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The Doctor Bodybuilding Newsletter - Issue One

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In this issue of the New Doctor Bodybuilding Newsletter:
Keep it simple - why basic movements work best
Fats you need - essential fatty acids explained
The pre-bed meal
The importance of clomid in a steroid cycle


Keep it simple - why basic movements work best

Too many bodybuilders, especially biggers, walk into the gym and will
do an endless number of different exercises for each bodypart. For
chest for example they will start off with bench, then move on to
incline, then decline, then flies, then cables and then maybe then
end it all off with a set or two of dumbell presses. They do 4 sets
of each and have managed to work the same body part for over an hour.
By the end of their workout they are tired as hell but have they
really given their muscles the kind of workout they need to grow?
Probably not. Why? Its called "I learned it in a bodybuilding
magazine syndrome" and it can effect bodybuilders at all levels but
is especially prevelant with beginers. Too many people go out and buy
magazines like Flex and read the articles apperently written by
professional bodybuilders (it should be noted most professional
bodybuilders can't actually write so go figure) who claim that they
workout for 2 hours a day and do 8 different exercises per bodypart.
They especially love smaller isolation exercises cause it allows them
to really concentrate on the muscle being worked. Mainly it just good
for the pictures. Most professional bodybuilders don't even follow
the style they claim to write about in the magazines and even if they
did, the average bodybuilder in the gym is not pharmacutically
enhanced enough to actually grow from such a marathon workout. The
biggest problem with these magazine work outs is their lack of
emphasis on big, basic movements like squats, dead lifts, chest
press, military press and chin ups. These movements should form the
basis of your training. They are the kings when it comes to size and
strength builders. You can do all the side laterals you want but if
you don't do military press you are not going to get big shoulders.
Its really as simple as that. Working out is not about who can
workout the longest or who can find the most inventitive way to make
a muscle burn. Bodybuilding is about lifting the most amount of
weight, with the highest intensity possible in the shortest amount of
time to get the most benefit. In other words, keep it simple, keep it
basic, keep it short, make it intense, and get out. Working out for 2
hours with 12 different exercises will not make you bigger then
working out for 45 min with 3 exercises. On the contrary, the
shorter, more basic workout will result in better gains while the
longer, more confusing and often less intense workout will most
likely lead to over training and stagnation. Don't try to get super
fancy with your workouts. For chest, always center your workout
around a pressing movement. Personally I find incline dumbbell press
to be the best but any of the pressing movements will do. Make sure
to alternate every once and a while between dumbbells and barbells to
keep your muscles guessing. Want a simple chest routine? Try this:

2 or 3 warm up sets of incline dumbbell or barbell press (50% for 10
reps, 70% for 5 reps, 80% for 2 reps of max)
2 working sets of incline dumbbell or barbell press at a 45 degree
angle (4-8 reps)
1 set of flat dumbbell press at a 15 degree angle(4-8 reps)
1 set of flat dumbbell press, no angle (4-8 reps)
2 sets of dumbbell fly's (6-8 reps)

Done. How easy is that? We do only 6 working sets and only four
movements. We hit the chest espeicially hard during our pressing work
(incline 45, flat 15 and full flat) because these movements are the
bread and butter of the routine and then we finish of with a ligher
but totally different type of movement with fly's. Fly's are a good
finisher because they allow us to give the chest a good deep stretch
at the end of the workout which gets the blood flowing. Although
fly's are not a big basic movement, we can still throw them into the
routine because the goal was not to get rid of all isolation work,
just to center our workouts mainly around basic movements.

There are a number of reasons basic movements are so important.
First, they allow us to use heavy weight and thus activate the most
number of fibers which allows us to do less total sets. Second, basic
movements are usually multi-joint movements. For example, bench press
uses the elbow joint and the shoulder joint. Doing this forces the
body to incorporate a lot of different muscle groups in the lift.
Bench press for example uses the triceps, delts, pecs, and lats.
Working all thse muscle groups while doing such a heavy movement
allows you to get the most benefit from the least number of
exercises. Also, by activating such a high number of muscle fibers
throughout the body all at the same time, your body will release
extra testosterone and growth hormone to deal with the stress. This
is one of the biggest benefits of doing squats for example. Squats
have been shown to cause a dramatic spike in growth hormone levels
immediately following a set. Such hormonal increases allow you to
build bigger muscle while buring more fat and they increase your
metabolism which allows you to burn more calories.

Another benefit of basic movements is it allows you to finish your
workout in less time because you are doing less total sets. Why are
shorter workouts better. One reason. Anabolic hormone levels in the
body begin to fall after 45 min of intense exercise. This means that
your bodies good hormones, the ones that you need to get bigger will
be in decline while the bad ones like cortisol will be on the rise.
After too long a catabolic enviroment will be created in your body
and this is always bad news. This will not only hinder your workout
by sapping your strength but it will also quickly lead to over
training and recovery problems.

Although there are so many different exercises you can do, its best
to always keep it simple. When designing your routine, pick one basic
movement to structure your workout around and then pick another basic
movement to do as a secondary exercise. Once these are done your
muscles will probably be near exaustion and you can do one lighter
isolation exercise to finish off. Don't let those fancy magaznine
articles fool you. Keep it simple, keep it basic, make it intense,
and keep it short.


Fats you need - essential fatty acids explained

If there is one thing the 80's and 90's taught us that we should
forget its that fat free food is good for you. The thinking back then
was simple, if you don't eat fats you won't get fat and if you
already are fat, you will lose fat. Well this logic is all wrong
because its much to simplistic and totally ignores the way the human
body actually works. In the last couple of years however we have seen
the emergence of a whole new type of thinking, the high fat, high
protein low fat diet adn its many similar variations. This theory is
based on the principle that carbs, especially any foods made from
white floor or refined sugars are the actual culprits behind the mass
obesity that has swept across North America. These theorists claim
that it is not fat but rather carbs that make ius fat. They are
partially right. Although the validity and the effectiveness of the
no/low carb diet can be discussed with great debate, we will leave
that for an article of its own (see next weeks newsletter for an
article on the no/low carb diet!) and for now just one major fault in
both theories - they both totally ignore the important differences
between good fats and bad fats. In this article I especiall want to
discuss the idea of good fats because so many bodybuilding diets are
deficient in them.

Not all fats are the same. Not all are bad for you. There are a whole
range of different fats in different kinds of foods and it is so
important that a bodybuilder understand the differences between them
an how these differences will effect the way your body uses these
fats and ultimately how you look. You have probably noticed on most
food labels a bunch of sub headings under the "fat" catagory. For
example you will see such titles as monounsaturated, polyunsaturated,
saturated and polysaturated. Two that you will not find on most food
labels is trans fatty acids and essential fatty acids. These two are
of special importance to bodybuilders and people in general. As a
general rule, you want to avoid saturated fats and eat mainly
unsaturated fats. Saturated fats are the ones that clog your arteries
while unsaturated fats have actually been shown to lower the bad kind
of cholesterol. More importantly trans fatty acids are basically man
made fats. They have been highly processed and have no useful purpose
in your body. Simply speaking they just stick to you. What I want to
concentrate on today is essential fatty acids and their role in the
bodybuilders diet.

We need fat to survive. Without any fat our body would be forced to
burn muscle when it needs energy and has run out of sugar to burn.
Fats also assist in the functioning of most if not all vital organs
and they help in the production of testosterone and other anabolic
hormones. Low fat diet have been shown to lower blood testosterone
levels in a number of studies. Basically you need to get a certain
amount of fat in your diet if you wish to be healthy but even more
importantly if you wish to build the body you want. But waht kind of
fats should you eat? The answer is essential fatty acids. They should
make up the bulk of your daily fat intake. Essential fatty acids are
classified into two catagories, omega-3's and omega-6's. Research
shows that your body needs them in a ratio of about 3:1. Essential
fatty acids are just like their name suggests, essential. Your body
requires them to function and because your body requires them to
function, they will not be stored as body fat unless eaten in extreme
amounts. Here's what is especially exciting for bodybuilders.
Essential fatty acids will not be converted into bodyfat but because
you are eating a diet that is high in fats (high in essential fatty
acids that is) your body will actually burn fat because it realizes
that it no longer needs to store as much since you are providing it
with plenty in your diet. So not only do you get to eat more fat and
thus provide a more anabolic enviroment for muscle growth but you
also get to burn fat in the process.

Your probably asking at this point where you can get these essential
fatty acids. In the case of omega-6's, since you really don't need
all that much of them to satisfy your bodies requirements, you can
usually get enough by simply eating beef, chicken, or fish (fish
contains a lot of good fats, especially salmon) however, in the case
of omega-3's, you will probably need to supplement your diet in order
to get enough. Supplementing however is simple. Go to any nutrition
store and pick yourself up a bottle of flax seed oil then add a
tablespoon to each protein shake you drink during the day. A
tablespoon of flax seed oil contains 14 grams of essential fatty
acids entirely of the omega-3 variety. For most people, 40-70 grams
of flax seed oil is usually enough to get the desired effect.

If you want to make sure you get the right amount of essential fatty
acids in the proper ratio of omega-3 to omega-6 and don't mind
spending a little extra money, I would suggest picking up Udo's
Choice Oil. Its a quality mixture of oils in perfect balance.

Remember, fat is your friend, just as long as its a good fat!


The pre-bed meal

Most bodybuilders put a lot of thought into the diets but not nearly
enough thought into one meal that can make a big difference if
neglected. Although the post workout meals/drinks are without a doubt
the most important meals of the day, the second most is probably one
that will surprise a lot of people - the pre-bed meal. I can't
emphasize just how important the pre-bed meal is in a bodybuilders
diet. Why is this meal so important? Simple. This is the last meal
you are going to have before sleeping anywhere from 5-10 hours
(everyone is different obviously). When you sleep your body repairs
itself after a long day, does its usual maintenence and in the case
of us bodybuilders, rebuilds the broken down muscle fibers and builds
new, stronger and hopefully bigger ones. Obviously your body is going
to need some nurishment if its going to complete all these tasks. One
of the biggest myths people tend to spread (especially your mother)
is that eating before bed makes you fat cause the food will just sit
there and won't be used when your sleeping. Thats only partly true
and is overally simplistic when it comes to the way the body works.
That theory suggests that food we eat will only go towards future
energy expenditures and also lacks any real understanding of how
muscle is built. Eating before bed can make you fat but the same
thing appiles to the rest of the day as much as it does to the time
right before bed. Whenever you eat too much food (eat more calories
then your body requires) you will most likely store additional
bodyfat. Of course this doesn't always apply to weight trained
individuals because the body may instead use those extra calories to
build new muscle mass. It must also be taken into consideration that
a person who worked out intensely that day, will require additional
protein and carbs for the next 24 hours in order to allow his muscles
to rebuild and to restore depleted glycogen levels. For this reason,
bodybuilders must eat something immediately before going to bed. What
you eat before going to bed is especially important. Because you
won't be eating for the next 5-10 hours you want to make sure to get
some quality protein in so keep away catabolism for as long as
possible. Your body enters a catabolic state when it runs out of
food. Now I know a lot of you have a protein shake and then go to
bed. Well, this is better then nothing but its still not good. Why?
Because it contain the protein you need but it lacks a number of
other important qualities. For one thing, its a liquid. Liquid meals
are good, especially after a workout but for the same reason they are
preferable after a workout, they are not preferable before bed. They
simply leave the digestive system too fast and get into the blood
stream too fast which means they leave the make their way out of the
body too fast. Before you go to bed you want to eat a form of protein
that will slowly leave your stomach resulting in an anti-catabolic
enviroment that will last for hours instead of just an hour or two.
Plus you want to give your body some quality good fats (see above
article on good fats) and some carbs to ensure that you have some
sugar in your blood so your body does not turn to the protein in your
blood for energy. The fats and carbs will also help to slow down the
digestion of the protein which slows down its transfer into the
blood. One other item that I would suggest adding to your pre-bed
meal is glutamine peptides. Glutamine has been shown to be both
anabolic and anti-catabolic and by supplementing with glutamine
peptides you keep the amount of glutamine in your blood stream high
which prevents the body from breaking down muscle tissue. To put it
all together, here is an example pre-bed meal:
1 can of white tuna
1 tablespoon of flax seed oil and 10 grams of glutamine peptides
mixed in 100ml of orange juice
1 apple
Give this meal a try. Its a complete meal with the right amount of
each nutrient and its slow burning which should last you at the least
halfway through the night. If you don't like this example, combine
other foods such as chicken or even a lean steak with flex seed oil,
glutamine peptides and a low glycemic carb. Try this for a while and
see how much better you feel in the morning.

The importance of clomid in a steriod cycle

A lot of juicers, novice juices especially, put a whole lot of effort
into what steroids they want to take, how much of each, and when they
are going to take them. They come up with a nice little cycle which
they are sure will get them big and ripped. If planned properally
they may be right. They might just gain 20 pounds of solid muscle on
their cycle but what they don't think about is how much they will
lose right after the cycle ends if they don't put any planning into
recovery drugs. Taking steroids for more then two weeks cause your
body to slow down and ultimately stop its production of natural
testosterone. This leaves you in a very risky position once the cycle
ends and the drugs clear your system. Not only do you have all this
new muscle to maintain but your body isnt even producing enough (if
any) testosterone to maintain your original size! This leads to the
very common crash after a cycle ends. You lose muscle fast, you lose
strength faster and you feel like a sack of shit. Why? Because
without testosterone your body becomes totally catabolic especially
with the post cycle surge in cortisol and estrogen (a topic of its
own for a future article!). In order to prevent your body from
shutting down its natural testosterone production (aka keeping your
balls from shriveling up) and to help you start them back up once
they have shut down, clomid is a must for every cycle you do. Let me
repeat that again in case some of you missed it - no cycle is
complete unless it contains clomid! Ok so how much do you need and
when to keep your balls alive? Since clomid appears to be safe when
taken for up to a year or more straight, I would suggest taking
50mg's every other day during your entire cycle and 100 mg's every
day for the next 3 weeks followed by one more week of 50 mg's a day
for one week. I know most of you who have previous experience with
clomid will find this to be over kill but I'd rather be safe then
sorry and since its very difficult to take too much clomid, I say
take enough to be safe. You work hard to build up new size during
your cycle, why give it up right after just because you decided to
skimp on the clomid? For general health reasons, it is never good to
have your natural testosterone production shut down for too long. Ask
any steroid user who has been on juice for more then 4-5 months
straight without taking anything to prevent his balls from shutting
down and he will tell you how much difficulty they are having trying
to have a kid and how they haven't seen their balls in months. Shut
your natural production down for too long and it will not come back.
You do not want that. Take clomid, take enough. Take it throughout
the cycle and for at least 4 weeks after. Better safe then sorry
right?

Thanks for reading this weeks Doctor Bodybuilding Newsletter!

We now offer online personal consultations. If you need help with
your training, diet, or steroid cycle, email us at
[email protected]!


If you know a friend who would like to subscribe to the Doctor
Bodybuilding Newsletter, send them to:
http://www.geocities.com/doctorbodybuilding/