August 15, 2004

Seven Pounds of Muscle in Six Months – Chantal Dicaire’s 2004 Weight-Training Program

Warning: This is an intense training program for an advanced competitor. Before undertaking any exercise program like this one, please consult your physician.

When Chantal Dicaire stepped onto the competition stage in 2003, she impressed the judges with what was quite a remarkable transformation from her appearance in 2002. And when she stepped onto the stage in 2004, she impressed people even more. Not only did she still possess that professional-like stage presence that she had shown the year before, but she was also a clear seven pounds of muscle heavier! This was an amazing improvement for any natural, female fitness competitor, and she seemed even more feminine than before – that elusive quality that judges seem to look for. The question many people asked after the competition was: How did Chantal do it? That’s what this article is about.

Background

I started working with Chantal in January of 2003. At the time, I was recruited to help her with her onstage posing and overall presentation. In May 2003, she took third place at the Canadian Fitness Championships, and in July 2003, she won the Medium class and the Overall titles at the CBBF National World Qualifier. In the fall, she placed ninth at the IFBB World Women’s Fitness Championships.

After that successful season, Chantal asked me to coach her for 100 percent of her preparation, since she wanted to do even better in 2004. This didn’t just mean that I’d be involved in things like posing and presentation; I took over her weight-training and nutritional programs, too.

Chantal and I both agreed that she needed more muscle size, and we both felt that if we could add five pounds to key parts of her body, we’d be doing great – imagine five pounds of steak and you’ll get the idea of how much we’re talking about. If we could add more, that would be even better. To do so, though, meant using weight-training and nutritional programs that were completely foreign to Chantal – as well as most of the people at her gym, and likely many people who are reading this article, too.

The type of program you’ll read about here isn’t new; in fact, it’s quite old, as I’ll explain below. But today seems to have turned into a time when people are looking for miracles from bottles and questionable supplements instead of wanting to resort to good ol’ hard work. Her workout-type programs come from a time when people relied on training, not other things, to make gains. This is key because Chantal is a 100 percent natural athlete – she has never used steroid-type drugs in her life and never will. Adding seven pounds using these drugs is easy; doing it by 100 percent natural means is another story. The fact that she did it is proof that it can be done.

Weight training

I’d be lying to you if I told you that the program that I gave Chantal was the best way to train, or the only way to train. Anyone who says that – and I know some coaches do say that – is just pulling your leg, or they don’t know better. The truth is: There is no one right or wrong way to train, and you can make improvements with a good number of different training programs.

I will say, though, that the training program I gave Chantal is an exceedingly effective way to train, and it’s efficient. She spent less time weight training than she ever did before – but she got way better results from it. Chantal’s weight-training programs in 2004 never exceeded 30 minutes, and she only rarely did more than eight sets per bodypart. Mostly, she worked each muscle group with only four to six sets, sometimes even less! In fact, she seemed to respond better with less total sets.

Chantal used a variety of set-and-rep schemes, including 8x8 (eight sets of eight reps), 6x6, 4x12, giant sets (doing a series of exercises, all for one muscle group, one right after the other), as well as a few more. Some people asked me over the course of her training: which of these is best? My answer is: all of them!

As I said, there is no one right or wrong way to train, and all set-and-rep schemes can be effective, if done properly. As well, your body needs change every once in a while, so I implemented different routines at different times to keep Chantal responding. No matter how good a single workout routine is, it gets stale after a while and you’ll likely get bored doing it.

A better question to ask might be: how did you know these routines would work? The answer is simple: Vince told me so.

Chantal’s training program was modeled from the teachings of the greatest bodybuilding trainer who ever lived, the late Vince Gironda. For 50 years Vince owned a gym in North Hollywood, California, called, not surprisingly, Vince’s Gym. He trained amateur to professional bodybuilders (even Arnold Schwarzenegger for a time), enthusiasts who simply wanted to look better, and even a good number of actors since his gym was right around the corner from Universal Studios.

Vince was regarded as a man who "was ahead of his time," developing weight-training and nutritional programs back as far as the ‘50s and ‘60s that some people are only discovering today. In the ‘80s I had the opportunity to meet Vince myself, and since that time I’ve read everything he’s written.

So Chantal’s training programs really come from Vince, and when it comes to weight training his key to success has always been doing the most amount of work in the shortest possible time. What Vince found more important than just throwing heavy weight around was working out as intensely as possible – getting the job done as quickly as possible. In short, there’s no time wasted in a Vince Gironda-style workout. (Note: this isn’t to be confused with High-Intensity Training, or HIT, a program championed most predominantly by the late professional bodybuilder, Mike Mentzer.)

For six months, Chantal trained faster and harder than she’d ever trained in the past. As I said, she never spent more than 30 minutes in the gym in one shot. Some people spend two, three, even four times that amount of time! I think that’s a waste of time.

To best illustrate the type of training I’m talking about, let me give you an example of a leg workout Chantal did one day while I coached her through:

• First, Chantal warmed up, just to get loose and to avoid injuries when she began to "hit" her muscles hard. With this kind of workout scheme, when you start, you start.
• Chantal began with full squats with a barbell, where she did 12 reps.
• Without a break she immediately walked over to a Smith Machine (a machine with a barbell that slides vertically on rails) and did 12 more reps, this time with her legs far to the front and held close together, all the time concentrating on the muscles on the lower part of her thighs, just about the knees.
• Next, she walked directly over to what’s called a "Roman Chair" where she did 12 more reps. The Roman Chair squat isolates the thighs like no other. At this point, with no rest between sets, her thighs were searing with pain.
• Following the Roman Chair, I led her back to the squat rack where she did as many reps as she could with a lighter weight than before, concentrating on strict form and thoroughly exhausting the leg muscles. She managed about 10 reps. (On other training days where we did a similar routine she did leg extensions as her last exercise, but on this day an additional set of squats seemed right.)
• Immediately following those exercises, I let Chantal rest for, quite literally, a minute – enough time to take a drink of water. Then, I hustled her over to the dumbbell rack where she’d now work hamstrings and lower back. She picked up an appropriate weight and did stiff-legged deadlifts for six sets of six reps (6x6). Her rest between sets was a mere "four deep breaths" – that’s about 10-15 seconds, tops! She did those six sets inside five minutes.
• Again there was a one-minute break, and then it was off to calves, which were worked for six sets, but this time for 20 reps. Still, the rest between sets was the same – "four deep breaths." She "super-setted" donkey-calf raises with a special "crouching calf raise" – the latter a unique little exercise that I devised with her.
• Finally, it was time for abs, and again there was no real rest before she got started on that muscle group. For these, we used a special type of leg raise that Vince Gironda recommended in his gym – it’s too tough to explain with words, you really need pictures to explain. But unlike many people who do dozens or even hundreds of reps for abs, I had Chantal work abs like a normal muscle, so she did eight sets of eight reps (8x8) with just "four deep breaths" between sets again. Chantal’s gotten pretty strong with these leg raises and now attaches weight to her feet when performing the exercise.
• After finishing abs, she was done for the day.

The idea in telling you this program isn’t to have you do it. In fact, I don’t recommend that you do it at all. This was just one of many programs that she did and not necessarily one others should follow. I modeled it specifically for Chantal, specifically for her needs, and I was there all along the way to see it in action and adjust anything if necessary. As well, you could injure yourself trying to replicate it. Chantal didn’t just jump into this type of intensity – she worked up to it carefully. Chantal’s also very strong: she can squat in excess of 200 pounds, for high reps. However, you have to be very, very careful to avoid any possibility of injury when performing exercises like this one with heavy weight, since an injury can set you back weeks, months, years, or even for the rest of your career. (All the time I am leaning over her shoulder reminding her, "If it hurts in a bad way – like an injury – stop immediately!")

The reason I’m telling you this is to give you an idea of how she trained, and how quickly she trained. The leg-training day I just described comprised 24 sets, and she did it all in less than 30 minutes. That’s just a touch over one minute per set, including rest periods! Confused? Were you thinking that simply lifting the heaviest weight is all that matters when building big muscles? Some people do think that, and these people usually train with no regard for what Vince emphasized most: intensity.

I’ve learned that intensity is key to building muscle, more so than just piling heavy weight on a bar. The proof is in the fact that Chantal put on seven pounds of muscle in six months following a high-intensity training program that certainly had her using some pretty heavy weight at times, but that really focused on working the muscle quickly – the most amount of work in the shortest possible time – and then letting it rest for recuperation and growth. We’re going to use a similar strategy to put on four to five more pounds of muscle by next season.

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com

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