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Bill Pearl's Training Strategies (Excerpts from a 1980's Super-Seminar) By Dennis B. Weis "The Yukon Hercules"

How would you like to:

*Gain pounds of solid muscle fast!
*Pack on slabs of rock hard muscle within a few short weeks!
*Add inches to your arms, chest, back, and legs! Without drugs!

Awesome gains like these can be yours as you read about the scientific realities of empirical bodybuilding recorded at an actual Bill Pearl seminar. Read on as this multi-Mr. Universe 1953, 1961, 1967, 1971 shares his 50+ years of training wisdom.

Q: "Would you briefly tell us what a good basic routine would be for gaining size when you're not trying to totally cut up?"

B.P. "If a person wants to gain massive muscular bulk, if I want to get my arms as big as I can possibly get them, I
would probably do around 20 sets a day of say 4 exercises and 5 sets each for the triceps and 20 sets for the biceps per workout 3 times per week. That would be around 60 sets of triceps and 60 sets of biceps work per week. I would keep the repetitions between 6 and 8 and I would do all basic movements where I can handle as heavy weights as I can and then I'd take my diet and I'd consume any nutritious food that had calories in it and just flat eat!"

Q: "I was wondering when you talk about volume training like 20 sets for the biceps three times per week, what you think about lower volume, high intensity type of training that (the late) Mike and Ray Mentzer use. They said you can theoretically become a champion even if you're not a genetic freak in just 5 years if you apply their method of high intensity type of training."

B.P. "Mike and Ray Mentzer used to write to me when they were young kids back in Pennsylvania, when Ray was 9 years old and Mike was 11 years old. They'd send me little pictures of themselves and all types of stuff. I'd answer them back. I'd never dreamed they'd end up like they were, but Mike and Ray are genetic freaks. Ray is one of the strongest bodybuilders I have ever seen in my life and Mike is equally as strong.

They have trained heavy all these years. They must have tendons like the size of my thumb. Their bodies can stand that Heavy Duty type of training where they limit the number of sets to no more than five for either the triceps or biceps, while carrying each set to total failure in both the positive and negative rep levels for maximum growth stimulation. I can say with all sincerity that Mike and Ray do not train like this year in and year out."

Q: "About the use of dumbbells. Do you use a lot of dumbbells in your training as opposed to barbells or does it make any difference to you?"

B.P. "Well, it does make a difference because you want as much variety in your training as you can possibly get and if I had to pick dumbbells over barbells I would go with the dumbbells. I think if anybody gets on a training program where the same exercises, sets and reps are done day in and day out, month after month, your body becomes so accustomed to what you're doing that muscle growth will stop altogether. I will change my entire training program every 6 to 8 weeks. Different sets, different reps, and a different goal for yourself can generally shock you into a new growth range."

Q: "Can you give me a typical workout that you might use from time to time?"

B.P. "I train 6 days per week. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I will train all the muscle groups for just one exercise each for 6 sets of each. I group the body parts in such a way so that I can do super sets and in doing so I won't rest too long between sets. I change the exercises every workout day. As an example I might do Incline Dumbbell Flys for the chest on Monday, while on Wednesday I might go with the Bench Press and on Friday it might be Decline Bench Presses. Each of the 6 sets I do is increased from the previous one and each week I try to add 5 pounds to all my previous 6 set poundages.

On Tuesday I will do 18 to 20 sets for the chest and the back and on Thursday I will work the legs and shoulders for 18 to 20 sets each. I break up the back and leg training in the manner I have just described because they're the two largest muscle groups and it's not as tiring this way. I work my calves every day for a half hour. Saturday is arm day and just a laid-back fun day.

There are four muscle groups which I work six days per week for 6 sets of one different exercise each day. They are the Forearms, Abs, Leg Biceps and the Neck. I will train at about 85-90% of maximum and I try to do 30 sets per hour which is 1 set every two minutes. My rep scheme is varied in that I will do 6 to 10 reps per body part, but as I grow stronger I will up my reps to 15 for the upper body and 25 reps for the legs."

Q: "I was just wondering how long I should be working out before I make the transition from say a 4 day a week workout schedule to something like 6 days per week and doing 18 to 20 sets per muscle group like you just mentioned, or 6 out of every 8 days like three time former Mr. Olympia, Frank Zane, does or something like that? I mean, how long should a bodybuilder be working out basically before switching to something a lot more intense like your workouts?"

B.P. "If a bodybuilder is not responding on a hard and heavy 20 sets per muscle group three times a week and he is not growing, believe me, doing five times that much is not going to do it for you. There has to be a limit to this. There is no set answer to this question. I know guys who can train 3 or 4 days a week, 45 minutes a day and make very good progress and others just don't grow at all. I would never do more than 20 sets per muscle group three times per week. I don't care what I did, to me it just isn't worth the effort. You're going to spend your whole life in the gym.

No one says that more time in the gym is better. Personally, I can tell you that I can get all that I need in a lot less than 6 days a week, 3 hours a day in the gym. I don't have to train that much, it just means I like it. I like the surroundings, and I like the people. I use this as my time of the day to do what I so desire, but I'm sure I could be as healthy and fit as I could possibly be in one-half of that length of training time. But I enjoy the sport and I don't mind being in the gym. The minute it becomes a drudgery and I don't like it the smart thing to do is back off. Making the transition over from say a 4-day to a 6-day workout schedule and going from multiple sets to mega sets of say 20 will depend on how much time you have had in the sport of bodybuilding. I have trained for so many years I am sure I could do 25 sets per muscle. It's like trying to get 6 gallons of water into a 5-gallon bucket. You can't do it because there is going to be a gallon which will be wasted.

It's just like in bodybuilding, you can only put so much into a particular effort and get so much out of it. Now for the length of time you have trained it may be 8 or 10 or 12 sets or even 6 sets per muscle group would be just as good for you as 20 sets would be for me. So you've got to realize the length of time you've been in bodybuilding and how much of a background you have understanding what you are doing with regard to your training and how mature your muscles are. All this has a big bearing on this.

Now I'm sure that if I do less than 20 sets per muscle group I'm not even going to maintain what I've got alone make any growth factor. The longer you have in the sport of bodybuilding, if you want to continue to improve, you've got to spend more time at it. If you want to get big, thick, coarse, bulky muscles, handle heavy weights, keep your reps low at about 6 to 8, and do numerous sets and you will grow!

I'll say one thing. Any time a guy is training and the minute something negative about whatever you are doing comes into play, you had better get off it. Say you're doing a really heavy bench press like 300-400 pounds. You walk into the gym on Monday and do it, no sweat. Now on Wednesday, lo and behold you don't get the 300 or 400 pounds that you easily got on Monday, because you're still tired from your last bench routine. You come back in the gym again on Friday and you blow your benches again. Pretty soon you are gearing your whole workout to that 300-400 pound bench press. So you walk out of the gym and say 'I had a lousy workout because I missed my bench presses.' Psychologically, you can't succeed in your workouts if you have a bad attitude toward it.

Another example. Guys will come up to me and say, 'Bill, my arms won't grow. Everything I do my arms won't grow. What will I do?' If every time you pick up a barbell and curl it they aren't going to grow, because you are programming your arms not to grow, isn't this true? Your muscle doesn't have a brain. Your head controls the muscle. The muscle doesn't control the brain. So you've got to say, 'O.K., I'm going to work my arms and my arms are going to grow.' I say, change your mental attitude about your training, because if you don't you can't take anything negative that you are doing in the sport of bodybuilding and turn it into positive results, it won't work. Everything you do in the gym has to be done on a positive note. You must condition your subconscious mind to think that you are getting bigger and training with more intensity, and your body will have to respond accordingly."

Q. You say that you train 6 days a week. What exercise do you use to keep your abdominals in shape?

B.P. "There is no one specific exercise that I do for my abdominal development. I do 5 to 6 different abdominal exercises for 100 repetitions each or maybe 7 exercises and 100 reps each. There are plenty of exercises to choose from in the abdominal section of my book Keys to the Inner Universe, and the combinations are virtually endless. I don't care how much you work your abs, if you're carrying fat there you can't do situps and burn that fat off your midsection. You cannot spot reduce a bodypart through exercise. All those situps are going to do is burn calories and tone the abs a certain amount, then Mother Nature is going to pull fat off your body where it wants to, not where you want it to. If you have got heavy, thick obliques, which is normal on most guys, and you think side bends are going to reduce them and you don't change your diet, you're crazy. You're never going to get it off of there."

Q. How much excess bodyweight do you think a bodybuilder should carry before he begins physique contest training?

B.P. "I would think that you should try to stay within 2 or 3 months of being in peak condition at all times if you're constantly competing in physique contests. Never let yourself get out of position where you can't in a period of 2 or 3 months get back in the best shape you've ever been in your life. If you gain more bodyweight than that, you're asking for trouble."

Q. Would you suggest taking a couple of days off from training just prior to a physique contest?

B.P. "I would think you should take a couple of days off. For instance, if the physique contest is on a Saturday, you should probably get your last workout on Wednesday, but if you've been on a very strict diet like most people are today and you've been on this diet for the past 6-7 months, what happens if you take the two days off before this contest which is so important to you and you totally blow the diet? What would this do to your mental attitude? It would ruin it. So you will have to make this call yourself based upon your knowledge of contest training."

Q. Who do you think is the strongest bodybuilder that you've ever trained with?

B.P. "The strongest bodybuilder that I've ever trained with was probably Franco Columbu on specific lifts, but the guy I've seen handle the most weight on all sets and repetitions on all the exercises was Ray Mentzer. I saw Ray training at a gym over in Germany a few years ago, and he was using about 240 pounds on a Nautilus bicep machine. Ray took that thing and sat down and with one arm curled that weight (240 pounds) up. When Ray went in to take a shower, I went over to that machine, and with two arms I could not curl it, and I consider myself strong. All of a sudden my attitude towards Ray changed tremendously."

Q. What's the best bench press you've ever done?

B.P. "Four hundred and fifty pounds. At my age I don't squat 600 pounds any more. I've squatted 605, I've done the seated press behind the neck with 310 pounds for 2 reps. I was probably one of the strongest bodybuilders around for a long time until recently."

Q. Do you include running in your workout schedules?

B.P. "I run at times, but I don't run on a steady basis. I think it would be a good idea if a person wanted to burn calories and consume more food, then running is good, but I think if you're in hardcore bodybuilding, I don't think you're going to run too far because if you have got that much energy left over, then you're doing something wrong in your workouts."

Q. There was a big change in your physique in the late 1960s and early 1970s where your torso took on a more muscular look. How did you do that?

B.P. "By becoming more aware of my diet, which meant just taking all the nutrition I knew and started putting it into use."

Visit http://www.billpearl.com

Dennis B. Weis is a Ketchikan, Alaska based power-bodybuilder. He is the co-author of 3 critically-acclaimed books; Mass!, Raw Muscle and Anabolic Muscle Mass (visit: www.amazon.com to read about it), He is also a frequent hard-hitting uncompromising freelance writer for many of the mainstream bodybuilding and fitness magazines published worldwide.

Contact Information:
E-mail: tyukonherc@kpunet.net
Website: http://www.dennisbweis.com

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From the Editor of BetterU News: I would like to take this opportunity to personally and strongly recommend that you visit the author of the previous article, Dennis Weis, at his website right now: http://www.dennisbweis.com Dennis has been writing bodybuilding and training books and articles for more than 25 years. His knowledge of training and bodybuilding is extraordinary, and beleive me, I don't impress easily. He is widely recognized as a training authority in the industry and with good reason. I have every single one of his training reports and the amount of useful, no-nonsense strength training and muscle-building information contained in them is just staggering. If you are interested in building a strong, muscular physique without drugs, you owe it to yourself to have a look at these reports. They could literally put you YEARS ahead of where you are right now. You can also get copies of all his reports at Fitness-eBooks.com! Nick Nilsson Editor, BetterU News Vice-President, BetterU, Inc. http://www.fitstep.com

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Secret Training Tip #146 - "Small Ball" Crunches - An Amazing Abdominal Exercise For Everyone From Beginner To Advanced! Why and how it will fire up your abs more far more effectively than regular Swiss Ball crunches ever could.

When you think of doing crunches on the ball, you most likely get a vision of a large, brightly-colored, rubber inflatable ball.

But did you know there is a far more effective alternative?

Regular large ball crunches are an excellent exercise but you can dramatically increase their effectiveness by performing them on a much smaller ball.

How small of a ball do you use?

The ball I use for the exercise is somewhat larger than a basketball (you can actually use a basketball for this if you like though I prefer the softer ball). It is soft rubber and I got it at Target for two bucks. You can find balls like these at most department or toy stores. Note: if you get a toy ball, be sure it is fairly thick rubber. You don't want it to burst. Test it out at the store before you buy it.

Set the ball on the floor and sit in front of it with your back up against it. Your knees will be bent and your feet flat on the floor.

Roll yourself back over the ball, wrapping your back around the ball as you lay back. Note how the smaller ball not only increases the stretch on the abs but doesn't support your body as much as the larger ball. This vastly increases the demands placed on the abs during the movement.

Not only must your abs execute the crunch movement, they must also balance your torso to a far greater degree than with the larger ball.

Don't be surprised if you find your abs quivering as you do this, even if you are an advanced trainer. I have been doing this one for years and I still get the quivers if I haven't done it in awhile.

Get a full stretch back, rounding your back completely over the ball so your head is almost touching the ground. Crunch up slowly and squeeze your abs hard at the top.

For pictures on how to execute this exercise, go to:

http://www.fitstep.com/Misc/Newsletter-archives/issue13-crunch-tip.htm

On this page you will also find several tips on how to adjust your body position on the ball to make this exercise harder or easier, depending on your training level!

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The Absolute Worst, Most Incredibly Terrible Workout I've Ever Witnessed In My Entire Life! You have never seen exercise techniques this bad.

This is a story about a workout that I witnessed somebody perform about 10 years ago in a university gym in Canada. It's a true story (just ask the ambulance driver!).

Now, if you've spent any time in a gym, you've probably seen people using exercise form that is less than perfect. What I was about watch, however, was the most atrocious exercise technique I've ever seen in all my years of training.

Let's begin...

It was about 1 in the afternoon and I was just starting into my workout when I noticed "Dave" (not his real name) lay down on the bench adjacent to the one I was on. Like me, he was doing flat barbell bench press that day.

He was fairly short, medium build, wearing a tank top to show off what he plainly thought was a magnificent physique. It wasn't, let me tell you that right now.

"Dave" proceeded, without an ounce of warm-up, to load 225 pounds on the bar. He convinced some poor sap to spot for him then took the weight off the rack. It dropped straight down onto his chest like a stone. His spotter freaked out and pulled desperately to get the bar off his chest while "Dave" struggled and kicked to get the weight up. It was a titanic struggle. He looked like a fish out of water with a tomato stuck on his head. That's how red in the face he was.

Finally, they got the weight up and his spotter attempted to put the bar back on the rack.

"Dave" said "What are you doing? I've got 5 more reps!"

I almost choked. This was going to be an interesting workout...

"Dave" finished off by struggling out 2 more reps, then did 2 more sets just like that (with a new spotter each time, of course - nobody in their right mind would go through that twice!). "Dave" must have learned his lesson though, because instead of letting the bar drop and stop like on his first set, this time he actually bounced the thing off his rib cage like a trampoline, arching his back like he was being electrocuted.

It was time for squats. Now, I wasn't supposed to do legs that day but I just had to see this spectacle so I did legs anyway, just to be in the area.

"Dave" put 315 pounds on the bar right away. I watched him wrap his knees and cinch his lifting belt so tight he looked like a toothpaste tube that had been squeezed in the middle.

He recruited another sucker... I mean spotter, for his first set. He stepped under the bar, unracked it, stepped back and started to lower it.

It was like putting a bowling ball on a celery stick. His legs were shaking like Elvis on 10 cups of coffee. His back was so rounded over, you could have set a dinner plate between his shoulder plates without dropping a potato. He lowered the bar exactly three inches then held his breath and began to try and come back up. No luck. His spotter stepped in, helped him back up and tried to guide him to the racks. No dice. He immediately dropped back down again. Two inches this time. I swear his knees didn't shake this time simply because they bowed in so much, they were braced up against each other!

He made his spotter do one more rep after that one, dropping only an inch on the last rep. Two more sets just like that followed.

By this time I had pretty much scrapped my workout for the day, completely out of morbid curiosity. I told the weight room attendant to dial "9" and "1" and keep their finger on the "1." His workout wasn't over yet!

"Dave" unloaded the bar then set up in the same rack for barbell curls. He put a pair of 35's on the bar, which he had no business even doing for the "squats" he had just finished with, much less for barbell curls.

Luckily, he hadn't yet uncinched his lifting belt from the previous exercise, thereby saving precious seconds of time and, also, evidently cutting off the flow of blood to his brain.

He stepped up to the bar, took as wide a grip as I've ever seen anyone take on a bar, then lifted it to the start position. He took a deep breath and held it. Then, with totally straight and locked legs, he thrust his rear end backwards then forcefully thrust his hips forward, catapulting the bar up and off his thighs. He looked like he was trying to ring a doorbell with his hip bone.

The bar made it about halfway up before he locked his elbows and leaned back about 45 degrees to keep it moving.

Finally, the weight made it to the top. He held it there for a microsecond then dropped it heavily to his thighs.

Then he did it again. And again. And again.

The only good thing I can say about it is at least he had the decency not to subject a spotter to it this time.

I sat there wondering what he could possibly come up with for a finale and I was not disappointed.

He walked, or rather, strutted over to the pec deck and set the pin to the bottom of the weight stack.

I motioned at a few nearby people to watch this as I felt something special was coming.

He sat on the machine, arms covered in sweat. He wrestled one arm pad up to the center position. Impressive. He turned and, with Herculanean effort, wrestled the other one to the center position. Veins starting popping out and his face was beet red.

I had a feeling this was it.

I was right.

With the loudest bang I've ever heard, both his arms slipped off the pads, the weight came crashing down, and "Dave" was shot 6 feet straight out of the machine across the floor, skidding on his face right at somebody's feet.

Now, as an adult, I have never wet my pants, but I have to tell you, that moment was the closest I've ever come. That's how hard I was laughing.

I didn't see "Dave" back in that gym ever again.

The moral of the story? Big weights only look cool if you can lift them without getting shot 6 feet across the floor on your face.

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