Tag: nutrition

Resources by Conor HeffernanSep 16, 201912:29 am

MIKE MENTZER, ‘The Essential Nutrients’, HEAVY DUTY NUTRITION (1993), 11-14.

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In order to maintain health and provide for optimal growth, our bodies require more than 40 different nutrients. These various nutrients can be found in the six primary food components: water, protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins and minerals.

WATER: Whether or not you believe live began in the sea, the fact remains that life exists in an inner sea within our body, two-thirds of which is water. All of life’s complex biochemical processes take place in a water medium, which accounts for the fluidity of our blood and lymph system. Water is our waste remover through urine and feces; it lubricates our joints, keeps our body temperature within a narrow range; and last but not of least importance to the bodybuilder, water is the primary constituent of muscle tissue.

Vince Gironda Weight-Gain Diet

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The following extract comes from Vince Gironda’s 1984 Book: Unleashing the Wild Physique (available here). This book cannot be recommended highly enough, from VInce’s no nonsense take on steroids to his innovative training techniques. Today’s post comes from Vince’s advice on weight gain.

The real secret to gaining weight is food. The more you eat, the more you’ll gain. While eating three nutritionally balanced meals a day is good, it is even more beneficial to eat or more meals per day. Eat smaller meals – but more often – every three hours. If you can’t find the time to eat six meals a day, try eating three main meals with snacks between meals and before going to bed.

The cardinal rules of weight gaining are:

Never overeat at any one particular meal (this causes bloating and gas and may actually cause a weight loss)
And never allow yourself to get hungry

Nutrition by Conor HeffernanJun 17, 20196:24 am

Revisiting the Anabolic Diet

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What if I told you about a diet that not only mimicked the effects of steroids but also allowed you to gorge on meats, eggs and cheese for days at a time before indulging in pizza and pancakes on the weekend? A diet that would help you get leaner, stronger and more muscular. A diet that seemingly had it all?

This isn’t the stuff of fairytale but some of ways that Dr. Mauro Di Pasquale’s Anabolic Diet has been advertised since it’s inception in the early 90s. A cyclical diet, Di Pasquale’s high fat approach came at a time when the majority of Bodybuilders, along with the American public, were stuck in a low-fat mindset.

Whilst the majority of gym goers nowadays are unaware of DiPasquale’s work, the Anabolic Diet was one of the seminal eating programmes of its time.

So in today’s post we’ll look at the history of the diet itself, what the diet entailed and just why it was so revolutionary.

Resources by Conor HeffernanJun 14, 20196:24 am

Protein Way of Life by Rheo H. Blair

Open any muscle mag from the mid-20th century and chances are you’ll find a reference to Rheo H. Blair, and his famous instant protein. Blair’s protein was used by the top bodybuilders of the 1950s ranging from Gironda to Arnie. He was a firm believer in the importance of top quality protein and often got amazing results from his clients.

Today we look at Blair’s 1950s pamphlet entitled the ‘Protein Way of Life.’ There’s some important tidbits to be taken from it.

How to mix the protein drink

Resources by Conor HeffernanJun 5, 201911:11 am

Chad Nicholls, ‘The Contest Guru’, Muscular Development, December, 45:12 (2008), 426-432.

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Once again reaching into my mail- bag, I found of couple of interesting questions that may sound like the same old cookie-cutter questions, but my answers put a new twist on two staple parts of bodybuilding — nutrition and off-season weight gain — and my take on the best type of off-season dieting and how to employ it to anyone’s arsenal.

Resources by Conor HeffernanJun 3, 20191:22 pm

Before the Carnivore Diet? Rheo H. Blair’s Meat and Water Diet (1960s)

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The Carnivore Diet – the practice of solely consuming meat products – has grown exponentially in the past few years. As someone who has experimented with a range of diets, everything from all fruit to raw meat, it’s remarkable to see an all meat diet gain traction for the lifting community and the general populace. While Vilhjamur Stefannsson popularised the Inuit’s meat dominated diet in the early 1900s, an all meat diet for athletes or lifters appears to be a new development.

So being the type of individual that I am, I decided to go through the annals of bodybuilding and see if anyone had dabbled with a carnivore-esque diet in the past. Echoing the wonderful ‘nothing new under the sun series‘ produced by Chaos and Pain (definitely not safe for work!), we have a precedent for the current carnivore diet in the form of Vince Gironda and Rheo H. Blair’s ‘meat and water’ diet, a short term weight loss diet used by bodybuilders prior to a competition.

With that in mind today’s post examines the reasons behind Blair’s experiment, the bodybuilders he used it on and what lessons, if any, his meat and water diet holds for present day lifters.

Resources by Conor HeffernanMay 20, 20194:15 pm

Peary Rader, ‘The Six Meal A Day Plan’, The Rader Master BodyBuilder and Weight Gaining System (1946)

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If it is convenient, it is often found a great help to eat 4 to 6 meals per day, tho this is not necessary.

Many men have found that the addition of a light lunch at about 10 o’clock, another at about 3:30 p.m. and another just before bed time has been the secret of very fast gains. None of their meals would be as large as usual, but much more frequent. This gives the internal organs a better chance to function efficiently compared to the system of overloading them three time a day as is generally done. So whenever circumstances will permit it, we recommend the 5 to 6 meal a day plan for weight gainers. Many doctors use this system for sick people or people with digestive disorders and you should realize that it is a healthful plan.

Nutrition by Conor HeffernanMay 15, 20191:31 pm

Triple H, ‘Eating on the Road’, Triple H’s Approach to a Better Body (New York, 2000)

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Thanks to a schedule that keeps me on the road over two hundred days out of the year, this area has become my specialty. Charles Glass and one of his partners, noted nutritionist Mike Watson, have given me so much valuable guidance related to eating, but none may have been more important for me than their ability to get me over my fear of fast food. The fact is, you should always go with real food over supplements. So if you have to choose between another protein bar or a stop at Wendy’s … pull over at Wendy’s. Just be careful of what you order.

Resources by Conor HeffernanApr 10, 20192:37 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 HeffernanApr 2, 20192:30 pm

Guest Post: A Short History of Fasting

Photo by Kamil Szumotalski on Unsplash Fasting can be described as either complete abstinence from food or a reduction in the amount of food a person consumes. In some cases, it can include abstinence from […]