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 By: Greg Merritt, Senior Writer
Two of the biggest surprises in the early 2007 IFBB pro contests came straight out of Milos Sarcev's Koloseum Gym in Fullerton, California - Spain's Silvio Samuel, and Japan's Hidetada Yamagishi. In the May 2007 issue of Flex, you'll find a recap of a grueling balls-to-the-wall workout Sarcev put Samuel, Yamagishi, and Australian Luke Wood through weeks before the Ironman. An Australian, a Japanese and a Brazilian-Nigerian Spaniard walk into a gym owned by a Yugoslavian. If this sounds like a comical setup, it's one sick joke, for the gym owner forces the international trio of promising pros to withstand three times their normal workload with virtually no rest and on precious few carbs. FLEX is there to capture every excruciating contraction as, all told, each pro completes 21 exercises for 550 reps in eight marathon giant sets, driving one another through a do-or-die precontest torture session.
Discover how 10-pound dumbbells can feel like 100s. Find out if all participants make it through without puking or passing out. Experience in photos and words what it's like to repeatedly inflict bodyparts to six-, seven- and eight-exercise giant sets. And learn the paramount importance of nutrition to such blood volumization, and how other advanced bodybuilders can experience rapid gains from the techniques discussed here. We'll place you in the exercise rotation - watching, hearing and feeling what it's like when giant muscles meet their match with truly giant sets.
The Australian is Luke Wood, the Japanese is Hidetada Yamagishi, the Brazilian-Nigerian Spaniard is Silvio Samuel and the Yugoslavian gym owner is Milos Sarcev. Also at Sarcev's Koloseum Gym in Fullerton, California, on the Sunday before the 2007 Ironman Pro are Peter McGough, his wife, Anne Byron, and photographer Kevin "Hardcore" Horton, all British citizens, and yours truly, the token American.
One more introduction, for those not acquainted: giant sets consist of four or more exercises for one muscle group, performed one after another without rest.
Sarcev apprises McGough and me of his giant-making strategy: "They do giant sets for the final 12 weeks before a show. Today, they're really [carb] depleted. Normally, for giant sets, we start with a couple of compound exercises they can go heavy on, and we use a weight with which they can get only six to eight repetitions, and then we do drop sets. Then we move on to the isolation exercises and have them squeezing on every rep. Those giant sets are more for muscle stimulation. "Today is more of a glycogen-depleting workout, since they're only six days out [from the contest], so the exercise selection is different. The other thing is they usually do only one bodypart at a time - one in the morning and one in the evening - but you guys are here now, so I'm going to have them train three bodyparts in one workout: chest, back and shoulders. I don't know if they can do it, but we'll see." Could they do it? Absolutely. See for yourself, along with all the sick photos of each grueling exercise, in the May 2007 issue, on newsstands April 9.
Greg Merritt, Senior Writer Recommend this article to a friend by e-mail here! Visitor Reviews Of This Article!
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