I’ll gladly give you my best triceps workout, but the workout itself is only incidental to the story.  Adding the most mass in the quickest manner is a total program comprising not merely exercises, sets and reps, but training schedules, recuperation, intensity, technique, principles, mental involvement and a host of other factors that define us as bodybuilders; however, to allay your impatience, I’ll start with the workout.

My first triceps exercise is pushdowns: two warm-up sets of 15 and 12 reps; then, one all-out heavy set for eight to 10 reps; then,  plus forced reps and negatives.  Exercise two is Lying EZ-curl bar triceps extensions: one warm-up set of 12 reps, followed by one all-out heavy set of eight to 10.  Movement three is a one-arm triceps extension machine exercise, no warm-up, going right into one all out heavy set of eight to 10.  That’s it.

Virtually everyone, amateurs and pros alike, want to hear more, but what I just told you is all that’s needed, provided you know what you’re doing and apply the proper ratio of recuperation and intensity.  That’s a big proviso.  Recuperation requires willpower to find that precise point between too much and too little; and intensity is your mental ability to generate almost superhuman concentration and power for every rep.

My advice is to first educate yourself as to the function of every muscle in your body and how to perform every exercise perfectly.  Without that knowledge, you cannot totally dominate and control the muscle you will be working.

Next, hone your powers of concentration.  Withdraw into your own mind with memorization exercises – for example, by focusing on memorizing an entire page at a time of a classic or technical book – so that it becomes an out-of-body and into-your-mind experience.  You will need that degree of mental strength to maximize your physical strength for one all-out, maximum set per exercise.  Next, apply that concentration to what we call the mind-muscle connection; except that I’m not talking about mere awareness of the muscle contracting, but of actually being inside the muscle, becoming one with it, fighting for your life to go beyond that final repetition, feeling the last fiber twitch and collapse, so that it’s impossible to even contemplate another set.  That’s it for that exercise.  Now, try another exercise in the same manner; chances are that will finish you for the day.  If you’re able to do more than three exercises at that level, you were dogging it.  Work harder.

With this type of intensity, you will need lots of rest between sets.  Don’t fall for the stupid machismo of training as fast as you can.  Remember that you are taking yourself to a level that is several times beyond that of those who are counseling you, are certainly beyond any level they’ve experienced.  Rest only long enough to restore your strength to 100%; any longer and you slip into lassitude.  Adjust your training schedule accordingly.

Bodybuilding is not weight and repetitions; it’s resistance and absolute muscle failure.  It’s not quantitative; it’s qualitative.  It’s more mental than physical.  It’s more control than rage.  It’s the realization that you can always get bigger.

*Reprinted with the kind courtesy of FLEX Magazine (February 2009)

During my bodybuilding heyday, I was known for a few bodyparts – my chest, my biceps, my back and even my calves.  However, it was my abdominals to which I paid the most attention.  I knew then, as I do now, that you could have the biggest arms, the broadest shoulders and the most cut thighs, but if you have poor abdominal development, you’ll look simply overgrown rather than Herculean.

Conversely, if you have a taut set of abs, you can get away with a less than spectacular physique.  People’s eyes are naturally drawn to the midsection, and if yours is well developed, you will give the viewer the immediate impression of being in shape.

Oddly, I have found that the majority of bodybuilders do not pay nearly as much attention to their midsections as they should.  Many perform ab exercises once – maybe twice – a week, while others don’t train their abs at all!  Then, when the summer rolls around, they’ll be in the gym doubling up on ab training, trying to get some semblance of development before they have to reveal their torsos at the beach.

By training your abdominal region regularly, not only will you ensure that your midsection has the requisite ridges and valleys come summer, but you’ll also build yourself a strong core, which will help you to prevent future injuries – the kind that come from imbalanced strength.

When I think of great abdominal development, one of the first men to come to mind is my friend Frank Zane.  He had such a tiny waist and a midsection that was so well balanced – from serratus to obliques to intercostals to rectus abdominis – that he looked like the living, breathing incarnation of Michelangelo’s David.  I remember it seemed like I saw Frank on a Roman chair every workout, both at the beginning and at the end.  He would go for 500 reps each workout.  I used to chide him about all that time he spent training his abs, but I couldn’t deny that it did the trick.

Now I’m not about to recommend that you do 500 reps of Roman-chair situps daily, but I will tell you that in order to get a trim, nicely developed abdominal region, you’re going to have to put in some effort.  I’m talking about training your abs at least three times per week and aiming for no fewer than 100 reps per workout.  It might not seem like much compared to Frank’s grueling routine, but the truth is, it’s still a good workload.  If you think of those 100 reps in terms of another bodypart, say chest, that would be like doing 10 sets of 10 reps.

Like Frank, one of my favorite ab exercises is Roman-chair situps.  If your gym has a Roman chair, take advantage and make it a staple of your ab routine.  I have also always liked rope crunches.  Grab a rope attached to a high cable, get on your knees and crunch down, pulling your hands in to your chest.  I especially like these for the upper abdominal area.

Hanging leg raises are an absolute must for lower ab development.  With your knees slightly bent, raise your feet until they’re past parallel with the floor then lower them back down in the same controlled motion with which you raised them.  And when it comes to tightening the obliques, nothing beats broomstick twists - which can also be performed while sitting on a Roman chair – because they make the obliques especially hard.

I’ve outlined an ab routine for you to follow.  It hits all the areas of the midsection without placing emphasis on one over the other.  Perform it three or four times per week and within two months you’re sure to see great changes, not just to your abs, but your whole physique.
 

Impetus to improve

After a six-year absence from the NPC national level, Freeman won the super-heavyweight class and overall at the 2002 Nationals at 249 pounds.  However, that still didn’t mean he had world-class arms.  In fact, the frequent speculation that he should be toting larger-caliber guns led to them progressing to become one of his showcase bodyparts today.  Freeman states, "It came from all the ridicule from my first years of turning pro.  I was on the Internet boards a lot, and I used to get bashed pretty good.  It made me go back and look at myself, and it made me improve.  So I’m grateful for it."

The dichotomy comes from the fact that one of the best in the world has always had a love/hate association with the sport.  "I love everything, and I hate it all, too, at the same time," Freeman says.  "That’s what keeps it interesting.  When you train so hard, it hurts so bad.  You’ve got to do all of this cardio and dieting.  The reward is so awesome, though; that’s what keeps me in the game, especially when I’m improving at my age.  I want to see how long I can hang and still be healthy."

In 2005, Freeman figured that he could move up the ladder by showcasing bigger and more muscular arms.  To do this, he would train his biceps and triceps three times a week with varying scheduled intensity.  In building those larger arms, he would hold the keys to higher placings.

Three Feat

The centerpiece of the Freeman triple-arm thrash is a day devoted to biceps in the morning and triceps in the afternoon.  That’s when the genteel X-Man becomes an assassin.  He picks three to five exercises and, in his words, kills them.  If he does three movements, it will be for five sets each; four exercises get four sets; and five movements are annihilated with three sets.  These are likely to be his heaviest arm sets of the week with the strictest form, but since the arms are going to get some more work within a couple of days, weight doesn’t have to be extremely heavy.  Freeman says, "You may develop a little soreness in your tendons from working them that much, so you need to keep that in mind when you choose your weights.  When you’re killing your arms, you’re also killing your tendons – if you’re not careful."

Two days later, Freeman does a workout where he alternates biceps and triceps exercises.  After a pyramided first movement with a few more sets to help warm up, he does three sets the rest of the way.  This workout is faster paced – virtually nonstop – with little rest except for stretching or getting some water.

The least stressful, but still important, phase comes after his chest workout for triceps and after his back workout for biceps.  As these are tagged on to the end of a workout for another major bodypart, they can be called "wind-up" arm routines.  Freeman does two sets of two exercises to keep blood flowing through his arm muscles, equating it to a "pump" type of workout.  "The whole idea behind making muscles grow is to keep blood and sufficient nutrients in that area," he explains. "You stimulate the need through training and then supply the nutrition.  Keep doing it over and over.  That’s how we get how we get."

Freeman has followed this split both offseason and precontest, and as long as the nutrition supply is adequate for recovery, the gains keep coming.  The first time, at the 2006 Iron Man Pro, he found that his arms were huge after six months of following three-times-a-week arms schedule.  He then returned to a more standard (once or twice per week) frequency to focus on other areas, like his middle back.

Before, his triceps measured less than 20" onstage; now they’re 22".  Freeman says, "I look at my arms from three years ago, and now I’ve got a couple more inches and a lot more detail.

Xs & Ohs

Like many pros, Freeman adds a lot of variety to his workouts.  Over the past 20 years, he suspects he has done just about every combination of exercises in his workouts, but he prides himself on not repeating the exact routine.  Even within workouts, if he uses a barbell for his first set of curls, he’ll use dumbbells or a pulley for the second selection.

Freeman says, "I try to do every exercise I’ve ever seen in every exercise book and magazine at least once a year.  I do old exercises that hardly anyone does, like Zottman curls.  Some of the, I don’t even know their name.  If you have a great workout and an incredible pump, you won’t get that again by doing the same exact thing.  The next time you feel that kind of pump, it will be from doing something different.  I feel that more often because I’m always changing."

With the numerous variations of curls, triceps presses, dips, extensions, pushdowns and kickbacks added to the various equipment, angle, weight, volume and exercise-order alternatives, Freeman is hardly in danger of allowing his workouts to become repetitive.  He says, "Some people write their workouts down and track themselves.  That’s their challenge.  I challenge myself to do something different every day."

Freeman is still hungry for more, "The only thing that drives me to push my physique like this is winning shows," he proclaims.  "I’m 42 and I’ve already got a woman, so I’m not doing it for the girls.  I can look like this by training three times a week and eating well.  I can’t win shows like that, but I’d be better built than the average man.  What drives me to be the best in the world is the competition and the things that come with it." 

With the best structure among the taller pros, 6′2" Toney Freeman had a satisfying finish to a busy 2008, taking fifth at the Mr. Olympia – especially gratifying, considering his near-disastrous 14th-place finish at the O in ‘07.

In 2008, Freeman inhabited every placing position except sixth from first through eighth while competing in eight different locations.  By the end of the year, he had found the winner’s circle for the fourth and fifth times in his pro career.  The fact that he’s hitting his prime at 42 years old makes it all the more sweet.

You might think that Freeman has always had spectacular arms, but you would be mistaken.  Freeman says, "When you’re young, everybody ego trains," he says.  "I sucked at arms,  so I didn’t really train them that much.  The only things I was good at were chinups and squats.  I did arms only when other people wanted to work arms.  Then I’d try to lift the whole gym, and I kept it all in my forearms."

START SMART

"If you’re a beginner, pick one or two exercises for each bodypart, no more than that.  Perfect those exercises to the best of your current ability before finding a couple more.  Instead of trying to do 50 things, get good at a few things.  Then, find new exercises one at a time.  Become good at what you’re doing at the time.  You’ll keep getting better, then keep adding things to it.  So many people want to try to be Mr. Olympia in six months, but that’s impossible."

"It’s going to take time.  I’ve been training for 21 years and I’m still learning.  If I had known it was going to take me 20 years to get to this point, I might not have been as enthusiastic to do it.  You can look at it like that, or you can say I know this is going to be a lifetime thing, so why don’t I do it the smart way and start from quality at the beginning instead of trying to be as big as I can and then try to make it look good.  If you start out with the right philosophy, you’ll end up getting what you want quicker."

Toney’s Training Tips

1. For dumbbell curls, I suggest keeping your palms facing up and use both arms simultaneously.  Use moderate weight, and keep strict concentration on working the muscle without resorting to momentum.

2. The mental illustrating I like to use is of holding onto the dumbbell, palm facing up, then making a muscle.  Most people can’t use too much weight if they do the rep in that fashion.  I probably could use 50s, but then I’d have to drop the reps.

3. With my arms program, you’re really hitting them hard only once.  The other two times, you are trying to keep blood in the muscle.  After back and chest, sometimes I’ll only do one set of one exercise to failure.

4. The only thing that really stimulates biceps are curls.  I’ve even done chins in my biceps routine as a warm-up instead of curls.  That was when I was a real beginner.

5. Sometimes you go into the gym and you feel really strong.  Some days, you just don’t have it, so I’ll use lighter weights and more reps.  I go by my strength and change it up according to that.

6. You don’t want to pull your tendons off the bones.  You need to be cautious with the weights.  I want to save younger people the headaches and heartaches down the road.

7. The muscles of the bi’s and tri’s are small, so they don’t need a ton of weight to be stimulated.  They need control and concentration.  If you use weight you can control and perfect from to the best of your ability, you’ll get a lot further a lot faster.

In his own words, Phil Heath breaks down the back workout that helped him crash the top three in his first Mr. Olympia contest. 

Having just taken third in my Mr. Olympia debut is like winning the lottery for me.  Other guys who made the top three in their first Olympia include Lee Haney, Dorian Yates, Flex Wheeler and Kevin Levrone, so I’m feeling pretty good about being in that kind of company.

I’m sure some of you reading this think I had it easy.  After all, October 8, 2008, marked the sixth year to the day since I became a bodybuilder, and I’m aware that not a lot of guys can go from nothing to a top spot at the Olympia in six years.  Yeah, they call me "The Gift," but I’ve worked hard to get to this point.  I put in my share of grueling workouts and had to focus extra hard on some areas to make sure I came into my first O looking balanced and complete.

One such area that I knew I had to bring up was my back.  I had been hammering on it since I first started training seriously, but for me, my back just took a while to grow.  I always felt I could have one of the best backs in bodybuilding, but unlike my arms, which responded even with minimal training, my back took work and patience.

I credit Jay Cutler with opening my eyes to what it means to train your back intensely.  You may remember that training shoot he and I did that appeared in the November 2006 issue of FLEX ("Phenom Backlash").  That workout was no joke – Greg Merritt and Peter McGough were there and can tell you how much I was sweating.  You see, I thought I trained hard before that day, but after training Jay style, I realized I was only scratching the surface.  After that I started hitting it hard all the time.

I think the results speak for themselves.  I was just checking out some of the Olympia comparison photos between me and the champ, Dexter Jackson, on FLEXonline.com, and I think I hung with him.  It’s not like he dominated me or anything, and you could make the case that I’ve got a better back double biceps shot.  From the waist down for sure, but from the waist up, I think I looked pretty solid, too.

Of course, the best is yet to come.  Hany [Rambod, Heath's trainer] and I are going back to the drawing board to figure out the things we need to do to improve upon what I’ve already got.  Right now, we’re looking at adding middle back thickness.  We want to see more detail in the spinal erector area and see the lower lats filled out a little more.

We’re talking a bout adding partial deadlifts to my back routine, which is something Jay does.  The reason we’re going to do partials rather than full deadlifts from the floor is that I don’t want to add mass around my hips and glutes.  They’re fine where they are right now.  I definitely don’t want to mess up the lines I have now, just improve upon them.

I’m positive that my back is going to be one of the best in the sport.  I’ve watched it progress and I feel it still has room to grow.  Like I said before, I’ve only been bodybuilding for six years.  I still have a lot of growing to do.  Plus, I’m only turning 29 this year, so muscle maturity hasn’t even kicked in yet.

I didn’t want to tell too many people about this during the Olympia Weekend, but on Friday night for prejudging I was an even 230 pounds, and for the Saturday night finals I was actually 227 ½ !  [Editor's note:  Heath weighed 234 at the '08 Arnold, and 215 when he won the overall and his pro card at the 2005 USA Championships.]  I couldn’t believe it myself, but I’m like, Hey, the judges aren’t looking at scales, they’re looking at physiques.  If I weigh 227 and look 240, imagine what I’ll look like when I am 240.

Hany and I are pretty confident I can step onstage at 240 next year, especially if I decide not to do the Arnold.  I’m leaning toward doing it at the moment, but then again, I could make a bigger impact at the O if I devote a whole year of training to it.

In any case, now I’m more psyched than ever to knock it out of the park at next year’s Olympia.  As of this interview, it’s two weeks after the ‘08 show and I’m eating clean – tilapia and spinach.  I’m serious.  Yeah, I’m going to be eating more than that during the year (I have a guest posing I want to look good for next weekend), but I’m basically going to keep it clean all year.  Now that I know the Sandow is within reach, I’m pulling out all the stops.  A year from now, no matter what the outcome, I want to know I stepped on that stage looking the absolute best I could.

Dexter looked great at the Olympia and I’m happy for him.  Of course, Jay’s my brother and I really wanted to see him redeem himself and win a third title in dominating fashion.  But it is what it is and Dex is the man now – he’s Mr. Olympia.  I take my hat off to him.  But he should know that I’m knocking on his door.  No disrespect, but I think he realizes that.  The simple fact is that he’s looked pretty much the same way for the last seven or eight years, which is great.  He always brings it and he always looks amazing.

I plan to keep improving, by a lot, for years to come.  If I’m in the mix with Dexter now, I think I have a chance to leapfrog him next year.  What you need to remember is that what you saw on the Olympia stage was a work in progress.  Next year will be another work in progress, just further along.  I also think Jay is going to come back looking the way he’s supposed to look next year, which means like Mr. Olympia.  Even he admits he was way off that Friday night [at the prejudging].  It’s too bad, but the result doesn’t have him down.  He’ll bring it again for sure.

The scenario I’d like to see play out on the Saturday night of the 2009 O would be it coming down to the final two – Jay and me – with Dexter having already been announced third.  Then Bob Cicherillo announces the winner and … it’s Jay, taking his third Sandow.  Man, I’d be so happy for him.  I’d be the first to congratulate him.  But after that, it would be great if he retired, because I’d be gunning for him next.

PHIL SAYS:

"If I had to pick my number one back-building exercise, it would be barbell rows.  Dumbbell rows and T-bar rows are right up there, too.  When Jay was knocking at Ronnie’s door, Jay knew that the only thing standing between him and the Sandow was back thickness, so he relied heavily on rowing movements.  And it worked."

"I just felt I needed to do everything in my power to shoot down the naysayers – all the people who said, ‘Oh, he’s narrow.  He has a weak clavicle structure.‘  Well, yeah, I’m not the widest guy structurally, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have the ability to build enough muscle onto my frame to look wide."

"So, although rows are traditionally thought of as an exercise that builds thickness rather than width, having thick lats gives me the confidence to stretch out my shoulders in the back relaxed shots and the rear lat spread."

"I did something new with my training this past year, mostly because I prepped for three shows [the Ironman, Arnold and Olympia] – something I’d never done before.  Whereas I had focused on only going heavy in the past, I decided not to risk possible injury between the Arnold and Olympia.  So I did four exercises per bodypart, with the first three consisting of three sets and then, for the last one, I would do seven sets using only 80%-85% of my maximum poundage."

"What ended up happening was that I weighed seven pounds less than I did at the Arnold, but I looked 10 pounds heavier.  It’s just that I build denser muscle with better quality.  I mean, who would have thought that I weighed 227 ½ at the Olympia finals?"

"I focus on things like the burn and the stretch, especially when I’m doing the last seven-set exercise of my workout.  It’s all about feeling the muscle, not just lifting the weight.  In fact, the weight doesn’t even matter to me.  Actually, weight does matter, but what I mean to say is that I don’t focus on lifting the heaviest weight I can.  It’s all about lifting the right amount of weight to make my muscles respond the way I want them to."

"I’m a big believer in fascia stretching, which is something Jay also believes in, so I’ll do a lot of stretching of my lats throughout my workout.  Even during exercises like chins and seated cable rows, there’s ample opportunity to stretch at the end of each rep, so you have to take advantage of every bit of muscle growth you can get out of each exercise."

"A lot of people have told me that I overtrain because I’m doing 18 sets for my back, but I disagree.  If you’re eating enough protein, making sure you rest and continuing to see improvements, then you can’t be overtraining.  Anyway, was Arnold overtraining?  He seemed to do pretty well for himself."

"One thing that has come out of this old-school style of training is that my muscles have more ‘pop’ to them now.  You know, when I’m just standing there relaxed, my muscles look good and round, but then when I hit a shot, ‘Bam!’ they jump to attention and become rock hard.  This is something Arnold had as well.  I like that look.  It makes it more dramatic when I’m posing."
 

*Reprinted with the kind courtesy of FLEX Magazine (January 2009)
Article by Julian Schmidt.  Photography by Chris Lund.

Melvin Anthony Jr.’s Chest of Tricks

It’s easy to rest on your laurels, if you have lots of them – like Melvin Anthony Jr.’s rarefied aesthetics, sweeping fullness and standing-O posing routine – but the greatest of champions are those who, like Anthony, cannot rest if there’s one laurel left to grasp.  Those are the overachievers, chased by the demon that tells them they’ve not yet reached their potential.  Time has taught them humility and hardened their will, a combination doomed to frustration but assured of improvement, as Anthony has seen for his chest.

Reflecting back to when he won the NPC USA Championships in 1999, he readily confesses, "My chest sucked.  I always hated it.  I thought I had a bird chest.  I wanted a Sergio Oliva/Arnold Schwarzenegger chest, but I wasn’t born with it."

What Anthony was born with was a stout heart that refused to surrender to fate.  And thus began wattled experiments with chest routines and technique tweaks, in hopes of zeroing in on the magic.

He’s getting close, but it remains, and perhaps always will, an in-progress venture.  "I still do basics," says Anthony, "but I no longer superset.  I do inclines first, a flat movement second, then all of my other exercises."  Oh, yes, he also switches the barbell with dumbbells in successive workouts.

Volume is still an Anthony priority, usually tallying four or five exercises during his chest workouts, four sets each of eight to 15 reps, except on days when he admits, "I like to throw that barbell in there and start benching as much as I can, in which case, the reps come down a bit.  But I still try to keep them high."

Shuffling his training in this manner over the last four years had led him to love the results so much that he has undergone a transvaluation.  "I actually like dumbbells better than the barbell," he admits.  It used to be the other way around, but you only get a certain amount of muscle maturity from doing the bench press.  Dumbbells give you a different feel.  You have to control the weight more, you need better balance of the weight on the way down, and on the way up you’re able to squeeze your pecs further inward, similar to a flye.  Barbell work is just up and down, no closing in, no squeezing together.  A barbell works the entire chest, but dumbbells put more emphasis on your pectoral muscles individually, contracting them as separate entities, yet simultaneously."

Anthony-past was a barbell fiend, going so heavy that he had to bounce the bar off his chest so hard that it made his bones hurt, he says.  "I wasn’t getting anything out of it.  I’d get the squeeze but not on the extension.  I was coming down to my chest, but I had no control of it.  Anybody can drop 500 pounds on his chest, but if you’re going to do that, you might as well wear a powerlifting suit that springs the weight off your chest." 

Older and wiser, Anthony now concentrates on controlling the contraction throughout the repetition, yet still flirts with maximum poundage and still sees the need for barbell work.  "It bounces off my chest a little bit," he says, "but nothing compared with the past.  I’m tighter, and I’ve learned to squeeze from point zero all the way through.  Explosion is good for strength, and its special domain is the flat bench.  In that regard, it’s an incomparable exercise."

Anthony’s tighter squeeze during his reps allows him to implement his unique stretch-and-twist technique, which he feels is necessary for a bodypart as vast and complex as the chest.  He utilizes different angles and performs each repetition in what seems like slow motion.  "To stretch the upper, medial, lateral and lower pecs, inclines and declines are the answer, but performed with such restraint that you feel you’re spending an eternity reining in a wild stallion, he says.  "The entire process of resisting on the way down, getting the stretch at the bottom and exploding up requires 35 seconds for me to complete a set.

Dumbbells are where he twists.  For presses, he supinates his thumbs outward at the top, for a harder contraction in his outer and lower pecs.  For flyes, he holds the dumbbells with palms forward or pronated on the extension, and supinates on the contraction; the former increases stress on his inner and lateral pecs, and the latter produces a peak contraction in the medial and lateral pecs.

As a new pro nearly a decade ago, Anthony assessed his deficient chest and faced his fate as a genetic prisoner, telling himself, "You can’t want what you can’t have."  That’s what he told his mind, but he couldn’t tell it to his heart.  "I decided I’d at least try to make my chest as good as possible.  Now, I’ve been able to look at it and realize, "Wow!  It’s not flat."

David Henry’s Pectoral Principles

He has made a career of diving into the hellmouth of the most feral workouts ever devised, simply because they are beyond the tolerance of any other human being and, ipso facto, because they create granitic mature muscle virtually on the spot.  Every time we talk to him, he’s in the middle of some bizarre new self-flagellation and relishing every minute of it.  If he’s not roaring through power-concussion reps, it’ll be single-set monster lifts, Doggcrapp training, power-building supersets or some other flesh-flaying dementia.  But each time, he emerges thicker, denser, more swollen and hard.

David Henry’s latest iteration is no different, as evidenced by his eruptive chest growth, and he owes it all, he says, to a fresh assault of triset-superset shock workouts at surprise moments in the off season and for a final, dust-cloud, win-or-die charge through the last two weeks of combat – uh, sorry – contest training.

Here’s how it goes:  first, he picks three exercises, each intended to hit a different portion of his chest and combines them in trisets, going from one to the other nonstop, 10 reps at a time three times through the series.

In order, the exercises are decline dumbbell flyes, incline dumbbell flyes and flat dumbbell presses.  Each exercise, however, pyramids upward in weight, from 35-pounders for the declines, 45s for the inclines and 70s for the flat presses.  Between each triset, he takes a three-minute rest.

So, why the variations in poundage?  "I use a weight that won’t hurt me and that’s appropriate for the exercise," Henry explains.  The important point is to get those 10 reps all done in a very special way, the key being two different pauses and contractions in every rep.  My arms are straightened more than normal to get a very deep stretch, and the movement is very slow: one second down and three seconds up, with the upward movement interrupted at its halfway point for an additional one-second pause-and-squeeze, before continuing on the top, where I get another one-second peak contraction squeeze."

Incline flyes are performed in the same manner: one second down with control, then, three seconds up with a one-second pause/squeeze in the middle, before finishing with another peak-contraction squeeze at the top.

"Likewise, for the flat dumbbell presses," says Henry.  "It’s one second down, dropping the dumbbells all the way into my armpits, and they come up through a count of three, with an additional one-second pause/squeeze at the midpoint and a squeeze at the top.  It’s a workout designed for peak contractions and as much muscle involvement as I can possibly get."

There’s more.  After three trips through this giant set come three trips through a superset, the first exercise being standing cables, pulling from a high, outstretched reach through what Henry describes as, "a semi flye/press kind of motion, starting with my fists facing each other.

As I drive the handles down, I’m pronating my hand, so that I touch my thumbs together at the front.  The other half of the superset is the standard, get-on-the-dirty-gym-floor-and-go pushups, however many reps I can do to failure, hands shoulder width, heels together, and that’s it.

"If you’ve done the giant sets correctly and you’ve picked the right weight on the cable movement, you won’t be able to get more than 10 reps on the floor," he promises.  "Typically, you’ll get seven or eight before your body completely fails and you collapse on your face.  It’s happened to me many times, and it’s happened to others I’ve shown how to do this.  You go through this superset three times and that’ll about smoke it for chest."

Offseason, Henry still uses Doggcrapp training – "Nothing has changed there," he says – except that this tri-superset workout lurks, ready to pounce without warning, if his body dares take the dog days of summer literally.  "Offseason, it will be with heavier weight, of course," Henry adds.  "Because I’m not so depleted from contest dieting, I have more water in my system and more bodyfat, and I feel 100%.  If I throw it in then for a couple of weeks, with all-out heavy weight, I can get a little muscle growth going in a different direction."

The 2008 Olympia 202 Showdown champion, Henry used this approach for every bodypart in prep for the 2008 New York Pro Show (he was fourth) and the Tampa Pro Bodybuilding Weekly Championships (third).  "It got me really grainy hard," he says.  "I have to do something.  There are these young guys out there, like Flex Lewis, looking to beat me – that was his goal, coming over here from Wales.  He said, ‘One has to be the best to beat the best,’ and he was talking about me.  With these guys gunning for me, that’s a compliment and a real motivation, so I’d be crazy if I didn’t put something in my arsenal that would help me.

"This program does the job.  It’s painful and it’s not easy, but nothing we do in this sport is," he adds.  "But it helps a lot in my offseason training, and it forces me to push harder than I ever have during the precontest.  I’m ready to rock and roll for next year."

Darrem Charles: Classic Chest Tactics

"I’ve been competing for so long that I have an even greater understanding of what works and what doesn’t, and I’ve used that knowledge to avoid injuries and maximize my chest workouts," says Darrem Charles, who has more than two decades of bodybuilding under his lifting belt.

With continuous cognizance of his gradual strength gains, Charles was able to let his training intensity lead his poundage increases, rather than vice versa, thereby accelerating his ability to get more out of the combination of those two factors.  "Being able to handle 120-pound dumbbells with high intensity for incline flyes is not a bad achievement," he rightfully admits, illustrating that the smart bodybuilder acknowledges the necessity of the heaviest weight possible, provided they are properly employed.

With that condition, Charles still uses a lot of free weights, but with an eclectic mix of machines and cables.  The result: alternated workouts of four exercises of three sets each, one workout being heavy basics (10, eight, six reps) and the other oriented toward cables and shaping movements (12, 10, eight reps).

On the heavy duty day, it’s flat dumbbell presses, incline barbell presses, incline flyes and rocking-chair dips.  For the "shaping" day, it’s incline dumbbell presses, incline hammer presses, flat-bench hammer presses, and cable crossovers or dumbbell pullovers.

A natural assumption is that the second workout provides a respite from the heavy workout, but Charles sees it differently: "Ten years ago," he explains, "I was trying to go all-out heavy on every single exercise in every single week, but I wasn’t getting enough blood into a specific muscle to shape it.  I needed more control, a lot more precision in the movement – stimulate, not annihilate – if I expected to build more shape and detail into my physique, instead of mere undefined size.  The surprising result was that I was able to increase my weight for both workouts: I had more strength for heavier power workouts, as well as for heavier shaping workouts."

Experience has yielded valuable performance techniques for each exercise.  With his flat-bench dumbbell press, for example, Charles makes a point of keeping his fingers wrapped all the way around the handle for a secure grip, and his elbows are splayed at right angles to his body, aligned with the dumbbells.  A full range of motion is essential, he says.  "I come all the way down, until they touch the outside of my upper pecs.  At this point, it’s absolutely essential to stay as tight as possible, so I can safely apply full power when I push the dumbbells up.  At the top, I do not lock out, but I touch them together and squeeze for a peak contraction."

For the incline barbell press, he uses a false grip, thumbs on the outside, and gets a full range of motion, bringing the bar down high on his chest, just under his chine.  "When I press it upward," he explains, "I keep it over my face and not too far forward, so there’s no question that I’m working my upper pecs.  Many people these days no longer lower the bar all the way down to their chest.  They’re probably afraid of it, so they et so tight that the bar simply won’t come all the way down."

Preeminent in the performance of incline dumbbell flyes, insists Charles, is to make sure it is a flye movement, no a press.  Excess weight, he warns, forces the dumbbells to be moved almost straight up and down, instead of through a wide, circular arc.  To minimize that effect, Charles keeps his elbows fixed in a slightly bent position.  Once he reaches the halfway point of the lift, he feeds in the explosiveness, and form then upward he supinates his hands, touching the lower parts of the dumbbells together at the top for what he calls a "better contraction" of his pecs.

Rocking-chair dips is Charles’ description of his final, heavy-day exercise.  "When I go down, I keep an arch in my back, lean forward a bit and get a good stretch at the bottom,’ he says.  "When I come up from the dip, I push myself backward, as if I’m in a rocking chair, and I don’t lock out at the top.  Off the bottom, I get lots of explosion, or drive – but that requires me to be very tight throughout."

As for his shaping-day exercises, he begins with incline dumbbell presses.  Charles keeps his elbows pointed outward, in line with the dumbbells, to neutralize the tendency of his body to make things easier by pulling his elbows into his body.  "If that happened," he says, "I would be much stronger, because my triceps would help, but it would also negate the effect of the exercise."  Likewise for his incline and flat hammer presses – although these are machine movements, it’s easier to ride herd on his elbow, since they’re not required to stabilize and support as much as they do with free weights.

A constant pull backward is what Charles wants from his cable crossovers, so he step slightly ahead of the pulleys.  As he brings the handles together, his arms are not straight out to the front but downward, close to his body, about five inches in front of his torso.  Describing it in detail, he says, "As I pull down, my palms are facing each other.  As I come in closer to my body, I cross my arms and turn my hands so my palms are facing me."  At maximum contraction, he tries to straighten his arms as much as he can, by flexing his pecs and holding for a couple of seconds.  He also alternates one hand over the other; left over right for one rep, right over left the next and so forth.

When he substitutes his dumbbell pullovers for cable crossovers, his range of motion is very short.  "The dumbbell is not even over my face," he says.  "It’s just a little behind, about the same position as for lying triceps extensions."

Charles likes the look pullovers have helped develop.  "That’s why, back in the day, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Lou Ferrigno and all those guys had big chests.  They looked a certain way – when they hit a chest pose, it was very different."  His advice is to fix just a slight bend in your elbows throughout the set.  Lots of people he notes, lose that bend in their arms as they bring the dumbbell forward, thus making it more of a triceps extension exercise.  Charles says he does these every two or three weeks.  He then utters the tautology, "Obviously, they help."