Resources by Conor HeffernanNov 12, 20183:56 pm

Alan Palmieri, Gaining Weight And Adding Muscle Mass (2003)

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Although sometimes people take up bodybuilding to lose weight, the majority take to the sport in an attempt to add weight and gain muscle size to their frames. This is especially true for teenagers and young adults. As one matures with age it is usually much easier to gain weight, sometimes too much weight. Individuals who are extremely thin go through just as difficult a time as those that are excessively overweight. Being extremely skinny was the reason I took up bodybuilding in the first place.

Bradley Steiner, ‘ON GAIN WEIGHT SUPPLEMENTS’, The Hard Gainers Bible (1988)

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I don’t believe in the heavy use of food supplements. Not for anyone. ESPECIALLY (and perhaps, surprisingly so to many) in the case of hard gainers, of all people! Why?

Hard gainers need COMPLETE, BALANCED NUTRITION. They need ir more definitely and more direcrlv than their easy-gaining brothers. THEY DON’T HAVE THE EXTRA-EFFICIENTMETABOLISMS NEEDED TO ASSIMILATE BOT-H THESUPPLEMENTS AND THE FULL, BALANCED MEAI,, INGREAT AMOUNTS. Far better for these people to use a small judicious amount of one or two really important supplements (like vitamin-mineral tablets and wheat germ oil) than to stuff their mouths with powders, pills and concoctions.

Biographies by Conor HeffernanNov 7, 20183:25 pm

Charles Gaines, ‘Cutting Some Fancy Figures, Sports Illustrated, 10 July (1972).

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Outside the auditorium, or Pavilion, as it’s called, it is a gorgeous Sunday afternoon at the Mountain Park amusement center in Holyoke, Mass. A roller coaster clatters up and down a wooden trestle. Children fly around in little whirly things that look like boats with wings. There are clam bars, pizza stands, dart throws, cotton-candy booths, a commando machine-gun stall. The sky is raucous blue, the sun is hot and a lot of people are laughing. Outside Mountain Park, on all sides, stretches Holyoke suburbia, big homes and fine lawns that make the place feel mischievous and isolated, an island of gaudery in the midst of all that yawning green. Especially today. Today in the Pavilion a body contest is going on, a “Festival of Flesh”—maybe the gaudiest of all sporting events and strange as a llama race to the average suburban fan. Leon Brown, who works in a laundry in New York, is in there posing for the 1972 Mr. East Coast title.

Resources by Conor HeffernanNov 5, 20183:49 pm

John Balik, Total Muscularity: SuperStar Nutrition (Santa Monica, 1979)

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Describing himself as Arnold’s Seminar Nutritionist, Balik opened his short pamphlet on gaining muscle with the often forgotten law that ‘nothing beats persistence.’ Produced alongside a pamphlet on gaining muscle, which we’ll be discussing in a future post, Balik’s Total Muscularity represents a great insight into the training philosophy of 1970s Muscle Beach bodybuilding. Sparing myself the task of typing out his pamphlet word for word, which I suspect would infringe on some form of copyright law, I decided that a brief synopsis of the book would suffice. At the very least it would pander to our ever decreasing attention spans.

So in today’s post we’re going to look at Balik’s theories on individual body types, the type of diet he recommended and also what we can learn from it nearly forty years after its publication.

Resources by Conor HeffernanNov 2, 20188:56 am

T.C. Luoma and Bill Phillips, ‘Muscle Media 2000 Exposes 30 of Bodybuilding’s Biggest Myths That Stand Between You and Success!’, Muscle Media, (October/November, 2000).

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1 — You can get as big as a pro bodybuilder without taking steroids; it just takes longer.

Despite what many of the magazines say, all professional bodybuilders use either steroids or steroids in combination with other growth-enhancing drugs. Without manipulating hormones, it just isn’t possible to get that degree of muscularity, the paper-thin skin, and the continuing ability to pack on mass, despite sometimes having poor workout habits and relative ignorance of the principles involved that many pro bodybuilders have. Many supplement distributors, in order to sell their products, would have you believe otherwise.

Still, that’s no reason to give up. By using state-of-the-art training principles, consuming a nutrient-rich diet, and by getting proper amounts of rest, almost every person can make incredible changes in his or her physique. The competitive bodybuilder circuit may not be in your future, but building the kind of physique that gains you respect is certainly achievable, as are self-respect and robust health.

2 — In order to get really big, you have to eat a super-high-calorie diet.

Well, that’s true; you’ll get really big if you eat a super high-calorie diet, but you’ll look like the Michelin Man’s fraternal twin. However, if you want to get big, lean-tissue wise, then super-high- calorie diets are probably not for you unless you are one of those very few people with metabolicrates so fast you can burn off these calories instead of depositing them as fat. Unfortunately, studies show that, in most people, about 65% of the new tissue gains brought about by high-calorie diets consists of fat! Of the remaining 35%, approximately 15% consists of increased intracellular fluid volume, leaving a very modest percentage attributable to increased lean muscle mass.

According to Dr Scott Connelly (MM2K, Spring 1992, p. 21), only about 20% to 25% of increased muscle growth stems from increased protein synthesis. The rest of the muscle growth is directly attributable to increased proliferation of the satellite cells in the basal lamina of muscle tissue, and dietary energy (calories) is not a key factor in the differentiation of these cells into new myofibres (muscle cells).

Of all factors determining muscle growth, prevention of protein breakdown (anti-catabolism) seems to be the most relevant, but adding adipose [fat] tissue through constant overfeeding can actually increase muscle proteolysis (breakdown). Furthermore, additional adipose mass can radically alter hormone balances which are responsible for controlling protein breakdown in muscle. Insulin balance, for one, which partially controls anti- catabolism in the body, is impaired by consistent overfeeding. So much for the eat-big-to-get-big philosophy!

Stay away from the super-high calorie diets unless you’re a genetic freak, or you’re woefully lean and don’t mind putting on fat [or you’re using appropriate pharmaceutical supplements].

Training by Conor HeffernanOct 31, 20185:25 pm

Vince Gironda, ‘Presses – Vince’s Gym Style’, Ironman Magazine, 29:2 (1969), 20

A quick tip on military pressing from the Iron Guru himself, Vince Gironda. Known for his unique approach to the bench press and the squat, it should come as no surprise to learn that Gironda […]

Resources by Conor HeffernanOct 29, 201811:56 pm

John Christy, ‘Mid-Year Checkup’, Hardgainer Magazine, July/August (1999)

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By the time you receive this issue of HARDGAINER we will be about half way through the year. So it’s a good idea to take stock as to how your training is going so far, so that you make the rest of the year as productive as possible.

Resources by Conor HeffernanOct 27, 20188:13 am

Bodybuilders Who Passed Away Too Young

It’s deniable that using powerful drugs on a regular basis appear to be needed to be a world-class bodybuilder. While steroids are very common and open to debate to be harmful for body, some other drugs like insulin, HGH and Diuretics cause more serious issues likemuscular corpse, organ failure, Cardiovascular disease and even death for bodybuilders.

Using anabolic steroids got more common in the early 60’s when bodybuilders found out this can take their muscles some steps higher. But even about steroid, the majority of studies link long-term consumption of steroid with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and irregular heart function. Here is one out of hundreds of studies on effects of steroid abuse.

Maybe it’s not fair to not mention that some professional bodybuilders have died of natural causes before hitting 35 years old. But even the ones who have survived and are in their 50s or so, are not without major health problems.

Below, named some very unfortunate deaths of well-known body builders who passed away too young.

Resources by Conor HeffernanOct 26, 201811:56 pm

George F. Jowett, ‘The Standard That Determines the Ideal Shape’, The Key to Muscle and Might (c. 1925)

There is no doubt in my mind that Eugene Sandow’s rise to fame was due more to the symmetrical shapeliness of his enviable body than to the difficulty of feats of strength he performed. Generally speaking, there are two things which will always impress the mind of the body culturist, shape and strength. With strength, we have already dealt.

Therefore, we will now direct out attention to the value of shapeliness, and the influence it has upon our mind and body. Oh yes, it has a great influence upon the mind. The next time you visit an art gallery notice the quiet reverence that is displayed by the art lovers, as they move from one picture to another. The serene beauty of the pictures permeates the whole atmosphere, leaving the beholders in silent wonder. I have a great friend who is a wonderful artist, and he often makes sketches of the body in varied postures, which he brings to me for scrutiny. On one of his visits he said to me, “I can always tell whether the drawings meet with your approval or not. Not by what you say, as much as how little you say. Your eyes are always drawn to the pictures you like best, and I have noticed that you have sometimes been so enraptured that you did not hear me speak to you.” He was quite right. Pictures of the body beautiful, correctly translated, never weary me. I can feast my eyes upon them for hours at a time. This rather contradicts the statement that, familiarity with the most beautiful objects, breeds contempt. For twenty-five years I have lived in the atmosphere of beautiful bodies, and I am still as enthusiastic as I was when I first commenced my studies.

Resources by Conor HeffernanOct 24, 201811:56 pm

John Christy, Why Aren’t I Getting Bigger?, Hardgainer Magazine, May/June (2003)

Author’s note: If you’re wondering why this isn’t the second installment of “The Keys to Success” series, it’s because the article “out-grew” the pages of HARDGAINER. l’ve decided to turn “The Keys to Success” into my first book. I should have it completed by the end of the year.

Ah, the grand old question of them all. I’ve heard it a thousand times: “I’m doing everything right, so why aren’t I getting any bigger?” Let me give you the reasons why.