Frank Zane Launches his NEW Ultimate Bodybuilding Bundle!

Frank Zane - 3x Mr. Olympia - releases his NEW Ultimate Bodybuilding Bundle!

Here's my ultimate special for bodybuilders where you get 3 of my Best-Selling Books and a FREE Training DVD - all at one low price that includes shipping!

This bundle will give you my total system with all of my powerful weight training, posing tips, nutrition, and motivational programs for beginners through advanced trainees.  Never before was all this information available for one low price.  This is a great reference manual for personal trainers too!

You'll save over $40 - here's what's included:

• High Def Body
• Let's Grow
• Symmetry

BONUS OFFER: Order today and you'll get my Train with Zane DVD!

Order Yours Today Right Here...
Frank Zane's Ultimate Bodybuilding Bundle

The Winter 2015 Issue of Building the Body Quarterly

The winter 2015 issue of Building the Body Quarterly will be mailed the week of January 25^th, 2016.   

This issue features:

Fernandez’s Ferrigno Classic

- Training for it:  about the tremendous amount of work needed to get in shape after bulking up 30 pounds.

         

- Contest Report: He won his class over 50

- Sara and Michael are a couple of PhDS from Australia who did a Zane Experience recently.  Here’s the progress they made.

- Specialization is what to do in the off season when you are not training as hard or as often.  Working your weak points is essential for a complete physique.

- Egg White Perfection – We are eagerly anticipating the new batch of this unique product containing L-glutamine in free form.  Here’s why it’s the best supplement available only from us.

- Tom Rutherford got some valuable posing tips in his Zane Experience program and took some nice photos while in San Diego.

- Mia Morissette has an amazing physique and tells about her training and how she feels about women’s bodybuilding.

- Carbon 60 is a powerful free radical scavenger and may enhance training.  Learn about the research. 

- Blood Pressure – Bodybuilders, do you know what your blood pressure is?

- Build Horseshoe Triceps – Here’s a great routine to build and shape the biggest muscles of the upper arm.

- Frankly Speaking about stuff we are doing besides training

- Classic Physique Rules – It’s official.  NPC and IFBB have OK’d the classic bodybuilding physique division.  Good news is that are many height/weight categories so there will be lots of winners. 

This is a very informative issue with lots of impressive photos available currently in hard copy mailed out four times a year.  

Subscribe today and take advantage of this unique publication by going to www.frankzane.com.  

Mailed USPS hard copy it's only $24 in USA, $26.28 in CA, $30 in Canada, and $35 overseas.

All the best,

FZ

Transform Your Abs & Upper Quads with Frank Zane's Training Secrets!

I get a lot of questions from my fans on how I built my abs and developed such separation in my upper quads.  I recently came across this interview in my archives that answers many of these questions.    

Check it out below and as always, don't forget that my three books - High Def Body, Symmetry, and Let's Grow contain all of my exact workout routines, mental focus tips and diet/nutrition programs.  
 
Thanks for your continued support and here's to your High Def Body in 2016!  
FZ  

Get all three books and training DVD here http://www.frankzane.com/specials/HolidaySpecial_2014.html  

Interviewing Bodybuilding Legend Frank Zane

 

Frank Zane  

 Frank Zane is a three-time Mr. Olympia (1977 to 1979). His bodybuilding reign was marked by a shift of emphasis from mass to aesthetics. 

Zane is one of only three people who have defeated Arnold Schwarzenegger in a bodybuilding contest and one of the very few Mr. Olympia winners under 200 pounds.  

His nickname is “The Chemist” due to his BS degree and his scientific approach to reaching his peak on the exact day of competition, year after year. (Also he taught mathematics and chemistry for 13 years.   

Zane’s proportionate physique featured the second thinnest waistline of all the Mr. Olympias, with his wide shoulders making for a distinctive V-taper. He stood at 5 ft 9 in (1.75m) and had a competition weight of 187-195 pounds when he won Mr Olympia.  In this interview, Frank Zane 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.   

How did you come to formulate your first bodybuilding training routine?  
It was all by people I’d met, things I’d read and trial and error. When I first started out, I was about 18 actually younger I was about 16 or 17 when I really got serious. I worked out every other day after school, doing upper body one day, legs the next. I kept that routine for a while and it worked well for me. 

Then, in the mid-late ’60s, when I was living in Florida, I increased the number of workouts so that I was training six days a week, but it was still upper body one day, legs the next. My upper-body workouts took about three to three and a half hours. The leg workouts were about an hour and a half, and that’s how I trained right up until I won the Mr. America and Mr. Universe in 1968.   

When I moved to California, we all pretty much trained the same way, like Arnold did. We still trained six days a week, but on a three-way split. A typical routine was chest and back on Mondays and Thursdays, legs on Tuesdays and Fridays. Wednesdays and Saturdays was delts and arms. 

It was a volume routine. We’d do at least 10-12 sets for the small bodyparts and 15-20 sets for the large bodyparts. We’d train heavy, working up to the heavy weights. We worked real hard, but what I learned was that as you get older it’s better to train a little less frequently but harder. Your body needs that extra time to recuperate.

Changing styles   

Around 1978, I graduated to a different style it was still a three-day split program but I trained three days in a row and then rested the fourth day. I found that I grew better on a routine like that and it’s the one that I used throughout the rest of my career. 

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. So I changed it to back-biceps-forearms on day one, legs on day two, chest, shoulders, triceps on day three. Of course, I always worked abs every day, and did a good 400 and upward for total reps of abs. Before a contest, I’d move that up to as many as 1,000 reps a day.  

Would that come at the end of the workout?  
Yeah. Sometimes I would come back to the gym later in the day and just do abs because it would take a while.  

What were your preferred ab exercises?  
Usually crunches and/or Roman-chair situps for upper abs. Leg raises or hanging knee-ups for upper abs, seated twists for obliques.

  













 Not a lot of guys devote that much time to their ab training these days.  

Worked for me. I just went by the example of those who had been training at Gold’s Gym [in Venice] when I got there. You know, in the late ’60s Zabo Koszewski was there and he had the best abs and I figured, Well, I’ll try it. He would do 500 Roman-chair situps in the morning and 500 leg raises in the afternoon and so that’s what I did. I figured if you had great abs and you had everything else, you’d look even better, and it worked. Not only did it give me great abs, but it gave me great upper-quad separation.  

That’s true, you did have that great detail in your upper thighs. What about cardio? I didn’t do much in the way of cardio maybe two hours a week.  

So, did diet account for your conditioning?  

My diet was always very good, but volume training in itself really conditions you. if you go heavy, you’ll grow too, but boy, volume training really works you down to your core. To this day, I still practice volume, except now I will train three days a week or so.  

I know that early on you dabbled in some powerlifting.
Just initially. Where I grew up in Pennsylvania it was really the center of weightlifting in the United States. But I wasn’t really into the Olympic lifts and, actually, the area where I was in northeastern Pennsylvania there wasn’t even powerlifting yet. They called it “odd lifting” and they sort of organized their own competitions. 

They picked the lifts that the greatest number of guys were good at. But through my whole career in bodybuilding, until I moved to California, nobody was that good at squats, except for me. So the lifts were bench press, curls and deadlifts, and I never did deadlifts. I mean, I did them to get into the contests. At a bodyweight of 175, I ended up doing a 425 deadlift, 285 bench press and 155 curl. But if they’d had squats in there, I would have been squatting with over 400 because I was always a good squatter.  

Was that early heavy lifting important for giving you a foundation on which you later built your physique? Well, it gave me mass, but I’ll tell you one thing if I had to do it all over again, I don’t think I would have done it. It just gets you injured. You’re just focusing on the weight and often ignoring the subtle signs your body is giving you and once you’ve hurt yourself, that’s it. It never really goes away. Now I’m paying the price for all of that heavy lifting.  

The old injuries are catching up to you? Absolutely. I think as you get older, it’s inevitable that you feel the effects of the injuries you incurred years earlier. I mean, joints can only take so much. I think shoulders are very susceptible to wearing out all that upper-body work, especially if you’re training upper body heavy, training upper body two days in a row. 

My shoulders have been traumatized and now I have to back off shoulder work. I did so much shoulder work and they got so developed that now almost anything I do goes to my shoulders. So I’m fortunate in that I don’t have to train shoulders.   But I can’t they hurt. So, even if I just do chest and back, that’s a lot of shoulder work. Even training arms is a lot of shoulder work.  

So, knowing what you know now, if you had the chance to go back to, say, ’68, ’70, would you do things differently? In those days, I did what was necessary for me to win. This included training with heavy weights: a precursor for injury. So if I could do it over again I’d train with lighter weights, higher reps, no sets below 10 reps, with negatives slower than positives, and avoid injury. If I had done that, my physique wouldn’t have been quite as bulky, but with more definition and with less pain.  

How does your training today compare with the training you were doing 30 years ago? Obviously you aren’t training for competition any longer, but is it fairly similar to what you were doing then? On the whole, it is, with lighter weights and less volume, of course. I have to say that I rely heavily on muscle memory these days, and it is a pretty amazing thing. I don’t have to train that much anymore to stay in decent shape, which is good because my joints couldn’t handle a lot of this work now. 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. 

It’s a bit of a balancing act–knowing how much to train to elicit results without aggravating old injuries. I now subscribe to the parsimony principle. I no longer want to carry that much mass on me. I want to be lean and lighter. It’s easier to carry around less weight and I’m more comfortable. It also doesn’t require as much training, which equals less stress on the joints.
  
I have the same structure, similar metabolism, amount of blood, organ reserve that I did all those years ago, except now I’m carrying around 15 pounds less body weight, so it’s much, much easier on my system. I don’t eat nearly as much as I used to, but what I do eat is very nutritionally dense. I don’t even need to sleep as much, although I do make sure to get plenty of rest. 

But you know, these days I get great satisfaction from training other people rather than focusing on myself. I like to help steer them toward their goals. For me, it’s a matter of living as long a quality life as I can. It’s more a matter of health and longevity for me than trying to impress people.  

It sounds like growing up. Yeah, that’s what it is. It’s becoming a mature person. I’m comfortable with the idea of passing the torch helping others to aim for the same kinds of goals I once aimed for. In the end, I think it’s a very natural progression and a good thing. His bodybuilding career and what he accomplished inspires awe, doesn’t it?  

Frank Zane's Shoulder Specialization Routine

Frank Zane's Shoulder Specialization Routine

Competitors can bring out the best in you.  In 1967, Don Howorth won Mr. America and defeated me with his super shoulders and outstanding poses.  This inspired me to want to build out my physique even more and I went to work to revamp my lifting routine.  I crafted a plan to build out my deltoids using my mind and my muscle.  I did my homework and through trial and error was able to develop a specialization plan that built my shoulders to perfection.

Check out the fabulous article below from Gene Mozee, former editor in chief of Muscle Builder Magazine, where I share this exact shoulder routine that catapulted me to the top.  It took inspiration from a competitor to build out my High Def Body and round out what became to be known as my "classic V-taper."  This story serves to demonstrate what can happen when we truly embrace a negative situation or event and focus on turning it into a learning experience instead.

Frank Zane

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Frank Zane's Unity-Training Delt Specialization - Gene Mozee (1995)

Some years ago when I was the editor in chief of Muscle Builder magazine, I interviewed Frank Zane many times. The articles he contributed to that publication were always of the highest quality in terms of both information and result-producing routines. Zane was probably the most scientific bodybuilder of his era. He kept detailed records of every workout and routine that he ever used. He was constantly analyzing every facet of his training, including his diet and sleeping habits.

Zane's philosophy was that you don't have to have 20-inch arms and weigh 250 lbs to look impressive. He contended that most men become obsessed with obtaining huge size and making bodyweight gains. While he acknowledged that a certain amount of size and bodyweight are necessary, he believed that these are not the factors that determine a top physique. He rated muscle density, shape and symmetry and how those qualities are displayed as more important than who has the largest measurements or who weighs the most in competition. The person who looks the best is the one who wins the show.

Here, in his own words, is the shoulder specialization program that helped make Frank Zane one of the most popular bodybuilders of all time.

I've seen fantastic deltoids on fellows like Sergio Oliva and Larry Scott, but to me the all time champion of superior deltoid development was Don Howorth. I was awed by Don's width. Delts like that seemed preposterous, unreal -- except that they blended perfectly with his arms, chest and the sweep of his lats. It is my conviction that well-developed delts give any physique the stellar touch.

After I lost the Mr. America contest, I made a solemn vow. At any cost I would develop deltoids like those of Howorth, who shouldered me out of first place. I knew what I had to do, and I've been blasting them hard ever since, turning my defeat by a deltoid into many victories. I really believe that.

I like what my delts have given me. It took a lot of hard work and some fine-tuning of my workout program to reach my present degree of development and proportion.

I realized that if I wanted delts like Howorth's, that total development of all the parts -- front, back and middle -- I needed to use more than simple motion. Abstract contraction of muscle doesn't do it. I've seen too much failure coming from thoughtless exercise.

When I first started giving my delts priority, I was exerting tremendous effort. Each rep, each set seemed like a foreign entity, something that is tolerated for a necessary exchange. Gradually I began to feel that I was becoming one with the weight, uniting myself with it on each movement. In my opinion this is the trouble with the average bodybuilder's workout. He thinks of himself as being separate from the weights and must therefore exert a tremendous amount of effort to move a weight that he perceives as something outside of himself. That idea doesn't work for me.

Here's a tip that has paid off for me. I've learned the anatomy of each muscle, including its origins and insertions and how it functions. During workouts I close my mind to all else except the muscle I'm working. I envision it contracting and becoming pumped and growing larger with each rep. I try to think positively right through my training session, practically willing the muscles to grow.

I proved to myself that if my concentration was keen enough, I could close the breach between myself and the exercise apparatus. I riveted my attention on using proper form to the extent that no external environment existed for me. I became a part of the workout. Distractions were filtered out. You have to get into this process and work at it to experience what I mean. It transcends simple training. You feel like a baseball player who has just made the perfect swing and connected for a home run.

After experimenting with several different exercises and routines, I discovered that the following deltoid program really delivers the goods -- size, shape, muscle density and definition. I eased into it slowly and progressively intensified each workout by adding weight and shortening the rest periods. The program consists of five exercises, and I performed the first three -- dumbbell presses. lateral raises, and cable upright rows -- in tri-set fashion, one right after the another without pausing. I started fairly light and increases the poundage for each set, completing five tri-sets using the following reps and weights:

Tri-Set One:
Dumbbell Presses, 50s x 12
Lateral Raises, 25s x 15
Cable Upright Rows, 50 x 15.

Tri-Set Two:
Dumbbell Presses, 70s x 11
Lateral Raises, 30s x 14
Cable Upright Rows, 55 x 12.

Tri-Set Three:
Dumbbell Presses, 70s x 11
Lateral Raises, 30s x 13
Cable Upright Rows, 60 x 9.

Tri-Set Four:
Dumbbell Presses, 80s x 9
Lateral Raises, 32.5s x 12
Cable Upright Rows, 65 x 9.

Tri-Set Five:
Dumbbell Presses, 90s x 8
Lateral Raises, 35s x 11
Cable Upright Rows, 70 x 8.

I rested about two minutes between tri-sets. Gradually I reached the point where my endurance and willpower permitted me to go through all five cycles without resting at all. Those 15 nonstop sets, performed one right after another, became a real adventure in training. The pump is intense, and the muscles burn. You start to rise above the pain, and that's when you approach UNITY, the junction of yourself and the apparatus.   

The tri-set exercises primarily work the front and lateral-deltoid areas, so I followed them up with five fast sets of incline lateral raises for the posterior delts. These are bentover laterals performed while you're sitting backward on an incline bench with your chest resting against the incline. The following is typical of my sessions on this movement:

25s x 15
27.5s x 14
30s x 13
32.5s x 12
35s x 10

Then, to complete the program, I set the weight on the pulley machine at 20 lbs and performed five sets of one-arm pulley lateral raises for each arm without resting at all.

After I completed the full program, which totaled 25 sets, my delts were so pumped that I could barely raise my arms. The result was a remarkable increase in delt size, shape and definition in a relatively short period of time. 

Unity-Delt Specialization Program

Tri-Set:

Dumbbell Presses, 5 x 12, 11, 11, 9, 8

Lateral Raises, 5 x 15, 14, 13, 12, 11

Cable Upright Rows, 5 x 15, 12, 9, 9, 8.

Incline Bench Lateral Raises, 5 x 15, 14, 13, 12, 10.

One-Arm Pulley Laterals, 5 x 10-15.

This is a very tough program that's much too severe for anything except pre-contest training/peaking. Don't try to jump into it immediately. Instead, I suggest the following plan for a starter.

Basic Delt Specialization

Dumbbell Presses, x 3-4

Lateral Raises, x 3-4

Upright Rows, x 3-4

Incline Bench Lateral Raises, x 3-4

Use this program two or three times a week, depending on your training needs and schedule. You can intensify it by performing it in superset fashion, as follows. Remember that supersetting involves performing two different exercises, alternating them without pausing to promote a greater pump stimulate muscle growth in a specific area. One superset equals one set of each of the two exercises.

Superset Delt Specialization

Superset One:

Dumbbell Presses, x 4-5

Lateral Raises, x 4-5

Superset Two:

Upright Rows, x 4-5

Incline Bench Lateral Raises, x 4-5

Learn More about Frank's Training Routines in his book Symmetry -  http://www.frankzane.com/books/symmetry.html 

Train one-on-one with Frank Zane in his San Diego Training Studio - http://www.frankzane.com/zane_experiences/experience.html