To me this passage has been a guiding hand in my life work. I have always realized that in order to succeed, one must build on experience. While we are young we lack fundamental experience, and the only way we can get it, is from personal experience or from the study of the great lives that pioneered before us. They left footsteps, as we choose to term them, into which we can step and continue on from where they left off. The wise person searches for such footsteps of knowledge as short cuts to success. He saves the years that otherwise would have been aimlessly spent in acquiring personal experience. He delves into the lives and findings of his elders and absorbs their wisdom. It is truly said that youth whirls the world but age supplies the balance wheel. Too many young men and women fired with enthusiasm get lost in the whirl and fail to benefit from the balance. Many wonderful lives have been wasted from lack of forethought. By the time they acquire the formula to success too many years have sped past, and the years left to them are too short, or devoid of opportunity. For this reason, I urge my youthful body building enthusiasts to pause a while in their enthusiasms, and spend a little while gleaming benefit from worthwhile examples of men and women who have left their footprints on the sands of time. These footprints are stepping-stones. The world’s progression is built on this same foundation. Your success in life can be more fully blessed by following the same example.

The one who what’s to to be great, must first study greatness.
Humility a strange thing. The minute you think you’ve got it, you’ve lost it.

Love thy neighbor and his dog…
Jesse Erving L.S.C.T.

Why is it so hard for us to get this right anyway?

Perhaps, it’s because we have so many things fighting against us with Capitalism being one of the most powerful. The free enterprise system is the greatest economic system in world but it has a major flaw. Everything is based on profit. There is nothing the matter with profit so long as the greed for more and more profit doesn’t result in less and less quality, which is exactly what happens.

In the free enterprise system… it doesn’t have to be good to survive… it just has to be profitable. The more profitable… the more advertising dollars to tell us about the “high quality”. This makes it difficult to tell what is good and what isn’t. A good bit of advice is “Caveat Emptor” (let the buyer beware) This is especially true in the Food Industry. Nutrition labels tout minimum daily requirement… making us feel ‘Ooh this is going to improve my health when in fact MDR means barely enough to keep us from getting sick, not anywhere near optimum health. How do they get away with that anyway?
It’s the profit motive again. The Food and Drug Administration is heavily lobbied by the food industry to have low MDR’s on labels. Billions of dollars can be saved if standards can be kept low. With a slug of MDR ingredients on the label, Breakfast of Champions sounds like it’s brimming with health. But that’s just dust under the carpet. Let’s talk about the 3 Biggest Lies told by the food industry and how they are slowly killing us.

Lie # 1

High Fructose Corn Syrup is better than sugar.

In 1700 sugar consumption was 4 lbs per year by 1900 it had exploded to 76 lbs per person. But that’s nothing compared to what happened when the Food industry discovered they could save Billions by switching from sugar To High Fructose Corn syrup… In 1980 the increased profit triggered a wholesale switch to High Fructose Corn Syrup because it was so much cheaper than sugar even though it had diabetes written all over it. Sugar itself is bad enough. Here’s what happens when we take sugar into our system: Our blood sugar rises to dangerous levels, the pancreas leaps to action dumping insulin making blood sugar plummet. In fact sugar is such a powerful “drug” it throws open the insulin flood gates causing the blood sugar to plummet even lower than it was before the sugar. This brings on a craving for anything that will boost blood sugar fast.

You reason, “Oh if only I had a piece of cheese or some egg whites. Not ever! What you want is a twinkie… a dough nut… or any thing laced with sugar because only sugar can tame that gnawing beast in your stomach. Again the blood sugar rises to life threatening levels and again the pancreas saves your life by releasing insulin.

Try this test on yourself…

Fix yourself some plain old fashioned Oatmeal for breakfast but don’t put any sugar on it. Note how long it takes you to get hungry. Then the next day fix yourself the same bowl of oatmeal only this time put on a generous portion of sugar. By the time lunch comes around you’ll be so hungry… you’ll be gnawing on your desk.

This is murder on hourglass figures because all those calories that should have been burned for energy get stored as fat. But let’s forget about looks for a minute and focus on your health maybe even your life. What about High Fructose Corn Syrup. Isn’t it better for you than Sugar? Not on your life! HFC is to pancreatic cells what Mike Tyson is to a 98 lb weakling. It beats the living daylights out of Insulin producing cells because High Fructose Corn Syrup is really sugar squared.

It will not only make you fat it brings on the dreaded Diabetes disease. Since switching from sugar to High Fructose Corn Syrup we have witnessed the onset of a Diabetis epidemic. Even grade school kids are coming down with diabetes… this was unheard of 20 years ago. Look on your labels, High Fructose is in almost everything you buy. Stay away from it. It will ruin your figure and destroy your health.

Lie # 2

Next time you pick up a loaf of white bread and read “enriched” on the label ask yourself… If I took away 20 dollars from you and gave you back 5 would you consider your self… enriched or robbed. In order to make a flour product have a look good, feel good appearance and a longer shelf life. They first have to bleach it… remove the fiber… along with 20 other nutrients. However the Food Industry wants you to believe there is still some nutritional value there… so they called it “enriched” by replacing 5 of the 20 nutrients they took out.

Lie # 3 The Hydrogen-ated Bomb

Hydrogenated oils destroy the permeability of the lining of our cells making it increasingly difficult to absorb nutrients and get them into the target cells. This has the same effect as grains of sand dropped in the workings of a fine Swiss watch. Gradually, the watch slows down, fails to keep time, then eventually breaks down completely. When we consume hydrogenated oils our cells become inflamed unable to absorb the nutrients we take into our body. This results in Age spots, prematurely wrinkled skin, Alzheimers, Arthritus, insulin resistance, obesity, heart disease and auto immune disease. This killer, originally a by-product of a manufactured fat, is now slipped into almost all refined processed foods because it creates the mouth feel of butter. It’s cleaner looking, better smelling, longer lasting and it’s less expensive.

To food manufacturers… hydrogenated oils are a dream come true, but they are a nightmare for your health., The good news is you can reverse the damage by eliminating these Hydrogenated oils from your diet. Look on your labels, Hydrogenated and Partially Hydrogenated oils are in almost every packaged food you buy Stay away from it. It will ruin your figure and destroy your health.

Why don’t our Doctors tell us about these things. Most of them simply don’t know, nutrition wasn’t even included in medical course work until the 1990’s. They were trained to treat disease not prevent it. Further more, it isn’t that doctors don’t care, they are just so busy taking care of clients and keeping abreast of ever increasing specialized skills they have no time to keep up with nutrition knowledge. So what is the answer to weight loss and robust health. Is it low carbs… less calories… less fat? Does Adkins, Jenny Craig or Weight Watchers have the answer?

Betsy Hart syndicated columnist for CNN recently wrote a column about weight loss. To lose weight, all you have to do is cut back on calories. This might be true if you are a few lbs over weight but what about the person that is way over weight like 40- 50 lbs overweight. The obese person is in a different world. The rules don’t apply.

A while ago my wife and I decided to eat out. As we sat there a young couple come in and sat down next to us. They were way over weight especially the woman. I didn’t pay much attention to them until their food came. The woman ordered a regular hamburger and a small salad. It caught my attention. How could she possibly maintain that weight on those few calories… The look of despair on her face gave an indication this wasn’t the first meal she was skimping on. It was an on going problem. She was actually gaining weight on less calories.

How can that be?

Is it possible to gain weight on less calories? Sadly the answer is not only yes but once you get over a certain weight it’s almost a given.

Why?

Muscle is the furnace in which fat is burned and it takes protein to keep the muscle full and healthy. If we cut our protein calories the muscle shrinks, but it gets worse than that. When it comes to passing out protein, muscle is last in line. First to get it’s share of protein is the brain then the liver, Lungs, heart, internal organs and last in line is the muscles. If there isn’t enough protein in the diet for the vital organs, the muscles go without and they begin to shrink but it gets even worse than that. If we don’t have enough protein for the vital organs, the body simply steals from the muscles causing the muscles to shrink even further. You can see why cutting calories is not the answer for a person that is heavily overweight. And why you have to increase your protein intake if you want to lose body fat.

Maybe the problem is the Fats.

According to the American medical Association the problem is the fats. Because fats contain twice as many calories as both carbs and protein it seems like a no brainier. Fats must be the problem. The Food Industry… jumps on the band wagon and lines the grocery shelves with foods shouting “low fat”. Just the other day I saw a bottle of chocolate syrup with big red letters exclaiming “No Fat”. Can’t be bad for you if it doesn’t have any fat in it.

Or can it?

Americans have been watching fats for the last 20 years and we are in the midst on an Obesity empidemic.
Something’s not right here.

Maybe it’s the carbs.

Dr. Adkins says it is the carbs. Just cut out your carbs… and you’ll lose weight. And we are seeing some success with carb reduction but, Fruits and Vegetables are Carbohydrates and they are full of vitamins and minerals. We certainly don’t want to cut these out. We need all the vitamins and minerals we can get.

We have a problem on our hands. And to make matters worse every 10 years we see a new “Low” fad diet.

The latest studies show Super Sized America has 75 million Americans classified as obese 198 million are overweight
US Dept of Health says 117 billion was spent in 2003 on treating obesity related illnesses.

So what is the answer anyway? There is one group of athletes that can gain or lose up to 50 lbs in a year any time they want. It’s part of their craft.

How do they do it?

Larry Scott has spent the last 47 years in the bodybuilding world, he will tell you how he did it. He simply watched his ratios.

The bodybuilders of the ” The Golden Era of Bodybuilding” learned this Ratio Nutrition secret from a nutritionist by the name of Rheo H Blair who at one time worked exclusively with movie stars like Charleston Heston, Laurence Welk, Bob Cummings and others whose careers were extended many years because of their youthful appearance. The word got around Rheo was way ahead of his time so they willingly paid it because in just a few months, Rheo could get them looking great for a new movie or TV series. Rheo would start by taking a 4’ by 4’close up of each client so you could see every pore on their face. Then he would take another one each 30 days. The change was so remarkable it was hard to recognize them in the later photos. You had to see it to believe what he did with nutrition alone. Rheo was driven to see just how much could improve the human body and… lucky for us it turned out that bodybuilders were a better group to use because they were already watching their health. It was hard to get it through our heads that calories were not the answer. His before and after photos proved it.

He told us If you wanted to get bigger and stronger you used a certain set of ratios. If however you didn’t want to gain weight but just wanted to maintain… get firm… toned you switched to another set of ratios and when you wanted to get really lean with almost no body-fat you changed them again. This was really important for us because when it got right down to contest time we wanted to get rid of every ounce of fat to show as much muscle as possible. Granted you may not want all those muscles but wouldn’t you like to know the secret to getting lean and hard any time you want. It was so much fun to have that much control over the body… to gain or lose at will… and when the contest got closer it really got fun. Rheo would switch us to our final set of ratios and.. the fat began to melt away. Muscles would appear out of hidden areas and even our skin got thinner with a soft glow from underneath like there was a light in there.

When the night of the contest came we didn’t have a trace of fat anywhere. Rheo’s ratios worked so well we won 14 Olympia titles, 3 Mr. Universe titles and 4 Mr. America titles.

Hey Laree… is this couch absolutely necessary?

Gonzo… Bonzo…Jesse

How To Arrive At The Gym Motivated. Be sure before you go to the gym you don’t let yourself get mentally involved in anything that can destroy your concentration. If you have a hobby or something other than your training, be sure you keep it out of your mind the hour before getting to the gym or you’ll end up at the gym “flat” without the proper motivation or the drive you need to work hard. The best way to arrive at the gym in the right frame of mind is to spend some time before you get there thinking about your workout visualizing yourself going through each body part. How much weight you used last time and how much weight you are going to use today. It makes my mouth water just to think about it.

To sum it up in four words or less before the summer sets in: Lift and shut up!

Life’s amazing. You gotta hang on to what you got…

Go to the Gym – Do Your Best…Jesse

For some reason we seem to be slow at learning new ideas. Especially is this true if the new idea is directly in front of us.
As Nicholas B. Katzebach said,”Prejudice, which sees what it pleases cannot see what is plain.” I would like to share with you a new idea about training.

In order to do so however, I must first cover some background material. We have all heard of Instinctive Training. It is I suppose considered to be the most effective method of training known by the most advanced of the bodybuilders. Let me explain Instinctive Training (IT) as I understand it. IT can generally be described as a system of training in which the trainer is trying to intuitively discover the unique combination of exercises which will be most effective for his body. IT recognizes that each trainer is unique and therefore the system of exercises that would be just right for him may not be adequate for the next fellow.

Who could argue with this approach. Although it doesn’t sound too scientific it certainly contains enough latitude for individual expression and allows for the input of years of experience which many times the purely textbook approach does not have going for it.

The following is what takes place in the awareness of the trainer that has persisted long enough to realize certain things about the way his body responds to exercise. First, he has begun to realize over the years it is when he first starts a new routine he makes his best gains and secondly he has noticed that is isn’t long before he begins to go stale on even the best of exercise programs. Realizing the inherent nature of all exercises to produce “stales” he continues to search for an exercise routine or even certain exercises that are more effective in producing results. Hence, he eventually acquires a “feel” for the effectiveness of an exercise and is able to quickly label the exercise as either good or no good. Soon however, he learns to his dismay that the “good” exercise soon becomes “no good” and he is left to once again utilize his intuition to discover another set of exercises that are again ” good”.

As this process continues year after year, the Champion’s all knowing position is gnawed away by experience. It is difficult for him to admit because as T. S. Elliot said “nothing dies harder than the desire to think well of oneself”. He soon no longer speaks as if he knows the exact exercise program which is the best for everyone. In fact, one will hear the Champion speak of his program as one that works for him and he will acknowledge each has to discover his own system in order to reach the top. Several things have occurred to bring the experienced trainer to this position. He has learned that no one exercise can be depended upon for long. The body soon adjusts to the exercise and the gains that were enjoyed initially are harder and harder to come by. In order to rekindle the initial flame of physical response to his new “good exercise program”, the trainer increases the weight he is using or reduces the rest time between sets or increases the intensity in some other way to present the impression to the body it is again seeing a new exercise. Eventually, however all his genius cannot disguise the fact it is indeed the same exercise. Consequently, progress comes to a halt.

By this time the seasoned trainer has developed this backlog of “intuitive approved exercises” so he changes his program to avoid any serious length of time in the “stales”. The nature of the mechanism by which the Instinctive Trainer makes his decision about an exercise lies chiefly in the area of feel. He doesn’t spend too much time thinking about his exercise program but more in the area of how it feels to him.

For example, recently Low Ferrigno ran an article on how he was now training people in his own home. Lou was explaining how his system was better than anyone else and the thing that made in more effective was, “I make sure each exercise has the correct feel before I ever suggest it for my clients.” Rachel McLish in her book Flex Appeal,assured her readers,”Ultimately, you will learn when to change programs by how your body feels.” It isn’t that the advanced trainer doesn’t have the capacity to think or that he is stupid, but he has learned his feeling apparatus is more dependable when it comes to passing judgement on the effectiveness of an exercise than is his thinking process. Because the Instinctive trainer is looking trying to avoid the feeling of a stale he is constantly looking for exercises that are not stale producing. In other words he is looking for exercises that will last a long time and still produce this good feeling. Certainly nothing wrong with this reasoning, we would all have to quickly acclaim. But is there? Lets look more carefully at the rise, flattening and fall in the life span of the typical exercise in the routine of the advanced instinctive trainer.

He begins a new exercise that he has selected instinctively as terrific. True to his arduously acquired instinctive ability the exercise initially gives him terrific pump and he is making sensational progress. Soon, however the exercise begins to peak out and he finds himself starting to get a “flat” feel on the exercise. Sort of not getting the same terrific pump. He reasons it must be something he has done wrong like staying up too late or not eating right or something that he can change. At this point he will increase the weight or reduce the rest time to increase the intensity. All the time putting further and further strain on the joints, ligaments and tendons. He starts to suffer some slight injury. But, lets suppose for the sake of the point I am trying to make that he doesn’t get injured so I can continue with my story.

Even though he has now flattened out and is even starting to slide down the back side of his progress curve, he wont know to change his exercise until he can no longer feel anything from the movement. He has been with it far too long. Or in other words he looks carefully for a good exercise and then works it to death. But, I am getting ahead of myself. Let’s assume the trainer has now slid down the back side of his progress curve and knows because of feeling little pump on the movement and no more growth, it is time to change. He now changes to a new exercise and starts up the steep growth portion of the progress curve again.

Actually, this isn’t what happens at all. What actually happens is the instinctive trainer often doesn’t know what exercise to change to and is frustrated by not making any progress so he will train harder and harder and will get injured from residual fatigue. This is injury that results from ignoring the pain that takes longer and longer warm ups to remove and finally goes home and climbs into bed with you.

If the trainer doesn’t get injured then more often than not he will continue to use the same exercise week after week month after month hoping that somehow that magic pump and growth he once experienced will come back, Especially is this true of the standard exercises such as Bench press and Squats. Somehow we have been led to believe every routine must have these and similar exercises in them or we can never reach the top. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Either the trainer keeps doggedly plugging along or if he is a potential champion, he will change the exercise to one that will again put him back in the hypertrophy range. But even if he is the most superb of instinctive trainers he must slide down the back side of his progress curve far enough for him to feel no progress before he knows to change the exercise.

That, in a nutshell is how instinctive training works. If you are not yet to the level of training awareness that this windy barrage has a familiar feel to you, have faith, persevere and you soon will know this intuitive method of designing your own program.

At the beginning I told you I was going to share a new training idea with you which I believe is a breakthrough in training effectiveness so let me continue. About 21 years ago Larry Scott and I became involved with the idea of training using a compute to generate exercise programs. At first I was more than skeptical because of my more than 30 years of experience and a health ego to go along with it. I was of course an ardent devote of instinctive training. I was sure my own feeling was a much better way of evaluating an exercise than thinking could ever be. Consequently, the idea of using a computer to do my thinking for me was moving in totally the wrong direction. After all, how could a computer do what had taken me 30 years of agony to learn.

The first thing Larry Scott and I noticed was not that the computer was better than we where at determining which exercise was better than another , but it was a whole lot faster than we where once Larry Scott  had trained it to do the things we knew. Let me share with you some of the fascinating things we discovered about training. Concepts which you can employ whether you have a computer to assist you or not.

The first thing we did was to build a program which had all the training programs of which Larry Scott was aware. In addition Larry Scott programmed it to include all the exercises he had available at his club. This included not only the machines but all of the free weight exercises of which Larry could think. Many of which Larry Scott had not used for years in his training. We now had a computer program which could provide us with an exercise program with the sets reps and even the weight we should be using on each exercise. Not only that but we could provide us with an entirely new exercise program in less than a minute. This supplied us with an inexhaustible source of exercise changes. Because we could change our program so easily we began to experiment to determine what would be best as far as how long a trainer should stay with the same exercise.

We noticed the bodies strong growth response during the starting of a new exercise program and its equally impressive ability to quickly adapt to the exercise. We also noted how some exercises seemed to last longer or rather it took the body longer to adapt to the exercise than it did to other exercises. In the past, if we were training with the instinctive method alone, we would have used only the exercises to which the body could not adapt readily and the others would have been discarded as no good. Gradually, we found the exercises were not “no good”, but the body quickly adapted to them. They were almost as effective but maybe for only a few weeks or perhaps only a few days before the body would adapt to them and the trainer would go stale.

In the past, while using the instinctive training method, it was too much trouble to change the program. But now while using the ultra fast computer, we could change the entire routine in just a minute. This was the main element which contributed to this revolutionary breakthrough. It provided the body with the change it needed in order to make it appear as if it was always seeing “Peak Output Exercise” and thus it was continually releasing growth hormones. We never allowed the body a chance to adapt to the exercise. We weren’t training until we felt the exercise fall off, we were always staying on the steep growth portion of our progress curve. It was exciting and fun because it constantly gave the body the fresh new program it needed.

This is actually the basics of the Muscle Confusion Principle. It’s nothing new but it does indeed have some merit. The only problem was ignoring the fact that some exercises do indeed feel better to each of us than do others. To say that I was excited about what was gradually beginning to unfold would not even begin to explain my feelings. I was ecstatic! I now knew why I could not hope for gains by continuing to plug along on the same exercise program until I could no longer feel it.

We had come to realize, the program should have been changed long before this condition arrived. We wanted to benefit from the natural surge of growth hormone release which only occurred during peak out put exercise. To do this, We had to change the program as often as was needed to psychologically, physiologically and neurologically present a totally new stimulus to the human organism.

In this way we where able to realize progress like we had not seen since we where a teenager. (Growth Hormone Release Supplements were also strategically timed to maximize growth hormone release). Yet even with this sophisticated approach to training, we wondered, could it be improved by somehow integrating the added sensitivity of an instinctive trainer. We began to ask ourselves, “what about the added benefit that comes from using the ‘good’ exercises as opposed to the ‘other’ exercises”.

Could it be that we were not using these exercises as we should be. We soon began to find upon experimentation that we where not only using the exercises too long, We where abusing the very heart of our training program. It was total ignorance. We just didn’t know any better. Armed with the powerful tool of being able to change our exercise program within 30 seconds I began to be much more critical of everything about training we had in the past held sacred. We became very sensitive to the pump we where getting on all of our exercises even those we had always considered to be my old standbys. Soon we realized we could not do even our favorite exercises more that a few exercise sessions in a row without feeling a lessening in our gains. A need to protect our very best exercises rather than abuse settled upon us.

The need to be an instinctive trainer had not diminished it had actually heightened. We needed to not only identify the instinctive training program but also continually refresh it so it would give us the gains for which we where seeking. We where so excited we could hardly contain ourselves. Here after 30 years of training we had discovered a training principle that was giving us gains twice as fast as anything we had ever used in the past. It was more fun, and we where able to use heavier weights with less injuries than ever before. Not only that but we where only training 3 to 4 days per week to accomplish what had taken 5 to 6 days per week in the past.

Its important to emphasize that we were also using this approach in conjunction with lots of growth hormone releasers to coincide with the training sessions. I don’t want to give the impression this system will give one that funny swelling effect of taking steroids. For those of us who are frightened of the large steroid dosages now being taken. or if you are getting older and are consequently seeing less and less of our own natural release of growth hormone,this program is terrific. If you find you are making less gains with your training and it becomes harder to keep the weight off the waist, you are in for a treat like finding the Fountain of Youth. I personally put on 8 lbs of muscle in one month while using this system and my body fat dropped while doing it. Let me go back and summarize some of the basics of what I would like to call REFRESHING THE INSTINCTIVE TRAINING PRINCIPLE. In their new book, Life Extension weight loss Program, Pearson and Shaw have suggested the need for peak output exercise as one of the conditions in which the body releases its stored growth hormone. It seemed to me as I read this book that the “stales” one experiences in ones training could somehow be linked to the body not seeing peak output exercise anymore. It needed a change in order to once again produce more of this amazing growth hormone. Upon experimentation I found this to be exactly true. If the exercise program is changed long before the body has a chance to ever adapt to the exercise, growth can continue to be stimulated.

However, to ignore the years of experience that has produced the instinctive trainer and his ability to inherently sense when an exercise is just right for him is a waste of valuable experience. Combining these two strengths we come up with the idea of not over using the instinctively selected exercises but on the contrary, continually refreshing them by becoming more sensitive to when the exercises are indeed losing their prime. It is them we should switch quickly to something else long enough to restore the instinctive training program to its prime again. As I see these words fall on the paper before me I can see they only point in the direction I would like you to go. If you don’t know the terrain I am afraid this map may not be adequate to get you to the destination.

Consider my brief shower of words before they evaporate. That one cannot blast it today does not mean one will not in the future. Stay prepared and do your mighty best to do what you can these days. Don’t deteriorate day by day till you’re one of… er… them.

A tip of the wings to ya,

Curls and presses…Jesse

“This year I am going to lose 30 lbs by March”. How many “New Years weight loss resolutions” have you made and broken. Each new year the Health clubs are packed with “people getting in shape”. But in about 2 months, the crowds thin out, and things return to normal, which is good for the health club because they’ve got your money but not good for you because you didn’t reach your goals.

How come we do that?…

Is it because we don’t have enough discipline? It isn’t that you don’t want to look good any more. You were excited at first yet before two months is out you are losing interest? What happened? Can I be personal for a minute. I’ve been training consistently for 22 years, yet under the conditions you’re working with I couldn’t do it either. Or rather I should say I can’t do it either. Something happened just the other day that drove it home. I was running behind at the office so I left for the gym without an exercise program. I figured… “I’m just going to wing it today… I know how to work out… I’ve done this hundreds of times and… I know all the exercises”.

It was my day for pecs, lats, abs and aerobics. So after I got to the gym, I started looking around to see what chest exercises I would use. I didn’t want to use the Smith Machine because my left shoulder was complaining and I couldn’t use dumbbell flys for the same reason.

I settled on seated chest press machine… hadn’t done that for a while… should feel good… has a leg assist so I could do some forced negatives… didn’t know what weight to use so I went down about 3 plates… stuck in the pin and cranked out a few reps. Aw… that doesn’t feel that good. I’m going to do something else. Let’s see, what else to do… looked around trying to find something. Finally, decided “I’m not feeling chest anyway, maybe I’ll start with back”…been doing chin assist machine and I really like it but I’m going a little stale on it. So, I’m not going to do that, I’ll do some straight arm lat pull-downs. That’s a pretty good exercise, So I started with about 150 lbs wanting to go a little lighter today. Didn’t have a plan for the number of reps so I did a few and… it really didn’t have it either… well let’s see what else can I do for back. I had been doing db pullovers and they were good but I was kind of tired of them so I thought I’d maybe try a seated lat pull. See If I could get something out it. Did a few reps and it felt kind of flat also. I just sat there for a minute. Trying to figure out want to do next. Aw, I’ve had it. I’m going to leave… Got things to do at home anyway. So took a steam and left.

On the way home… had that crappy feeling “of not only a poor workout but a poor precedent for my next workout”. The next day, I went to work thinking, ‘I’m not doing that again. It felt terrible. I’m going to print myself out a workout program and take it with me so I know what I should be doing. Found one I hadn’t used for a while and followed it exactly the way it was outlined… sets, reps, weight and everything. Noticed some of the exercises had different pacing than I was used to… Hey this is refreshing.

Excited to see what was coming next, I followed my program to the “T”. This was fun. Not like yesterday at all. I felt more energy… lifted. By the time I was done I had a great workout… Felt alive and was walking on air going out the door. As I drove home the thought hit me, “How could anybody do this. I have been working out for all these years and yesterday I bailed out because I didn’t have a program with me.

Yet the very next day when I had a new program it was a breeze. How can the average person expect to stay consistent without changing their programs? I’ve been doing this for all these years and I couldn’t do it. I always thought the reason I was able to be consistent was because I kept making progress. But that’s not entirely true. It wasn’t just the progress, it was the lift… Having a program that kept changing yet giving me enough direction so all I had to do was follow it. And I realized again… for the umpteenth time exactly how important… it was to have a training program that… not only had direction… but changed regularly. It’s kind of like driving to work day after day. The same old routine. The same streets. Sometimes you have to go a different way just to do something different. And it’s even more important with exercise because it actually affects your Growth Hormone release.

Remember earlier when we were discussing Growth Hormone Release. The stress and excitement of a new workout was one of the 4 conditions that release Growth Hormone. It’s this Growth Hormone that accelerates fat burning and muscle building. And when you see your body changing each day it’s hard to stay away.

I suggest too many of us look too long and too hard for the way to go and do too little traveling during the journey. Trust your footing, ignore the path and apply your discipline to the steps along the way. You know where you’re going; you just haven’t gotten there yet. Train hard and eat right, smile and pay your dues.

Onward… Jesse

Let’s suppose your goal is to get in better shape and you don’t know what to do about it. It isn’t that you don’t have choices. In fact, you may have too many choices. You’ve got Health Rider, Bowflex, Chuck Norris’ Total Gym, and Tony Little’s latest gimmick (by the way does that guy drive anyone else nuts) and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. When it comes to diet the choices go on forever. Like, Dr. Adkins Low Carb diet, the South Beach Diet, The Mediterranean Diet, the High Protein Diet .

I’ll tell you where the equipment generally end up. It becomes a clothes rack and the diet books end up as land fill. Why is this true?

The answer is quite simple. Your body is different from everyone else’s and it wants different things. “There is no One size fits all”. Real progress begins when you start listening to your body. Your body knows what it wants, you just have to listen to it. The sooner you realize your body is looking for things that have a certain “groove” to them the more progress you’ll make and the more fun you’ll have.

If you took 10 of the worlds top bodybuilders and asked them. What exercise do you like best for chest…legs… midsection etc.” You probably would get 10 different answers. The same is true of the foods we eat. Some like cauliflower but can’t stand broccoli and if you’re like me you don’t care for either one of them. That’s not bad or good it’s just different. If you try to gag down your food just because it’s good for you you’re not going to stick with it very long. When I first got bit by the bodybuilding bug, I would eat anything if I thought it would make me bigger.

We used to take raw liver, separate out all the connective tissue, then throw “the good stuff” in a blender. Then we would take it out on the curb and drink it. You can guess why we took it outside. Obviously, we didn’t stay with that diet very long.You’ll make much more progress if you eat the foods that you like while still staying within your “goal ratios” than you’ll ever would by adhering to foods that are “supposed to be good for you”.

“Even Your Muscles Know There is No “One Size Fits All” Let’s face it. Exercise requires effort and that effort should be focused on exercises that are instinctively right for you. Some want to work on midsection, others want to work on endurance or lose weight. Still others have certain body parts they want to improve. Even more important, some want to train at home and others want to go to a health club. Whether it’s at home or in a gym, when you know your program is personalized for you… you’re willing to put forth more effort, because you know “this is my program for me and my body”. It’s like having your Doctor write out a prescription for you. You know it’s for you so you take it.

Motivation is no problem because when you use your own instinctive program you immediately begin making progress and this motivates you, especially when your progress continues week after week. Nutrition also has an instinctive element that should be listened to. If you pick up a book that rhymes with Adkins and it tells you to eat a lot of bacon and red meat and no salad, instinctively your body tells you “this ain’t gonna work for long” and it doesn’t that’s why they are called die-ts.

You must find the foods that you like instinctively and then get your ratios, portions, and your meal times correct. Soon your body and even the look on your face gets a glow about it. It won’t be long before your friends will wonder what’s happening to you. But, this is just the beginning. Soon they won’t be able to stand it. They’ll press you for answers. “What are you doing different. How much weight have you lost? You look great.” (and you’ll feel great). Believe me, It will not only change your body and improve your health but it will build your self esteem.

Train Hard! — Jesse

Smile, Iron-Kids

I looked in the bathroom mirror this morning and gasped, urgently beseeching the distressed image before me, “Are you alright? Do you need help? Are you in pain? Who did this to you?” Before I could dial 911 I realized the focus of my appeals was me, the Boy in the mirror.

Note to mature musclebuilders: Hydrate in the morning before indulging in your first admiring look at your naked torso in your gleaming full-length bathroom mirror, even if the lighting is inspiring and dramatic. Ingest an eight-ounce glass of H2O, administer 60 seconds of Charles Atlas’ Dynamic Tension and you’ll expand like a dried sponge dipped in dish water. Exhilarating!

Smile, iron-kids. Notwithstanding an occasional hitch (arthritis, normal acing), life is a joy and we are smack dab in the middle of another wonderful summer.

I started training back in the ’70s when I was sixteen and when iron was cheap and I didn’t know any better. Having established muscle over the years, all I need to do is go to the gym 6 days a week for 75 minutes of intuitive gasping and groaning to attend my appreciable collection of lumps. I eat just enough of what is good for me and sleep as much as I can. It’s all so simple right, wrong. The hard part is letting go.

Curiously, a lot of participants in my blog these days are not only ironheads from the past, but older guys and gals new to the lifting and musclebuilding experience. They might have tripped over a dumbbell when they were in high school, but the immovable stumbling block had not been encountered since… not till now.

The Word’s Out. There’s Life In That Iron.

Few mature iron-aficionados are seeking coconuts deltoids and popeye forearms, but the retention of muscle and strength and the healthy functioning of their cardio systems are vitally appealing to them. Their collective goal is called life.

Tell me about it. Earlier today I reread some IRONMAN MAGAZINES written twenty five years ago. I was ripping and tearing, pumping and burning and bombing and blasting with a subtle reference to the stiffness and aches of up coming aging. They were there, early and certain signs, but I didn’t want to express them because I didn’t want to expose them. Plus, I didn’t know how to regard them without appearing negative and submission.

Athletes Don’t Do That. Athletes Bomb. Boom!

Nowadays, I begin the BLOGS by describing how I courageously walk to the keyboard and the absolute need to eat right, train hard and keep up the spirits, no matter how tough it gets. “Athletes never quit! Never. Never.”

74-year-old Larry Scott, one of the absolute best muscle-and might-builders of all time, from head to toe and from heart to soul, trains 4 times a week with the iron. No, he doesn’t rip it apart and toss it around like a crane in a junkyard, but he moves it around daily with intention and direction and affection. He carefully nudges pain and injury and excess like a workhorse nudges a pony. Larry’s smart and intuitive and practiced.

Always remember. Things could be worse.

What? That’s no way to view life! Life is precious, a joy, a gift… a superset and one-rep max…

Hurl, heft, hoist and heave… Train Hard! — Jesse

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They’re All Secret Ingredients

In cooking, as in love you have to try new things to keep it interesting. To me, not to explore all the possibilities in food is like having a toolbox with a screwdriver that you can turn only one way. You might think I am being a little overenthusiastic and ask, “What could possibly be new and delightful about potatoes or carrots or chicken or sweet peas?”

My answer would be, “There is always something new.” That is the challenge and the pleasure of creating in the kitchen. This Fitness Chef Eventi! Blog is really all about  taking tried-and-true ingredients and presenting them in ways that are new and different-but never difficult. You don’t need tons of new equipment or mastery of difficult techniques to make these recipes, or to dream up your own recipes.

Ingredients, even the most humble and common ones, are wonders of nature. I would even go so far as to say that because they are(o were) living things, they are miracle. and like every living thing, they are complex. So whether it is a glove of garlic, a coffee bean, or a slice of watermelon, I ask every ingredient, “What don’t I know about you? What secrets have you been keeping about yourself, and what can you do to surprise and please me even more?”

Can a carrot be cooked and crisp at the same time? It can if you add some starch. Can you make risotto out of potatoes that would be “real’ enough to fool an Italian friend? You can if you use a great shortcut for making teeny tiny diced pieces without a lot of chopping. Can you make a pork tenderloin that cannot be anything but tender and moist? Wrapped in plastic wrap and poached at a low temperature, it always comes out soft and juicy. Can you dice and dress tomatoes so that they look like filet mignon and taste like steak tartare? Yes, if you extract the liquid from the tomatoes and mix it with the right condiments. Can you make scollops as fluffy as Baked Alaska? Yes. if you process them and stir them in a double boiler.

There are many indispensable cookbooks that tell you hoe to make classic recipes. I have learned a lot from them. But in cooking, as in everything, I believe that variety is very much the spice of life. You could wear the same dark blue suit or the same little black dress every time you went to an event, but wouldn’t it get boring? I think the same way about food. If I have to cook the same thing over and over again, where’s the excitement? Keep it fresh: new combination.

I think much of my urge to have fun with cooking comes from my background as a Executive Chef. My years in “Mobil Five Star” Hotels imbued me with a sense of playfulness. Even among “serious” gourmets, desserts are supposed to be fun and surprising. I have simply taken that basic creed of the Executive Chef and applied it to all my food.

Not all of my experiments work (although of course every recipe in this Blog has been tested, tasted, and retested over and over until all the Chef’s gave a thumbs- up). As you join me in the world of cooking invention, remember you have the right to be wrong: I have been plenty of times. But I take that as a challenge to make it better, because it is only through trying new things that your cooking, or my cooking, or anybody’s improves, once you start to think this way about food, your ideas are more likely to turn our deliciously.

You may even surprise yourself. Executive Chef – Fitness Chef — Jesse

One of the best day’s of my life… Happy in the Kitchen

Chef d’Cuisine Christian Reber and I were having lunch at the chef’s table in the main kitchen. The long, wide white table that sits in the middle of CMC-Certified Master Chef Mr. Raimund Hofmeister trophy room, were all of his gold medals are, and photos of all the kings, presidents and world leaders he has served at the  YouTube - Westin Hotel Century Plaza Hotel History‏…and around the world. My favorite picture of all of the photos is a group photo of all the Westin Chef’s in the middle of that photo is Certified Master Chef Siegburt Wendler and Corporate Chef for Westin Flagship Hotel Arizona Biltmore Phoenix Az. The rest of them ranging from President Ronald Reagan to Britain’s Prince Philip, Queen Beatrix and Prince Klaus of the Netherlands, King Hussein of Jordan, Indira Ghandi of India, and the Premiers of Japan and China, just to name a few.

We begin our day there with one of the lunch’s that the apprentice’s make every day for Raimund and all the chefs, for part of there apprenticeship. We hold the day’s chef’s meeting there. Until this point, we have been lifting huge pans and tossing ingredients into cauldrons, all in preparation for dinnertime, when gallons of stocks and piles of vegetables will have been cooked, strained, chopped, and mixed into scores of small  vessels — awaiting a final recombination when an order comes in. But that is hours in the future. For now, lots of copping, steaming, and running back and forth with spoonfuls of this and small platefuls of that for CMC-Certified Master Chef Mr. Raimund Hofmeister to taste and pass judgment.

Certified Master Chef CMC Raimund Hofmeister.

Raimund takes a spoonful, closes his eyes, swallows, pauses, and thinks. If he takes anther mouthful, the recipe passes the muster. If he cleans the plate, which he often does, it’s a home run. If not, he’ll often get up, walk over to the stove, grab a pan, and try to fix it. Sometime he succeeds. Sometimes he files it away under “New Ideas to Come Bake To.”

In this way, every day is a day for new ideas. Raimund is always asking “what if?” questions about food and always trying to answer them in the kitchen. Sometimes a final recipe takes years of trips to the stove. Then, like a portion of a tune that sticks in a composer’s head until it finally resolves itself into a finished melody, there finally come a day when the Chesapeake Oyster Consommé or Napa Valley Squab with Lentils, Cabbage, Rye Turnover issues forth from the kitchen as a daily special.

Like a playwright waiting for a review, Raimund looks at the plates as they come into the chef table and then looks at all the plates the chefs are eating if they were gobbled up and the plates were wiped clean, it’s a winner. If just a little bit has been eaten and the rest politely rearranged so as not to insult the apprentice’s, Raimund is as crestfallen as a racing fan watching his horse fade in the final stretch. His horse, however, wins a lot more than loses…

And so we ate, most memorably, a double thick cut rib eye with a herbed brown crust, crisped, to my great surprise, in chicken fat. And we talked and we drank a bottle—make that two bottles—of Cabernet Sauvignon a noble California red grape. Rich in tannis, it produces a deep, full-bodied wine with intense aroma and flavor. A robust wine, perfect with red meat or wild game. Best when aged for several months…

Raimund, from time to time, would give you that look with his eyes, that would give you goose bumps in the back of our neck, and then talk in his German accent, calling to mind a holy man sharing a revelation. This one quickly notes, is his way of channeling his inner food gods.

I have had the good fortune to have worked with a number of superstar chefs. Only CMC-Certified Master Chef Mr. Raimund Hofmeister can give you those goose bumps in the back of our neck.

Working with Chefs like these is one of the great pleasures in life for me. We all learn from each other, we eat magnificently, and we’ve invariably had a wonderfully good times.

Christian Reber and I just had picked up the produce and meats and all what else we need for the kitchen of the La Chaumier. We start are 30 minute long walk up the hallway to the 30-story tower on the hotel’s south side. Just hoping that President Ronald Reagan does not fly in with Marine One yet, because if that happens the elevator will be shut down by the Secret Service and we will not be on time to open the restaurant for hours, the elevator is the only way up to the restaurant.

It’s friday night at the Century Plaza, about 5:30pm in the La Chaumiere restaurant, located in the tower which has received wide critical acclaim and is one of the premier restaurants in Los Angeles. Chef d’Cuisine Christian Reber and I were just talk about how the night was going to go and then we saw the maitre d’ walk into the kitchen we know right then and there something was up because he usually does not come into the kitchen that often.

Then I saw he was walking straight to me and with a serious look on his face then with a firm voice he said Al Pacino and two other men just walked into the La Chaumier dinning room and he was giving use heads up.

All of a sudden my heart dropped to the floor and with a blink of a eye my face had the biggest smile of it’s life on it, with a turn of my head goose bumps ran all over my body like I never had before in my life. Even at this very moment as I write this I’m getting those same goose bumps. Wow!

I was very worried, trying to think up something special to cook for him. The maitre d’ walk into the kitchen one more time and he said the dinner will be delayed for about one hour. We then served him a glass of Bordeaux, but he is too busy signing papers for his next movie scent of a woman. With all that said he was too busy walking around and taking pictures of  him and fans in the dinning room.

And I could understand his feelings. There were 20 different starters alone on the menu. At last Al Pacino, sat down to eat his dinner; he ate with gusto, trying not to destroy the intricate patterns of the food served on the plates. The waiter was serving his tea when I was getting ready to go home. It was after three hours when I went downstairs, where the duty vehicle was waiting to take me home.

The drivers were always hungry, so I came back upstairs to get a couple of sandwiches for them. When I entered the kitchen, Al Pacino was there and greeted me with: “Are you the chef?” in heavily accented voice. He shook my hand, gave me a hug and said: “Excellent, Jesse! Simply excellent!” You are a truly great Chef Jesse. I was so elated when I arrived home; I said to my girlfriend: “Can you imagine – Al Pacino my favorite actor he shook my hand.” — Jesse

Recipes rely on simple, yet precise cooking techniques and exceptional ingredients. Eating is a serious matter in Italy. Cooking and food are among the finest expressions of Italian culture, vividly portraying the country’s history and traditions. Like all other arts, cooking is based on measures and proportions, on the balance and fusion of different elements. It blends ancient traditions with contemporary innovation and evolves constantly, even in the twenty- first century, as a result of its position at the center of Italian family life. At home with family or friends, for a special occasion, in a fancy restaurant or in a humble trattoria, or even when preparing a simple everyday meal, for Italians, cooking is synonymous with good food, good wine and good company.

Whether rustic or sophisticated, Italian cooking is traditionally based on excellent, fresh, seasonal ingredients. This is one of the main reasons why Italian food varies so much from region to region and even from village to village. In the north, where cattle and dairy farming are prevalent, we find a cuisine based on butter, meat  and Parmigiano, while travelling towards the south we encounter olive oil (extra virgin, of course), ripe tomatoes, gorgeous eggplants and fresh fish. Italian cooking is based on Italy’s rural traditions and depends very much on the vast variety of the country’s agricultural produce. Yet even if nowadays you can find almost any kind of food at any time of the year, Italians still follow the rhythm of the seasons and will wait until spring to enjoy asparagus, or the summer for a fresh Insalata caprese. But as soon as the temperature falls in the autumn, everyone is ready for a warming plate of Braised Beef with Barolo. In Italian families, special occasions are still celebrated at home with a five-course meal (antipasto, first course, main course with vegetables, cheese and dessert). But, when eating everyday, a one-meal dish such as lasagne, pizza or ribollita will satisfy even the most demanding of appetites. The country’s infinite variety of dishes allows Italians to create an excellent and healthy meal whether they choose to spend their entire day cooking, putting together a stunning Brodetto Marchigiano (a fish soup made using several varieties of fish and shellfish), or if, instead, they go home and make a simple but authentic dish of Spaghetti aglio olio e peperoncino, with its four ingredients never missing from any Italian kitchen.

Authentic Italian dishes are very often based on just a few, humble ingredients. What makes them so tasty and delicious is that, over the centuries, Italians have discovered exactly how to achieve the perfect mix of flavors. It sometimes seems that Italians learn to cook before they learn to talk and their skills are handed down from one generation to the next. The perfection of Italian cooking has been achieved through centuries of testing in family kitchens, with millions of dishes served to the most discerning of critics. The Silver Spoon is the result of a labor of love, with only the very best recipes from Italian families and cooks within its covers. This is the one cookbook every Italian passes on to their children, teaching them the skills of their parents and grandparents, and allowing them to understand what Italian cooking is really about. It shows them how to prepare a healthy and delicious meal by, firstly, choosing the right ingredients and then by following a variety of recipes that may be either simple or complicated, but always explained in the clearest and simplest of ways. For these reasons The Silver Spoon is the most successful cookbook in Italy, the book that has its place in every family kitchen, the one that many brides have received as a wedding gift.”

These Italian cooking recipes will help you learn how to make a classic Italian Basic Tomato Sauce, the perfect Chicken Saltimbocca, fresh Pizza 4 Ways,Spaghetti Aglio e Olioor even Mario Batali’s Lasagne alla Bolognese al Forn. — Jesse

Thought for the Day: “Remember that wherever your heart is there you will find your treasure.”

A Celebration of Fitness Chef Eventi!

Excellence Are Celebration Del’ Excellence

The history of Mexican… food is a long and diverse one. It is believed that authentic Mexican food might have been derived from the Mayan Indians. They were traditionally nomadic hunters and gatherers. Corn tortillas with bean paste were a common food item; but they also ate wild game, tropic fruits, and fish. In the mid 1300′s, The Aztec Empire was thriving, and though the Mayan food staples were still in use, chili peppers, honey, salt and chocolate found its way into their cooking. Some of the wild game, such as turkey and duck, had now become domesticated.

In 1521 Spain invaded Mexico. Spanish foods had the most influence on the Mexican cuisine. They introduced new livestock, such as sheep, pigs and cows. They brought with them dairy products, and garlic as well as many different herbs, wheat and spices. It was at this time that the Mexican people saw the assimilation of many other cuisines including Caribbean, South American, French, West African and Portuguese. Because of this Mexican foods today are diverse, yet dishes to vary from region to region.

The early natives of Mexico did not have ovens, instead they heated food over and open fire, using cast iron skillets and ceramic ware. Another method was steaming. They would suspend meat wrapped in cactus or banana leaves, over boiling water in a deep pit. Frying was also a popular method.

They used a metate y mano, which is a large tool made of lava rock or stone that they would use as a grinding stone or the molcaiete, which was smaller, to grind and smash ingredients. The molcaiete, or mortar and pestle, is a small bowl shaped container that can be made of stone, pottery, hard wood or marble, and the pestle is baseball bat shaped.

Salsa was sold in the Aztec market places. Salsa, the Spanish word for sauce, is uncooked and sometimes pureed until chunky, smooth, or chopped. Large red tomatoes, tomatillo, chipotle {a staple in the Aztec diet} and the avocado are found in the modern salsa, and are the same core ingredients used in the past. We can thank the Aztecs for Chocolate. It was through them that the Spaniards brought the product to Europe in 1657.

The term enchilada is first referenced in the US in 1885. Yet the concept of tortillas being used as a wrap can be clearly linked to the Aztecs. The word enchilada means “in chile.”

The tomatillo is a fruit that dates back to at least 800 BC, the word meaning round and plump. The Aztecs domesticated it, and when the Europeans came to Mexico, they documented the local foods and often confused the names by shortening the words.  Though never popular with Europeans, it thrived in Italy. Today a relative of the fruit is common in the US. Tomatillo, a member of the night shade family, provides tart flavor in many different green sauces.

The Portuguese aided the spread of the chili pepper plants. Thought the earliest mention was in 1542 when a German herbalist, Leonhart Fuchs, described and illustrated several types of peppers. Though for people of Europe, the history of the pepper began in the late 15th century, when Colombus brought the peppers home. There is archaeological evidence that peppers were in use since 5000 BC. Pre-Columbus is how far back the Tamale can be traced. The Friar Bernardino de Sahagun documented that the Spaniards were served tamales by the Aztecs in the 1550′s.

Other foods that we associate with Mexican cuisine, are not traditionally so. The Flan was discovered in Medieval Europe. And ceviche is an Inca discovery, eating their catch of the day raw with only a few seasonings. It wasn’t until the late 15th century when Native American chefs of Ecuador and Peru began to add the citrus fruits with the South American fish, and creating the dish that we know today. — Jesse