Episode 42: A leg to stand on

By Ron Harris

Having been training now for over a quarter-century and in a lot of different gyms, there is still one common sight that never ceases to disappoint me. So many times I will see a guy with an upper body that’s anywhere from better than average to highly impressive, but below the waist it seems he’s hardly trained his legs at all. The old joke used to be that in cases like these, there was always the legal danger of the upper body suing the legs for lack of support.

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Lishia Dean – Rising Fitness Competitor

Fitness competitions and female bodybuilding have had a rough recent past. Back in the ancient days, bodybuilding and Fitness were the only female competitive formats. Female bodybuilding was born in 1980 and was extremely popular for the next decade. Starting in 1990 bodybuilding promoters began noting an alarming decline in audience attendance. This drop in paying customers was directly proportional to the ever-increasing masculinity of professional women bodybuilders.

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Episode 41: Take pride in what you’ve built

Ron Harris and Jay Cutler

By Ron Harris

The Internet haters were at it again. Actually, they seemed worse than ever and I chalked it up to the summer heat wave much of the USA was experiencing. When it’s 98 degrees and oppressively humid, they were all probably going through a gallon of Haterade a day. This provided them with all the carbs, electrolytes, and bitter, spiteful negativity a hard-working hater posting anonymously online craves.

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Angela Harrell – A Rising Star in the Newest Female Competitive Format

Angela Harrell is a 29 year old Texas native and former cheerleader who juggles the time-intense responsibilities of a fulltime job as an advertizing executive with an intense physical training regimen and an equally intense competitive schedule. Angela competed no less than five times over the past twelve months in a newly minted format known as “bikini competition.” This latest competitive incarnation is designed to attract the widest possible range of female competitors and has proven to be a runaway hit with bodybuilding audiences.

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Fructose: The Ideal Carbohydrate Source For Gaining Fat

by John Parrillo

John curling with our NEW Stainless Steel IVANKO bar and collars!

THE 8 TOP SUPPLEMENTS FOR EXERCISERS OF ANY AGE

Whether you want to stay in peak health, have healthy joints, develop lean muscle, or all the above, there are 8 supplement “musts” to help you reach and maintain your health and fitness status. I’ve outlined them here, in no particular order. Keep in mind, though, no supplement works as effectively unless it is supported by proper diet.

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A Bodybuilder Is Born: Generations

Ron Harris

I had dropped off my sixteen-year-old princess (except in this case I am not the king, other than maybe King Midas), Marisa, at the 5 o’clock Zumba class at our gym. Marisa was just days away from her first of what would probably be at least three senior proms. She was nearing the end of her sophomore year. As I knew she was bound to do, Marisa had grown bored with weight training and was on a Zumba kick. As far as I could tell, it was basically a type of Brazilian dance form of cardio involving a lot of ass-shaking and hip-grinding. I had never watched an actual class, but many times I had watched the infomercial as I did my cardio, mainly for the visual stimulation of the suggestive movements.

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Missy Rosemeyer – Yet another successful Parrillo Transformation

One longtime reader recently wrote, “The Parrillo Performance Press is a breath of fresh air. Mainstream bodybuilding publications are all about hyped-up outrageous claims. The muscle magazines are aimed at capturing the aggressive young man market. These glossy publications feature gassed muscle monsters. How a professional bodybuilder trains has very little applicable use for an average trainee like me.” Right on! While muscle monsters are always popular amongst the 15-to-35 year old male demographic, mainstream muscle mags have little to offer for Joe or Mary Average in their fitness quests.

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Episode 39: Eating clean is a privilege

Occasionally someone will ask me, what’s the hardest part about being a bodybuilder? I always say the same thing – the eating. Once you are fully committed to the bodybuilding lifestyle as I have been now for over twenty years, food is no longer for pleasure. Food is fuel to support great workouts, and then it provides the necessary building blocks for the recovery and growth of the muscle tissue you broke down during intense training. Not just any food will serve these purposes, either.

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