Getting Massive

When a woman gets in touch with me, its 90% of the time because she wants to slim down with the boys it is a little more varied, probably about 30%. The huge majority wanna know how to get massive. That’s pretty much a quote too. “Ste, how can I get massive?”

There has been some serious amount of text wrote about this and an enormous amount of gums bumped in gyms and bars and workplaces across the country. Everyone claiming to know the secret. To know the foolproof way of getting MASSIVE!

What I am not going to do is say this is the secret, that would be silly of me and make me look like every other joker who hasn’t a clue. What I will do is tell you a little bit of how the body works and a little bit about something that I have been doing for a couple of months and the results I have seen.
You can make the decision whether you wish to take it up.

Ok, the human body is a fabulous piece of kit, it adapts. It adapts so well that there are literally hundreds of body types and shapes. You can force your body into growing muscle by forcing it to deal with heavy weights on a regular basis, your body will develop muscles to cope with the added stresses of the regular weight sessions. This is also true in the opposite, if you only do cardio-vascular training you will become leaner and slimmer as this is the desired bodyshape of a runner. You body will reduce your mass so it doesn’t have to cope with heavy muscles pounding the joints when running.

We use this knowledge when weight training to target specific groups of muscles and stimulate them into growth. Here is the standard muscle growth pattern of training;

5 sets of 8-10 repetitions using approx 80% of your 1RM (one rep max, how much you can do, once)

This has been a staple of people training for decades. I will not tell you that this is wrong. It is how I have trained for years, it is probably how you train. My typical gym session takes two hours per muscle group. This is very time consuming and tiring, meaning I then get a reduced time to do cardio, stretch and do the other things needed to be done in a day.

Around Christmas time my training partner was telling me about a method of training which isn’t new, just new to us. It was developed by a gent in the 70’s, called Mike Mentzer, if you are serious about weights I suggest you read up on it, and it is called High Intensity.

Now High Intensity is not something a beginner should attempt, this will almost certainly result in injury. It is also something that cannot be performed alone. The instructors at Boot Camp Sport and Fitness have been training with this method since December and writing down EVERYTHING about it while we do. We plan to produce our own, updated take on Mike Mentzers theory. He never took it further as he died (unrelated) a long time ago. He was a fantastic bodybuilder in the same era as Arnold Schwarzenegger.

High Intensity sessions last about 15 minutes, a far cry from spending 2 hours doing the same thing. It never sat right with me hearing about it. It actually doesn’t sit right while and once I have done it either, but once you get stuck into it the results are phenomenal. The main theory behind HI is that you work your muscles to failure, and then some. This sparks of rapid growth as your body believes it has been “breached” if you like and performs panic repairs on your muscles, engorging them with blood and building solid and strong muscles, that just never seemed to happen in the old ways. In FIFTEEN minutes! It doesn’t make sense to those of us with experience in this industry. But it works.

An example sessions looks like this. We pre-exhaust the main muscle group that we plan to work, in this case we are doing chest, so we use the pec-dec to isolate and exhaust the muscles of the chest. We begin with a weight we could do 5 or 6 times and do it 20 times. Your partner or instructor helps. They take small % of the weight and force you to keep performing, when you are incapable. If you are doing this right you will be thrashing about swearing, grunting, shaking and generally getting stared at in the gym. Once your instructor sees you are truly finished its time to get a compound exercise done. We do incline machine bench press, its safer. If you can perform one repetition thats a bonus, you probably wont be able to do any unassisted, so your partner takes the weight, and you resist it. This is called negative reps, slowly resist the weight as it comes down, and your partner pulls it right back to the top again. It is relentless. You will be kicking about alot now. We are using 100kgs which is heavy. Doing static holds and slow resists until you cannot even raise your arms. Think your done? Not quite yet, we now head right over to cable cross over pulleys, use a very very low weight, and define those muscles with crossing the cables over in front of your chest, nice and slowly, for 20 or so reps. This will really finish you off. Time for a shower.

Its madness, it works, and it should not be done without supervision, or without a qualified professional to help you through it.

High Intensity works because of the complete overload experienced by your muscles. If fuelled correctly once you leave the gym, this will encourage fantastic growth. It also works because you body gets used to the exercises and even order that you perform your training in, and this is such a different way of training if forces your body to adapt and to grow.

Thats all Im saying about it for now. Go to YouTube and type in High Intensity Mike Mentzer, you’ll see what I mean.

For any help, or questions about structuring your own programs, or to get massive, contact me at info@bootcampacademy.com I’m always happy to help.

Thanks for reading


Stephen Howson

Mr Motivator

I’ll start next week. Thing is next week never comes does it? Its always a week away. Getting and staying motivated is something that many people really struggle with when wanting to get fit. I am not immune to this either, I must admit. There are plenty of occasions when I cannot face working out. The key is to minimise these days and to make working out your habit. That starts today.

What I have found is that once exercising becomes routine, you don’t have to “find” time for it, it is there, you just don’t spend as long slobbed in front of the TV, or you finish something a bit quicker so you can get to exercise.

Today I am pretty busy, I have got to paint a room, write this blog, meet a client at the gym for a 2 hour session, exercise myself and eat. 3 times. I am writing this in between coats of the paint, letting one dry. I knew what I was going to write about today, so it is just the task of getting it down. I will eat before I meet my client at 6pm, and I will probably train myself after that. I just hope the painting is done by then, these coats look a bit thin!

Waking up and seeing all that needed doing I could have been tempted to drop my own session, or move the blog to tomorrow. But I have found that I get things done, by giving myself little targets. Real achievable goals, when I hit them it makes me feel good, and gives me the will and the confidence to continue.

Lets take this away from my DIY, and move it into the fitness world. Lets take someone I have been currently working with since January. She had given birth 2 years ago, and had really not looked after herself since then, she was carrying the baby weight, and a bit extra. She was getting depressed at how she looked and how she perceived herself to be really unfit. She wanted a home exercise routine, and a diet (I hate that word), a nutritional eating plan. That’s better. I asked her what her goals were, something I ask all my clients, and she said she wanted to lose some weight and complete the Manchester 10k Run, which is the 17th of May this year. This is a big goal for someone unfit. Who hasn’t run for at the very least 2 or 3 years. So we broke it down. If we said ok you want to run 10k, so we’ll run 10k. She wouldn’t have been able to do it, lost interest with how difficult it is, and given up.

We started off with some circuit training to prepare her muscles for the stress of running. This involved some really good leg overload circuits, which she hated at the time. We did 2 sessions a week and a variety of circuits for 3 weeks. We then started a walk run program. We run for 1 min and then walk for 4. Slowly building it up with longer running and shorter walk periods.

I set the goal of running 1 mile non-stop by week 8.

We actually ran 1.4 miles. She looked really comfortable when we past the mile marker I had set so I carried on going. I only told her once we returned how far she had gone. She was impressed with herself, and eager to set a new goal. I worked out that from the speed we ran at, the 10k would take her approx 1hr 20 mins. Possibly a bit less. So instead of mileage, we set her next goal at running for 30 mins, again non-stop.

We were now doing one circuit, and one run a week. Her next goal was set for week 10. We smashed it. But we stopped at 30 mins this time. She has now really got the bug for getting fit, she has noticed a huge change in her appearance, and to me she seems very confident about herself. Tomorrow night the aim is to run for 45 mins nonstop. This is us at week 12. We have about 6 weeks left to until the Manchester 10k. I have no doubt she will manage it. This is down to setting goals which are achievable. Winning is a habit. Get in the habit. Set small goals, meet those goals and set more goals.

If you don’t exercise right now, then set your first goal as doing one session of physical activity a week for 4 weeks. It can be anything. When you have achieved this set another of having a more targeted session drawn up. Or become more serious. But the important thing is starting. Why are you waiting?

Thanks again for reading, and as ever if you want any help with ANYTHING fitness related, please get in touch with me at info@bootcampacademy.com

Now where did I put that roller?

Stephen Howson

OP Minimize

When I was in the Army operations had names, they still do, and there were also activities that the lads used to give an “operational” title to. Such as “Op Bronze”, this means getting a suntan, “Op Massive” which is hitting the weights and “Op Minimize” which is slimming down.

Op Minimize when undertaken by soldiers (usually after Christmas Leave), involves cutting down on the booze a bit, and getting some serious PT done. If we bring this into the civilian world, and use it more as a long term lifestyle choice as opposed to a quick-fix, then it is easily adapted to the general public. It involves a great deal of common sense, and what you all know already. Cutting out things that are overly fattening, eating more sensibly, and increasing the amount of exercise you do. No matter what your level of fitness this will help you lose body fat. Notice I didn’t mention weight there? Weight and BMI (Body Mass Indexing) is something I do not believe using in when it comes to training the body. When I was 16 years old I had to go to the doctors for a check up. I was 5”11, 13 stone and playing professional Rugby League. My BMI was 26.5, which is obese, according to the charts. I had a bodyfat % of 8.3%, which is very low. Under 10% is classed as “skinny”. The doctor laughed, and mentioned how useless the charts are, and since then I have never put any faith into them.

Body fat % and the mirror is now how I judge where I am at physically. Because muscle weighs more than body fat, some of the people I train see a fast weight loss followed by a plateau or possibly even a slight weight gain after 4-6 weeks. This is not because they are getting fatter, or because the training is not working. On the contrary, the rapid weight loss is down to the body burning pure fat, bye, it’s gone. The Plateau is where the body is burning up fat, but increasing muscle at the same time and the slight weight gain is down to increased musculature. Your body has adapted to the new demands of physical activity which it may not have experienced before.

My advice to you, and the purpose of this article, is do not get disheartened if this happens to you! You are not doing anything wrong, this is just how the body works. The increased physical demands require bigger and stronger muscles. Simple as that.

Use the mirror. You should be able to see the differences. I had a client gain two pounds but drop 2 inches off her waist, in two weeks! Do you think she was unhappy about “gaining” weight? Of course she wasn’t! Dramatic changes like this will not happen every time you do a workout, but continued sensible well thought out training coupled with a sensible diet, and that means actually eating to fuel the body, and you can make you body look however you want it to.

For any help with starting exercise, motivation, or if you just want someone to look over your training program. Then get in touch, I am happy to help – info@bootcampacademy.com

Thanks for reading
Stephen Howson

Grease Lightning

I often get asked about speed. How can I run faster, how can I be quicker, I used to be quick at school. I have heard them all. Well the answer is both simple and complex. To be fast(er) you have to train fast. As you grow older you do less running at maximum pace. As a youth I spent a lot of my teenage years getting chased, from one area of the city to another! Although not recommended, this is one reason I was so fast as a teen.

When training someone to improve their speed, there are 3 areas I concentrate on the most.

Strength. You have to have strong legs to run fast. Look at your average sprinter, they tend to have huge, muscle-bound legs, and sprinters know a thing or two about speed. Leg strength is is straight forward to develop. I use regular weight training techniques like squats, lunges, calf raises and leg presses. I also use body-weight plyometric training, such as bounding, static jumps and one legged hops. This type of exercise is very specific to sprinting, good form throughout will see huge improvements in your running speed.

Power. Power I have touched on with the plyometric drills. To increase power you need strength AND speed. Plyometrics are great for increasing power as they are explosive, fast movements which contract a lot of muscle fibres to perform. Resisted running, using parachutes, partner holds, tyres tied around the waist or bungee cord is an effective way to build powerful running, as it places demands on your strength reserves but also allows you to perform at 100% effort. A method which is seldom used in this country but one I favour enormously is over-speed. Forcing yourself to run faster than you can actually run will force the body to catch up. This is achieved by running downhill, or setting the treadmill to fast or having a partner pull you along on a bicycle. You may feel slightly self-conscious performing this one, but it certainly works.

Flexibility. This is a tough one to drum into the athletes I work with. They don't see the benefit of sitting or lying down and stretching. But good stretches will, in time, lengthen the muscle fibres and enable improved stride length and greater running efficiency. Another method for improving flexibility and co-ordination is ladder drill. Using a speed ladder and fast feet dance in and out of the squares of the ladder trying to keep looking up at all times and not tangle up your feet!

I hope that has helped you in your quest to catch Usain Bolt!

If you have any questions or would like me to develop you a specific training program email me at info@bootcampacademy.com