Sunday, January 23, 2011

Message from Romania - Training Help Needed

Dear Bob,

First of all I want to thank you for your site which I just bumped to and felt I needed to know more. I have been searching a long time for some reasonable strength-gaining tips on the net, but all I found is "supplement" this, "supplement" that, and it drove me crazy. There seems to be no honor anymore in this generation, the "anti-drug" stance is also very dim today, and I wonder what happened to humanity.

I have been training for not to long now, but never gave much thought to the nutrition part. I just ate what I always ate (2-3 times a day, meat, eggs, fruit, vegetables, milk etc). I never had injuries of any kind. Most of the exercises I did were at home, with the equipment I bought for myself, because I didn't want to get indoctrinated by the steroid freak gym teachers, and always felt that "doing it natural" was the best way to do anything. However lately I have been contemplating to get into martial arts (likely hard karate or traditional jujitsu), and I feel a spark of inspiration to actually train serious now, and not like "every now and then" as I did before. I basically want to get fast and strong in a natural way, perhaps not terribly strong, yet a decent balance between speed and strength. I am honestly hoping to get as strong as I can get without gaining too much mass. In fact the more strength, and the less mass I gain, the better, if that makes any sense (like bruce lee or something). I basically want to be able to lift alot of weight, punch really hard and fast, yet also retain some kind of agility to execute a high kick with devastating effect. I just want to learn how to fight, while being strong at the same time.

So far the level of training/strength for my size (6'1-186 cm, male) is this: I can pull off standing bicep curls, at 
clean 8 reps of 15 kg, for 4 sets. No idea if this is good or bad, although I can tell that I am stronger now than in the beginning, but I reckon it can get better than this. My arms don't look terribly big, somewhat bulky, but nothing noteworthy, since I am looking for effect rather than looks (looks mean nothing to me, all I want is ability/performance alone). My only problem now is that my metabolism, by my genetic composition I suppose, isn't very fast. I'm rather fat right now, since I weight 93 kg, while I think should have atleast 10 less kg for a decent weight. So I am also looking to lose weight in the process of gaining strength. Now I only wonder what should I eat? Is protein "the end of it all" as I heard everywhere? Do I need to take vitamin pills? Or do I simply need to continue eating what I always ate (but with less emphasis on high-fat foods), and just train more and harder? I have no problem with training harder, I feel determined at this point.

I would welcome any thoughts on this matter, particularly on the topic of nutrition, which to be honest, isn't my favorite part. I feel that my strength comes from within, rather from foods, but I heard that nutrition plays a vital role also, so I'd appreciate if I knew more from reliable people since I don't trust the so called bodybuilding industry nowadays, which is full of drugs and losers. Excuse my possibly awkward english I'm from europe (romanian).

Thanks,

Anton  
ethereal8spire@yahoo.com 


Hi Anton,

Thanks for the nice message. I'm sure many readers will offer you opinions. :-) Please also go to NaturalStrength.NET and register then post there too. (It's free.) Also go to AmericanCombato.com and 
SeattleCombatives.com and read everything there by Brad Steiner. No one will help you more with training for fighting and martial arts etc than Brad. Good Luck!


*Editor's Note: Please email any advice you may have to Anton. His email is:  ethereal8spire@yahoo.com 
Does modern bodybuilding make you sick? You should write for Natural Strength! I always need good articles about drug-free weight training. It only has to be at least a page and nothing fancy. Just write it strong and truthful with passion! Send your articles directly to me: bobwhelan@naturalstrength.com
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