Train In Peace: Larry Scott

Not sure how I missed this in March but bodybuilding and fitness has lost one of it's most inspirational figures, Larry Scott.  Born in Pocatello, Idaho in 1938, Scott was bodybuilding's first Mr. Olympia, the prestigious title that was later won by the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Frank Zane and Franco Columbu.  Possessing a clean cut, All-American handsomeness and some of the best arms and shoulders in the game, Scott was the premiere bodybuilder of the early 1960's.  After winning the Olympia title a 2nd time in 1966 at the young age of 28, Scott abruptly retired to focus on his personal life.  A devout Mormon, Scott had set up shop in Salt Lake City, Utah where he ran gyms, spas and supplement stores.  He died at age 75 of complications from Alzheimer's disease.  He is survived by his wife of more than 40 years and their 3 remaining children.

Scott had one of the great physiques of all time as he was massive yet not lumbering with huge cannonball delts and a narrow waist.  His arms were always center of attention with their dense, football shape but his thick, V-shaped back, wide, slab like chest, statuesque thighs and calves were always up to snuff.  Working with Vince Gironda and Rheo H. Blair, Scott became one of the first bodybuilders known for attributing as much success to nutrition as training.  Scott is said to have taken in 2 cups of Blair's special protein a day with heavy cream and a gallon of milk a day, that's 16 cups of milk!  Back then a breakfast would consist of hamburger patties, whole eggs and cottage cheese.  High protein and fat with low carbs and few vegetables were the norm.

Larry Scott loved preacher curls, so much that people started to dub them "Scott" curls.  Using the angled bench or the reverse flat "spider" side helps take the deltoids out of the equation and helps pump up the brachialis, the rope like muscle between the biceps and triceps on the side of your arm.  Preacher curls also help tie in the lower bicep near the interior elbow joint to give your arms a fuller, thicker appearance.  Remember, some of us have a low tie in while others have a high tie in.  A low tie in usually means longer, thicker biceps with less peak while a high tie in has more space between the bicep and inner elbow for a bigger peak.

Some training routines from The Legend:

Fry your Deltoids:  Sit on a bench with dumbbells in hand, raise them laterally until they are over your head and nearly touch.  Do 4 reps here.  Without resting, raise the DB's out to the side but stop at ear level then bring them together in front, return them to the side and lower.  4 reps here.  Still without setting them down, burn out and do regular side raises until you feel like your shoulders are ready to fall off.  That's the Larry Scott way!

Build a better Bicep:  2 Arm Preacher Curl w/Dumbbells, with your shoulders wide and your elbows on the bench tight, lower the DB's all the way to the bottom then curl up, flexing at the top.  After 6-8 reps, Scott would perform 3-4 half reps or "burns" to really tear the fibers.  Regular Preacher Curls were next with full reps and more burns.  Reverse curls, either standing or on the Preacher bench were next to fry the forearms and brachialis. 

Scott would usually select 4 exercises per body part and complete 5 sets which is a bit much for us non-competitive types.  I usually aim for 3 sets of 3 different exercises per body part, working at least 2 a day like Chest/Biceps, Back/Triceps, Shoulders/Legs, etc.

My condolences to the Scott family and much respect to one of the early prototypes.  Train In Peace.

Ghostbust In Peace: Harold Ramis

Dr. Egon Spengler himself, Harold Ramis, has died in his native Chicago at the age of 69 due to complications of autoimmune inflammatory vasculitis, a disease that involves swelling of blood vessels.  Working as a writer, director and actor since the 70's, Ramis wrote classics like Animal House and Meatballs before taking on directing duties for 1980's Stripes.  That film helped launch  Bill Murray into theatrical leading man status and the two would reunite on the Ghostbusters movies as well as Groundhog Day.  Ramis would go on to work with talent like Michael Keaton, Brenden Fraser, Elizabeth Hurley, Billy Crystal, Jack Nicholson, Robert DeNiro and John Cusack as a director and actor in Multiplicity, As Good As It Gets, Bedazzled, The Ice Harvest and Analyze This.  Groundhog Day is one of my favorite comedies from the 90's and I doubt there's too many kids my age who didn't see Ghostbusters as a child.  A third installment has been in the works for some time with original members Dan Aykroyd and Ramis vying to recruit young blood into the series as well as woo the now notoriously picky Bill Murray back to the gang.

Laugh and Ghostbust In Peace, Mr. Ramis.

Hanging out, talking movies:

View In Peace: James "Jim" Jacks and Hard Target

Earlier this week, the death of movie producer James "Jim" Jacks quietly hit the news and interwebs in the form of a few brief articles and a couple detailed write ups from friends and collaborators like Kevin Smith and Harry Knowles.  His name might not strike the household familiarity of say a Jerry Bruckheimer or to a lesser extent Joel Silver but Jacks amassed a list of timeless classics like Jean-Claude Van Damme as a greasy mulleted samurai in Hard Target, the action ensemble western classic Tombstone, Richard Linklater's seminal Dazed and Confused, Kevin Smith's maligned but awesome Mallrats, Benecio Del Toro and Tommy Lee Jones' Rambo update The Hunted and his most successful work, 1999's The Mummy.  The Mummy was followed by two hit sequels and a successful spin off, The Scorpion King; which has had now spawned 3 direct to video sequels (the latest featuring Michael Biehn!).

A former wall street analyst who turned to screenwriting before working acquisitions at Universal and segueing into producing, Jacks is said to have been a hardcore movie lover.  1993 was a banner year for him as Hard Target, Dazed and Confused and Tombstone all hit theaters across the country.  Each holds it's own place in my and cinema's lore as they have all transcended generations and still resonate 20 years on.  Even though each title is held in high regard, at least two of them never matched the original intent of Jacks and his partners in celluloid.

By the early 90's, Jean-Claude Van Damme was the still the hot, young guy coming up the action ladder following Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger while competing with fellow new to the scene martial artist, Steven Seagal.  After a string of successful, low budget karate movies, 1992's Universal Soldier was his first decent budget, more mainstream action affair that had a talented director and studio support.  The flick performed well around the world and JCVD tried his hand at further broadening his audience with Nowhere To Run, a modern day Shane where VD protects a mother and her kids from evil land owners.  With nary a roundhouse kick or full split to be seen, Nowhere To Run might have fulfilled the Belgian's desire to try something different but audiences did not turn out and grosses were less than his previous 3 films.

Hard Target was the beginning of Van Damme's real push into the big leagues (it was also my second R-rated movie in a theater).  Universal saw his potential and figured with the right support, he could break into the $50-60 million grosses and join Arnold and Sly at the top of the mountain.  Former Navy Seal Chuck Pfarrer's (Navy Seals!) script is the story of Chance Boudreaux, a Merchant Marine struggling to make a living who helps out a young lawyer searching for her missing father.  Turns out her dad was a Vietnam veteran who agreed to be the subject of a twisted game that finds rich hunters paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to track and kill their fellow man.  Lance Henriksen and Arnold Vosloo turn up as the dastardly duo behind the sick scheme and it's up to Van Damme, the chick from Drop Zone (Yancy Butler) and mother fucking Wilford Brimley to stop them.

I'm not sure whose idea it was to go after noted Hong Kong director John Woo but the mayhem maestro behind The Killer signed on for his first American feature after Jacks and Universal set their sights on him.  Van Damme gave his stamp of approval but unfortunately, the $18 million production would be awash with problems from Van Damme being given far reaching creative control to Woo's unfamiliarity with the English language and American filmmaking process.  See, in Hong Kong, movies shoot for a while, stop and assess then continue on.  You can't do that kind of thing in America as studios need product to fill their slate so Woo was stranded without his team, working in a language not his own and a nervous studio watching over his shoulder.  Universal enlisted Evil Dead and Darkman director Sam Raimi to the production, ready to take over if Woo fell behind.  Even though Raimi was in awe of Woo and didn't think he would be able to bring anything better to the project.

After re-shooting the final confrontation between Van Damme and Henriksen, editing the picture would find the Muscles From Brussels presenting his own version along with Woo's cut that had to be trimmed down to avoid an NC-17 rating.  Jacks supported Woo's version as they didn't want a typical "Van Damme movie".  Test screenings were horrendous but finally on August 20th of 1993, Hard Target hit theaters, opening to $10 million on it's way to a $32 million total.  The tally was higher than Nowhere to Run but less than Universal Soldier.  Critics would deem it Van Damme's best but Woo's worst.  As it stands, Hard Target is a well made and violent action picture that does it's best to mesh Woo's human drama mixed with balletic gun violence and Van Damme's high kicking super heroics.  You get way too much slow motion, lots of close ups, bad puns, shoot'em ups, kick'em ups, jack rabbits slapping bears, horses, snake smacking, Mardi Gras, Lance Henriksen being set on fire, mama's taking chances and Ted Raimi saying "I ain't got no change, man!".

Post mortem, Van Damme would dismiss Hard Target for having a bad script and too much "John Woo bullshit" but having some good action and making him look strong.  Woo would remain political and say they did the best they could with what they had and didn't close the door on working with Van Damme again.  It never happened.  Van Damme would go on to his biggest hit, Timecop, before turning down a huge deal with Universal and sliding into a career funk filled with drug problems and messy divorces.  Woo would go on to find success after success, working with John Travolta, Nicolas Cage and Tom Cruise on Broken Arrow, Face/Off and Mission Impossible II before returning to Chinese cinema following the poorly received Windtalkers and Paycheck.

Come back next time as we check out Jacks' work on a fellow, troubled production: Tombstone.  Until then, enjoy Van Damme beating up some thugs after having some tragic gumbo.

Train in Peace: Andy Hug

Woke up this morning with a hankering to do some shadow boxing and jump roping as cardio.  They say working out on an empty stomach first thing in the morning helps you burn fat as your blood sugar is constant and low from sleep so the body turns to fat stores for energy.  From Dolph Lundgren swimming or walking to Jean-Claude Van Damme cycling to The Rock Elliptical machine-ing it, empty stomach morning cardio has plenty of success stories.

To begin, I opted for shadow boxing via one Bas Rutten, a tough yet hilarious Kickboxer turned MMA champion from the Netherlands.  I'm not sure when he released his workout series but I've had mine since the mid 2000's.  It contains four separate workouts:  Boxing, Thai Boxing, All-Around Fighting and All-Around Workout.  I remember doing these years ago when I had a full workout space complete with punching bags and they were very hard but a great workout.  If you've never had your shirt completely soaked through with sweat, try these bad boys sometime.  If you do the full workout, it's only about 30 minutes but you will be wiped out.

Warming up with 50 jumping jacks and 50 mountain climbers, I jumped into 2-minute rounds of Boxing and completed 6 of the 10 as I wanted to save some energy for jump rope as well.  The tapes also provide 3 minute rounds when you're ready.  Then it was time to jump rope so I put on some Youtube clips of Andy Hug, the Swiss Kyokushin karate champion turned K-1 kickboxer Grand Prix winner who sadly died at 35 from leukemia.  Hug was always in great shape: muscular, proportioned and cut to pieces.  There were plenty of matches, workout montages and greatest hits (literally) on Youtube to keep me occupied and motivated while skipping rope in my living room.

Again, I went for 2 minute rounds jumping in sets of 50 until time was up.  You can jump rope a million different ways and they say it's 3 times the workout of running.  So if you jump rope for 10 minutes, it's like a 30 minute jog since you're always moving and using your calves, quads, core, arms and shoulders throughout.  To spice things up, I started some rounds with a set of jumping backwards and in another I threw in intervals at 20 seconds working and 10 of rest.  In between rounds I did some ab work with reverse crunches, twists and the good ol' ab wheel.  6 rounds of that and I was feeling light and tight, ready to face a day of lounging.

One of my favorite matches of Hug's was against Stan "The Man" Longinidis, a computer programmer turned Kickboxing champion from Australia.  I had heard of The Man because he broke the leg of American champion and Van Damme co-star in Kickboxer, Dennis Alexio.  Longinidis utilized a Muy Thai style that relied on vicious low kicks and the two came out fast and furious, winging high velocity kicks and punches at each other before almost falling out of the ring.  Hug would win by Knockout after softening Longinidis up with a cracking head kick followed up by a perfect left straight right down the middle that laid The Man flat out on the canvas.

Train in Peace, oss!