TakeItOff

by Taylor Cole

  Taylor Cole and EC author Kristin Daniels

  Justin Whitfield

  Chapter Nine: Working Out—The Secrets

  Justin

  Ever wonder how strippers stay in such good shape? If you take any guy off the street and have him eat, train and rest the same way we do, he would easily, over time, become a better version of himself. Every time a new rookie comes in, if he manages to make it more than a year, the gains in his looks and abilities are huge.

  Most people in the real world are too tired from work to train, and if they still hit the gym, their bodies are already worn down from work. Training too much becomes an issue because you are not letting your body rest enough. Exercise. Nutrition. Rest. You must have ample amounts of all three. As dancers, we get all the sleep we need. We may stay up late at night, but we make up for it by sleeping in past noon.

  When we wake up, we take a small brunch or protein shake, and it’s gym time. Forty-five minutes to one hour is all you need. Four to five days a week in the gym, EVERY WEEK! There is no vacation from the gym; it’s part of your life. Seriously, after twenty years in the gym, I haven’t missed more than five to six weeks. That was so I could recover from my knee surgery. If you want a long dance career, consistency in the gym is a must! I’ve seen many dancers try to dance past thirty, but they didn’t stay in shape. Hard realization for them that they are no longer able to keep doing it.

  After getting my certificate from The Cooper Institute for personal training and being a national-level bodybuilding competitor for many years, I’ve come up with an exercise and nutritional routine that is both easy and effective.

  Gym: Four days needed to hit all body parts.

  Day 1: chest/triceps

  Day 2: legs/glutes/cardio

  Day 3: back/biceps

  Day 4: shoulders/lunges

  Day 5 (optional day): Do cardio for thirty minutes to an hour. If you do only thirty minutes, do twenty to thirty minutes of weights. Do whatever kind you want. Just lift and feel a burn!

  Now let’s break down the days.

  Chest: Pick four or five different chest exercises. Do three sets of eight to twelve reps each. This means if you are going to do bench press, it counts as one of the five chest exercises, and you have to do three sets of bench press for eight to twelve reps each set. If you go heavy, you will hit fewer reps, thus if the weight is not too heavy, you will hit twelve reps. Don’t cheat yourself! Reps without proper amounts of resistance will not enable you to achieve your ideal look.

  Rotate free weights and machines. Ladies, do more machines than free weights, but the free weights are important. Free weights are the barbells and dumbbells. If you’re not sure of the many different types of chest workouts, watch someone who looks as if they know what they are doing and emulate. The key is to feel that burn that comes from the “pump”. Remember, being in the gym isn’t enough. Lifting light weights is not enough. You need to exert effort. You need to get that heart rate up. Most importantly, you need to be CONSISTENT! Be in the gym every week. It needs to be a routine and preferably at the same time each day.

  Legs/glutes/cardio: The MOST important workout for the ladies! Start off by doing twenty to thirty minutes of cardio. This will warm up your knees, joints and legs. Women, do lunges until you can do no more. Lunges with about ten- to twenty-five-pound dumbbells in each hand and for twenty to thirty steps forward for three to four sets. Do not do these in place. Try to find a strip of the gym that will allow you to walk twenty to thirty steps forward without walking into anyone or anything. Even the guys will benefit more from lunges than from squatting. Most people aren’t aware of the huge benefits of lunges. They will make your glutes look like you are twenty-five again. Your hammys will be toned as well.

  Back/biceps: Do three or four exercises for your back and two or three exercises for your biceps. Do three sets each time with eight to twelve reps each set.

  Shoulders/lunges: Four or five shoulder exercises, then burn out with lunges!

  Daily cardio can be added. Dancers get plenty of cardio working, so we tend to do less in the gym on the treadmill.

  Nutrition

  DO NOT call it a diet! No negative words. Diets always end and good nutrition is a lifestyle choice. Here are some tips as to how we keep our six-packs all year long.

  Six days a week we avoid dessert, sugar, added sodium, fats and grease. This doesn’t mean we cut them out completely, but we ingest only small amounts. Day seven, Sunday, is cheat day! I eat anything and everything. Sundays become so very special to you when you have waited all week to eat all the bad stuff you had been avoiding. My abs will be completely gone by Monday morning. This is mostly due to the excess sodium. Fat takes much longer to settle and be seen on your body. Sodium makes you hold water and that effect is why the abs look like they are gone. Cut out your sodium intake for a few days and watch a little excess water weight disappear. That is a trick we use to get leaner by the weekends.

  If we go out to eat during the week, we order grilled chicken or baked/blackened fish with brown rice or veggies. Sensible, healthy meals. Avoid all cheap meals—that is, fast foods—due to the fact they usually contain everything bad and nothing good.

  Food Tips

  1. Eat your meals in smaller portions and spread out your food intake to five or six meals per day. This, over time, will help to get your body burning fat faster. It helps to speed up the metabolism.

  2. Do not eat anything two hours before bed. You need time to burn the calories off before lying down.

  3. Do not add salt to anything! Food has enough in it already.

  4. Do not use condiments that are full of fat. Mustard is a great substitute for mayo. Ketchup is okay. Salad dressings are very unhealthy for the most part, so try to use vinegar or a low-sodium/low-fat dressing. Some dressings may have more fat than the meal!

  5. Soda may contain more sugar than your meal. Drink water. Drink lots of water. If water tastes too bland, add Crystal Light or sugar-free Kool-Aid. Giving up that sugary drink is much easier than giving up that juicy hamburger.

  6. Instead of red meat, eat more fish and poultry. Also, eat lots of vegetables, especially the green, leafy ones.

  7. Supplementation is important. Take a fat burner before the gym, and at least two to five meals per week should be protein shakes. One scoop per day is enough for women. They do not need the same amounts as a man.

  If you can’t remember all of this, just remember: Eat your normal daily foods, but in a twenty-five percent smaller portion. That works too. Your abs may not be as lean, but you will lose weight!

  Exercise and diet are not an exact science. We are still learning many things. It seems that every other year, there is this huge popular diet, whether it has you cutting out carbs, fat, sugars or sodium. Just remember, it’s called a healthy lifestyle for a reason. It’s a lifestyle. I can’t help but to really try to emphasize that. The fad diets might work to help you lose weight fast, but they are not usually good for the long term.

  Quite frankly, there IS NO shortcut to a fit and healthy lifestyle. I compare someone who is trying to change their bad eating habits to professors weeding out freshmen in a college course. Terribly hard at first, but after time, it becomes the norm and is nowhere near as hard. I like to use the diet cola example. I used to think diet soda was the worst! I couldn’t stand it. One time, I remember putting sugar in my diet soda because I was out of regular cola. Now, after many years of eating right and skipping regular soda, I love diet cola and hate the sugary cola! I hate it more than I used to hate diet soda. It’s all about getting your body and mind acclimated to a healthy life.

  Chapter Ten: Moving On

  Justin

  I’ve been onstage and could do no wrong. I’ve also been onstage doing the exact same thing and could get no love. There is no such thing as being sexy all the time. It all boils down to a mental thing. How you feel about yourself. We’ve seen ugly guys make money because they thought they were the shit,
and we’ve seen really good-looking guys get spanked onstage. Really bomb. Women, no doubt, feed off confidence. The hardest part is the first and last years of your career. Very few guys are able to go out on top but when they do, it’s like taking a vacation for years and getting back to the real world without ever being affected in a bad way.

  Looks, stage presence and dancing ability are the three important attributes you want to obtain if you don’t already have them. Looks always seem to get better after a guy dances for a bit. This is due to the lifestyle of getting plenty of sleep, good nutrition and regular training. Tanning always makes one more attractive as well. The lifestyle enables you to achieve a better version of yourself physically.

  Mentally, it’s another story. Physical and mental health are both equally important. Mental ability, though, is obtained only by logging in your time onstage in the club and on roadshows. Some guys start at a higher performing level than others, but this doesn’t mean they stay above the performers who aren’t as good. From having a career of almost twenty years, I’ve seen guys before their prime, in their prime and past their prime. Experience makes you better until the point comes where you mentally need a break. The job can be very stressful. Money is always up and down. Seasonal too. Spring and summer are the best times because of the bachelorette parties held during those times. Much like the squirrel who worked all summer long saving his acorns, winter time comes and you’d better have a good client base or be dating a stripper!

  Eventually, if you’re smart, you know this particular ride is coming to an end. It’s time to start thinking about the next phase of your life. Something a little more stable. A little less wild. You might be surprised at where ex-strippers end up. I have a friend who is now a high school teacher and football coach. Another owns a bar and grill in Houston. Construction jobs or managers at men’s club are common jobs they fall into. Another guy does soft porn movies on late night Cinemax. Another got to produce a reality show on the SyFy channel. I’ve seen a few in movies and commercials. Among the others are a banker, a car salesman, a chiropractor, a massage therapist and an indie filmmaker. The list goes on and on. Unfortunately, some who started out with good looks and a head start in life wasted their potential by becoming druggies.

  Sometimes I love seeing old friends and hanging out. My old dance friends are like frat brothers to me. For the most part my old dance buddies are doing well and adjusting to the transition.

  The problem is, sometimes when you work in the biz too long, a piece of the biz stays in you. What do I mean? Well, I was doing construction for an old friend who started dancing fifteen years before I did. He still loved the biz and was opening a male exotic club in Austin. I was painting and remodeling the new club. We went to Home Depot one day and he was talking to people at the top of his lungs in his MC voice, and it sounded like a monster truck rally radio commercial. You know the one, “Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!”

  He started selling me to the other customers in the paint department as if they were an audience and we were a roadshow. At first, he told them that I was the best painter this side of the Rio Grande. Then he really got carried away and started talking about how I could paint their house and then fuck their wives better than anyone. Not once, not twice, but over and over, he was screaming to these regular folks at eight o’clock in the morning, “Oh my God! He’ll fuck your wife!”

  I don’t embarrass easily, but I was mortified by his behavior. I just looked at him stone-faced, like everyone else, while he was ranting on and on. I finally grabbed my keys and left. It made me realize that not only am I lucky to be doing well in my career after dancing, I am apparently lucky to be able to know the appropriate time and place for acting like a stripper. That guy eventually started a strip-o-gram company in Austin. He’s successful because he can use his megaphone voice on the phone all day long to sell his employees for those birthday and bachelorette parties.

  When Is It Time to Quit?

  A dancer once said he knew it was time to quit when a girl asked him while he was dancing on a side stage if he would move so she could see the rookie on the main stage. He went straight into the back and packed his bags. It had to be hard to give it up since he was the definition of what a male dancer should be when he was in his prime. We all thought this guy would be famous someday. He had it all—good looks, dancing ability and personality. His only downfall I saw was that he didn’t evolve as much as some of his coworkers did. But I’m sure in his eyes, he didn’t have to. But time waits for no man.

  There are two types of top dawgs. The bright star who burns out fast and the dimmer star who gradually gets better and better. The bright star makes good money almost overnight. Customers will pay to be around him very fast to try to get their hooks in him before anyone else does. Success is fast and so is the lifestyle, which could be another reason for a quicker fade.

  We were both more the dim stars. It wasn’t easy for us when we started, so we had to improve daily. It took me a long time to find my niche. Our workouts had to be more intense, and tanning was always a must. Every time we were onstage was dance practice. We learned through constant trial and error, but because we were continually learning, we were always getting better and changing with the times. Maybe that’s why the dim star lasts longer.

  But even an enduring career must eventually end. When you find a girl you’re really in love with and start a family, this is a good time to retire. Or when you’ve taken everything you can from the business and there are no more mountains to climb, this is a good time to hang up the G-string and go out on top. When you’ve saved all those one-dollar bills over all those years and invested them so that the money now works for you, that is a great time to quit.

  Unfortunately, most strippers aren’t very smart with their money and have to be forced out. Often, they lose most of their options and start trying to evolve when it’s too late.

  You Know it’s Time to Hang it Up…

  * When you have to give out more and more stuff onstage to get girls to come up and tip.

  * When the crowd no longer screams in excitement to see you, it is definitely time to move on. The chances you’re going to land a lifesaving customer are slim now anyway, and the competition is younger and better.

  * When you can no longer deal with the whole lifestyle and customer relationship game, either call it quits or take a nice, long vacation. The dance career is what you make of it. You can settle for average or you can be as successful as you possibly can be.

  * When your body does not have that chiseled look anymore. Many dancers have no choice but to retire because their lack of commitment in the gym catches up with them. Also, excessive partying and binge drinking shorten one’s career.

  * When you have a kid who is older than the girl you’re lap dancing for, it might be time to hang it up.

  * When you become the old guy at the after-party.

  * When there is no link between you and the younger dancers. Your music is classic to them.

  * When your life, working late at night, is no longer convenient. Maybe because you have kids or a day job.

  * When the number of girls coming to main stage to tip you is steadily declining.

  * When your attitude sucks! Many guys at the end of a long career will have much animosity toward the biz and the women who come in. That attitude shows, and girls stop liking guys who are sour or negative. They’re out for a good time, and if you can’t give it to them, it’s time to retire.

  * When you really don’t look forward to working and find yourself wanting to just stay in the dressing room, even when it’s packed and everyone is making money on the floor.

  * When the only girls who tip you are the old regulars whom you have to hang with during the day.

  * When your hairstyle is twenty years out of date.

  * When you damn near have to overdose on drugs just to go to work.

  * When all your friends have retired.

  * When you can make more money as a wai
ter than as a stripper.

  * When you need multiple guys onstage with you during your main set so the women don’t walk away when you take your clothes off.

  * When girls stop asking if you’re gay and start asking how old you are.

  * When your conversation includes topics such as Botox, chemical peels, laser facials, hair coloring products for men and treatments for baldness.

  * When your best friend at work is twenty years younger than you.

  * When you stop saying, “This guy is like my brother,” and start saying, “This guy is like my son!”

  * When your son is now starting to dance himself.

  While dancing in my twenties, I always thought I needed to find a “real” job. After all, I had a college degree and thought I should use it. Most dancers in their twenties aren’t thinking too far ahead. When I decided dancing was my career for now and was a real job, I started making real money. It seemed not too long after, the question aoise more often, “When is it time to retire?”

  For me, it was when I started to feel the need to lie about my age. For two weeks before my thirtieth birthday, I felt really depressed. Even though it was just a number, I felt okay to say I was a twenty-something stripper. It was not as easy to flow off the tongue that I was thirty-something and a stripper. For other guys, it could be as simple as a woman telling him to move aside so she could see someone else. Women can be cruel and can say some of the rudest things, but when you are at the end of your career, it seems it is amplified.