Arnold Schwarzenegger | Furious Fathering

CSD StrongDad Program: Holiday Season Mad Crush Journal – Dec 2, 2013 – “Pop On More Weight, I Wanna BEat Em!”

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Cool Pappa

Food does the body good!

The holiday calories (actually more the quality than the quantity) continued to be atrocious through Sunday. Looking at my schedule for the next week, I knew I’d have to hit the gym for a rare Monday appearance. Personally, I think anyone who is serious about training should look a week or more out in advance to determine when they can train. Many fail right off the rip taking the one-day-at-a-time approach. Then as soon as something gets thrown into the schedule, “Oh, I couldn’t workout today because I was too busy…”. Then one day missed becomes, “I’m going to start getting back into it next Monday.” Then it’s, “next month”, then it’s “Jan. 1st!”

But I digress…

I wasn’t able to secure the power rack during primetime, so that meant I had to settle for the 45-degree leg press instead of Zercher Squats. While I’m not a fan of the LP, it’s the best I can do at the commercial gym if I need to go for maximum poundage. Today is actually my last week through this particular routine, so I really wanted to test my strength this week. My goal is to set new PR’s each day. Did it happen? Read on…the PR’s are in bold:

12/2/2013	Set	Reps	Weight
Leg Press	1	5	90
	2	5	180
	3	5	270
	4	5	360
	5	5	450
	6	3	540
	7	3	630
	8	3	720
	9	2	800
	10	2	800
	11	2	850

Military Press	1	5	85
	2	5	135
	3	1	155
	4	1	165
	5	1	170

I held back a bit on the LP as I was being cautious with my lower back, but overall, everything felt great! As you can see, I still got 2 reps even after the 50lb. jump on the last set. It was definitely a day when a partner to challenge me a bit more would have been useful, but perhaps stopping one-rep-short has allowed me to remain injury free over the last 10 weeks. But no matter how many plates you stack on the LP, it’s still the LP. You get no respect from serious lifters unless you are squatting/pulling a weight that’s bending the bar.

The Black Prince still getting it in!
Source: robbyrobinson.net

No matter what, squatting with a bent bar is far more impressive than a stacked leg press machine…and I know…not everyone can squat.

Last up was the military press. The power rack got clear for a brief moment so I ran to it like a bro in leopard spandex at the Arnold Classic when he finds out they’re passing out free supplements. Not that I’ve done that mind you…well, at least not in spandex leopard print pants.

I thought 165 lbs. was my target weight for the day, so I gave it a go. As soon as I tried to press, the weight just felt heavy and I barely got it up. I even then tried a push-press rep and could only get it half way. I was quite disappointed, made a note of it, and consoled myself by pointing out that my weight usually stalls pretty early on this exercise so I’m just glad I made so many weeks of progression with it, plus my elbows are still a tad sore, etc.. I took the 10’s off each side, rested, unracked and BAM, the weight felt really light. Then I realized that I had miscalculated the weight on the previous set. I was actually trying 175 lbs.! So when I realized I just easily killed 155, I went back to 165 (my previous 1RM) and crushed that, then I found some 2.5 lb plates that people feel are useless, slapped those on the end and crushed 170lbs.! A few short months ago, I was struggling to hit 145lbs. for 1RM, and now I’ve added 25lbs. to this all important lift.

If I had been in my homegym, I would’ve had to blast this all-time classic from Pumping Iron:

I can watch this scene with Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk for you late Gen-Y youngsters) over and over again and get hyped every time!

I came home and then tried to overhead press Big Reg. I think he’s in the 150’s, but pressing a human from the floor in the living room is a lot different from a bar in the rack. Besides, I didn’t think about how I was going to put him down. I did get him up into pressing position, but I must work more on the technique and him being absolutely still instead of laughing hysterically which didn’t make things any easier.

Next up, pressing My Lex. However, the outcome was the same with her as well, but there’s no doubt that I could get her up as well.

So maybe that’ll be a test for:

a.) Me: I should always be able to military press more than my children weigh (I don’t think my progression can keep up with Big Reg’s scale progression, but we’ll see)

b.) Future Son-In-Law: If you can’t press my daughter’s bodyweight, NO, you can’t marry her! A guy who isn’t strong enough to do that could never keep her away from the zombies when I’m dead and gone…

CSD

Day 10 of 30 Days On Dads – Like Father Like Son? How Does Patrick Schwarzenegger’s Physique Compare To His Dad Arnold?

Posted on June 10, 2013 by Cool Pappa

I’ve told my boy and girls that the physical habits and results you develop now with be with you the rest of your life. Working out and keeping a healthy body fat level is not about looking good, but about taking care of the body God has given them in this 24/7 sittin’-on-your-butt society.

We were made to move.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:14

Starting your kids on a strength training program is a great way to maximize the genetic potential that God gave you, and you handed down to them. We all have body parts that are naturally larger, leaner and have different muscle origin/insertion points, and this is determined largely by our genetics.

Unfortunately, nurture often trumps nature. Our kids learn to eat fast-food because no one cooks healthy or at least unprocessed meals at home any more. Our kids want to sit with a controller in their hand all day because they have watched us sit in front of a computer/cell phone screen all day.

When boys especially, hit around 14 or 15 years of age, they really desire to start adding strength and coordination to their new-found lean body mass. As parents, we can show them how to train properly and with the right moderation. Like other things they learn from the kids in school, locker room lifting conversations are insanely misinformed. I’d venture to say that if we wanted to put a dent in teenage steroid use, we could start by having parents and young men training together.

Trust me. You’ll notice real fast if you and your boy are doing the same workout and he just added 30 lbs. in 6 months and you only 5lbs. Yes, kids grow fast, but that’s likely not all creatine putting that mass on!

Arnold Schwarzenegger may not exactly be a CornerstoneDad, but it looks like he stoked a fire in his son the same way he did millions of others across the world. The desire to get in shape.

Take a look at this shot of his boy compared to Arnold at a similar age:

Patrick Schwarzenegger – 19 years old

Arnold Schwarzenegger – 18 years old

Now, think that everyone has the ability to compete in bodybuilding with “hard work and the right supplements”?

I don’t think so. You better have the right parents!

But you can teach your kids how to take care of what God (and you) have blessed them with, and those results will truly last for a lifetime.

If you need any tips on developing a routine for your kids, just let me know!

CSD

Bodybuilding Loses A Legend – Sergio Oliva

Posted on November 16, 2012 by Cool Pappa

This week the bodybuilding community lost one of the best ever, Sergio Oliva.

Sergio died on November 12 and was 71 years old. Known as “The Myth”, Sergio’s biggest claim to fame was the fact that he was the only bodybuilder ever to beat the other great one, Arnold Schwarzenegger (I know, I know, some still say Mike Mentzer beat Arnold in 1980 but that’s a subject for another day.)

When I first started lifting weights, Sergio was a big inspiration and earned plenty of space in the Iron Temple, which is what I called my home gym. My upper arms were always a strong body part for me (not in exercise terms, but in appearance) and the dream of one day having to cut the sleeves just to fit my guns in there kept me going down in the chilly basement. But Sergio’s physique was so perfect and dense, he made me hope that I could even bring my weak limbs into proportion as well. Yet that to was a pipe dream, as that’s what made Sergio “The Myth”. Very few then and now could attain a physique with no visual weaknesses as his muscularity seemed more like a cartoon or airbrushed picture, than something real.

Sergio’s accomplishments are also remarkable because it harkens back to when training and reaching genetic potential determined winners in bodybuilding, not endorsements and pharmaceuticals. That doesn’t mean that Oliva’s and his contemporaries didn’t use anabolic drugs. But the guys had to know what to use (and it’s not nearly as much as what would later be used in the “sport”), how to train and how to eat in a very non-scientific world. Sergio even trained with some of the smartest guys in bodybuilding at the time, Arthur Jones and Mike Mentzer, two guys that revolutionized training with an abbreviated lifting method called HIT or High Intensity Training. It was truly a time when bodybuilding led science, not the other way around like we see today.

American’s always want to tell boot-strap-type stories and Sergio certainly has one of his own. He defected from Cuba decades before we started hearing about other athletes coming to America seeking fame and fortune. The Chicago Tribune reports,

“Oliva defected to the United States from Cuba in 1963 at a Pan American Games qualifying competition in Jamaica, bringing the entire Cuban bodybuilding team with him. He came to Chicago in 1963 because “he heard this was where the jobs were,” longtime friend Jack Merjimekian said.”

First, my “wrastling” CSD’s will know the guy with Sergio.
Second, my man had to cut his sleeves!