DEXTER JACKSON | THE BLADE IS STILL SHARP!
Dexter Jackson: The Blade Is Still Sharp!
By Ron Harris
The Ageless Ones of Modern Pro Sports
“Father Time is undefeated.” I’m sure you’ve heard that adage before, and the eventuality of it is unquestionable. Someday, age overtakes even the most beautiful or athletically gifted human beings. But modern advances in training, nutrition and various therapeutic methods have enabled some athletes to continue to excel even at ages once considered many years past the physical prime. Karl Malone became the oldest MVP in the NBA at age 35. Tom Brady was the oldest quarterback to win a Super Bowl at 41 in 2019. In 2012, Jamie Moyer became the oldest pitcher in the history of MLB to win a game at 49 years old. And Bernard Hopkins defeated Jean Pascal in 2011 at the age of 46 to become the oldest professional boxer to ever win a world title. I would submit that bodybuilding’s own Dexter Jackson deserves to be included in this pantheon of athletic achievement.
Just in the past two seasons, 50-year-old Dexter Jackson has won his 29th pro show, taken second at the Arnold Classic, and taken fourth place at the Mr. Olympia, a contest he has now competed in an even 20 times and won back in 2008.
Is Dexter Aging at All?
Two nights before Dexter’s battle with Bonac at the 2018 Arnold Classic, I had the privilege of interviewing him at the athlete meet-and-greet event. As is customary with some competitors these days, he had grown out a beard for his final weeks of training, which would be sheared off for a clean-shaven face for Saturday’s judging. That beard was mostly gray, as you might expect on a man pushing 50 at the time. That and a bit of facial weathering, exaggerated by being dieted down to low single-digit body fat levels were the only clues as to Dexter’s actual age. His physique itself displays none of the telltale ravages of aging so often seen once a bodybuilder moves into his 40th decade: loose skin, loss of muscle mass, especially in the legs, and a general tired and flat look to the muscles. Instead, Jackson’s muscles still have the same crazy round fullness that put him on a winning path 22 years ago when he turned pro. Many pros also find it impossible to reach the same level of condition on contest day after a certain point, no matter how hard they diet or how much cardio they do. Dexter is still more than worthy of his nickname, “The Blade,” because he continues to show up at every contest sliced to ribbons, with a level of muscle detail and dense maturity that few others can match. His driver’s license says he turns 51 years old on November 29 of this year. His body tells a different story.
Dexter’s Key to Supreme Longevity
It would be easy to dismiss Dexter as some bizarre anomaly, and indeed it’s accurate to say he is a rare genetic specimen. But it hasn’t been simply luck or unique DNA that have allowed The Blade to outlast all the men he started competing with as a pro in 1999 (and in several unfortunate cases, he has outlived). “If you want to last a long time and be in the game as long as I have, train smart,” he advises. “You do need heavy free weights and compound movements in your younger years to build a foundation and get that size. “As you get older, if you keep pushing those same heavy free weights, you start tearing everything.” He points to Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman as two men who fell victim to their own might against the iron. “As you get older, you need to switch to using more machines,” he notes. “When I started working with Charles Glass around the time I turned 40, he showed me you can train just as hard and hold just as much muscle mass using machines as you can with barbells and dumbbells. To all the guys out there getting older, don’t be afraid to use machines just because you think they’re not as hardcore or whatever. You can still be just as big, but you won’t be getting injured.”
No Pain, No Gain = No Brain
Injury has ended the careers of more bodybuilders than any other factor. It’s very safe to say that if Dorian Yates hadn’t torn first his biceps, then his triceps, he probably would have won more than six Mr. Olympia titles. Ronnie likely would have beaten Lee Haney’s record of eight Olympia wins if the ravages of his mega-heavy training hadn’t ultimately taken their toll on his body. Yet Dexter Jackson has never torn a muscle, or even suffered a single serious training injury despite having over 30 years of intense training under his belt. That’s not just good fortune either. Dexter has avoided the ego-driven macho mindset that has been the death knell of many of his peers over the years. “I never believed in that no pain, no gain crap,” he says. “Never, and that’s why I never tore anything. I had little tweaks over the years just like anybody else does if he trains hard and heavy. The difference with me is, I would not train that area again until it was healed. I didn’t care if it took two months. Muscle has memory, so guess what? It’s gonna come right back in a month. Tear your pec or your quad, and you won’t be back training it hard again for a very long time, if ever again.”
The Greatest Competition Record of All Time
If Dexter were some B-list pro whose physique was still holding up in his late 40s, it would be noteworthy to be sure. The fact is that you could easily make a case for him having the greatest competitive résumé of any bodybuilder in history. First off, no one has competed for more competitive pro seasons than Dexter, at 21. The closest was Albert Beckles with 16. Nobody has competed in as many pro contests as Dexter Jackson, with 89 appearances on IFBB stages since his first contest, the 1999 Arnold Classic. Only Chris Cormier and Milos Sarcev are close, with 72 pro shows to their credit. Then again, merely competing in the most shows doesn’t mean much. You could be a terrible pro and still enter every contest that didn’t require an invitation or qualification and place dead last in a few dozen over time. Not The Blade. He has a Mr. Olympia title from 2008, where he beat reigning champ Jay Cutler, as well as the all-time record of Arnold Classic wins with five. If you want to talk about being consistent at the Mr. Olympia contest, Dexter has that covered too. He finished in the top six at 15 consecutive editions of that contest he entered from 2002 to 2017. Levrone was top six at 12 Mr. Olympias in a row, and Shawn Ray was in the coveted top five for 12 years running.
Of course, we saved the granddaddy of the superlative stats for last. Until the 2016 contest season, Ronnie Coleman held the record for most pro wins with 25 wins. Dexter had 24 wins at the end of the 2015 season. In the spring of 2016, he won the New York Pro and the Arnold Classic in South Africa, tying Ronnie’s record. Just after placing third at the Mr. Olympia, Jackson made history by winning his 27th pro show and becoming the winningest pro bodybuilder in the history of our sport. And if that wasn’t enough to solidify his record, he finished the season off with win number 28 at the Mr. Olympia Europe show in Germany. Most recently, he entered the Tampa Pro in his native Florida last August to make it 29. Nobody else competing today even comes close to that total, and it’s also conceivable that Dexter still has a couple more wins left in him. It’s very safe to say that if any man breaks Dexter’s record of most pro wins, many of you reading this right now probably won’t live to see it.
12 Years After Winning the O, Still on Top of His Game
I’d like to give Dexter credit for something equally impressive to me as his number of wins. When it comes to the Mr. Olympia contest, Jackson has been a study in perseverance. It took him nine tries on that hallowed stage to win the Sandow. The closest Mr. O winners to have to wait that long were Ronnie and Jay Cutler, who both won in their sixth appearances. No other man who ever won the Mr. Olympia kept competing so long after relinquishing the title either. Jay lost to Phil in 2010, and only made two more attempts to get the title back before retiring (unofficially) in 2013. Ronnie lost to Jay in 2006 and called it a career a year later after placing fourth in the contest he had dominated for eight years in a row. Dexter only held the Mr. Olympia title for one year, as Jay snatched it back from him one last time in 2009. Yet here we are, starting off the 2020 IFBB Pro League contest season, and Dexter is still competing and still placing very well. Just as simply entering more contests than any other pro would not necessarily be a commendable accomplishment, continuing to compete the longest after being Mr. Olympia wouldn’t mean much if he was a faded shadow of his former self, embarrassingly clinging to glory days past. Dexter is far from that sad character. His physique is still in its prime somehow, and he’s still kicking ass and taking names!
Most Improved Over Time
Dexter is a man who started out competing in 1991 as a 137-pound bantamweight and has been right around 240 pounds on stage for several years now. That means he added over 100 pounds of lean muscle tissue since he began competing. No other top bodybuilder today can make that claim, or even come close. Ronnie wasn’t terribly far behind, going from 215 at his first amateur event in 1989 to an ultimate high of 296 pounds at the 2003 Mr. Olympia. Phil Heath was around 190 at his first NPC event, and now competes at 250. When you factor in Ronnie’s 81-pound gain at 5-foot-11 and with a much larger frame compared to Dexter’s stature of 5-foot-6, his gain of over 100 pounds takes on a deeper significance. Simply put, Dexter added more muscle mass since he began competing than any of his peers, by a wide margin. This serves to make him an inspirational figure to the legions of young men out there who aren’t starting out in the sport particularly large or heavy.
Will The Blade Ever Dull?
It’s tough to say exactly how much longer Dexter will be competing, and chances are he doesn’t even know himself. Yet it is safe to assume we are witnessing the twilight years of a stellar career. One phrase Dexter used a couple of years ago stuck with me when I asked him when he would finally retire. “I will know it’s time to go when I’m getting beat by guys that have no business beating me,” was his reply. Inevitably even Dexter will have to concede defeat to Father Time. Dexter Jackson is a human being made of flesh and blood, and even the most remarkable physical specimens to ever walk the earth eventually lose that magnificence after a period of years. When that time comes, it will not be a sad day, but instead cause for celebration of a unique career. Dexter Jackson has been an inspiration to millions with his total package of mass, structure, shape, symmetry, proportion and condition, along with masterful posing presentation. Dexter has been the consummate professional for a full two decades, and it’s stupefying to realize he’s not done yet. For now, The Blade is still as razor sharp as ever!
Epilogue:
In February, Dexter announced that 2020 would be his final season as a pro, and that he intends to win the Arnold Classic (making it six wins), the Arnold Australia, the Arnold South America, and close his career off by reclaiming his Mr. Olympia title.
Training Split
Monday:
Quads
Tuesday:
Chest and calves
Wednesday:
Back
Thursday:
Delts and hams
Friday:
Arms
Full Routine
Monday: Quads
Leg extensions
5 x 20-30
Power squat machine
4-5 x 8-10
Leg press
4 x 10
Walking lunges
3 x 20 steps, each leg
Tuesday: Chest and Calves
Smith machine incline press
5 x 10
Smith machine flat press
4 x 10
Dumbbell or machine flye
4 x 10
Calf tri-set:
Seated calf raise
4 x 10
Standing calf raise
4 x 10
Angled calf sled
4 x 10
Wednesday: Back
Lat pulldowns
5 x 10
Barbell row
4 x 10
Rack deadlift
4 x 10
Seated cable row
4 x 10
One-arm dumbbell row
4 x 10
or
Hammer Strength row
4 x 10
Thursday: Delts and Hams
Dumbbell lateral raise, 1 or 2 arms
4 x 10
Front raise with EZ-curl bar
4 x 10
Dumbbell or machine press
4 x 10
Dumbbell upright row
4 x 10
Dumbbell or machine rear laterals
4 x 10
Seated leg curl
4 x 10
Lying leg curl
4 x 10
Reverse hack squat good-morning
4 x 10
Friday: Arms
Biceps
Preacher curl
4 x 8-10
EZ-bar 21s
4 x 21
Dumbbell concentration curl
4 x 8-10
OR
One-arm machine curl
4 x 10
(elbow above shoulder joint)
Triceps*
Cable pushdown, V or straight bar
4-5 x 10
Skull-crushers or dip machine
4-5 x 10
Rope pushdowns
4-5 x 10
*Dexter performs tri-sets, or 3 exercises back to back without resting, for 4-5 rounds.
Dexter’s Pro Wins
2002 British Grand Prix
2003 Show of Strength Championships
2004 Iron Man Pro
2004 San Francisco Pro
2004 Australian Pro
2005 Arnold Classic
2006 Arnold Classic
2007 Australian Pro
2008 Arnold Classic
2008 Australian Pro
2008 New Zealand Pro
2008 Romanian Pro
2008 Mr. Olympia
2011 FIBO Power, Germany
2011 Masters Pro World
2012 Masters Mr. Olympia
2013 Arnold Classic
2013 Australian Pro
2013 Tijuana Pro
2014 Dubai Open
2015 Arnold Classic
2015 Arnold Classic Australia
2015 Arnold Classic Europe
2015 Prague Pro
2016 New York Pro
2016 Arnold Classic South Africa
2016 Arnold Classic Europe
2016 Mr. Olympia Europe
2019 Tampa Pro
Ron Harris got his start in the bodybuilding industry during the eight years he worked in Los Angeles as Associate Producer for ESPN’s “American Muscle Magazine” show in the 1990s. Since 1992 he has published nearly 5,000 articles in bodybuilding and fitness magazines, making him the most prolific bodybuilding writer ever. Ron has been training since the age of 14 and competing as a bodybuilder since 1989. He lives with his wife and two children in the Boston area. Facebook Instagram
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