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America, I’m going to wrap up my conversation(s) with Todd Scott with this blog.  There’s absolutely no way I can remember everything we talked about during our 15 hours in his truck.  So I’ll just give you as much as I have noted out and call it good, and in future blogs, if anything comes to mind I’ll net it out.  To be honest with you, it’s nothing new or revolutionary – just two guys who have been in the sport for years talking about what they’ve seen, heard, and experienced.  But I gotta tell ya America…it would’ve been nice if you were a fly on the window ‘cause we brought up a lot of stuff about a lot of things.  Talk about a knowledge base…but before I do that, I just have to share what happened this morning with my girl, Keri, who’s going in the Oregon Ironman this weekend.  I told her, “You KNOW I gotta blog this…” She just laughed. 

Keri drove up from Vancouver to see me this morning.  I wanted to see her one last time before she stepped onstage to run her through her last total body depletion workout and work with her a bit more to polish up her posing.  She’s doing figure.  I decided to train her first, then pose, and then she’d do cardio.  She didn’t have her gloves when she walked out to the gym so I loaned her a pair.  We went through a circuit-type routine at a fairly quick pace as I’m wanting to deplete her glycogen stores but not get her sore.  The first set through was 25 reps on everything.  The second set, which was a bit tougher, was 12-15 sets.  She was on Triceps Pressdown on her second time through (or was it her third…heck, I don’t remember…) when I looked at her hands.  The Velcro straps were on the inside of her hand – palm side, if you will.  I looked…and looked again, this time with a puzzled glance.  I’m thinking, “Hmmm…straps go on the backside of your palm.  So how did she get those straps to face on the inside…” and then it hit me.  I asked, “Keri, do you have your gloves inside out?”  But just that fast I realized that couldn’t be the case because I gave her the gloves and watched her put ‘em on. 

“Girl, you got your gloves on the wrong hands.  How in the world did you do that?  Doesn’t that feel funny or hurt?”

She stopped the exercise.  “Oh my gosh!  No wonder everything felt so weird.  I thought it was just in the gloves you gave me.  Maybe there was something different about them.”

America, the gray palm of the left glove was on the back of her right hand and the gray palm of the right glove was on her left hand – no lie!  I just looked at her. 

She started laughing.  “It’s the diet, I swear – I don’t have any carbs and I can’t think straight.  I’ve never done this before.”

“You KNOW I gotta blog this, don’t you?  Don’t be mad, but this is too funny!”  She just kept laughing and said, “Okay, but be nice.”

Okay…on to me and Todd.  We covered posing, talking about all three genres – bodybuilding, figure, and bikini.

“So what’s your take on bodybuilding posing?”

“What are you talking about?  The ¼ turns, mandatories, or routines?”

“All of em.”

“Well, you can definitely tell who works on their posing and who doesn’t.  I mean, some of those guys don’t have a clue as to what they’re doing.  They really should hire a coach.  I don’t know why they think they can do this alone.”

“I know.  I’ve talked to so many guys over the years and said, “You need help on your compulsory poses. Some listen, but many don’t.  The funny thing is, women will typically hire a coach because they know they need help.  But a guy…his ego is too big to ask for help, and I’ve seen too many guys lose a show because their posing sucked.”

“Yea, I get that too.  They’ll come up to me after the show and ask, “So how’d I look?”  I’ll say, “Your physique was on point, but dude, your posing was waaay off.  Who you working with?”  “No one…”, they’ll reply.  “You need to hire someone to work with you on your posing.  You looked good, but your posing might have cost you a placing or two.  You just didn’t present yourself in the best possible way.”  “Thanks man…I’ll get in contact with you…” – and I never hear from ‘em again until I see ‘em at the next show looking the same.  So what about routines?"

"Dude, don't get me started.  The music plays, a guy poses, and never the two shall meet."

"I know...it's like they put their routines together a couple days before the show.  You can see it in their eyes and body language.  They get out there, hit a few poses looking down the whole time like they're accessing memory, and then walk off."

"Yep.  I've talked to too many guys who do just that.  They tell me they just threw something together a day or two before the show.  And then they wonder why they don't get any applause."

 "So what’s your take on Figure and Bikini?”

“I don’t know…I mean, Figure is pretty much locked in but I liked how Elaine and a couple other promoters are now allowing the girls to walk center, stage right, and stage left to present themselves at the night show before they go upstage.  It allows the girls to display a bit more personality and bring their own charisma to the stage.  Much better than just standing center stage and turning.  Bikini started out doing that, and I’ve always wondered why Figure never did it.  If they keep that in, that’ll be good for the sport.”

“I didn’t like Bikini when it first started but it’s growing on me.  But what I’m noticing is that some of the girls are quickly ‘morphing’ for lack of a better word in their posing.  It’s becoming more suggestive quickly.  I mean, at the Spokane show, all a couple girls needed was a pole!”  (Don’t get bent outta shape, America…I’m spittin the truth!  I actually heard several women spectators out in the audience say similar things…). 

“Hey, did you see the Sandy Williams video that Paula posted on FB?  That was a real good explanation of what they’re looking for in Bikini.”

“Yea…I saw that.  It was good.  As Donnie Whetstone said, and I now say as well, Bikini is “Street Hot” whereas Figure is “Stage Hot.”

“So what about Women’s Bodybuilding?  Where do you see that going?”

“Man, I don’t know about that.  I read an article in one of the mags which said that to bring back women’s BB they need to get the guys out of the women’s side -off the judging panel, and stop em from training women.  And they need to stop rewarding ‘bigger and more muscular is better’.”

“Dude, that’ll never happen, but I do agree that something has to be done with women’s BB.  And until the women themselves stop doing anything and everything and whatever is necessary to win, it’s gonna continue to die a slow death.”

“What’s your take on HIIT vs. Steady-State training?”

“Aw man, I’ve blogged on that several times.  HIIT ain’t new.  That’s been around since the 50’s.  These so-called ‘experts’ have just given it a new name.  And all they’re doing is comparing high intensity training to low intensity training.  That’s like comparing walking to running or sprinting – which will burn more calories?  Duuuhhh!  I really wish I could bury this bone for the last time, but I know it’ll get dug up again and be posted and reposted, written and re-written until enough people finally understand that regardless of what type of cardio you do or what piece of equipment you use, its gotta be INTENSE enough to get any results.  I’ve said this so many times I make myself sick…”Intensity SHRINKS immensity!  If and when they realize that, maybe all this madness will stop.”

“You’re Parrillo, right?”

“All the way, baby!  Been using his supplement line for over 20 years.  Gone away from it, come back to it, left again, came back again.  As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing better and cleaner out there on the market today.”

“You use CapTri?”

“That’s the only oil I use.”

“I love his bars and powders.  Like you said, they’re clean.  Not loaded with a ton of crap.”

“Yup.  The funny thing is, many people who know Parrillo go on his products when they start their pre-contest diet 8-12 weeks out.  Why not stay on the best year-round?  Doesn’t make sense to me.  The other thing is, everyone who writes now has taken his information and made it theirs.  I have Parrillo’s original Sports Nutrition Guide from over 20 years ago that says every single thing, and more, that Will Brink and so many other online ‘experts’ say.  I don’t have a problem with them saying it, but at least give credit to where you got it from.  Will has never done an ounce of real research, doesn’t have a degree, but is an “expert”…please!”

“I know.  I’ve been following John for close to 20 years and so much of what I learned about training and nutrition I learned from him.  He definitely knows his stuff.  You ever meet him personally?”

“Nope – never made it out his way.  But I do talk to him on a regular basis when I call and place orders.  He’s funny – cusses like 5 sailors, but he’s good people.”

America, like I said yesterday and earlier, we talked about so much stuff!  This is just snippets of what we chatted about.  We probably spent a solid hour on Parrillo alone!  Fascial stretching came up, Parrillo’s workout philosophy came up, on and on…I can honestly say that we probably had a lecture/seminar worth of information that was passed between us this past weekend.  Sorry ya’ll missed it.  Hey…that’s a thought…I might talk to Todd and see if we can set something up – a major seminar with some of the heavy hitters out there that will tell it like it is…get a couple guys, a couple girls, and just let you guys fire away at us.  Maybe even set up some kind of training as well.  Actually that’s exactly what I used to do back at my big facility before I shut it down.  Don’t mean to brag, but John’s ‘bootcamp seminar weekend’ was my brainchild.  I had been doing that a couple years and told him about it.  Seriously!  Hey, somebody had to think of it…why couldn’t it be me???

Okay…I’m out, America.  No more Bill Pearl Classic stuff – at least of this magnitude.  Like I said, if I remember anything of significance I’ll interject it in, but other than that, consider this dog dead…peace!

The Dr.

http://www.facebook.com/drbuff

David “Dr. Buff” Patterson

Personal Training Systems

“There Are No Shortcuts!”

 www.personaltrainingsystems.net 

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