Routine and Diet
Chuck followed what could be described as an instinctual approach to both his routine and his diet. Rather than sticking to any one approach rigidly, he would pay close attention to his body and how he felt, and make changes accordingly.
Nevertheless, he did follow certain principles, which included lifting heavy more or less all the time (right up to maximum lifts), minimizing rest between sets, and using other intensification schemes.
Here's a few sample layouts written by Chuck Sipes to give you a better idea of his approach:
He appears to favored two-day splits which resulted in him working every body part three times a week. Chuck was very keen to document his routines, especially after coming out against steroid use in bodybuilding and strength training.
Although Chuck initially trained with Bill Pearl, he later moved to training at home. Chuck had few training partners, and those he had were neighborhood blokes, not the superstars to be found at Pearl's, Gironda's, or the original Gold's. Norm Komich, the young mentee who read the eulogy at Chuck's funeral, remembers his surprise at finally visiting the place where Chuck had trained for his 1968 Mr. World win:"We were very anxious to see the Chuck's famous home gym and we headed straight for the garage. I cannot tell you the shock we experienced when we saw the basic and actually crude setup he had. The primary piece was a wooden power rack."
Chuck didn't have an Olympic bar, and when he needed some extra weight for his heavy "support" movements (discussed below), he went to the local train yard and took some old train wheels. He had no machines or squat rack, not even a dumbbell rack. The only other piece of "equipment" he had was some nylon straps set into the rafters so that he could do chins, and wide hangs to stretch his lats.
The lesson for gym-bros everywhere should be clear.
One aspect of Chuck's approach that has been vindicated many times over is his insistence on generally beginning his workouts with heavy (power)lifting, and then following with bodybuilding exercises. Since Chuck's time, this method has been used to great effect by stacked powerlifters like Roger Estep, who helped explode the myth that powerlifters have to be monstrously fat. Variously described as "the best built man in powerlifting" and "the bastard child of Gaetan Dugas and the Incredible Hulk," Estep combined a powerlifting total of well over 2,000 pounds at 198, with a physique that would not have been out of place next to Mike Mentzer on the Olympia stage.
There's a five-part interview with him on this blog, as well as a few training articles and a seminar.
After beginning his routine with heavy squats and bench presses, or squats and deadlifts, and various power-assistance exercises like high or low box squats, Estep would always finish with bodybuilding movements. Look at Joe Ladnier, Kirk Karwoski or Bobby Myers for further examples.
Chuck's bench press specialization routine involved working up to a maximum bench press and then doing sets of partial reps at various heights from the chest, as discussed in Part One.
Start by doing 2 warmup sets of 8, then 2 sets with a weight you can manage for 6 reps with good form. This weight should be heavy, but not so heavy that you struggle to complete the sets.
Now increase the weight and drop to 2 sets of 4,
then again increase and drop to 2 sets of 2.
Finally, hit your max, and then try another single, or even two.
Repeat the process, this time lifting the bar from pins set at the middle range of motion (6,6,4,4,2,2), then again with the pins set further up (4,4,2,2), and then finally with the pins set about an inch from lockout. It's not clear how many reps he advocated doing in this final position; he would have increased the weight well beyond his max for a conventional full-range bench press.
I can testify to the value of loading the bar for a squat with a weight that is well in excess of your max, and then stepping out and just holding/supporting the weight on your back for a minute or longer before walking it back in to the rack. This builds a sense of confidence as well as preparing the muscles, ligaments and tendons for lifting heavier loads down the line. Try it.
To improve the bench press, Chuck also recommended focusing on developing the triceps. He considered this to be among the most important accessory work you could do for the bench. In his pamphlet "Triceps Power," he notes how lifters looking to improve their bench had neglected the triceps, thinking that extra shoulder work and then pectoral assistance work would pay off most, before realizing by process of elimination that in fact it must be the triceps they should be working on.
"At first, no one could say for sure. Maybe it was the delts. So they tried military presses. They didn't prove to help the bench a great deal. So they tried dips with plenty of weight. Pat Casey did them endlessly, dropping to an extremely low position, but they ground up his shoulders and he eventually stopped. Extreme range of motion like the military press and dip was out; the pecs and delts were out. That left the triceps."
The two exercises he favored for triceps were the cheat pullover and the rack lockout. Cheat pullovers can either be performed off the bench or with the weight on the floor. You can put a towel on the bench and then bounce/rebound the weight off it, allowing for heavier poundages. Or, you can place the bar on the floor at the end of the bench, with feet hooked on the bench legs. This movement off the floor is more like a bent-arm pullover, which then transitions into an extension at the end of the movement. For the rack lockout, sit on a 60-degree incline bench in a power rack. Take a 6" grip on the bar and do short skull crushers to lockout, keeping your upper arm vertical.
I've already mentioned that Chuck would try to minimize rest between sets as much as possible, sometimes to as little as 10 seconds.
Another intensification method he used was pyramid sets, in particular the 1-10/10-1. The method is simple . . . you do 1 rep, rest for a short period of time, then 2 reps, rest again and so on, all the way up to 10, then back down to 1. Keep the rest to an absolute minimum. If you can manage the full scheme of 10, you've done 100 reps. If you fail going up in reps, descend from there. This scheme can be used for any exercise, and is a very effective finisher for any body part; for instance, after 3 sets of heavy curls do a 1-10/10-1 with much less weight on the bar for a final pump.
Interesting protein powder choice
Like his gym setup, Chuck's diet was simple; although, again, he did experiment and try some interesting things.
"Eat a well-balanced diet of meats, fish, fruits and vegetables. Avoid high-calorie foods such as bread, cake, candy, macaroni products and all foods containing white flour and white sugar. High-calorie foods add fat to your waistline and will make your abdominal training a lot tougher than it should be."
Chuck gave the eminently sensible recommendation that your food consumption should mirror your activity levels. Given that he worked as a lumberjack as well as performing hard, heavy and frequent workouts that would have the average gym-bro crying into their Gold's sweatshirt, he generally appears to have eaten a lot of food. It's not easy to find a definitive daily diet, and given the openness with which he approached his lifting regime, listening to his body and making alterations whenever he felt they were appropriate, it's probable that he made many changes to his diet, as it suited him.
Here's a sample diet advocated by Chuck:
Breakfast: a glass of fruit juice, whole grain cereal, wholewheat bread and honey, and a protein drink (2 glasses milk, 2 raw eggs, protein powder and flavoring), vitamin C tablet, wheat germ oil, vitamin/mineral, B12 and a handful of liver tabs.
Mid-morning: protein drink (as before) and a handful of nuts.
Lunch: 2 sandwiches (cheese, meat, or peanut butter), fresh green salad, 2 glasses of milk, a thick soup or cottage cheese, either jello or a pudding, tsp of wheat germ oil.
Mid-afternoon: protein drink and fresh fruit.
Dinner: meat (broiled or baked), fresh green salad, vegetables, 2 glasses of milk, ice cream or fruit salad, vitamin C tablet.
Bedtime: protein drink.
Chuck recommended adding germ oils, sunflower seeds, papaya, peanuts and lots of milk to your regular diet.
Sample protein drink:
300 ml milk
scoop of protein powder
2 spoonfuls blackstrap molasses
1 spoonful honey
1 spoonful Ovaltine
1 banana
1 scoop ice cream.
Enjoy Your Lifting!
