GoldenMuscles.Com

by Joe Pietaro

With the announcement that the bikini division will be a mainstay at Olympia Weekend, it is time to separate the classes right down the middle. Bodybuilding shows should be just that and both the men and women’s finals should be held together the same night. The prior evening can be for the fans of the newer – and less hardcore – divisions such as fitness, figure and bikini.

Listen – I personally have no problem whatsoever looking at women barely dressed cavorting on a stage and not feeling guilty about it, but for the sake of the sports world, bodybuilding differs greatly from the other three. As a man, staring intently at someone like Heather Mae French and calling it work is a great thing. But when I put on my sportswriter’s hat, it just doesn’t cut the mustard.

Interviewing Dennis Wolf or Iris Kyle is the other end of the spectrum. No knock against the smaller, svelte figures out there, but it’s similar to comparing an offensive lineman and a tennis player. Both are professional athletes, but prepare for their jobs completely different. read more »

The only bodybuilder worthy of his profession is a power bodybuilder. He couldn’t care less about what he sees in a mirror. Rather, he feels the call to get into the gym every day for no other reason than to slam the heaviest weights he’s ever tried. You can spot these guys a mile away. They’re as big as bridge pilings and just as hard. Worse, you can spot the guys who don’t power bodybuild. They don’t have hard muscle; it’s beach muscle. That’s fine for the average Joe, but for me?
No way. I’m not in this game to look at myself, but to lift–and the only way to lift is from the soul. That’s power bodybuilding. It’s doing whatever you can to magnify the resistance against your muscles, and I accomplish that with extreme overload and concussion reps. I pound away like a piston, as hard as I can, at the heaviest weight I can find, until one of us gives. read more »

Bodybuilding.com Announces Exclusive Olympia Webcast. You’ll Have the Best Seat in the House!

Bodybuilding.com, the leader in Internet bodybuilding content, is proud to announce an exclusive agreement that brings the 2010 Joe Weider’s Olympia Weekend to bodybuilding fans around the world. For the 4th consecutive year, Bodybuilding.com – the world’s #1 most-visited bodybuilding website – will provide a LIVE webcast of the year’s biggest event FREE of charge.

Mark your calendars for Friday September 24th and Saturday September 25th as Jay Cutler, Phil Heath, Branch Warren, Kai Greene, Dexter Jackson and 22 of the world’s best battle for the right to be called Mr. Olympia. In addition to the prestigious Mr. Olympia contest, Bodybuilding.com’s coverage from Las Vegas also includes LIVE webcasts of the Fitness Olympia, Figure Olympia, Ms. Olympia and the inaugural Bikini Olympia. read more »

The 2010 IFBB North American Championships will be held this weekend in Cleveland, Ohio. This will be one of the last opportunities of the year to achieve IFBB Pro status. IFBB Pro cards will be awarded to the top two placers in the Open Men, Open Figure and Open Bikini overall comparisons. Pro cards will also be awarded to the overall winners of the Over 40 Men, Over 50 Men, Open Women’s Bodybuilding and Over 35 Women Bodybuilding, Open Fitness, Over 35 Figure and Over 35 Bikini.

The event is open to USA, Canadian and Mexican competitors.

Promoter, Dr. Gary Udit always puts on a first class event. For more information on the show and how you can purchase tickets to attend, visit garyudit.com.

That memory is stored as DNA-containing nuclei, which proliferate when a muscle is exercised. Contrary to previous thinking, those nuclei aren’t lost when muscles atrophy, researchers report online August 16 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The extra nuclei form a type of muscle memory that allows the muscle to bounce back quickly when retrained.

The findings suggest that exercise early in life could help fend off frailness in the elderly, and also raise questions about how long doping athletes should be banned from competition, says study leader Kristian Gundersen, a physiologist at the University of Oslo in Norway.

Muscle cells are huge, Gundersen says. And because the cells are so big, more than one nucleus is needed to supply the DNA templates for making large amounts of the proteins that give muscle its strength. Previous research has demonstrated that with exercise, muscle cells get even bigger by merging with stem cells called satellite cells, which are nestled between muscle fiber cells. Researchers had previously thought that when muscles atrophy, the extra nuclei are killed by a cell death program called apoptosis. read more »

What an incredible weekend in Las Vegas, where 18 competitors earned the right to turn pro in the IFBB. Congratulations! Here are the links to the complete results of the 2010 NPC USA contest.

2010 NPC USA Mens Championships Results

Overall
1 Jason Huh

Earned Pro Card

2 Al Auguste
3 Vladimir Sizov
4 Jason Joseph

Super Heavyweight

1 Jason Huh
2 Keith Williams
3 Brian Yersky
4 Robert Burneika
5 Dusty Hanshaw
6 Stephan Kuclo
7 Sean Allan
8 Blair Mone
9 Chad LaCount
10 Dan Decker read more »

The 2010 IFBB New York Pro will be held this Saturday, May 8th, at the Tribecca Performing Arts at BMCC, in New York. Four IFBB Pro shows will be held here, including Men’s Bodybuilding Open, Men’s Bodybuilding 202lbs and Under, Women’s Bodybuilding and Women’s Bikini. It is going to be a great contest. Here is the info on the contests.

Competitor Lists…

2010 IFBB NY Pro Men’s Bodybuilding Competitors

1. Marius Dohne (South Africa)
2. Erik Fankhouser (USA)
3. Toney Freeman (USA)
4. Jeff Long (USA)
5. Cesar Mendible (Venezuela)
6. Eugeny Mishin (Russia)
7. Mike Van Wyck (Canada)
8. Roelly Winklaar (Netherlands)
9. Dennis Wolf (Germany)
10. Danielle Seccarecci (Italy)
11. Sergey Shelestov (Russia)
12. Hidetada Yamagishi (Japan)

2010 IFBB NY Pro Men’s 202lb and Under BB Competitors

1. John Frederick Arendsz (Aruba)
2. Jason Arntz (USA)
3. Eric Castagnet (France)
4. Kevin English (USA)
5. Anthony Finocchiaro (USA) read more »

Q: I’ve been bodybuilding for four years and I’m still not sure how fast or slow I should perform my repetitions. I often read that the reps should be slow, controlled and steady, only to turn the page to find another pro who says the reps should be fast and explosive. Who’s right, who’s wrong, and why?

A: Both are right. The speed, smoothness, consistency and control of reps vary according to the exercise, its purpose, the bodypart and the ordinal position of the set in your workout.

THE EXERCISE

Repetition speed will vary, depending upon whether the exercise is performed with cables, free weights or a machine. Since resistance with cables is consistent over the entire range of motion, the most effective use of cables is by means of slower repetitions, with a pace that is consistent through both the contraction and extension phases.

With free weights, the moment of force, or resistance, varies through the arc of the movement: At some points, the weight feels heavier than at others, just the opposite of the sensation associated with cables. You have to apply more power at those higher resistance points than at others, which means you have to accelerate or decelerate your repetition. Free weights are thus more effectively employed by repetitions that are controlled but slightly more explosive.
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