[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Are you going to be releasing it elsewhere as a PDF? I dont have a kindle, and I’d rather you get the majority of that dollar dollar bills yall than Amazon[/quote]
same here, I’d buy it, definitely. You write really well
Thanks guys. With this one though it’s not about the money at all, just some extra PR I hope. Believe me, I’d be fine without charging anything, so long as I was hitting a new audience.
Lonnie- I know you got the email I sentya 
Yogi - If you shoot me a msg with your email address, I’ll make sure you get a pdf copy. (just google my name and you’ll find my email link somewhere!)
S
Aside from what I said elsewhere, I can see how frustrating it would be to do all that formatting, putting pictures in, Wolf Pack logos (the best!) etc… and then have to completely change it for the kindle.
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Aside from what I said elsewhere, I can see how frustrating it would be to do all that formatting, putting pictures in, Wolf Pack logos (the best!) etc… and then have to completely change it for the kindle.[/quote]
Yeah, I was actually talking to my ‘web guy’ the other day, and I was really going on about making it a downloadable PDF from my own site. While he said it’s pretty simple to set up a 99 cent paypal option with a link, he was concerned with “piracy”. Of course to me, that would actually be a good thing -lol. Get it out there! (and get it out there with my wonderful layout and formating)
It’s not like I’m guarding the secret location of the Ark or anything here. The amount of questions I’ve answered and opinions and information I’ve shared online over the years certainly hasn’t stopped people from seeking out my actual assistance.
The whole point of my even putting it up on sites like Amazon and Barnes and Noble was attempting to reach new audiences. I will say though, that both sites let authors track sales, and I’ve been happily surprised at how many copies actually moved just last week. I did, after realizing just the number of people putting out fitness e-books, read several customer reviews of other publications. It was pretty shocking how many people seemed genuinely upset over excessively short pieces that just seem to rehash “stuff everyone already knows.” There seems to be a whole tidal wave of questionable (IMO) authors just trying to cash in on the E-craze.
Hopefully more people click on the “Look Inside” option and actually realize how many useful concepts I addressed. I’ve felt suckered myself in the past by purchasing publications that claim to provide a certain level of information, only to be very let down when the item arrived. (I usually then donate the books to spare loss of space on my book shelves)
And very glad you like the Wolf Pack logo, I drew it myself! I had it copyrighted years ago, and have gotten nothing but positive feedback from sending t-shirts and hats to clients. 
S
Dude I would so wear that Wolf Pack hat/shirt at my gym (and just generally around town probably) … I actually need a new hat. Is there somewhere we can buy them?
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Dude I would so wear that Wolf Pack hat/shirt at my gym (and just generally around town probably) … I actually need a new hat. Is there somewhere we can buy them?[/quote]
Check your mail this coming Monday
S
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Yogi - If you shoot me a msg with your email address, I’ll make sure you get a pdf copy. (just google my name and you’ll find my email link somewhere!)
S[/quote]
sorry mate, just saw this. I’ll shoot you that email
I had an interaction at the gym yesterday that made me pause and reflect on the fact (?) that people that may be genetically blessed enough to have a decent, or even physically imposing, physique may have gotten there with very little of the attention to details, or even scientific information that the lesser genetically gifted (relatively of course) folks have had to address.
Obviously, some of us have to concern ourselves with various factors and variables in accordance to the hands we’ve been dealt. This is nothing new, and I certainly realize that it’s been mentioned in many posts over the years. Yesterday though, I was on one of two seated calf machines, with a gym-friend pumping away on the other right next to me. While he’s easily 6’, and a certain 230+ lbs, despite it being almost 90 degrees in NY, he was wearing long workout pants. When he noticed I was using about half the weight he was, we started talking, and I soon found myself discussing fiber types and muscle biopsies, myostatic reflexes, and even now out of date books on muscle imaging and how different exercise performance variations targets different areas of the body.
For most of the readers on these forums, this is nothing new, or startling, but I think that the people that struggle the most to achieve their goals have a tendency to go a little further in their efforts to learn all that they can. Yes, there is the flip side to this, “majoring in the minors” as it’s been called, but still… It just kinda made me realize how much effort, and really just learning as much as I could that I did over the years.
Nothing earth shattering, just a bit of reflection on my part I suppose.
S
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
I had an interaction at the gym yesterday that made me pause and reflect on the fact (?) that people that may be genetically blessed enough to have a decent, or even physically imposing, physique may have gotten there with very little of the attention to details, or even scientific information that the lesser genetically gifted (relatively of course) folks have had to address.
Obviously, some of us have to concern ourselves with various factors and variables in accordance to the hands we’ve been dealt. This is nothing new, and I certainly realize that it’s been mentioned in many posts over the years. Yesterday though, I was on one of two seated calf machines, with a gym-friend pumping away on the other right next to me. While he’s easily 6’, and a certain 230+ lbs, despite it being almost 90 degrees in NY, he was wearing long workout pants. When he noticed I was using about half the weight he was, we started talking, and I soon found myself discussing fiber types and muscle biopsies, myostatic reflexes, and even now out of date books on muscle imaging and how different exercise performance variations targets different areas of the body.
For most of the readers on these forums, this is nothing new, or startling, but I think that the people that struggle the most to achieve their goals have a tendency to go a little further in their efforts to learn all that they can. Yes, there is the flip side to this, “majoring in the minors” as it’s been called, but still… It just kinda made me realize how much effort, and really just learning as much as I could that I did over the years.
Nothing earth shattering, just a bit of reflection on my part I suppose.
S[/quote]
Now my instigating question is how much did the science help you grow more/better/more efficiently? Personally i just love the details because i love the details and science but true application seems to fall apart many times as science is Constancy a moving target. Many studies and hypothesizes are never tested in an environment that is true to what the hardcore gym population experiences. Which makes for crude extrapolations one way or the other to say well this should work on not work. Just playing devils advocate 
[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:
Now my instigating question is how much did the science help you grow more/better/more efficiently? Personally i just love the details because i love the details and science but true application seems to fall apart many times as science is Constancy a moving target. Many studies and hypothesizes are never tested in an environment that is true to what the hardcore gym population experiences. Which makes for crude extrapolations one way or the other to say well this should work on not work. Just playing devils advocate
[/quote]
I don’t want to say that it was solely a need to know the scientific rationale for everything that helped me, at least not at first. Later on, I might have pushed more in tht direction though. I think more than anything, the fact that I seemed to have to address every little concern compared to other trainers I knew, instilled me with a strong discipline that carried me to the the points I would reach. Some people get results right off the bat, from seemingly ridiculous eating and training plans, and completely half hearted efforts. Others, struggle like you wouldn’t believe and see almost nothing as a result. IMO, it’s the second group that faces the fork in the road with their progress: Do they shrug their shoulders, assume this isn’t for them and simply find another pursuit (possibly chalking up other peoples’ results to steroids), or do they learn all they can, become very analytical in their own approach and progress monitoring, and commit to the long haul?
In my case, I started training because it was fun, and I was hanging out with a good friend just shooting the sh-t, chatting about cartoons anmd comic books, and letting off a little steam after sitting in classes all day. Before the internet, there was no possibility of hearing every online expert’s opinions on what I should be doing. So I learned the very basics of training, and I learned hard work, consistency and patience. All the nitty gritty stuff would come much later.
These days, anyone can go online and pull up pubmed sudies, or even contact various competitors, coaches, even researchers! (I remember emailing a fairly well known - now - Phd a long while back dicussing various studies on Leucine that I had been reading up on) The point is that if you’re willing to do the work, there’s a whole lotta go stuff out there. The down side to this is that you also have theory-experts running amock.
A big thing to me, is that I noticed that you always have people who have had success with differing, even contradicting, approaches. So while there may indeed be many ways to skin a cat, I figured that if one were to truly examine all of the available evidence, surely one way might appear the superior alternative. That’s when I started going to seminars, printing out every interview with a “successful” competitor, or coach that I could find, tracking down older, sometimes out of print books to see what valuable information was being relied upon in eras past,long before all of the “latest and greatest” concepts that were being shoved in every gym rat’s face via magazines and web sites. If people had been building impressive physiques since the 50’s (at least), then there had to be some very obvious patterns in approaches over the years that I needed to discern and ensure I was addressing if my own build was to come even close.
You mentioned science, and trying to hit a moving target. It’s true that the majority of studies we see cited in supplement ads, training articles, even the endless youtube videos from self-proclaimed-experts, were not conducted on a population even close to what people are trying to apply the informstion to. Of course if all we have is the studies done to comprise our “scientific evidence”, then until something better comes along, that’s about it. I’ve always maintained that science isn’t always ahead of anecdotal evidence. There have been many gym “truths” over the decades that despite the people advocating such methods, they didn’t fully comprehend why they worked. Regardless, they did indeed work. Possibly the reasoning for success of a certain approach was completely different than what was originally thought, and it would be many years until someone in a lab coat finally took a good hard look.
Still, results are results, and not every gym rat needs to know why they’ve improved their bench, or added 1/4" on their biceps. THey’re just happy that they did. If they’re even a little smart though, they take note of what variable they changed (or persevered with) that led to this monumentous achievement.
A big revelation in recent years is that the number of meals doesn’t truly have the effect on your physique that we formerly believed. BUT, when I was 150 lbs (not cut in the least) in college, and I was just trying to get in more food, eating every few hours made it easier, and helped keep my blood sugar steady throughout classes, work, training, hockey games… It wasn’t the approach itself that worked for me, it was that it enabled me to address my overall caloric needs. In that respect, when I see some people jumping on others for suggesting multiple meals throughout the day, it just seems to me a cry for attention, “I know the latest research! look at me!” IMO this is a silly downside (if we can call it that) to the current availablity of research to anyone with internet access.
So after much much rambling (not much going on for me this morning -lol), I think science has a place, IF you’re smart enough to take it with a grain of salt. These studies are what they are, and the gym/kitchen arena that physique athletes use to pursue their goals can differ quite drastically. My advice is to always listen and learn from any avenues you can, but realize that not every piece of information, no matter how great it may sound on paper, may translate into real world results in your individual case.
Me? I’m still reading every piece of literature I can get my hands on. I just don’t take everything at face value.
S
Hi Stu, if you don’t mind, I’d like to pick your brain on a topic I’m struggling with. With apologies if you’ve covered this previously…
My issue concerns how best to structure a lifting program over the long haul–‘periodization’ or ‘mesocycling,’ some people call it. What are your thoughts in this regard? Thanks in advance.
[quote]EyeDentist wrote:
Hi Stu, if you don’t mind, I’d like to pick your brain on a topic I’m struggling with. With apologies if you’ve covered this previously…
My issue concerns how best to structure a lifting program over the long haul–‘periodization’ or ‘mesocycling,’ some people call it. What are your thoughts in this regard? Thanks in advance.[/quote]
Ahh! Sorry, I sometimes don’t get to sit down with questions as quickly as I’d like to, so lemme give you my thoughts here.
As a general topic, I see people who excel while constantly spending time structuring and restructuring their programs, and I see people who excel simply following the exact same program (exercises, sets, reps) year after year, simply moving heavier weights or even learning how to “get more” without even changing the weights much.
On the other hand, there are also countless gym rats who practice either approach and still don’t make the progress they potentially (or others) could.
Personally, as a bodybuilder, my concerns have always been to focus on “weak points” asthetically, and how best to dedicate my time to improving from year to year. I know this can be very different for strength athletes planning a very complicated series of progressions in mini-training cycles.
When you focus on bringing up an area, there always has to be a balance in making sure you’re not losing ground elsewhere. This is where, assuming your diet and all recovery concerns are on point, you can address frequency, volume, rep ranges, intensity (straight sets vs drops, pre-exhaust, rest-pause…), and my personal favorite - exercises order, or sequencing.
I was always very honest with myself that my chest was a weak point (naturally dominant delts and tris), as were my quads (low back injury). So I would always try and structure my off season plans to double up on both areas in terms of frequency. In balancing the greater number of days dedicated to each area during a weekly split, I had to concern myself with:
-Volume- don’t want to runb myself down, I’m not 20 years old here
-Joint health- Two leg days can be rough on your back, so I only did squats once
-Recovery/Nutrition- I liked to bump my cals and carbs on leg days, so I had to adjust accordingly on my other training days.
Now, no matter how much benefit I may have yielded from this spec approach, I like to think that you can only turn the heat up on an area for so long without starting to risk little aches and pains, or even outright overuse injuries. As a competitor, you may only give yourself a certain length of time between shows to make progress, so that could serve as your time limit. For other people, my suggestion would be to take note of how run down you feel, drops in strength, and of course any small potential pre-injuries poking their heads out.
Obviously as you get older, I think it’s safe to say that we all have to be more careful in what we do, just as we have to be smart in our assessment of what’s working, and what’s not.
S
Thanks Stu, that’s very interesting.
Let me make sure I understand. Is it fair to say that, broadly speaking, you have a ‘front burner’ and a ‘back burner’ with regard to your training? It sounds like, at any given time, you have a bodypart (or two) on the ‘front burner,’ ie, a bodypart you perceive as lagging, and thus in need of extra training time/energy. And in order to carve out the extra energy needed to bring up the front-burner bodypart, everything else goes on the back burner; ie, gets less training time/energy, and is worked in a manner that will facilitate maintenance, but likely not significant gains.
Is that about the size of it, or have I managed to miss your point completely?
[quote]EyeDentist wrote:
Thanks Stu, that’s very interesting.
Let me make sure I understand. Is it fair to say that, broadly speaking, you have a ‘front burner’ and a ‘back burner’ with regard to your training? It sounds like, at any given time, you have a bodypart (or two) on the ‘front burner,’ ie, a bodypart you perceive as lagging, and thus in need of extra training time/energy. And in order to carve out the extra energy needed to bring up the front-burner bodypart, everything else goes on the back burner; ie, gets less training time/energy, and is worked in a manner that will facilitate maintenance, but likely not significant gains.
Is that about the size of it, or have I managed to miss your point completely? [/quote]
In a way. It’s not that I ever consider putting forth “back burner” effort on anything. More that the body has a certain amount of recovery abilities, and if you’re adding stresses in the form of extra work for a certain designated bodypart, especially without making overall adjustments if necessary, you could possibly risk hampering overall progress.
Like you said, at least “maintenance” in terms of non-specialized areas, but always in terms of variables such as frequency, volume etc, never intensity.
I think it may have been Mike Mentzer who put the ideas into my head that:
-every workout stresses your recovery, no matter what “bodypart” you target
-the body has a limited number of recovery “units”
-Training is akin to digging a hole. The deeper you dig, the longer it takes to fill it in before you can start building on it.
I learned to be very attentive to my diet and supplements over my years competing, and as I got older, and tried to hit weak points during each off season, I would look for any extra assistance I could find. This meant constantly trying more supplements (which my wife was luckily okay with), trying to get more sleep, and paying more attention to off season diets than most people probably would have.
Did that help at all? -lol
(looking great lately by the way!)
S
Charles Staley had a quote that always stuck with me (every sentence of his writing is probably quotable, but this most of all to me)
Everything you do in the gym has a cost, but not everything has a benefit.
Kind of helps to put into perspective where you want to spend your “recovery units” and how deep of a hole you want to dig. “I know this will COST, but will I get anything back from it?”
Thanks Stu, it helps a lot. As an aside, I too read Mentzer’s books during the pre-internet Stone Age (they were written in hieroglyphics on papyrus, IIRC).
Staley and Mentzer were both definitely guys who try (tried) to focus on the big picture. I think way too often it’s very easy to become somewhat myopic in where your attention is focused. Yes, sometimes as an athlete or physique competitor you may need to give extra consideration for a specific area or variable, but hopefully not at the expense of overall results.
As I mentioned earlier, I was hoping to eventually get a downloadable pdf version of my collection of articles up so that people could view them as I intended rather than the reformated e-options. Well, here ya go! (I hope it’s okay I’m technically posting a link here! I’m certainly no competitor to TN -lol)
stuyellin.com/change_your_physique.pdf
Keep in mind these weren’t aimed at the more experienced people, more of a general gym-goer, starting to get serious type I would say.
S
I get a lot of questions about different aspects of competing, and often times, I’ll see people discuss whether it’s of value to compete early, or wait until you’ve had more time to accumulate whatever that person deems impressive enough size to even bother. Obviously it’s all going to come down to what you as an individual want to get out of the experience.
This past weekend, I had two clients enter a very competitive Inbf show. Both were fairly young (one is recently 20, the other just a couple of years older, but still relatively new to training.) As a coach, I always tell people that you can only control so much. You won’t magically put on a ton of muscle during a contest cut, you won’t ever feel 100% ready no matter how good you look, and you won’t have any say over who else is going to show up in your weight class. What you can control though, is how hard you’re willing to work (suffer?) and ultimately how good your conditioning is.
Both young men easily placed top 5 (I would have liked to have seen top 3, but the show was pretty stacked), and we all received numerous compliments on the level of conditioning they brought (lotta sideways glances backstage from other competitors, always a good sign!) But in reference to the topic of when you should get “up there” both gentlemen need a bit more size before they’re just walking out and dominating the stage. In fact, despite my being very proud of both of them, long before the show, I made it known that 2015 is going to be a year for growing.
Two things that were issues:
1- Height. One of my guys was 6’ tall, and although he looked amazing and I honestly figured he could potentially take his class (Physique) when I glanced around backstage, once the whole class lined up, you could tell that his height would work against him.
2- Weight class ranges. If a certain class encompasses 160 lbs to 176 lbs for example, and you come in at 162 lbs while everyone else is around 175, even if you’re the most shredded mofo up there, if others are in relatively great condition too, there’s a chance that you may be overlooked. This isn’t the case if the other competitors are totally ‘off’, but at a competitive showing, you can’t be giving up 10 lbs.
All in all, both guys were very pleased with how they looked. One came home with a trophy from his first contest and couldn’t believe how he looked in the profesional shots taken onstage and off. The other was hoping for a top 3 spot, but was still very content with the improvements he had made, and yes, also got to take home some hardware. I always point out that there are plenty of other competitors who trained, dieted and suffered for months just like the top placers did, and they’re going home with nothing to show for it but a crappy tan, some dirty clothing, and their experiences.
Oh yeah, as a personal little bit - when the MC announced one competitor before his posing routine, and read “trained by Wnbf Pro Stu Yellin”, it actually got a surprising amount of applause from people in the audience. This prompted a pause, and some acknowledgement about how I should be applauded for all that I do, and that I’m an excellent “Ambasador” for the sport.
Certainly nice to hear (and yeah, I was grinning hearing it), but also pretty funny as I always laugh when people talk about Phil vs Kai and who is the better “Ambassador for the sport.” I joked about needing diplomatic license plates for my car all weekend
S
Hi Stu, do you happen to know when the INBF and/or WNBF will release their 2015 schedules? I’m contemplating taking a run at a crappy tan and dirty clothing next year. ;^)
Also, do you have a strong opinion vis a vis one federation being better than the other?
[quote]EyeDentist wrote:
Hi Stu, do you happen to know when the INBF and/or WNBF will release their 2015 schedules? I’m contemplating taking a run at a crappy tan and dirty clothing next year. ;^)
Also, do you have a strong opinion vis a vis one federation being better than the other?[/quote]
The INBF is the amateur federation affiliated with the pro WNBF federation. Many of the natural federations are regionally focused…here in the Midwest, the NANBF and NGA are the two federations that have the most opportunities for shows to compete in. On the East Coast I believe the INBF is the most prevalent