My First Half-Century of Training - Serge Nubret - T.C. Luoma (1992)

Seeing as it's September 22nd, our first Say What You Will Day on the blog here, I will add a few comments and asides with this one . . . Hey, we're gettin' two, count 'em TWO generations of lying scumbag Iron Game peddlers here, and it is, after all, September 22 on the blog! 

 

My first thought here is if this fella figured all the horse meat would work well with Equipoise. And now, to the interview . . . 

"The only thing that will stop me from training is my death," agreed Serge, his French accent still strong. "I stopped training once for a period of three years. I lost mass and gained fat. Of course, I was still training other people, so my mind was with them. I shaped them as I would have shaped myself. During that time I never once looked in the mirror (laughing). I started again, and I won't quit this time. The older you get, the harder it is to start again." 

In bodybuilding age equates to experience, and experience equates to knowledge. Unfortunately, a lot of bodybuilders, by the time they really know what they're doing, are ready to retire. Life is pretty darn cruel that way. 

Smart bodybuilders, however, can circumvent all that by stealing . . . er, absorbing . . . knowledge from older bodybuilders who have already made the mistakes you probably want to avoid. Hence this interview with Serge Nubret, who was competing in the Olympia back when the only weights some of you were lifting came in the shape of a baby bottle. 

Yes. 53 years old and a half century of training. Sounds like Nubret was lifting a bottle-shaped bar to me, T.C. 

Serge Nubret has some interesting, some wild, and some controversial theories and opinions to share with readers. 

"My training really has not changed much through the years," began Serge. "I learned many of the methods I use now during my first few years of training. I do have to train harder now, though, because I am older. My metabolic rate is slower, so I exercise to burn calories. I still don't use heavy weights -- I use high reps, with very little rest between sets. Most bodybuilders stay in the sport for five years or so, and then (snapping his fingers) they're gone. Many have injuries all over. I'm 53, and I don't have any injuries, and I enjoy lifting. 

Note: Lemme get this straight. My first half century of training. He started when he was three years old? Hey, no worries here. Maybe part of the reason so many guys quit bodybuilding after five or fewer years is all the lies, subtle and not so? Alright already, same old . . . take what you can learn from everything and move forward till you can't. 

"When you use heavy weight, your concentration is more on weight, and you cannot shape the body the way you want to. I've never believed in heavy weights, except for maybe legs and calves -- they are very powerful muscles. for the other muscles, you want to fill them with blood, and you will get a better pump from a moderate weights than you would with a heavy weight. With a moderate weight you can do a set every 20 seconds. With heavy weights you have to stop for two or more minutes between sets, and you lose the pump. Most of the people who use heavy weights look good on the day of the contest because they diet hard, but they are good only one day of the year. If you train rapidly with lighter weights, you have less fat, your muscles are harder, and you look good all the time." 

As mentioned, Serge's workouts do indeed take about five hours. His current layout is as follows: 

Monday - Quads/Chest/Abs

Tuesday - Shoulders/Biceps/Triceps/Calves

Wednesday - Back, Lower Back, Hamstrings, Calves.

He then repeats the cycle, and Sundays are spent training his weak points, if you can imagine him having any. Serge trains each bodypart for an average of an hour and a half a day, including abs. "I do situps for cardiovascular work," explained Serge. "Usually I do about 2,000. Also, my best weight training is very quick, so it is like cardio too." 

Noticeably lacking from the above split are any off days. Do you take any days off, Serge? "No, no, no. I don't need them. Since I've been living in California (about a year), I've only taken five or six days off." 

Because he uses lighter weights and works each bodypart only twice a week, Serge doesn't believe that it's possible to overtrain, if such a thing even exists. "I don't know if you can overtrain. [Just fucking shut it already with this horseshite. "I don't know if you can overtrain."]Sometimes I think the word overtraining is just an excuse not to train." 

Serge is still making progress with his training, and he believes age is no deterrent. "I think older bodybuilders can still make progress. Even if you don't put on a lot more mass, you can still shape your body. Shaping is very important, more important than mass. Mass is easy. Shaping takes a long time. Of course, the older you get, the more important you have to be with your diet."

Serge's diet is, well, a little different. The average nutritionist would choke on his bean-curd soufflés upon hearing of how Serge eats . . . 

"I only eat once a day -- at night -- but I eat a lot. That's why I can't eat in the daytime. If I start, I don not stop. I eat so much at night that I have enough calories for the rest of the day. Of course, I had to train my body to do it. You can train your body to do anything you want it to, if you do it slowly. You can't change your habits in one day. I cannot eat small meals six times a day like people do here -- I don't have time. I prefer to take three hours at nigh and eat 5,000 calories." 

Foolish writer that I am, I questioned the wisdom of this. Serge had his argument prepared. "Look, let's take two people with the same metabolism. Both eat 5,000 calories a day. One eats five meals of 1,000 calories each. The other eats one meal of 5,000 calories. The guy who eats 5,000 calories in five meals will put more fat on. The guy who eats all 5,000 in one meal can't absorb all 5,000 at once. So I enjoy my food, but instead of using all 5,000 calories, my body absorbs maybe 2,500." 

Despite his radical eating habits, Serge's choice of foods seems to consist of fairly traditional bodybuilding fare. "I love to cook, and I eat mostly things from the West Indies like lentils, black beans, pinto beans, rice, chicken and red meat. I prefer red meat. I cook it for two hours, so all the fat between the muscles melts into the sauce. Then I put the sauce in the freezer, and all the fat floats up to the top. I take the fat off, and I have lean sauce.

"Of course, when you train for five hours a day at top speed, you don't have to worry too much about how much fat your food has in it, especially when you do one or two hours of abs. You know, your stomach is like the motor of your car. If you put good fuel into it and perform maintenance on it, it will run smoothly all year long. If you eat well, and train your abs, you will never be sick [what a bozo]. You never see someone with good abs in the hospital, for example [I believe I may be correct in saying NO to this crap]. But you can have 20 inch arms and still be sick if your stomach and abs are bad. Every sickness comes from bad food [yeah, right, Dr. Nubret. That and dirty rigs.] 

In an effort to steer us away from bad food and toward the B-grade porn movies and steroids Nubret and his wife peddle, chef Serge is currently working on a cookbook for release early in 1992. "It's about food for bodybuilders, or course. Not food like rice with sauce -- that's boring. It's boring to stay in the gym all the time, and if it's boring again when you eat, you're not living." Serge's book will contain 45 recipes for foods that are high in protein and low in fat. For instance, it'll have a recipe for crepes that taste as good as the fatty, eggy, cholesterolish ones, but have approximately 50-60% protein with a third of the fat.

Back in 1975, long before Serge had an urge to work on cookbooks, he was involved in his first Mr. Olympia contest, and the total prize money was only $1,000. "That's the main difference in bodybuilding today -- money. Now the total prize money is $250,000. People will kill themselves for that much money. I predict that in five to 10 years the prize money will be a million. Who knows what bodybuilders will do to themselves for such a reward?" 

 -- I guess we all now know now, right. 

"Another difference today is that bodybuilding is now more chemistry than sport. There are so many good bodybuilders now, and it is very difficult to win. I believe that, if I were 20-30 years old and competing now, I would be Mr. Olympia, because everything they use today would be available to me (a reference to GH). As far as steroids are concerned, I don't believe too much in them [but did bring shit-tons in from Europe repeatedly and over a long period of time]. I know you can build your muscles without steroids and have almost exactly the same results." 

 -- Lying sack of shite. Hey, ain't it September 22nd? That's the day we don't swallow horse (pardon the pun) meat that's calling itself beef. Is it horse? Is it beef. I know it's B.S. but . . . anyhow . . . these fools just love to hang themselves with their own lies. I'd bet they even begin to believe them themselves! Hey, I's a perfessional bodybuilder, I be sayin' whatever ya pay me to say. World's biggest 'he man' whores going. By the way, does GH increase even lip strength. Great for blowing promoters, equipment manufacturers and supp company execs. Beautiful! 

Serge has also noticed how female bodybuilding has evolved, and, frankly, he isn't too fond of the direction it's taken. "They should stop it," said Serge flatly. "It's not women's bodybuilding anymore; it's men's. I mean, it's gone too far. Bodybuilding is a sport [where in hell these asshats see a "sport" in this thing I have no idea] so no one can say what is too much development. They can't say, 'Oooh, you went too far for a woman, so you are disqualified,' But they should say, 'Put on as much muscle as you want, but naturally, not with testosterone, because when they take testosterone, they want to be men!"

So, what's your excuse for taking it, Mr. Nubret? I mean, we can get "almost exactly the same results" without, no? A wee bit of slimy lying never hurt a "sport" did it! Oh, it's just to "finish" the physique, get more defined, and hold mass at the same time. Lying scumbags. 

Thank God for September 22nd here! 

Of all the things Serge has learned in his career, aside from technique, eating right, knowing his body, drugs and all those superficial things, there is one thing he wishes he could have learned right off the bat. "The years of bodybuilding made me very strong in my mind. It taught me concentration. It taught me that if I believe in myself, I can do anything I want to do. 

Fly, Serge. Come on. You want to and have the mental strength, right? Anything I want to do. These fucks are a blend of lies and tiresome mouth-sounds puked into our air, sad positivist liars clutching at straws and . . . wait for it . . . Yes . . . finally dying and shutting up already about their own grandiose claims to being able to "do anything" because they piddled with a few silly toys, bells and bars, and actually believed this was hardship to be overcome. Get outta here. All of ya's with yer broken heads and sorry props, crutches and thin veneers of self serving belief smeared on like shit everywhere I look. 

It's rough, Baby. Rough, I tells ya.

"To have a good physique, that's easy. Anyway, one day you die, and then your body is left for the worms. If you can use the discipline you learn in bodybuilding to benefit the other things in your life, that's fantastic." 

Despite the morbid allusions to death and being eaten by worms [note: this can happen when you speak or read the French language I hear], it'll be years and years before they play a dirge for Serge [don't even bother with sounds if you're this lame at it, thank you].  Actually,  he died in 2009. 

Besides, Serge, in the words of Richard Pryor, would kick Death's ass if he came calling. Apparently not. 

 

I was overpowered by the urge to lie about today's date. This horseshitting lifestyle of a big time b-builder is bloody contagious, Mate! If I woulda stuck to stamp collecting as a kid would the people in it have turned out to be equally big assholes? Who knows. Who knows. 

Enjoy Your Lying!