Manitoba Muscle
Darren Mehling
BA, CSCS
As a strongman competitor, Darren has pulled 50,000 lb trucks and dead lifted 805 lbs. As a competitive bodybuilder, he has won Provincial Super-heavyweight & Overall titles. As President & CEO of FREAK Fitness, he has coached his clients to hundreds of Novice, Provincial/State, National, and IFBB Pro titles. Having been involved in the sport of bodybuilding for over 20 years, Darren has his finger on the pulse of the local and international bodybuilding scenes, and will be keeping you informed through his column, “Freak Fitness."
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How Do You Train A Natural Bodybuilder Versus One Using Steroids
Q. How do you train a natural bodybuilder versus one using steroids? What are the major differences from a purely training standpoint?
A. There’s not a lot of difference with how I train a natural bodybuilder versus one using steroids. The desired training effect is the same, so the work volume, intensity, and load are relatively similar. Aside from individual differences that are considered when designing training programs for a bodybuilder, natural or otherwise, the biggest difference lies in lifestyle factors and how the bodybuilder deals with them. Please let me explain.
If a natural bodybuilder has a stressful job, has a shaky home life, and gets very little sleep, he won’t have much left to give all he can to his workouts. Through regular updates and feedback from the bodybuilder, if I observe that he is losing ground, I will begin to reduce his work volume until he begins to progress again.
As a comparison, if I have a steroid-using bodybuilder in a similar situation, a reduction in work volume may still be required to get him back to making progress, but generally speaking, the reduction would happen at a much later time, and if work volume is reduced, it wouldn’t be to the same degree as his natural counterpart.
If you want to get trained by Darren Mehling, visit his website FreakFitness.ca
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