Training & Diet Problems | Jose Raymond Gives You The Answers
Training & Diet Problems
Jose Raymond Gives You The Answers
Active Release Techniques Go Deeper Than Massage
Jose, I have heard bodybuilders talk about ART, or Active Release Techniques. There was a video a while back of IFBB Pro Derik Farnsworth performing it on Dennis Wolf, and it looked painful. What’s your opinion on it? Do you feel it’s worth looking into as a bodybuilder, or is it pretty much the same as deep-tissue massage?
ART is very beneficial and very different from standard deep-tissue. The key difference is movement. They are moving you around, and you are asked to do specific movements as they dig into you. They get much deeper than deep-tissue and work on different areas, reaching under your scapula, for example. In deep-tissue, you lie there and basically get tenderized. The goal of ART is to increase your range of motion and decrease chronic pain in areas like your joints. To stimulate the muscle 100 percent from origin to insertion, you really do need a full range of motion and ART can definitely help you get that back if you’ve lost it, which most of us who have been training hard for years have. You can find a local practitioner at www.activerelease.com.
Pain Is Part of the Game
Do your shoulders ache after you work out, like much later? The reason I ask is because my shoulders hurt later but when I sleep on my side, the pain is so bad I have to go to my stomach or back. Anyway, my shoulders will ache when I wake up but the pain does go away by midday.
Yes, I wake up periodically every night in some type of pain or other. My arms fall asleep, my shoulders ache, etc. It’s part of the game I guess, but it’s manageable! As you have found, there are going to be certain sleeping positions that are just not a good idea anymore once you reach a certain point of training experience. Those might have been the most comfortable for you before, but you need to adapt.
Getting Shredded Isn’t Simple
Jose, just trying to pick your brain here. If one has dieted for some time, and has that slight lower abdominal coating of fat, what would you suggest as potential ways to shed that and tighten up the skin?
It depends on what your idea of dieting is and what your idea of “some time” is. A month? Three months, four? It also depends on how fat you were and for how long. If you are overweight for a very long time, the skin does get stretched and often never goes back even when you lose the weight. That’s what we call “loose skin.” But I have no idea if that’s your situation. I’d diet hardcore for a legit four months and see what happens. You may need to drop your carbs more, add in carb refeed days to stimulate your metabolism, up your cardio or any number of changes that could be made. If it were so simple, everybody would be shredded.
View From the Top
Do you dye your hair?
I never have— do you think I should? I’m getting gray as fuck these last couple of years. If I grew a beard I’d look like a Puerto Rican Santa Claus!
Training Legs With Evan Centopani
Hey Jose. I was wondering if you would be willing to share your latest leg workout with Evan Centopani. Would love to know what you guys did, and if Evan introduced you to any new training techniques.
It was pretty basic, with lots of volume.
4-5 sets of leg extensions
4 sets of lying leg curls
5 sets of 25 reps on leg press
3 sets of single leg curls
4-5 sets of squats
We finished by supersetting seated leg curls with stiff-leg deadlifts. If you’ve never had a brutal hamstring pump, give that one a try!
For Shredded Glutes, Get Lean and Hop on the StepMill
I will be starting my prep 16 weeks out and was wondering if you could give me some advice on bringing up my hamstrings and glutes. Also, is there anything special you do in the end to get your glutes shredded? I was able to get pretty lean in the past but didn’t have shredded glutes, and I definitely want to add that to the package this time.
For striated glutes, I’d do most of my cardio on the StepMill, squeezing your glutes every step. But the main thing is to just get leaner. You need to be extremely lean, as in lower single-digit body fat, to see striated glutes. It’s usually the very last area of stored body fat to go on anybody. Sometimes you need to drop another five pounds even if you’re totally shredded everywhere else to see striations there. Many guys freak out because they are already lighter on the scale than they planned on being, and don’t keep pushing for that extra mile it takes. There really is no trick. Just lose as much as you can until you see those striations!
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