Gail Auerbach and the Parrillo Extreme Training Camp

Read about Gail Auerbach’s experience at her 1st Extreme Training Camp held at Parrillo Performance. She is editor-in chief of Rx Muscle Girls. (www.rxmuscle.com) Gail is a NPC National Level Bodybuilder. If you think YOU train hard, then read about her time spent at Parrillo Performance taking her training to the next level.

Loss of workout energy…Parrillo Chocolate Syrup…The first step to losing fat? Eat More!…Energy Drinks?

Hello Mr. Victor Steele,

It seems my workout ambitions can’t match my workout reality. I am the type of person that loves to plan ahead. I create these amazing, extended weight training workouts on paper (based on Parrillo strategies) that include lots of exercises, lots of sets, lots of forced reps, lots of drop sets, fascia stretching and all the other hallmarks of a hardcore Parrillo lifting session. Then when I go to actually train using the Parrillo strategies I get through the first fifteen or twenty minutes and run out of gas. I just totally hit the wall and that’s that. It is extremely frustrating and makes me think I am not cut out for the Parrillo approach.

Any ideas or suggestions?

Roger, Green Bay

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The Parrillo Pre-Diet

It’s around the corner: the holiday season. With high-fat, sugary foods in abundance during the holidays, it’s easy to overindulge here and there. But the price you pay could be an extra five to seven pounds of the wrong kind of mass. This is the amount of weight that the average person gains between Thanksgiving and New Year’s.

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Tips and Tidbits November, 2011

Training Tip of the month:

Pec & Delt Stretch at a Bar

Start: As if to perform a low bar power squat, position yourself at the barbell so that the bar is across your shoulders and neck. The bar should be as far down on your back as possible. Lean forward slightly and point your elbows up. Your partner stands behind you and hooks his arms underneath your forearms. He places his hands on the bar just inside and next to your hands.

Stretch: With the strength of this upper body, your partner pushes your hips forward and your elbows up. Held for ten sec­onds, this movement completely stretches and loosens your pecs and deltoids.

Powerlifters can greatly benefit from this stretch. After heavy squatting, powerlifters often experience an intense ache in their elbow joints. Their pecs are so massive that too much stress is placed on the elbows, and pain results. This stretch loosens the pecs and delts and alleviates these joint problems.

nutrition Tip of the month:

Changing Your Lifestyle

Many people want to eat right and try to lose weight, but get confused with all the low-fat diets, high-fat diets, or low-carb diets that have become popular. The general concept at Parrillo is that to lose fat and keep it off requires a permanent lifestyle change. Many people use a calorie-restricted diet for a period of time, reach their goal weight, then go off their diet and resume their previous way of eating, a change that produces temporary results. If you want permanent results you need to make a permanent change. You need to pick a diet program with which you can live. An all fruit diet or a zero carb diet might make you lose weight, but is clearly a bad choice because you can’t live that way forever. Don’t forget to exercise as well! To achieve a lean, healthy, beautiful physique requires exercise as well as a proper diet.

Question of the month:

Question: I know meals on the Parrillo program should consist of a protein source, a starch and a fibrous vegetable, but I’m not sure which sources of starches are the best ones to choose.

Answer: If you’re following the Parrillo program, you need to be careful about picking which starches you’ll be consuming. The best starches are beans, brown rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn peas, lentils, whole grains, oatmeal and so on. Be sure to eat your protein and fibrous veggies with your starch, as they slow the release of glucose from the starch, which serves as your primary glucose source. You can refer to the Parrillo Performance Nutrition Manual for a detailed list of choices, including their nutrient profile.

News & Discoveries In Fitness & Nutrition

Market Lighting Affects Nutrients

Many people reach toward the back of the fresh-produce shelf to find the freshest salad greens with the latest expiration dates. But a study led by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists may prompt consumers to instead look for packages that receive the greatest exposure to light–usually those found closest to the front. The study was led by postharvest plant physiologist Gene Lester while at the Agricultural Research Service (ARS) Crop Quality and Fruit Insects Research Unit in Weslaco, Texas. Lester and colleagues Donald Makus and Mark Hodges found that spinach leaves exposed to continuous light during storage were, overall, more nutritionally dense than leaves exposed to continuous dark. Lester now works at the ARS Food Quality Laboratory in Beltsville, Md.

For the study, the researchers exposed spinach leaves to light similar to the 24-hour artificial fluorescent light received by spinach in packages located at the front of the display case. A second group was enclosed in two-layer-thick, brown-grocery-bag paper to represent the “dark treatment.” The researchers found that the continuous light affected the leaves’ photosynthetic system-resulting in a significant increase in levels of carotenoids and vitamins C, E, K, and B9, or folate. While the simulated retail light conditions actually helped the stored leaves gain in content of several human-healthy vitamins, some wilting occurred after three days of storage in flat-leaf spinach, but not crinkled-leaf types.

- By Rosalie Marion Bliss, May 2011 Agricultural Research Service – USDA

Quick Tip of the month:

Double Chocolate Brownies

Mix together 4 scoops Contest Brownie Mix™, 2 scoops water, 2 Tbs. CapTri®, and 1 scoop High Fiber Chocolate Syrup Mix™ in a 4”x6”, 5”x5”, or 6”x6” microwave container. Microwave on high for 2 to 2½ minutes. Remove from microwave and let cool. Cut into 12 pieces and enjoy!

Dominique’s Time Cruncher

Quick Cooking Lentils: Lentils are a great time saver, as they don’t require soaking overnight like other dried beans and they only need to cook for about 25 minutes. If you’re cooking red lentils, they soften in about 10 minutes. Look for lentils in the bulk bins of your grocery store. You can stock up on them, as they keep for around 12 months stored in a cool dry place.

 

Deltoids! – Resurrecting the overhead press Parrillo-Style!

Generally speaking shoulder development lags way behind other body parts. Go to any local, regional or national bodybuilding competition and check it out: you’ll see dozens of guys with great arms, equally as many with ripped abs, barn-door lats and tree-trunk thighs – but deltoid development is sadly and noticeably lacking. Where have all the cannonball deltoids gone! I’ll tell you why shoulder development and shoulder strength are weak nowadays…everyone is doing machine presses backed up by a bunch of fru-fru lateral raises. This is the classical shoulder routine for 90% of all beginners, intermediate and even advanced bodybuilders. I contend there is a direct correlation between the rise in popularity of overhead press machines and the dramatic fall of deltoid development. Everybody uses machines to press with these days: the overhead press machine is so easy to use and it feels wonderful to sit upright on a padded seat and press in complete safety; pushing way more poundage (an ego tickler) than you could using those horrid free-weights. Using an overhead press machine you push the payload along a ball-bearing smooth groove that makes pressing feel effortless. Does anyone see the problem here?

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Performance Press Feature Update: Dave Roberts

Dave Robert’s trainer Chris Toland shared Dave’s great news with us: “I just wanted to send you a note to let you know that your cover story, Dave Roberts, from the April 2011 Performance Press was recently selected as the 2010 Gold’s Gym Most Inspirational Member at the Gold’s Gym Convention in Las Vegas. Dave was nominated by the general manager of the Gold’s Gym in Dundalk where he and I both train and was selected as one of 4 finalists who were flown to Vegas for the annual Golds Gym Convention. At the convention, the Golds Gym owners from all over the world voted on a winner and Dave was selected.” Way to go Dave!

What would Branch do?

Many Christians subscribe to a very simple directive in seeking the proper course of action in any situation: What Would Jesus Do? You sometimes see it abbreviated on bumper stickers as WWJD? Since we are here to talk about bodybuilding and not religion, I have a similar helpful guide for those of us who visit the iron church every day:

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Catching up with Penny Price Mcintosh

Featured in the August 1993 Performance Press

“After competing for 15 years, culminating in 2 Ms. Olympia competitions and the first ever Ms. Fitness Olympia in 1995, I have ended up in Tennessee. I spend my days training, hiking, biking and trail running in the Smoky Mountain National Park. Of course this is when I’m not running a busy household with 4 kids and a hotttt husband. The past several years I have competed in sprint triathlons and ran the Disney marathon (the last marathon I will ever run…my body looked smooth and mushy after that chronic cardio, a lesson learned!).

I still weight train the way I did for bodybuilding competitions. At 51 my bodyfat is 11% (using the Parrillo 9 point caliper calculation), year round. For cardio I do 2 (20 minute), interval workouts each week (run stairs, sprints, stationary bike), plus I do long and slow cardio such as hiking, biking, etc. a few times a week, if I feel like it.

I am attending Duke University to become an Integrative Health Coach. Along with my BS in Food Science and Nutrition and personal training certification I offer a triad of services to my clients. I can be reached at HealthCoachPenny.com.

My motto:  ‘Always we can begin again’.”

Jacki Dalsimer – Fitness Professional has a Parrillo “Revelation”

Jacki Dalsimer was a fulltime fitness professional that thought she knew all about fitness. Her comfortable preconceptions were challenged when she began using her own methods in an effort to transform her body after childbirth. “The methods I had automatically recommended to my clients and students were not delivering the dramatic results I sought. I had made a commitment to attain a much higher level of fitness than I had ever attained after the birth of my second child, Maura Rose, in June of 2010 and that wasn’t happening despite my best efforts.”

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