Planet Muscle

Q. Jeff, I read an article on a magazine website where an expert on Olympic lifting, power and explosive power, stated that if two people do the same number of pushups, but one does his in less time, he produces more power and in powerlifting versus olympiclifting, he said the 2nd style developed more explosive power. Why is powerlifting called power then?

A. Because you must develop or exert power to move any weight, any distance over time, so you do develop power in a squat do you not? But, the rate of power is different than power. On pushups, his statement, if you are reiterating it correctly, would only be true if the 2 people doing pushups weighed exactly the same and were moving the same center of gravity (mass) the same distance, and one did that in less time. In physics, force is developed when an object is 'acted upon.' If subject A weighs 300 lbs. and moves his center of gravity mass up 2 feet, the force required is: (subject's mass (or weight) x the gravitational constant). The force is measured in Newton units. His center of mass displaces 2 feet. His work (force x the change in distance) is 300 lbs. x 2 feet, or 600 foot/pounds. Doing 10 pushups, that could be considered 6000 ‘work units of energy.’ (600 x 10). Work is measured in Joules. The power he creates in 60 seconds is: 6000/60, or 100 units of power. Power is measured in watts. Now, if subject B weighs only 100 lbs. and also moved his center of mass 2 feet, doing 10 pushups, that is, 100 lbs. x 2 feet (200 ft-lbs.) times 10 pushups, or 2000 ‘work units.’ In 60 seconds, subject B produces 100 x 2 x 10, or 2000/60, -- 33.333 units of power.

What if subject B increased his rate of power and did 10 pushups faster, in say, 40 seconds? That is: 100 lbs x 2 feet x 10 pushups/ 40, or 50 'units of power.’ So, assuming distance is the same, not until subject B does his 10 pushups in LESS than 20 seconds does he produce more power than subject A does. (100 x 2 x 10 is 2000/20 is 100 power units). First conclusion: Even though 2 subjects may do the same # of pushups and one does those in less time, that subject may still produce less power, if not rate of power. Second conclusion; Read Planet c E luxpsiloonsi;v Reneeasds P, ltahnee st oM-cuaslcleled. ability to accelerate, to apply force and move a mass some distance, faster, is the same thing as measuring power. That is, power is also force x velocity. (P = F * V). In physics, there are few metaphors. 'More explosive power’ is redundant. It means the same thing as ‘more power.’ The author (metaphorically) means 'more explosive strength.' However, both power-lifting and Olympic-lifting MAY facilitate more power and explosive strength, based on muscle fiber recruitment patterns, even regardless of limb velocity. Remember, if someone says, "Well, I am 100% certain,” that is a redundancy. You can not be less than 100% certain. You either are certain or you are not!

Q. Planet Muscle is informative, easy to read and better than all the others magazines, in my opinion. In your June - July 2008 issue, starting on page 82, an author and article is discussing back training, and it seems like just 1 set of each exercise? I've never heard of only doing 1 set per exercise. Your input would be appreciated.

A. You should read the other guy’s letter! Beyond warm-up sets, some advocate just one brutally hard set to failure of each exercise. If you read this article again, only the last exercise (hyperextensions) are really 'one set'. The rest are ‘extended sets’ where when one hits fatigue at the specified # of reps, lowers the weight and keeps on going. Think of the sets as one giant set, or 2 sets where your weights are lowered at the end of the procured reps, and then you blast out more reps almost immediately. Author Preston Rendell generally has a similar work format in most of his unique body part workouts. His methods produce results!

Q. I’m an old-timer playing around with weights. Awhile back I asked for advice about a detached left biceps tendon that I did not have surgically re-attached. I followed your advice and my biceps are recovering size and definition. Thanks so much. Now, I have had both hips replaced and I can’t bring my knees up more than 90 degrees so I can’t do crunches. Do you have any ideas for my abs?

A. Getting old is a bitch. You don’t have to have your legs bent up on a bench to do crunches. They can be flat or with a slight amount of flexion in your knee joints and you only need to curl up in a crunch, just so your scapulae clear the floor. You can also do ‘curl downs’ on a lat machine and leg raise variations within in your hip joint range of motion.

Q. About Marty Gallaher’s steroid editorial in your last issue, while Arnold may or may not be ignoring that bodybuilders in his event may be using steroids, either way, your reply tap-danced through Marty’s questions. Besides that, your magazine has too much anatomy detail unless readers are medical students. I am a school teacher and should not need to carry "Gray's Anatomy" just to understand your magazine.

Your ego is bigger than your biceps ever were. You write dumb things. In your last issue, you also wrote that Rich Gaspari changed bodybuilding forever. Ronnie Coleman’s left thigh has more muscle that Gaspari's entire body does. I think your magazine has women who look like Tijuana hookers. Sports Illustrated has slimmer, more fit models.

A. Marty Gallagher and I tap dance together (usually after midnight on Tuesday). Gray’s Anatomy is a 'heavy' book and perhaps if you read it, you wouldn’t have to ‘play with yourself’ to build up your forearms. I do highlight anatomical details as I’m compelled to make up for years of the other muscle magazines treating readers as idiots. If bodybuilders are going to list on their resume that they are experts on body training and nutrition, they should know what the four quadriceps muscles are, and, at least, know the base structure of a fat, protein and carbohydrate.

With the Gaspari article, you missed the point. There's no one who has more muscle in their entire body than Ronnie Coleman does in his left thigh! Hookers from Tijuana know the correct thing to put in their mouths. (I mean nutrients, of course). I fear that many of the SI models may stick their fingers in their mouths to stay slim.

Q: I went to a high school power lifting event last week and a couple kids actually did over 500 in the bench. They were all steroid tested. Most wore those special shirts. These kids were not thick with muscle. Are these shirts the reason they can lift so much weight and is it good for such young boys to handle so much weight while still growing?

A: Well, you saw them lift those weights! The bench shirt design and fabric are a science and have changed the nature of this form of (competitive) bench presses. Life goes on and things change. I have never worn one so I’m no expert. I am told by experts who have though, that some of the new bench shirts increase a person's bench press by 200 lbs. to as much as 400 lbs., or even more.

That seems unfathomable. If GAP used such technology, maybe their jeans would never wear out. I am told, as well, that benchers who are lighter and/or who have a lower percentage of body fat, get less of a boost out of these shirts. With more body weight, X amount of tissue gets pushed into Y amount of space and the compressed mass 'smooshed' into a shirt, with all the crisscrossed triple ply fabric, produces more recoil. Some guys in these shirts can't even get the loaded bar down to their chest! But - in all competition of any kind, where winning, going faster and getting stronger is the goal, athletes will always do what it takes. It is the nature of the beast. Not being able to assess skeletal structure and leverage, hormonal and muscular maturity, it would be impossible to predict if lifting so much so young will cause any long-term damage.

Q. I really enjoy the editorials about steroids. Everybody who enters the Arnold Classic bodybuilding physique event breaks the law if they are using steroids. Why Arnold puts his name on this event and endorses it, is beyond me. Maybe Marty is 100% right and it’s just for money, yet Arnold does not need money that way. By the way, have you ever wondered why Congress has never investigated professional bodybuilding and drug use?

A. Who is to say how much money anybody needs? Criminally, if not functionally from a drug test, no one is guilty of using steroids until a court of law proves so. They are legal with a medical prescription, but it has to be for an approved medical purpose such as a low blood cell anemia. (In order to be a better bodybuilder probably does not apply). But, any so-called guilt towards Arnold and any 'association' is just name calling. Congress is not interested in small sports and activities that are not unionized, not on television, or in major newspapers. You can't order steroids from a legitimate entity such as the New York Times, but anyone can get them on the internet which is still 50% drug and porn sites. Unlike baseball, nobody is pressuring Congress about pro physique competition. My thesis that no one cares about bodybuilding, appears to be valid.

Q: Jeff, I like the way Planet Muscle uniquely features strong men, powerlifting and stuff like Kim Goss's article on the new young stud, Pat Mendes. Keep that all up and you have at least one reader for life.



A: We intend to and in this issue we feature mighty Greg Panora. There must be something about the name Pat! Here is Pat again (18) and, Patrick Judge, who won the recent Olympic lift Nationals with a 165-kg snatch (363 3/4 lbs.) and a 211-kg (465-lbs.) clean & jerk (shown).

These two will meet again and keep pushing each to the 400 and 500 ranges before 2012. The 'judge' went 6 for 6 and took 3rd in the concurrently run Pan American Championships. Both Pat's are drug tested (randomly to IOC standards). The Sarasota Sasquatch, (Pat Judge), is only 23 and weighs 336-lbs at 6'5". That's one big boy!

By Jeff Everson

Marty - a first point to your last point -- I have always fully admitted that I am a full-of-it, admitted hypocrite! (As I have written, I might be a whore, but at least I am a consistent whore!)

On a 2nd point, in your side note to me, where you suggested it will take pair of big Kahuna’s for me to publish your editorial, this can’t be so, since, thanks to steroids, my once plump grapes are more like shriveled raisons. No big Kahuna’s necessary!

Now, on the merits: I firmly believe that all your points are self-evident logical truth. I believe that Arnold has, no doubt, already given very serious thought to the steroid issue and any association thereto, via his event.

But, he has had to ask, “What are the likely outcomes of any major effort to test or remove steroids, and as regards doing so in his event, what are the realities on the ground dictating potential success, or probability of failure?” Arnold’s not exactly a dumb or naive guy. Austria produced Otto von Bismarck and realpolitek and Arnold is a pragmatist.

The Arnold Classic bodybuilding events are sanctioned by both the IFBB and now the NPC. If Jim Lorimer and Arnold fervently wanted to do steroid testing, at least in some divisions, say beginning with all the women events, they have to be granted a new sanction. I don’t think it is just money and legal costs.

Indeed, doing so would involve nonstop nightmares for those running the NPC and IFBB. (They all would surely have to contemplate this on the Conan tree of woe). As an example, years ago, Bob Goldman, myself, John Traetta (and co-promoter of the Ms. Olympia in 85), and Wayne DeMilia, were able to prod Ben Weider to begin testing the women in the 1985 IFBB Olympia. This testing did not last long, fully gone by the time I was gone from my Weider employ 5 years later which I do not see as coincidence.

The reality is, as you say, that roids are a 100% deal; literally, every IFBB pro bodybuilding competitor uses them. Therefore, for the NPC and IFBB, to switch over to all-natural and 100% (randomly) tested events, this would be a major paradigm shift. Bodybuilders (and all Americans) are not adept at concrete conceptual change. In the ‘real’ world, it took years before women could vote. It took 200 years before blacks ‘were considered equal’ to whites and just last week some very sincere guy left a message on my machine saying, “For the sake of his young daughter, I need to get all the blacks out of Planet Muscle.” That’s no shit!

As well, a corrections officer authority in Minnesota, won’t allow Planet Muscle to be delivered to inmate subscribers, due, (she says), to nudity. To your point, evidently, the fact that muscle magazines are full of those violating federal controlled substances drug laws is of less concern to her than an exposed Gluteus Maximus. Would she rather the male prisoners potentially spread STD’S instead of self-flagellating their angst, boredom and depression, while fantasizing over some gorgeous globular globes? There were 65,000 rapes in prison last year alone.

Back to the point, ‘bodybuilding’ is not our national past time. We don’t even sing the national anthem before the Arnold Classic. While an Arnold physique event winner might be mainlining his or her kidneys with Deca-filled horse syringes, with nary a media whimper, in baseball, Sammy Sosa takes an over-the-counter herbal, that probably had some traces of clinically dead DHEA in it doing zilch, and my goodness, the media cries a veritable river. It’s not as if the Dominican was soaking in Dan Duchaine’s vintage bathtub.

Professional cyclist Tyler Hamilton was recently disqualified for 8 years because he took an OTC herbal for depression. What the hell was that? St. John’s Wort or SAM-E? (Once more, if you eat red meat in the USA, all of you are fuller of more Stromba steroids than you’ll ever know). We should all get a grip because (now), many would rather federal agents had not been digging through Balco garbage cans so fervently and instead, had wallowed more in Bernie Madoff’s garbage books! I say again, switching to allnatural physique is a major paradigm change. Talking is different than doing. Testing in physique would be a real big deal for both the NPC and IFBB. (We could just switch the name for the IFBB to Injections for Bigger Bodies. That would be easier).

Remember, for all his amazing multiple-field success, which he alone earned, this does not obligate Arnold to ‘save the world’, or least of all, physique competition. Remember, Arnold admitted (according to journalist Rick Wayne), starting steroids in his late teens, unheard of in the late sixties. The best available anecdote and observation might suggest he used steroids up to about his 30th year, perhaps ceasing and desisting after winning the 1980 Sydney Olympia and only juicing with carrots for Conan, Predator and Terminator #1. So somehow, for Arnold, he might feel he would be a real hypocrite going vigorously after an activity that was inextricably a part of his bodybuilding success and fame.

I agree that he, as a head of state, probably should not be seen in a congratulatory scenario with perceived druggies, but Arnold is that pragmatist. He has very, very serious problems in California. Conceivably, if CA does go functionally defunct on its financial bond obligations, China opens shop and renames Sacramento to Shanghai.

There’s no doubt that Arnold fervently cares about bodybuilding, as well as what people think about him. He wants to be successful and even well-liked. He is compelled and driven to do good and sincerely wants to do good. Who knows, maybe fighting steroids will be part of his future.

Consider as a theoretical, as to money earned in his yearly namesake event, – while rewarding steroid users monetarily may be less than kosher, would you begrudge the Oak making a million on his event each year, if you learned that he in turn donated that million every year to the Special Olympics? Your point is well taken! Concept and paradigm are worthy of thought and discussion. This is what PLANET MUSCLE is uniquely about. I for one greatly appreciate your input and hope readers do too and would appreciate reader feedback.

Point of View by Marty Gallagher

Jeff, it’s time for you to stop being an Arnold apologist and start asking some hard questions of the governor of California.

I can't think of too many things Jeff Everson and I disagree on – however Jeff’s flippant apology for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Sets and Reps segment of the July/August issue of Planet Muscle caused blood to shoot out of my ears.

So what’s my beef? A well-intentioned reader wrote to Jeff asking the question that those of us in the know have been asking, ever since the former king of Hollywood decided to enter the political arena and was voted governor. Why does the chief law enforcement officer in the state of California lend his name to an event that covertly (if not overtly) condones and rewards steroid use? Why does Arnold still enable and promote (literally), the largest single annual gathering of steroid users on the earth, year after year? Why does the Arnold classic offer the largest payday on earth for non-steroid tested sporting events thereby ensuring that in order to win, you better show up gassed to the maximum. Arnold is no longer the young carefree guy spending his time in Gold’s Gym, puffing on a joint for movie effect on the bus in Pumping Iron, or equating pumping his biceps to his orgasms.

My rhetorical answer to every one of the prickly questions asked above is summed up in one word: money. As Bob Dylan once said, “Money doesn’t talk – it swears.” Jeff, you defend our iron icon feebly, “Give the guy a break. He has enough to worry about trying to balance the Ca. budget.” Yet, the king, with so many worries, still finds the time to fly in his private jet, breaking away from unending crises, jetting over to Ohio to host his Arnold Classic and Arnold Sport Festival and possibly pocketing from it, well over a million from advertising, gate ticket sales, sponsorship and endorsements. Despite all those California problems, Arnold makes time to bank another cool million or maybe two, (as if he needs it). I would suggest my pointed criticism should not only be addressed, but is timely and appropriate.

Are we mere mortals not allowed to ask a few questions of the king of California? I know he is busy – but still, the unanswered question looms large: why is it that in California, a routine traffic stop and car search can result in jail time for any individual caught with say, $2,000 dollars worth of performance-enhancing drugs (that’s distribution quantity) – yet the chief law enforcement officer of California sanctions a (his) bodybuilding competition that provides the largest financial payday anywhere in the world for steroid -using bodybuilders, strongmen and lifters? Huh? Why is there no drug testing at the Arnold Classic per se, let alone parts of the entire festival?

The show PR firm makes comparisons to the Olympic Games, that the Arnold has more events and athletes. Meanwhile, when approached by bodybuilding organizations such that bodybuilding might become part of the Olympic Games, the IOC Olympic officials call security to have the fruits and nuts yanked from the hall.



Take a close look at the picture posted in sets and reps on page 36 of the July/August issue. It features Arnold congratulating a winner of his female bodybuilding event. If a picture is worth a thousand words and if you want visual confirmation as to why professional female bodybuilding is currently DOA, look at her more-than-ample development. She has bigger shoulders than Arnold ever did. Oh, I’m so sorry…is thinking that she is a walking pharmacy, a politically incorrect thing to say? My words are kind compared to what the commentators had to say when a similarly-built lady appeared on an episode of the Camp Japanese TV show Ninja Warrior. Somehow she had become a contestant on this male/female obstacle course show and the commentators had a blast calling her “him” and “mister” as the identified IFBB champion, at the time, lumbered and stumbled through the obstacle course. This woman was ridiculed and called a freak. Sorry more politically incorrect talk.

Does it matter that female professional bodybuilders taking huge amounts of androgens have to take a 4 blade razor to their faces, get male-pattern baldness, a voice as deep as James Earl Jones has, sprout a clitoris that fits the 50 foot woman, are diminished with breasts that diminish (or have been replaced with slugs of saline that turn rock-hard soon enough) and have hair and skin that looks sort of like a slowly-cooked Bratwurst? Does it matter that the public is repulsed by this damaging steroid-induced, gender-bending? Why do these women do this? In the USA we are semi-free, true! But, is it to differentiate themselves from the rest of humanity, to win contests, to see their photos in muscle magazines and make at least a tad of coin in videos or in pseudo-wrestling matches? Or, maybe it is to satisfy deep seated psychological issues of a lack of self esteem, (which esteem might be temporarily raised by sexual stalking from some men who also seem really stumped about their gender identity).

One thing is for sure: by offering prize money in a non-steroid tested format, the Arnold Classic creates a reinforcing payday for freakishness. The contest promoters perpetuate and encourage this perversion of the female body. Jeff, are your readers too young to remember the athletic elegance of Cory, the sultry shape of Carla Dunlop or the raw sexuality of Rachael McLish? Can’t Arnold at least test the women? Arnold is complicit, a co-enabler (along with Joe and Ben Weider who avoided the issue within the IFBB, in general), of what has become the complete disintegration and destruction of female bodybuilding or what it could be.

Just look at the governor’s face in the picture of him congratulating the female winner. It is said that the eyes are the windows into a man’s soul. What do Arnold’s eyes say? Perhaps they say, “I hope to God the LA Times (or the California democrats) doesn’t get a copy of this picture, run it on the front page, with the headline, is the governor promoting and rewarding steroid use and
making a million dollars?”

You say, “I really don’t think Arnie or Maria thinks much about the bodybuilding part” {of the Arnold Classic}. Oh really? Well, why does Maria attend then? Arnold is on the stage with the champs, is he not? As far as your point, “The media can’t make definitive judgments about
which bodybuilders may or may not be on steroids with certainty,” Well, I can, so why can’t they? Insofar as the top finishing pros competing at the bodybuilding sections of the Arnold Classic, be they male or female, I say all of them are gassed to the max and so does every single person with a functioning brain!

If the competitors feel they are being smeared by association, or POV vehemently disagree that they aren't on drugs, let them take the tests like other athletes do. C’mon Jeff, look at the picture again. Arnold is holding the microphone as if the gal is radioactive! Jeff you say that Arnold is at the Jim Lorimer run event {emphasis mine} to honor all the jocks without making moral aspersions, or judgments.

First off, it’s not called the Jim Lorimer Classic; it’s called the Arnold Classic. Secondly Jeff, Jim is not a state governor, one charged with upholding laws. The governor is supposed to make moral and value judgments – he’s the man that says greenhouse gasses are killing us and we have a moral obligation to save the planet; he makes moral decisions about who gets the pardon or who gets the lethal injection. He makes moral statements when he says kids should not take recreational drugs, that gay marriage should or should not be recognized, or how many indigent, poor and mentally-challenged may have to be taken off the welfare rolls to balance a state budget. He tells children to obey the law and that discrimination is morally wrong and he makes moral and value judgments every single day – that’s why the people of California elected him!

You state that no one wants to spend the money to rid the sport of drugs. Well, every major employer in the Fortune 500 requires new hires to submit to, and to pass a recreational drug test. Testing labs have become a huge entrepreneurial business and are everywhere. A cursory glance at the Columbus, Ohio phone book reveals no less than 20 accredited drug testing firms, offering 24 hour lab results. I am quite sure that if Jim Lorimer or Arnold wanted to, they could arrange onsite drug screening for performance enhancing drugs with a minimum of hassle and money. If Jim or Arnold can’t afford the $150 per test testing fee, perhaps they could raise the entry fee to contestants in order to cover this ‘bank-busting’ expenditure. Or, add $1 fee to the zillions who cram into the expo over 3 days. Then test, (or don’t make comparisons to the Olympics or give lip service, saying we need to get steroids out of bodybuilding, as Arnold pronounced at one Columbus event).

Oh sure, I know that you know, that this would only ensure the contestants would be ‘clean’ in the days and weeks leading up to the competition – but hey, the word start signifies a beginning. And Jeff – couldn’t they at least test the ladies? Here’s another little idea: test twice, randomly, in the 5 months leading up to the Arnold. The IFBB could require that the top 15 finishers from the previous year report to local labs in their various hometowns; where they must show up within 8 hours of being called and produce photo ID and give a supervised sample. Anyone who refuses will be banned from competing that year.

If Jim and Arnold wanted to, they could even practice more sexism and leave the guys alone: don’t test them. Arnold could even make a press statement similar to what you suggest, saying “Well, this is not baseball and no one cares much about steroids and bodybuilders; and besides, if I insist on tests for steroids at the Arnold Classic, then the freaky physiques will disappear and we would lose money. This is an unacceptable trade-off.”

I really don’t think we’re going to hear that speech anytime soon. In my opinion (and contrary to your assertion), I think Arnold knows that voters really do care about performanceenhancing drugs and if a public servant were placed in a situation of defending steroid use – and further it was determined that that same public servant was actually profiting off of individuals using steroids – than that would prove a public relations nightmare.

I will close by mentioning that I had occasion to have lunch recently with a retired IFBB professional bodybuilder and his girlfriend after they attended her first professional female bodybuilding competition at the Arnold Classic. He shook his head, saying, “I was embarrassed and my girlfriend was repulsed. I’ve been around and have known plenty of female steroid users, but in recent years it has gotten so out of hand that I honestly believe if the woman that won this year competition had been able to have been magically transported back to 1979, she would have easily beaten Frank Zane to win the Mr. Olympia. Seriously, she packed more muscle than Zane ever did and was far more ripped.”

My hall-of-fame pro bodybuilder’s girlfriend, put a final nail in the female bodybuilding coffin, adding: “I have seen lots of (local) amateur female bodybuilding competitions and have enjoyed them. While I was certainly expecting more muscle and definition, I was not prepared for the freaks that I saw at the Arnold. Why would females disfigure themselves? If female bodybuilding ever expects to be accepted by the general public then they had better start doing some drug testing or policing or something – I cannot imagine any parents in America getting a good, up-close look at any of the top finishers and encouraging their daughters to pursue bodybuilding. I will never attend another female professional bodybuilding event as long as I live. It was disgusting.”

One final thought for you Jeff. In the end, there is no way around it – both you and Arnold are acting like hypocritical opportunists on the issue of steroids.