Franco Columbu’s Complete Book of Bodybuilding

by Franco Columbu

  The Age Factor. After the age of 25 or 30, the body slows down at the rate of about ten calories per day per year. This means, if everything else remains the same, you will automatically gain a pound a year, which adds up to ten pounds in a decade. For this reason, even good eating habits need to be altered somewhat as we get older to reflect the changes in our metabolism.

  A Final Word

  Good looks, good diet, and good health all go together. Exercising and ensuring that your meals are balanced and nutritious are very important. But there is another aspect that, as a bodybuilder, I have been very conscious of. Bodybuilders work very hard to develop their physiques, but in a Contest they also have to be concerned with presentation. A bodybuilder has to know how to show off what he’s got.

  The same is true for you. If you do not take care of your appearance, it is likely you are not taking care of business in other areas. Whether you are a bodybuilder or a businessperson, it is important to pay attention to keeping your skin clear and clean, knowing how to take care of overall grooming from your hair to your shoes, and choosing the kind of clothing that best represents who you are to the people you meet.

  If you are to be at your best and be certain that those around you appreciate your good qualities, grooming, presentation, and creating the right impression are necessary adjuncts to maintaining health and good looks.

  Chapter 2

  GETTING STARTED ON THE BODYBUILDING LIFESTYLE

  Training with weights as done by experts can be almost as individualized as bodies themselves. Naturally, the options increase as your abilities increase. The more advanced you become — that is, the more you know about your build and how your routines affect it — the more you can make efficient adjustments to your training program.

  The secret of a successful beginner’s routine is really to be on the right track from the beginning, and to be well-informed. Therefore, this chapter will cover what you need to know about weight training equipment, anatomy and how to apply your knowledge of anatomy to bodybuilding, training partners, and the proper attitude for bodybuilding.

  Weight Resistance Equipment

  Equipping yourself for training is not merely getting something for you to lift. You must understand how and why a piece of equipment fits into your training routine. Bodybuilding involves more brain muscles than you might imagine, and knowledge of equipment will enhance both your attitude and your workouts. (It’s quite impossible to overestimate how important attitude is in bodybuilding.)

  Your fundamental equipment should include a pair of dumbbells with fixed weights rather than adjustable ones, a barbell that can be adjusted to hold, say, 100 pounds (lbs.) to start; and a good solid bench that will remain stationary and not break. With this modest amount of equipment you can accomplish almost every major body movement practiced in bodybuilding, even those practiced by the champions.

  Fixed dumbbells are preferable to adjustable ones, especially for beginners, because resetting the weight and retightening the collars between sets is a time-consuming process. The muscle or muscle group being exercised will cool off partially during that time and the blood you’ve worked so hard to pump into that muscle will partially drain off. Both of these phenomena will defeat the purpose of your workout. Working out with minimum time between sets will not only bring optimum results, but is more beneficial to the cardiovascular system. Start with a pair of 25lb. dumbbells; that is ample for all beginners’ exercises recommended in this book. As you become more advanced, increase your equipment (by gradations of 5-10 lbs.) to include dumbbells up to 60 lbs.

  As you add equipment to your training, you should consider other forms of barbells. A curling bar is essential for advanced arm development; this is a bar with ridges built into it so the hands can grip it at a 45-degree angle. This grip feels more natural at heavier weights, and also puts less strain on the elbows. Another good bar to have for rowing exercises is the T-bar, which permits the loading of weight at one end of the bar. Various supplemental benches well worth considering include the incline bench — very helpful in chest exercises and curls for the biceps — and the so-called Preacher’s Bench, which makes possible a very strict and demanding curling exercise. And you may wish to consider cables, too; I believe cable exercises are very good for you.

  A chinning bar would be a very valuable acquisition for advanced back exercises, but it is important that your chinning bar afford a wide grip. (The type that fits into a doorway is better than nothing, to be sure, but still will not stretch your back muscles enough for the best possible results.) A squat rack would also be a good idea; it is the best way for you to remove the weight from your back when you are finished with squatting exercises.

  Shop around; avoid the bargains such as adjustable sets because once the clamps fail, you’ll be buying another set. You will have a more efficient gym, and one that will pay you back many times over. Keep in mind that you are investing, not in equipment, but in your own physical improvement. If you want to live longer, buy equipment that will last longer and make you eager to want to use it year after year.

  For advanced back exercises, a chinning bar is an invaluable piece of equipment. Hanging from the bar after heavy press exercises will decompress your spine. In addition, your bar should afford a variety of grips, especially wide grips as shown above.

  Perhaps you would rather invest in a membership in a commercial gym. See if they have discounts for a five-year membership, but make certain the gym will be around that long. The success of a commercial gym depends on its location, the space you have available, and the investment you care to make. You must be certain that your gym offers something for everyone: the free-weight purists, the machine devotees, and the dabblers who are somewhere in between. The principal virtue of machines is that many athletes can train simultaneously, plus the safety factor; you can pick up a bench-press apparatus, for example, and if you don’t like it you can let go without doing yourself the slightest harm.

  To be sure, there are many advocates of various kinds of weight-resistance equipment, I have hardly touched the surface, nor do I intend to go any further. You can spend your valuable training time testing out all kinds of equipment or you can use it to train with just the few simple pieces I have mentioned. I think experimenting has its place in bodybuilding, but testing equipment can distract you from the main purpose of bodybuilding. What I have told you is all you need to know to get started.

  Anatomy

  To thoroughly benefit from weight training, you need to understand the mechanics of the body. The entire body works as a unit, one structure affecting another. As you probably remember from your high school science classes, the human body is developed from just a single cell. All cells spring from that single cell, subdividing over and over again, millions and millions of times as the body develops.

  Muscle cells grow and subdivide pretty much as other body cells do. They must have exercise, of course; but they depend solely on organic compounds — carbohydrates, lipids, and protein — for nourishment. We will take a closer look at this in the Nutrition chapter.

  What I would like to discuss is the relation of bodybuilding and the various specialized cell groups of the body. Each part of the body requires special attention by anyone, but especially by the bodybuilder. So, in no particular order, let’s examine these parts.

  Skin

  The largest organ in the body is the skin. An average adult male has nearly 3,200 square inches of surface-area skin; and if it could be detached from its wearer, that skin would weigh almost 7 pounds — twice as much as the brain or the heart. The skin receives close to one-third of all circulated blood. Human skin is about as perfect a job of waterproofing as you are ever likely to see. Yet as important as it is to good health and fitness, skin is generally overlooked in bodybuilding. Good skin tone enhances good muscle tone (and, naturally, thick skin detracts from muscularity). Roller Coaster weight changes — bulking up and then cutting down — can cause stretch marks if the fluct
uations in weight are too extreme. Proper care of your skin starts from the inside out by eating a balanced diet. No creams or special preparations will do as much for your skin as good eating.

  Bones

  Under the epidermis and dermis (the outside and inside layers of skin) is the supportive structure of the body, the skeletal system. The 206 bones that make up the human skeleton enable a person to stand erect and accomplish body movements. Bones protect organs, and manufacture nourishing blood cells from bone marrow. And they provide storage for salt and various minerals, such as calcium, phosphorus, manganese, and magnesium to name a few. The more minerals a bone has, the stronger it is. Thus, mineral deficiencies invite injuries.

  For example, 99 percent of your body’s calcium is stored in your bones. Calcium is particularly important in bodybuilding because it is required for muscle movement; especially the ability to relax muscles in between contractions. Because calcium helps you relax generally as well as intramuscularly, a lack of it can leave you highly irritable. A calcium deficiency can also cause weak heart muscles, and can interfere with the process of blood coagulation. A good, healthy calcium (and magnesium) count has been known to make a difference of up to two weeks during the first twelve weeks of healing a broken bone.

  Nature has preordained a correct position for your bones to be in to afford optimum blood circulation, nerve supply, and muscular strength. All of these capacities are obviously critical to bodybuilding because exercise provides mechanical stress for bones. Stress, particularly in weight bearing, triggers bone growth. Another little understood spur to bone formation is the effect of muscles contracting and pulling against their bony attachments. Remember, the anatomical function of a muscle is to connect two bones together; if a bone is out of place, its muscle will lack leverage and be weaker. Weaker muscles can also result from misaligned bones which pinch nerves. In either case, you can become prone to pain, injury, or both.

  Joints

  One area of anatomy in which we can get a good look at the advantages of using free weight is the joints. Body joints simply must have free movement. Joints are relatively vulnerable to abuse and they have wicked ways of getting even with their abusers. For instance, arthritis (as you probably know) is nothing more than an inflammation of a joint caused by too much wear and tear. Furthermore, damaged knees have ended a chilling number of athletic careers.

  Knees. Knees are worth a special look, since they are at once the most important bodybuilding joints and the most poorly constructed joints in the body, given the loads and torques they are called upon to handle. In all forms of weightlifting, the knee carries the greatest stress. (Remember that the knee has plenty to do merely in walking, and getting you up and down stairs, in and out of chairs and cars, and so forth.) The knee was only designed to bend forward. So if you execute a squatting movement with your feet either splayed or pigeon-toed, you are only inviting disaster. (The correct squat is done with the feet about 12 inches apart and pointing straight forward, and in a forward movement, to afford the knee minimal stress.)

  Shoulders. Unlike the other joints in the body, which are supported by ligaments, the shoulder joint is mainly supported by muscles. Because of this muscular support, the shoulder can move in a variety of directions. That is why it’s important to build up and train the shoulders from all angles. An imbalance in training the shoulder muscles will hamper your use of this versatile joint; all the muscles must support the shoulder joint equally.

  Elbows. The elbow joint is like the knee joint. It was designed to move one way, like a hinge. Ligaments hold this joint together, muscles contract and relax to make it move. These muscles require balanced training — this means that the triceps muscles, which extend the elbow joint, need more work than the biceps, which flex the elbow joint. You must be careful not to restrict the movement of the elbow, for example, in using a curling machine. The machine may not move in the same direction your elbow wants to and you can damage the elbow that way.

  Ankles and wrists. Both of these joints are similar in that they have many small bones held together by ligaments and put into motion by muscles. The forearm muscles must be trained so the wrist can move in all directions. The calves are involved in ankle movements of various kinds. Again, the muscles attached to these joints must be stretched sufficiently to avoid injury, built up to provide strength, and trained to add gracefulness to their movement.

  Muscles

  As for the muscular system itself — without which there would obviously be no bodybuilding at all — the human body actually houses three kinds of muscles: striated, cardiac, and smooth. The latter include internal organ muscles, which work and contract involuntarily (by themselves), the cardiac muscles, which work the same way to pump the heart, and the striated muscles, which are those we control directly. Muscles (of all types) comprise 50 percent of body weight, and muscle contractions affect all body movement, help the diaphragm, and aid in blood circulation, digestion, and lymph flow.

  All muscle movement is the responsibility of the motor unit of the nervous system. A muscle will weaken immediately with the loss of as little as 1 percent of its nerve supply. The strength of any muscle contraction is determined by the total number of motor units contracting, and the number of times per second the motor unit is stimulated. (A muscle contraction must last .1 second or more to be a true contraction.)

  When a muscle or group of muscles that we normally control through movements, contracts involuntarily, that is called a muscle spasm. It occurs when the nerve motor is sending too many impulses to the muscle to allow it to relax (such as in the case of cramps). A most common cause, as we have noticed in our practice, is calcium or magnesium deficiency.

  Good muscle tone is not exclusively a product of good training. Muscle tone depends as well on a continuous flow of stimuli from the spinal cord to the nerve motors. What training can accomplish is to help the nervous system and the muscles both work together and work better.

  More factors than you might think are anatomically involved in a muscle’s contracting and relaxing. The nervous system, calcium, and enzymes all enhance contractions. (Enzymes are large protein molecules that make use of what we eat. They act like a catalyst does in organic chemistry, speeding the rate of intercellular reaction.)

  Specifically, the nerve endings or synapses produce a substance called acetylcholine. This substance goes into the muscular area, and stimulates and causes the contraction. No acetylcholine, no contraction. In order to relax the muscle, a second substance, acetylcholine stelase, breaks down the acetylcholine so the muscle fibers can relax and become stimulated again with acetylcholine.

  Regarding muscle contraction and relaxation from a training point of view, keep in mind that nature designed your muscles to contract, not to relax, and they should be trained in accordance with what nature had in mind. For that reason, I find it undesirable to emphasize the negative movements of training (that is, that portion of the movement which returns the weight to starting position). A muscle contraction takes .01 second (and must be maintained for 10 times that long), but muscle relaxation takes twice as long. And since you obviously can’t contract and relax a muscle at the same time, the effort you put into forcing a negative movement is largely wasted.

  You cannot train your smooth (involuntary) muscles directly, but good muscle tone outside invariably indicates better tone in the Smooth muscles, too. For instance, consider the cardiac muscle, which contracts by itself and allows the coronary artery — the hardest working part of the body — to feed the heart. A normal heart beats 72 times a minute, which is 4,320 times an hour; 103,690 times a day; and so on, up to billions of times in a lifetime. But the heart of an athlete — such as a bodybuilder — beats more slowly than that, perhaps as slowly as 50 times a minute. And that can parlay into an additional 20 or 25 years of life for the heart. It’s not automatic, of course, that you’ll live longer if you’re an athlete; however, a strong, healthy heart keeps your other vital organs in better c
ondition.

  Central Nervous System

  As long as we’re talking about lifespan, let’s consider your longest-lived aspect, the central nervous system (brain and spinal cord). It’s the very first element of you to begin growing at your birth, and it will be the very last to die. The nervous system controls all movement and muscle contraction. Nerve cells link up lengthwise to send messages anywhere to the body from the brain. These messages take the form of impulses, which begin as an electrical charge from the brain but are somehow transformed into a chemical change by the time they reach a muscle.

  The chemicals most important to your nervous system are potassium and sodium, because these minerals aid in the conduction of nerve impulses. This conductivity is necessary for muscle function and for enzyme distribution to aid in converting amino acids into the materials the body uses for repair and growth. An imbalance of sodium and potassium can affect nerve conductivity adversely to either extreme, too much or too little. It can also have an adverse effect on hormone production and glandular function. That is why, for example, using salt pills can be a grievous mistake for an athlete or for anybody.

  We all know that you can have too much of a good thing, and salt pills deliver more sodium than nature wants your nervous system to have. Once the alarm goes out that there’s too much sodium intruding, your body tries to wash it out with water, and you run a serious risk of dehydration. Many bodybuilders think that by eliminating fluid from the body, they will have more definition. Actually, they end up looking dry in the skin, which makes you look unhealthy and older than you really are. (This can attract the judge’s attention and cause him to think you are ill.)