Jim Steel

Tom Platz and the Beginning of My Barbell Squat Journey

The 80's were a great time for bodybuilding. Why? Because Tom Platz came around. Platz, he of the greatest legs the world has ever seen. Tom Platz always had great legs, but from 1980 to 1981, he made massive gains in both upper body size and his already otherworldly legs became even bigger and more defined and the quads and hams became more insanely separated. His legs were mountains of muscle.

How did he grow these best ever legs? Squats! Barbell back squats, and plenty of them. Platz was known for his squats. Seeing him squat on film was poetry in motion. Platz was strong and possessed amazing endurance.

I read reports that, while weighing less than 230 pounds, Platz squatted eight reps with 635 pounds and 52 reps with 350 pounds. There are also reports of him squatting for 10 minutes straight for more than 100 reps with 225 pounds, and footage of Platz squatting 495 pounds for 23 reps with his thighs going below parallel.

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That time of year is coming again, that time of year when folks start making resolutions, New Year's resolutions to be exact. The stigma about New Year's resolutions is that folks make all these promises to themselves and sometimes to others about what they will accomplish and they start out like gangbusters, joining a gym or buying home exercise equipment and swearing to the Almighty that this time, this time it will be different!

I have plenty of experience training people in the art of transformation, whether it's gaining strength and muscle or losing fat and getting defined or whatever someone wants to accomplish with free weights, cardio, and diet. So, I have a pretty good idea on how to go about all of this changing yourself for the better.

What I have learned is that New Year's resolutions can work, you just have to go about it the right way.

Let me give you a scenario: Let's assume that you are over 30 (sometimes younger), and you are sick and tired of being a little too heavy,plumrocket

Why I Changed the Way I Trained

If someone perused a weightlifting program of mine today versus ten or so years ago, they would notice that my choice of exercises have changed dramatically and have embraced dumbbell training as well as other strength training equipment. Ten years ago, I was still powerlifting and my main exercises that I performed (deadlifts, squats, bench presses, bent rows) were all performed with a barbell with very little dumbbell training, if any.

I was striving to gain absolute strength and those barbell exercises were exactly what I needed to reach my powerlifting goals. But, with all the heavy free weights, the surgeries began to mount. I had two elbow surgeries, spine surgery and some other annoying ailments that never amounted to surgeries, but they hampered my progress nonetheless. And it wasn’t just powerlifting, it was also some old stuff from football. I needed to change my training if I wanted to continue training.

And I’m not complaining, because I haveplumrocket

The Benefits of Online Coaching

I received an email the other day from a prospective online client asking me what characteristics I look for in a client for online coaching, which caused me to reflect on that question but also to reflect on some of the different clients that I have trained over the years.

When you train people online like I have been doing for years, you get all kinds of people who inquire about online coaching. You get those who contact you once with all kinds of goals and ideas and then you never hear from them again. You get those who have you write a program and then they change it and wonder why they aren’t making gains. You get those who follow what you write to the “T” and make the progress that they wanted to make.

And there are some interesting online coaching clients that I have trained too. I had a client from another country who sent me a video clip from Dirty Dancing where Patrick Swayze lifts up his dance partner (Jennifer Grey) and carries her over his head.plumrocket

Training for Competition vs. Training for Life

Training for a competition as an adult is wonderful. Whether it’s a strongman competition, a bodybuilding show, a powerlifting meet, or a Spartan Race, all of it has merit because you now have a goal, where your fitness training means something, where there is an end point to display the fruits of your hard work.

Training for all of that is great, no question about it. But what about training for LIFE? What about fitness training for any situation that you may face? What about overall “readiness” in everyday life? Can you protect yourself and your loved ones? Can you sprint at the drop of a hat? Are you in shape enough to survive a fight that lasts for more than thirty seconds? That stuff is important, it may make the difference between keeping your life or losing it and it may mean the difference between keeping your loved ones safe or in harm’s way. I’m talking about situations where it’s just you, without a weapon.

So how do you train forplumrocket

Competing in a Bodybuilding Show – It’s All Mental

I went over specifics in Part 1 about what I eat when preparing for a bodybuilding show, but the most important parts of dieting are adherence and acceptance.

Yes, in my own prep, I may have a carb day once a week up until five to seven weeks before a show, but the rest of the time, it's the same thing every day and just doing it without hesitation is the way to go. Train, cook, eat clean, do cardio and keep doing it all without fail.

And listen, anybody can do it for a week, or even two weeks. But to keep it up for eight, twelve, fifteen weeks takes sacrifice, commitment and an inner drive that will not let you fail.

I want to eat ice cream and Mexican food and drink a bunch of beers each day. The problem is that all of that leaves me tremendously empty inside, my joints feel like crap, my sleep is disturbed, my face looks like a bowling ball and my training sucks. And I didn't start realizing just how all that bad food makes me feel forplumrocket

In 2019, I ventured down to Baltimore to compete in the NPC East Coast bodybuilding show (over 50). The show was my fifth show that I have ever done. My first bodybuilding show was when I was a senior in high school (Mr. Teenage DC) and then I went to college, played football, powerlifted and fought some, but then I decided to compete in bodybuilding again in 2012, and since then have done three more shows.

Why Bodybuilding Means So Much to Me

Besides football, I have always loved bodybuilding the most and have loved it for over 40 years. No, it's not a sport, I know this, and it may seem odd to some and there is no ball or a person to chase or a bat to swing or competition that culminates on game day.

But even though it is not a sport, bodybuilding holds a special place in my heart because of the drive and the will and the planning and the suffering and the "set yourself apart" mindset that comes with pre contest training. The competition day, to me, doesn't matter as much as the training,plumrocket

Are you ready for bodybuilding training but don't know where to begin?

There is so much bodybuilding training information out there that it may get confusing at times. The goal of this article is to provide you with some basic guidelines to help you wade through it all and begin packing on the muscle. I'm going to assume that you have some basic knowledge of exercises and how to perform exercises and that you have lifted weights before. If you are a total beginner, this is still good information for you, but you should probably spend some time learning proper technique and getting your feet wet first in the weight room.

Bodybuilding Background

I reckon that I have been bodybuilding for around 40 years, interspersed with some powerlifting and boxing. I remember waiting each month for the new Muscle and Fitness Magazine and reading every word. I loved Arnold, Platz, and Mike Mentzer, and studied everything about them. I was always fascinated by muscle growth, and the melding of training andplumrocket

Killing the Weakness on the Bench Press

Sometimes you have to come to the realization about a particular weakness you may have. For instance, I was always lousy at math when I was growing up. My dad is good in math, my mom is good at English. I took after my mom; I got her love of reading. But the math weakness became a real problem once I got to algebra in the seventh grade. I was lost. So lost that I had to take algebra as a high school senior in summer school in order to graduate.

Math was always one of those things that my brain would get all scrambled up. And it was during that summer of my senior year when I finally came to the realization that in order to get good at math, I'd have to work harder than everyone else in order to succeed.

I remember it like it was yesterday: It was the first day of summer school and we had a teacher who came from a different school. Mrs. Tillery was her name and she was a Marlboro smoking, no shit taking, forty-year-old algebra teacher who meant business.plumrocket

Let us assume that you have a son who's an athlete around 12 years old, he's itching to get started weight training, and he's itching to get stronger and bigger and better at athletics.

Where to begin?

Start With Quality Coaching

First of all, quality instruction is imperative, and it is tough to find someone who really knows what they are talking about. If there is a university close by, I would email or call the strength coach there and either pay him to teach your child the proper form on the clean, barbell squat, press, bench press, deadlift and all the assistance work. Or if the strength coach can't work with your kid, ask if there is anybody that he recommends as a quality instructor. Or research a performance place with experienced coaches, someone who has some years behind them in the coaching world.

It's tough. Because there are plenty of folks that I know who have this or that certification but don't know what the hell they are doing. Certifications are important, but experienceplumrocket