John Izzo Interviews Dave, Part Two (Reprint)
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Q) Through the years, many different ideologies have spurted out as to how one should exercise for maximum benefit, i.e. heart rate training, supersetting, pre-exhaust, cardio before, cardio after strength, etc. However, one constant is beginning to gain popularity again: lift heavy to gain muscle and lose fat. Do you agree with this and do you agree that if one lifts heavy to become stronger or perform better, the physique will follow?
A) Physique building, bodybuilding, musclebuilding is not a complicated procedure, but it's not quite as simple as lift heavy and the physique will follow.
Permit me some excessive thoughts and unnecessary elaboration: You know well there are the challenges of time involved, and the discipline and perseverance, the nutrition, the physiology and psychology.
And there's the pursuit -- the search, the hunt -- the devoted muscle-builder undertakes to discover the best methodologies. This is the engrossing journey, love it and hate it, which teaches, tests, excites and takes the lifter through the path.
An aspiring musclehead is compelled to take the various forks in the road, going this way and that, each promising magnificent development. After enough forks and travel, commonsense, instinct and understanding kick in and the way becomes clear. The tricks evaporate, the lies expose the truth, inefficient shifting reveals iron-hoisting efficiency and who one is in relation to weight training becomes evident.
Good lifters, well, even bad lifters, do not find their training groove in 30 days and stick to it for life.
I advise anyone who'll listen to focus on the basics, lift with sensible intensity (this side of injury and overtraining) and implement moderate to heavy weights with volume in mind. Single-set training works well, but I prefer 75% of workouts be comprised of supersetting -- same or opposing muscle groups. It's advantageous to throw in three or four power-accented workouts a month, assuming one is training some 20 days in that period. These should be based on urge, not according to schedule. Let the beast roam and attack at will.
The best of both worlds is achieved: powerlifting for mass and strength and the fulfillment of maximum exertion, and moderate-weight workouts to more effectively achieve muscle shape, density and definition. Bodybuilding workouts enable the lifter to move without long pauses, to move with flow and rhythm. They provide greater tissue engagement, more consistent muscle exertion (overload), and amplified nutrient-rich blood surge, important factors to hypertrophy.
High reps and lighter weight combined with low reps and heavier weight (ascending weight, descending reps) is my favorite workout scheme.
Too much math and bookkeeping, formulas and percentages, I find, get in the way of pure weight lifting and muscle making. Too much talking doesn't exactly help either.
Q) Since my shoulder surgery, I have omitted some favorite exercises in my repertoire, including upright rows and behind-the-neck presses. Today I advocate modifying and finding alternatives to these movements (and numerous others). What are some exercises you had to give up or have modified over the years?
A) Eventually I've had to modify everything: movements, pace, weight handled, attitude. Over time, overhead press required a Smith press, curls became stilted, laterals stunted and squats stifled... in fact you might not recognize them.
In the beginning, I performed the exercises any way I could. In time I learned and did the exercises the right way. I then matured, became a pro, and did the exercises with finesse and exuberance. The exercises became movements customized to fill my needs and desires, my goals. Then I aged and went back to doing the exercises any way I can.
I also found I learned a new movement and training scheme every workout. It all works as long as you do.
Q) Looking back on your training days, when you lifted in groups or with training partners, were there times you lifted with an injury and just didn't let anyone know about it in an effort to keep pace? Today, do you prefer to work out with a partner or alone? Does either have its strengths/weaknesses?
A) I lifted with valuable training partners in the formative Muscle Beach Dungeon years (1963-66) and it was a blast. We pushed and encouraged each other and shared each other's aches and defeats, delights and achievements. Mid-level injuries attacked us like barbarians. We were honest. We never thought of concealing our injuries; they're often the most valuable instructors.
Later, I trained alone, exclusively...never with a partner. I'm cranky, selfish and introverted and unreliable (slight exaggeration). Mainly, I trained alone to eliminate as many external variables -- obstacles -- as possible. Me, myself and I can be, sometimes, an unruly crowd.
Partner training in our urgent world is a difficult achievement. Meeting someone at the same time at the same place, ready to go, day after day is rarely practical. And there's little room for random training adjustments when you're ready to go and you're serious. My training was always serious, even when I laugh. But, then, my training is a laugh, even when I'm serious.
A good partner can lift a partner up and over when one's down and under. And one teaches the other, at the same time as learning. When the partnership is good, there's blood, one blood, in those sets and reps.
Q) Lastly, what do you think is the single most barrier keeping people from reaching their goals in gyms across America?
A) The word “single” suggests a one-word answer, accompanied, possibly, by a short sentence to clarify or define the answer. Swell, but I have a short question. What goals: fitness, strength and health, shapeliness, 400-pound bench, 20-inch arms, a date with the blond on the Stairmaster?
Let's go with basic physical fitness: They don't get it, the essential value of strength and health to the body and everyday living. If they did, and valued their lives and the qualities of living, they'd insist and persist and not resist and desist.
Furthering my effort to make my response brief and complete, let me compare my extended list of barriers with yours: time, money, disappointment and discouragement in applied efforts, family and job responsibilities, willingness to sacrifice, underestimating the importance of exercise and fitness, lack of character -- discipline, patience, perseverance, faith -- and the failure to encourage the nuggets of gold to grow and develop by the very act they are about to abandon, lack of the basic exercise education and the encouragement needed to proceed day-by-day with diligence and enthusiasm, and lack of spirit, courage and wisdom.
There are too many distractions; life is complex, bad habits take hold quickly and too often Mom, Dad and the schools provide little or no direction in healthy and vital living. Few understand.
Maybe it's the glitz or the aerobic machines or the parking shortage or the bullies or the hotties or the hard work -- too cold, too hot, too heavy. Maybe it's laziness, ignorance or apathy.
Come to think of it, I really have no idea.
I shall end our little gathering upon that simple statement of fact, the foundation upon which all my thoughts and information are based.
As long as there's air, bombers, fly high.
Godspeed... DD
*****
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