Loaded Guns

BOOK EXCERPT

Loaded Guns
by Larry Scott

From the '60s to the '90s

It's interesting to consider the many changes that have taken place in bodybuilding in the last 20 years. Actually, it's more than interesting—it's incredible.

Walk into any bodybuilding club in the mid-sixties and you would find mostly barbells and dumbbells strewn all over the place. If there were machines available they were the standard lat machines, leg extension and leg curl machines. It was only in the more innovative clubs such as Vince's Gym out in Studio City or Gold's Gym in Santa Monica, that we might find a Smith machine or a curling machine.

It was then that Rheo Blair's pioneering efforts just began to pull a reluctant bodybuilding consciousness into realizing free amino acids could add magic to your growth. Nutrition has come a long way since then but I believe exercise apparatus has nosed ahead of nutrition for the spotlight.

The array of possibilities almost exhausts the imagination. Come with me and let's go back for a visit to one of the best known Iron pounder gyms at the time. The year is 1962. The place is Muscle Beach Gym, located in downtown Santa Monica in a basement on Second Avenue. A stairway with cracked stairs leads down into a dark hole. A red on blue background "Muscle Beach Gym" sign splashed directly on the concrete is almost enough to pull our eyes away from the litter hiding the stairs.

"Man, no wonder they call this the Pit," I said to my training buddy, Bill McArdle, who had come with me from "over the hill" in the Valley. We were looking for Dave Draper to see if we could talk him into going down to the beach with us to catch a few rays.

"Boy, we thought Vince's was dark. This place is like a dungeon." Bill agreed.

We picked our way through the clutter of plates and cracks in the concrete. By now our eyes had dilated to discern a massive hunk of flesh rooted to the floor, with an Olympic set across his lap, performing seated lat rows.

"Dave, how many more sets you got? Want to hit the beach with us?" I asked.

"Yeah, sure... just let... me... finish... with my lats and I'll be right with you," he machine-gunned at us between repetitions.

As striking as the difference in today's gym décor is compared with the early sixties, the staggering difference is in the equipment itself.

Frankly, I don't even know who the major equipment manufacturers were then. I know York was big, but they only made Olympic bars and plates. Individual machines were a concoction put out by a group of independent manufacturers welding out of their garages. Nobody had even thought of making a machine on which a cam had been designed to provide constant tension.

Just look at what we have today to improve our physiques. First we have the pioneer, Arthur Jones, who gave us the Nautilus machines and constant tension. We also have the positioning of the elbow on the Nautilus machine as well and the Icarian and Eagle machines to work the brachialis for better peak.

Another "gift" from the field of new machines is the triceps machine, manufactured by Paramount, which attacks the long head of the triceps. This is the only head of the triceps which has the capacity to really add terrific size to the upper arm.

Also, we cannot overlook the rear deltoid machines, created by Polaris and Flex for the purpose of developing the posterior deltoids. Created, of course, because the rear deltoids cannot be worked well with free weights because the biceps give out first. Generally when this exercise is done with free weights, as in the Bentover dumbbell raise to the rear, the biceps get so much work exhaustion comes first to the arms and the second to the rear deltoid.

Even the lowly preacher bench has been completely dissected and rebuilt to make it one of the most important pieces of exercise equipment for developing heart stopping biceps size. Indeed many will argue that free weights are best and machines will never replace them. The objective, of course, is not to replace free weight but to improve on them.

The abdominal trunk curl is a perfect example of an exercise which would not be possible without a machine to place stress on the abdominals in an entirely different way.

Physiologists have discovered the abdominal wall is activated in a very unusual fashion. By attaching electrodes to the muscle fibers and recording exactly which fibers are being fired and when, we find some interesting things. The normal sit-up is only 1/3 rectus abdominals and 2/3 Ilio Psoas (hip flexor). In fact, this is true whether doing the sit-up or the leg raise. The abdominal trunk curl machines, on the other hand, fire 100% rectus abdominals-not 30% as in conventional sit-ups.

There are many more examples of machines which have almost revolutionized training. Granted, if you only had one choice it would come down in favor of free weights, but if machines as well as free weights are available to provide variety, there is no question as to which system would build the superior physique.

Ideas and new concepts continually drop from the tree of life. We have to be able to set aside what we already know, in order to learn what we don't know.

Sometimes the fellows with the greatest training knowledge are the ones most resistant to training insights. For example, we have developed the Bio-Phase training system, which lifts instinctive training to much greater heights. We now know that the lifespan of an exercise is only about one week before it begins to die. Unfortunately, few of the fellows who are "in the know" will open their minds to learn anything new. They feel "I have been training for years, there is nothing anyone could teach me about training."

It reminds me of the story of the Oriental prince who had spent many years of schooling obtaining advanced degrees. Yet, he still hungered to know more about the "meaning of life." Assured that only a master of Zen could teach him further, he began his studies. The Zen Master asked the prince to be seated as they were going to first have tea together. The prince reluctantly agreed, impatient to begin the formal schooling. The Zen Master began to pour tea into the prince's cup until it flowed over the rim and down onto the table.

"Stop," cried the prince, "the tea is running over." "

Yes," replied the Zen Master, "and just as this cup is so full, nothing more can be put into it until it is emptied, so too is your mind full and nothing more can be put into it until it is emptied."

We are into the 90s; the horizon beckons with new and exciting discoveries. As Thoreau said, "It takes two to speak the truth. One to speak and another to listen."

………

Taken from pages 45-48 of Loaded Guns by Larry Scott, with Larry's permission
Copyright 1991 Larry Scott & Associates

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