This is our first time featuring the great French bodybuilder Serge Nubret in our Zen newsletter. He was known as the Black Panther, and this photo should tell you why…
His aesthetic mass and long muscle bellies gave his physique an animalistic beauty that was massive yet artistic—tiny waist, broad shoulders, every muscle fully developed…
That panther look was no accident. He trained for it. In fact, he had a much bulkier look in his earlier bodybuilding days, but once he hit on a training style that sky-rocketed his aesthetic mass gains, he maximized the results…
So how did he train? Very moderate poundages and short rests between sets—usually never more that 30-second rests. He did that to maximize muscle pump, which he believed was the key to building the ultimate physique…
His reps were always in the double digits, usually 12 to 20. And what’s really incredible is that Nubret kept his physique looking massively panther-like throughout his life…
In his late 50s, he was still guest posing, displaying a physique that was almost an exact replica of the one he had when he he took second at the Mr. Olympia at age 37. And at age 70, he was reported to still have 20-inch arms.
All of that was a result of genetics, of course, but also the way he chose to train, never hammering his joints with heavy weights and driving through his workouts with short rests…
If that sounds familiar, it’s how we started training as we approached middle age. Our workouts evolved in a good way thanks primarily to Vince Gironda, legendary Studio City gym owner, trainer to movie stars and Mr. Olympias alike. He would visit us at the Iron Man offices and school us in his Density mass-training method, which was similar to how Nubret trained.
It’s best described as “progressive muscle-fiber exhaustion.” No hammering joints into submission with crazy poundages and relying on short rests between sets, usually with higher reps, to get a skin-stretching pump quickly…
That style of training single-handedly saved our training careers and has us still training and gaining into old age.
It’s a thorough, efficient, and safe way to get total muscle growth in almost all fiber types.
For how it works, complete workouts, and loads of motivation, we recommend two of our latest ebooks…
> The 4X Mass Workout 2.0 is available HERE.
> Quick-Start Muscle Building Guide 2.0 is available HERE.
Till next time, train hard—and smart—for BIG results.
—Steve Holman and Jonathan Lawson
www.X-Rep.com
Mass-Building Lessons From the Master Trainer
Vince Gironda was the Iron Guru, a bodybuilding legend ahead of his time. His most famous pupil in the bodybuilding world was the very first Mr. Olympia Larry Scott, and he also trained many Hollywood stars back in the day, like Clint Eastwood, and even Arnold consulted with him and was a fan (even though Vince told Arnold that he was a “fat f**k” when he first arrived in the U.S.).
Many of Vince’s mass-building tricks and methods have been forgotten, buried by information and misinformation overload on the Internet, but now you can find them all, his true methods, in this must-have, 330-page Vince Gironda e-book anthology…
You get everything from “Train 21 Rest 7” to 10-8-6-15 to Vince’s Stone Age Nutrition, the 8×8 method and program and much, much more (remember, it’s 330 pages). And it’s on sale at a discount for a limited time: Simply use the code GIRONDA20 at checkout for an extra 20 percent off.
Vince Gironda: Legend & Myth (300-page anthology + many bonus gifts and programs) HERE