Branch Warren Answers Questions on Cheat Meals, Training Frequency & More
Branch Warren Answers Questions On Cheat Meals, Training Frequency & More
Proud to Be Part of Team Gaspari
I am proud to be part of Gaspari Nutrition. Rich Gaspari is someone I have looked up to since long before I ever even competed. At some point in the late 1980s when I was only 12 or 13 years old, I saw a magazine with Rich on the cover and a big article about him inside, and I became an instant fan. Not long after that, I saw a documentary on TV that showed him training with Lee Haney. I saw how much effort and intensity he put into his workouts, and it was obvious he had a powerful drive and work ethic. I modeled my own training after that a few years later when I got into bodybuilding. Rich and I also have some interesting things in common. I think I occupy the same niche that he did 25-30 years ago. We’re both known for beating more genetically blessed guys with our hardcore training and by showing up in shredded condition. Just as I’ve had my share of injuries and obstacles, so did Rich. There’s no “quit” in either one of us.
Can Deadlifts and Rows Build a Champion Back?
Do you believe it’s possible to build a champion back from doing only deadlifts and different types of rows such as barbell, dumbbell and cable?
Yes I do, even though I do plenty of pulldown movements on top of those in my own back workouts. I should qualify my statement, though. If you have killer genetics for back, deads and rows will be all you need. Look at my training partner and good friend Johnnie Jackson. The dude trains like a madman, but I guarantee you that if he had never done anything but deadlifts, barbell rows and dumbbell rows, he would still have one of the very best backs in the world today without one set of chins or lat pulldowns. If you fit into the other 99.999999 percent of human beings, then you are going to need those too.
Working Out Longer Doesn’t Mean Training Harder
I am 55 years old and I am currently training with the goal of entering my first contest, after starting to train at the age of 53. My conflict comes in when I read about volume training and the length of workouts. I have made steady good gains during the last two years my way, and with a much better diet. Yet when I read about the guys in competition, they work out so much longer and do so many more sets than I do. I know they are younger and on gear, yet I keep thinking about this. I have done pretty well my way, but what if I double the amount of effort— then maybe I could compete this year in the grand master class? Then I think that would be overtraining— and if what I am doing is working, don’t change it. Then I think, do not be a “nancy” … suck it up and work harder! I am hoping that you can offer advice, because as you can see I am torn on this subject.
I fully agree with your first point. What works for anyone will not necessarily work for someone else. We do have varying structures, metabolisms, recovery abilities, muscle fiber makeups and so on. Only by trying many different methods can you arrive at what will be most effective for you.
That being said, the only way you could possibly know if higher volume could be better for you than your current style of training is to try it. Anything less would be pure speculation. If you up your volume by 50 percent for six weeks, that would be plenty of time to gauge how well it suits you. You would either be making better progress by that point, or would be overtrained and slightly regressing in size and strength. That could be easily remedied by 7-10 days off from training for your system to recover. Generally speaking, an older guy not using anything would probably not want to do more in terms of volume than the younger guy who does have “help,” but there are always exceptions to every rule.
The last thing I want to stress is that you should always be working as hard as you can as far as intensity. Working out longer doesn’t necessarily mean you would be training any harder.
Cheat Meals Don’t Make Sense
Hey Branch. I’m not a bodybuilder, but you and what you have achieved has been a huge motivation to me. I started training two years ago after a car accident when doctors said I might not be able to walk normally again. I am 12 weeks out from my fourth show and I am going to try the physique class at my trainer’s suggestion, because of my long torso. What is your opinion on cheat meals throughout prep?
First of all, the length of your torso shouldn’t be the deciding factor as to whether you should compete in bodybuilding or MPD. That should be based more on how much muscle mass you carry. You either look more like a bodybuilder or a Men’s Physique competitor, and you should have a pretty good idea about where you fall in that spectrum. If you have a lot of thick muscle, you’re not going to do well in MPD because that’s not what they’re looking for. Maybe you’re somewhere in between bodybuilding and MPD. I would think about that some more and look at photos of local shows and those classes before I went and made that move.
As for cheat meals, I don’t have them and the whole concept makes no sense to me. You diet strictly with very clean foods to lose fat. Why would you eat something that goes against that? I’ve heard the arguments that cheat meals stimulate the metabolism and all that when you hit a plateau in fat loss, but I’m not buying it. I think that’s just an excuse a lot of guys use so they can still have some crap food, and that some coaches use so their clients feel like their coach is being nice and letting them have pizza or cookies or whatever junk it is they crave. Fat loss is never going to be perfectly steady, anyway. There will be times when a week might go by when you don’t drop any fat, and then all of a sudden you’ll be down a few pounds and looking much tighter. That’s just the nature of the beast. The only situation I think it might make sense to have cheat meals is for female competitors who are getting “too lean” to the point where they will be judged down for it. For us bodybuilders, there’s no such thing as being too lean!
The Difference Between Good and Bad Pain
If you were training quads and felt a weird pain in your knee, would you just stop doing that exercise but finish your workout, or abort the whole workout at that point?
I’ve been in this situation before. I will always stop doing that particular exercise. From that point on, I will try every other exercise I was planning to do with light weight. If there’s no pain, I try using a little more and so on until I determine whether or not that movement is safe for me that day. If the pain is so bad that it hurts constantly without even doing anything else, I would call it a day and get home to ice the area. It’s important that all bodybuilders understand and can tell the difference between good and bad pain. Then again, if it’s pain in or near a joint, odds are very good that it’s the bad type.
My Body Needs Meat, Not a Soy Burger
Do you think it’s possible for a vegan, someone who won’t eat anything that comes from an animal, to build a champion bodybuilder physique? If not, how about a lacto-ovo vegetarian who can eat eggs and dairy products? Do you know any bodybuilders who don’t eat meat, fish or poultry?
You’re asking the wrong guy! I love my meat. Long ago when I was starting out, Brian Dobson told me you have to eat muscle to build muscle. That made a lot of sense to me, so I’ve been doing it ever since. When you train hard, you crave meat. That’s your body telling you what it needs. My body never told me it needed a freaking soy burger!
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