the 40 gallons is used up! Put another way, if they didn’t train to improve endurance, they might only last half as long.