November 1, 2007

How I Trained Chantal Dicaire to Win the World Qualifier in 12 Days – Part Two: The Training

In July, I described how I became reacquainted with Chantal Dicaire and how that chance meeting led us to the goal of getting her into shape to compete in the 2007 CBBF National World Qualifier in just two weeks’ time! I also mentioned how I thrive on a challenge, as does Chantal, and setting such a tight schedule for such a lofty goal certainly presented us with that. Furthermore, I knew Chantal had the ability to accomplish this goal if she set her mind to it; she’s an experienced, able-bodied competitor who can push herself appropriately in the gym. Therefore, we went for it.

The results of the experiment were astonishing – we not only whipped her into shape so that she could compete, but she ended up winning the whole thing as well. This article will describe the weight-training program I put into place for her to get into shape in such a short time.

Getting the wheels in motion

Like many people, I don’t believe in re-inventing the wheel. So, as I’ve done numerous times before, I looked into what legendary trainer Vince Gironda had written on the subject of getting people into shape in virtually no time at all. After all, those who know about Gironda are well aware that he not only had an enviable track record for training more champions that anyone in his day, but he also had an impressive reputation for getting people into shape faster than anyone.

Gironda had become good at this because he had made a successful business out of overnight transformations – the result of having his gym located in North Hollywood, California, near some big TV and film studios. Through the ‘70s and ‘80s, he was often commissioned to get actors into shape, sometimes in a very short time – days, even. As a result, he wrote a small book on the subject called How I Train the Movie Stars, which I referred to for this project with Chantal. In it, Gironda specifically talks about the kind of training and nutritional program he used to achieve results within ten days. So, I used his well-thought-out, proven concepts and adapted them for Chantal’s needs, based on my own experiences of training her.

Making every minute count

In order to make a lot of progress in such a short time, you not only have to make every day count, but every minute in the day also – something Gironda obviously knew too. Therefore, to get someone into shape fast, he didn’t concoct some fancy split-type training routine that worked the body over several days. Instead, he went back to the basics and had his trainees use a full-body, circuit-type routine for the quickest results. This is a simple but effective way to train, since it allows the person to work the entire body in one day. Furthermore, circuit-type training done quickly is an excellent way to speed up the metabolism to burn fat. Therefore, you get the best of both worlds – muscle building for size and shape, as well as fat burning for definition. These are both things that physique competitors like Chantal want.

But, we had one problem: a circuit-type routine is doing one set of an exercise and then moving on to the next exercises. After you finish one circuit (i.e., all the exercises), you start again and do the circuit all over again, repeating the circuit as many times as is necessary.

However, Chantal’s gym is quite busy, and once you move away from one piece of equipment, you often lose it to someone else. That means that when you come back to it, you usually have to stand around waiting to use it again – not only a colossal waste of time, but something that’s counterproductive, since your heart rate slows and the tempo of the workout gets disrupted. Therefore, we couldn’t do the circuit. Instead, I had Chantal do all the sets of an exercise before moving on to the next one, and this kept her moving fast.

The training program

I drew up a straightforward routine for Chantal employing basic exercises that would tax each muscle group sufficiently. The routine was structured as follows, with exercises done in this order and for the following number of reps:

• Chest – incline dumbbell press (8-12 reps)
• Back – cable rows (8-12 reps)
• Shoulders – Arnold press (8-12 reps)
• Thighs – squats (8-12 reps)
• Hamstrings/low back – stiff-legged deadlifts (8-12 reps)
• Biceps – dumbbell curls (8-12 reps)
• Triceps – pushdowns (8-12 reps)
• Calves – calf raises (20 reps)
• Abdominals – crunches (20-30 reps)

Since I didn’t want Chantal to overtrain, I had her do only two sets of each exercise – yes, just two – but with only about 30-45 seconds of rest between sets. Her form on each exercise was perfect, and the amount of weight she used was enough so that the last repetition on each set was difficult, but attainable. All in all, Chantal’s workouts were short, fast, and intense, which is perfect for building muscle and losing body fat. However, they were not so exhausting that she’d overtrain.

Frankly, none of this is really new to experienced trainers – full-body routines like this have been around for ages. But, now comes an interesting twist that I got from Gironda’s Movie Stars program. Instead of doing this full-body workout every second day, which gives the body a day's rest between workouts, she did it every day for the first three days, and then changed to an every-second-day schedule that she carried on with until contest day.

By training her body every day for three days, it gave her a bit of a shock right off the bat. In fact, Chantal’s body showed marked improvement in just three days. However, some may now wonder why we didn’t just continue like that for 12 days (i.e., training every day). Quite simply, she’d probably overtrain if she did, and when that happens, your progress stalls or regresses. Obviously, we wanted her to keep progressing. Remember, training is important, but so is rest. So, while she was able to recover from those initial workouts done every day, she wouldn’t have been able to do that for another week and a half.

In addition, since Chantal is a fitness competitor, she also has to perform a strenuous routine, which she had to practice as well. Obviously, I took that into consideration. So, she did routine practice on her "off" days from weight training, which allowed her full energy for everything she needed to do, and still gave her sufficient rest.

So, Chantal’s schedule ended up looking like this:

Week 1

• Monday – full-body workout
• Tuesday – full-body workout
• Wednesday – full-body workout
• Thursday – routine practice
• Friday – full-body workout
• Saturday – routine practice
• Sunday – rest

Week 2

• Monday – full-body workout
• Tuesday – routine practice
• Wednesday – full-body workout
• Thursday – routine practice
• Friday – rest
• Saturday – competition day

As you can see, in less than two weeks’ time, Chantal trained her upper body six times – a lot more than if we had concocted a split-type routine. Furthermore, it’s worth mentioning that Chantal also works full-time, and these short, intense workouts (each lasting only about 20-25 minutes) allowed her to get her work done in the gym, and still get her job done at the office.

The final component

As for the effectiveness of this training program, I can only say that the proof is what we achieved when she stepped onstage. Chantal was in decent enough shape at the beginning of this program, but she was vastly improved after it – improved enough that she beat veteran competitors who had been preparing for months.

However, developing a weight-training program like this isn’t everything – the nutritional aspect plays a key role as well. Therefore, in the next installment, you’ll learn how Chantal ate in order to get into such great shape so fast.

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com

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