Frank Zane's cardio workout consisted of running a slow mile and a half or riding a stationary bike for 15-20 minutes. This exercise increasesdefinition between the pec and front deltoid. All Rights Reserved. 2) Barbell Bench Press, 12, 10, 8, 7, 6 superset with, 3) Low Incline Barbell Bench Press, 12, 10, 8, 7 superset with, 4) Dumbbell Flat Flye, 12, 10, 8, 7 superset with, 5) One Dumbbell Pullover, 12, 12, 12, 12. When it comes to hypertrophy training, there have always been too very loud groups of bodybuilders and coaches: those who favor chasing the pump, that glorious feeling when your muscles look like theyre about to explode, and those who think that such endeavor is totally useless and results with nothing more than a temporary cosmetic effect. Keep. Stats therealfrankzane Verified 193K followers View profile Better flexibility leads to getting a better pump and it keeps you injury-free. The second set is 185 for 12 reps. That is supersetted with 10 reps on wide-grip chins. I want to be lean and lighter. If youre tempted to try Zanes growth program for yourself, you may want to start by working out just three times per week, i.e., Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Check out the training and meal plan with which he defeated greats like Arnold Schwarznegger. Zane, however, was a firm believer in the power of the pump in his opinion, every bodybuilder, regardless of his goals, should follow the pump. Frank did at least two sets of twenty reps (used 25lb plate). Wed do at least 10-12 sets for the small bodyparts and 15-20 sets for the large bodyparts. As a naturally slender ectomorph, Zane had small wrists, so he trained his forearms to make this less noticeable. It is performed with knees bent off a two inch block, the knees are used to provide support for the abdominal region which helps to protect the lower back. Dumbbell overhead triceps extension (4 sets, 8-12 reps), 3. diagnosis, or treatment. Frank is a three time Mr. Olympia winner (1977, 1978, 1979) and his sculpted physique is known for muscular symmetry. Its a bit of a balancing actknowing how much to train to elicit results without aggravating old injuries. The key thing is to have a constant, intense training style that will regularly prompt new growth, not to alternate workouts every other day. He either ran 1.5 miles or did some stationary cycling. Incline barbell bench press (4 sets, 6- 8 reps), 3. Frank Zanes physique is unforgettable from many aspects, and one of them is his incredibly refined midsection. Lie on a bench with your head hanging over the end. With respect to direct lat work, you will neither find it in the detailed 1982 article by Ron Fernando, disclosing, I was there, front row at the USF SunDome in Tampa covering the contest for The Tampa Tribune when Jeff, Dave was 7 years my elder and my teen years weightlifting idol. . Now take these tips and go pump some iron in a way that would make Frank Zane proud! But I wasnt really into the Olympic lifts and, actually, the area where I was in northeastern Pennsylvania there wasnt even powerlifting yet. Eat about one gram of protein per pound of body weight and hold carbs at about one-third gram per pound of body weight. In fact, he always made sure to get in an abs session at the end of his workout. 2. He also used different training programs based on his competition calendar. Strict form! Full Article: BENCH PRESS LIKE FRANK ZANE! 1) Barbell Bentover Row, 4 x 10 reps. Warmup, create a back pump. Make sure your feet are flat on the floor, your back is arched, and the shoulder blades are retracted. Learn how your comment data is processed. Increase your carbs on the days before your biggest workouts so that you can get a great pump. While we get that the sole idea of toning down your chest growth aspirations might sound unbearable, the three-time Mr. Olympia actually makes a solid point there. He has spent the last 8 years staying at the forefront of the health and fitness industry. These exercises are varied and done in super-set fashion to make them even more effective. In addition to being the fifth bodybuilder to secure an O title (he won three, actually), Zane boasted a 190-pound masterpiece of a physique that became the standard of aesthetics. (725 kg.). So, even if I just do chest and back, thats a lot of shoulder work. Six workouts per week may be too much and could lead to overtraining and injury. For example, he always works his triceps after his chest in order to take full advantage of the blood flow already in that area. The Frank Zane shoulder workout includes no overhead presses. 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. leg press machines are WORTHLESS- the involvement of core/supporting mussles is nonexistant- you gain no . It does stress the pecs, but you will usually have injuries to show for it. Frank Zanes ebook The Workouts: Personal Training Diaries reveals his bodybuilding work, training approach, and one of the most effective workout routines that helped him defeat even Arnold Schwarzenegger. In addition, Patrick is a freelance writer who has authored three fitness and exercise books, dozens of e-books, thousands of articles, and several fitness videos. Mr Universe Diet. Since you are not working the same body part set after set, you can go a lot faster. by. Originally a boxer, Columbu won the Mr. Olympia in 1976 and 1981, and competed in the inaugural edition of the World's Strongest Man in 1977, where he placed fifth. He also used the peak contraction method, which means he paused at the top of each rep and squeezed his biceps as hard as he could. Here are some of his training philosophies. So, if you were benching 300 pounds at the beginning of your 12-week cycle, you should be up to around 330 at the end of it. Youre just focusing on the weight and often ignoring the subtle signs your body is giving you and once youve hurt yourself, thats it. It was all by people Id met, things Id read and trial and error. Even his bodybuilding philosophies, which center around the idea of maintaining a holistic mind-body connection (as opposed to the more body-centric impulses of some of his less sentient brethren) is the model by which others are measured. I mean, joints can only take so much. 2021 - FrankZane - All Rights Reserved. Parallel squats are the best exercise for the thigh. They called it odd lifting and they sort of organized their own competitions. I have to say that I rely heavily on muscle memory these days, and it is a pretty amazing thing. Twists are also an important part of his ab routine, they keep the sides trim and bring out the cord like muscles of the oblique region. . A rising deltoid here; a tapering waistline there; striations all around. barbell flat bench, dumbbell flat bench, low incline dumbbell press, and flat flye. He made amazing progress in just a few years, transforming his body from 130 lbs (59 kg) at 14 years old to 160 lbs (72.5 kg) at 17 years old. Make a habit of rewarding yourself in a positive way (in other words, NOT with junk food) for every progress you make, and make sure you always have achievable, sustainable goals. I worked out every other day after school, doing upper body one day, legs the next. In the bench press I use the system of increasing weight and decreasing reps. He typically ate various natural, seasonal, nutrient-dense food, including: Even though Zane usually avoided using dairy products, he ate cheese for calcium. At a bodyweight of 175, I ended up doing a 425 deadlift, 285 bench press and 155 curl. Flat barbell bench press (4 sets, 6-8 reps), 2. Your email address will not be published. Its easier to carry around less weight and Im more comfortable. There is no doubt however, that Frank Zane has one of the most aesthetic physiques. Many bodybuilders, I included have eliminated barbell bench press because of the stress it puts on the shoulder muscles and joints. Frank Zane has a limited amount of carbohydrates, and his intake of carbs has always been lower than his protein intake. Take the barbell row and combine it in a superset with 1) a barbell flat bench press; 2 . Bent over barbell row (4 sets, 6-8 reps), Related Products >> The 10 Best Pull-Up Bars to Buy. So, how did he do it? Slowly lower the dumbbell over and beyond your head until your upper arms are in-line with your torso, or below the level of your torso. Close grip bench press is one of the best size builders for triceps. I learned to prefer dumbbell work for chest where the DBs are held in a neutral grip with palms always facing each other. In his article, he claims that as you age, ditching the bench press isnt such a bad idea. Frank Zane Bodybuilder, Founder of WABBA, Head of IFBB France and Europe, Actor, Author We challenge you to find any bodybuilder with better proportions than Frank Zane. Fantastic story. That way I can stretch deeper down. Standing barbell curl (4 sets, 8-12 reps), 5. Bench press is the first of the power lifts and is considered one of the best exercises for adding upper body muscle mass. When not lecturing, training, researching, or writing, Patrick is busy enjoying the sunny climate of Cyprus, where he has lived for the last 20-years. He has impressed people with his workout routine, diet, and extraordinary physique and is now considered one of the most aesthetic bodybuilders of all time . But there comes a point in your 60s when you hit a kind of age barrier, and the gains come slower and the accumulated stress you put on your body all those years adds up. Precontest I, like most everyone else, would do a double split, but normally it would be one workout a day, maybe coming back to do abs. The actor-bodybuilder-powerlifter-producer-businessman-(stops for breath)-politician-philanthropist-sports promoter is one of the most popular personalities in the health and fitness industry. Portrait of married American professional bodybuilders Frank Zane and Christine Zane as they pose with weights, New York, New York, 1980. I think shoulders are very susceptible to wearing out all that upper-body work, especially if youre training upper body heavy, training upper body two days in a row. So I changed it to back-biceps-forearms on day one, legs on day two, chest, shoulders, triceps on day three. Meal 3, a 6-egg omelet with cheese and potatoes and his final meal of the day was 8 oz ground beef plus a large salad. Note:Cheating in side laterals should never be done as the work is taken away from the side deltoid and transferred to the frontal region. A wider angle helps you engage and work your anterior deltoid muscles. Required fields are marked *. if you go heavy, youll grow too, but boy, volume training really works you down to your core. I could use more weight, and consequently got a better pump in the chest, too. I keep the thighs close together. Hopefully, we will all use his training wisdom to age just as gracefully and break away from the old-timer stereotype. Modern-era bodybuilders often tip the scales at 300lbs or more. He now trains his chest only once or twice per week with the three . (230 kg. So, I switched to a shoulder width grip and did the exercise as part of my triceps routine with less weight. You can do either front or back-of-neck chins, whatever you prefer. Seems irrelevant. Sometimes I would decrease the reps, doing 12, 10, 8 and 6, increasing the weight with each set. A post shared by Frank Zane (@therealfrankzane). Here at the bottom of the movement, your hands should be wider than shoulder-width apart, allowing your elbows to go down below the level of your chest. Frank cited that he was presently doing something like 1000 various reps each day. However, after his first Mr. Olympia competition victory, Zane admitted that the only way you can get muscle size is through heavy training and started to combine light and heavy training in his muscle strength and size growth program. The secondary muscles would . And by plenty we mean thousands of hours of abs training. Flyes were the exercise that Arnold relied on to build his massive pecs. He is a three-time Mr. Olympia, the winner of prestigious competitions. Before the training, I always had protein and carbohydrates. Frank is a talented, and multidimensional man, full to the brim with valuable bodybuilding knowledge, cutting-edge training techniques, nutrition insights, and a wealth of wisdom and life experience that can only come through years' of commitment and dedication to excellence. He used moderate weight and never exceeds three hundred pounds in the squat. Standing Machine Press - 3 sets of 15, 12, 10 reps. Cable Crossover - 3 sets of 15 reps. *Add weight each set if possible. For calves he did Donkey Cal Raisewith a heavy partner using fairly high reps. The idea is to maintain your gains while improving your weakest spots. Required fields are marked *. Zanes chest, shoulders, and triceps workout ends like all his other training sessions with more abs work. Zane used the pyramid method for many of his exercises, where each set was done using more weight but for fewer reps. Zane favored dumbbells over barbells for training his biceps. Zane offers a very simple solution: dont build massive pecs in the first place! Overarching your back. Bend your elbows to lower the dumbbells until they reach the sides of your chest, around your nipple line, controlling the weight as you lower it. Early in Zanes career, when leanness was his primary objective, his training consisted of light weights and high reps. _g1.setAttribute('srcset', _g1.getAttribute('data-srcset')); We recently had the opportunity to talk to Frank, who turned 66 on June 28, about the training that helped create the Zane look. In an exclusive to FLEX, he shares a host of never-before-published photos spanning his career and beyond, taken by his wife, Christine, a talented photographer and his most ardent supporter for more than 40 years. Read below to find out! His pecs got so big that one pec got scraped and bruised when we shot archery in the 1970s. . And regardless how useful any exercise is, you certainly dont want to end up with torn pecs. Thats because his anterior deltoids got all the work they needed from exercises like bench presses and flyes. He totaled three-straight Olympia victories from 1977-1979. My training partner at the time (Craig Whitehead) and I are pleased with it, because we can get in a great workout in a shorter period of time, and have more time for outside activities and our professional duties. Dips are a fine exercise to use when thickness is required in the lower pec region. I found that I grew better on a routine like that and its the one that I used throughout the rest of my career. Overall, he competed for over 20 years and won Mr. America, Mr. Universe, and Mr. Olympia title during his career. At the beginning, you work out because you dont like the way you look and youre set out to improve. Us, Recent Press Close Grip Bench Press 3 12, 10, 8. It combined heavy compound training with isolation exercises selected specifically to create a perfectly balanced physique. 375 pounds. It was a volume routine. I dont even need to sleep as much, although I do make sure to get plenty of rest. He found out the best upper thigh exercise for mass and cuts is the one third or one quarter squat (moderate weight and only partially). Los Angeles Clippers coach Tyronn Lue didn't waste much time seeing how well Westbrook would mesh with his new team. Ectomorph, Zane had small wrists, so he trained his forearms make! Weights, New York, 1980 425 deadlift, 285 bench press ; 2 prestigious.! Workout ends like all his other training sessions with more abs work has spent the last 8 years staying the! Pecs in the lower pec region pound of body weight, 1980 each set, or treatment while improving weakest. Plate ) so, even if I just do chest and back, thats a lot shoulder... 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