here are a copy and paste from Men's health:
Look Like A Men's Health Cover Model
Here's how our guys got in shape, and how they stay that way
(MensHealth.com Exclusive: Additional Routine!)
By Lou Schuler
You look at the man on the home page of this Web site. You look at yourself in the mirror. You ask: Why him? Why not me?
It's the single biggest request we see in the mail and online: How can I look like your cover model? So we turned that question around to the ultimate experts: the cover models themselves. And they told us.
Their methods will surprise you. Genetic material aside, these are pretty average guys. Typically, they're men in their early to late 30s, a little over 6 feet tall, between 175 and 190 pounds, married, with one or two kids. But their workouts and diets are all over the map. Taken together, they offer a trove of tips for men who have a lot of demands on their time, just like you do.
The best news is that there are many different paths to the same destination: a great body. And one of those paths will work for you, too. We'll hold the cover; let us know when you're ready.
OWEN MCKIBBIN
Age: 37
Lives: in Santa Monica, California, with his wife and son
Most recent cover: November 2000
Ever since Owen McKibbin first appeared on the cover of Men's Health -- back in February 1995 -- readers have accused us of altering his photos. That crevasse running down the middle of his abdomen just can't be natural, they argue.
In fact, there is a certain Frankenstein quality to McKibbin, but he's in great shape in spite of that, not because of it. His right shoulder is missing a half inch of bone--shaved off to save his rotator cuff. And one knee has been through three surgeries and has no anterior cruciate ligament. His back is held together with titanium screws, put in to repair a break that had been there at least 12 years. "Those things look like they belong on an oil rig," he says. Working with all these spare or missing parts, McKibbin, a former pro beach-volleyball player, can't work out like a normal guy. He plays it safe with his back, shoulders, and knees. But he follows a program so intense it would land most of us on the DL--from exhaustion, if not injury.
His favorite workout is a grueling series of climbs on a 350-foot staircase that goes from the beach up the Palisade in Santa Monica, California. He runs the stairs two at a time, stops at the top to do 40 pushups, walks down (one step at a time, to put less stress on his knees), does15 pullups, then runs up again.
He alternates between running the stairs on his toes -- which develops the quadriceps and calves -- and climbing them flat-footed, which puts more emphasis on the hamstrings and gluteals. He does this 10 times per workout, two workouts a week.
McKibbin also trains in the gym 2 or 3 days a week, spending much of his time on shoulder work. Here's a favorite arm/shoulder combo move:
OWEN'S CURLS
Grab a pair of dumbbells you think you can curl 10 to 15 times. Sit on a bench. Hold the weights with your arms at your sides, palms facing forward
[1] Curl them to your shoulders
[2] then rotate your palms so they're facing away from you
[3] and press the dumb-bells overhead
[4] Reverse the sequence as you lower them.
Do this slowly 10 times. Then, without putting the weights down, do 10 more presses.
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RUSSELL BROWN
Age: 30
Lives: in Sherman Oaks, California, with his girlfriend
Most recent cover: March 2000
While Russell Brown can't quite compete with Owen McKibbin's history of surgical repairs, he suspects he's the only MH cover model to have recently undergone hernia surgery. And he's certainly the only one to leave the computer industry to take up modeling at the age of 24. "I cofounded one company in Dallas, but we were ahead of the curve with our ideas," he says.
Brown started his new career as a strong and buff 215-pounder, but to make it as a model he brought his everyday weight down to 194, and usually drops to 188 for photo shoots. That requires a very different approach in the weight room.
"Anybody can get big and strong," he says, but huge guys often lack muscular endurance, or the ability to do the long (1 1/2-to-2-hour), high-repetition workouts with proper form that keep Brown's weight down. He lifts heavy weights only 1 day a week, doing sets of eight to 10 repetitions. The other 4 days in the gym, he'll go lighter with sets of 15 to 25 repetitions, resting very little between sets.
RUSSELL'S WORKOUT
Here's one of Brown's favorite chest routines. Select a weight (barbell or dumbbells) you think you can bench-press 25 times. Do a 25-repetition set. Rest less than a minute, then try it again. If you can't do all 25 repetitions, do the balance in pushups. In other words, if you can handle only 18 repetitions, finish with seven pushups. Then do two more sets this way, for a total of 100 combined bench presses and pushups.
Too easy? Alternate these with 25-repetition, pullup/lat-pulldown sets.
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GREGG AVEDON
Age: 36
Lives: in Ft. Lauderdale with his wife and two children
Most recent cover: December, 2000
Gregg Avedon has a degree in graphic design -- he worked as an art director for 2 years before he started modeling -- and actually knows how to airbrush a photo. But as a model, he's made sure his physique never needs retouching. He's built such a portfolio of knowledge that he rarely steps outside his house without someone asking him a question about exercise or nutrition. Which is fine with him--he's been lifting weights for 21 years, modeling for 12, and pursuing acting for the last 3, and is happy to share what he knows. "I'm a guinea pig for fitness--every supplement, every diet, every workout routine, you name it and I've probably been on it," he says. He weighs 185 now, but pumped his way up to 245 in college, when he entered 22 bodybuilding shows over 6 years, and has trimmed all the way down to 175 for photo shoots. For anyone who's trying to gain or lose weight, Avedon says the key is cycling: balancing time on a diet with time off it. "Your first cycle on a diet might be only 2 weeks. Then maybe you take 2 or 3 days and go completely off the diet. Then jump back on the wagon and go on the diet for a month, and then go off it for a week. The cycling keeps you from getting so tired of the diet that you completely abandon it."
GREGG'S DIET
Avedon puts a tablespoonful of ground-up flaxseeds -- a great source of healthy unsaturated fat -- on top of his toast and jelly at breakfast. (You have to grind them because your body can't digest their husks.) You can get a bag of flaxseeds at a health-food store for a couple of bucks, Avedon says. He grinds them in an espresso grinder.
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SCOTT KING
Age: 31
Lives: Just north of Orlando, Florida
Most recent cover: November 1999
Most of our cover guys use less weight and do more repetitions to develop the look they want. King, a firefighter and emergency medical technician when he's not modeling, isn't having any of that. "I like lifting heavy. I just like the way it feels," he says.
He varies his workouts quite a bit, but isn't afraid to train his back by doing five or six sets of power cleans, with just two or three repetitions per set. Or his entire biceps workout might consist of five to seven sets of curls with a straight barbell, doing five repetitions per set with 100 pounds.
"I'm a big believer in high intensity and not staying in the gym all day," he says. His weight workouts are typically 40 minutes to an hour, 4 or 5 days a week, and he follows them with 20 to 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise. "I'm not as strict with that as I am with the weight training," he says. He'll typically use one aerobic machine for a week's worth of workouts, then switch to something else the next week. He monitors his heart rate during his aerobic sessions, trying to keep it at about 140 beats per minute.
SCOTT'S POWER CLEAN
To get the most benefit from the power clean, an exercise that works your upper back, arms, lower back, and gluteals, follow this sequence: Start with a very light weight--probably just the bar -- and do five sets of five repetitions at the start of your workouts two times a week until you feel you have the form right. After that, steadily increase the weights, doing power cleans one or two workouts a week. After 4 weeks, take a break from this exercise entirely for 4 to 6 weeks before starting up again.
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RICK DIETZ
Age: 38
Lives: in Atlanta with his wife and three children
Most recent cover: August 1999
When Dietz describes his workouts, the word "fast" comes up a lot. He has little time to spare. In addition to being a model, he's a chiropractor who runs two businesses; his family life eats up whatever time is available after his professional pursuits.
"I have an understanding of anatomy and physiology, so that gives me an edge in putting routines together," he says. Ideally, he lifts in the morning and does cardiovascular exercise in the evenings, but life doesn't always work out that way. "It's hard to be as consistent as I want to be," he says. He settles for staying close to cover-model shape most of the year.
Dietz varies his workouts according to whether he's trying to add a little size or get more definition. If he's trying to bulk up, he'll work unrelated muscle groups in each workout--for example, he'll do chest and biceps together, since the biceps aren't taxed during a chest workout and he'll be able to work them with more intensity. If he wants more muscle definition, he'll work related muscle groups--chest and triceps, or back and biceps.
Whatever he does, he does fast. "I go from one exercise to another and always try to keep my heart rate between 120 and 140 beats per minute."
RICK'S V-SITUP
Dietz frequently includes the V-situp in his abdominal routines. Sit on the edge of a bench, holding on to the sides of the bench. Extend your legs so your heels are just off the floor and your knees are slightly bent. Now lift your legs toward your chest. Feel the squeeze in your abdominals, hold for a second, then lower your legs and repeat. Dietz does three sets of 40 repetitions.
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TOM CORTESI
Age: 33
Lives: in Los Angeles, with his fiancee
Most recent cover: February 2000
Tom Cortesi is proof that you can take the leanness thing too far. Earlier in his career, he'd start a workout by burning 1,000 calories with hard cardiovascular exercise--an hour on the LifeCycle at level 8, for example--and then lift for an hour. Meanwhile, his diet consisted of boiled chicken breasts, egg whites, and salads with no dressing. "I was thinking I looked really good," Cortesi says. "But people were looking at me and asking, 'Dude, are you okay?'"
Gradually, he shifted to a more normal diet and workout routine. "I still don't eat fast food and rarely drink alcohol, but if everyone's going out for pizza, I'm in," he says. He eats three meals a day and drinks protein shakes between meals.
Cortesi trains in the gym three or four times a week, focusing on one or two muscle groups in each workout. His metabolism is still high, so he does no cardiovascular exercise beyond a 5-minute warmup on a stationary bike or stairclimbing machine.
He marvels at how little exercise it takes to keep his body camera-ready. "People hate to hear that, but it's true. Getting to this point was the hardest part. Maintenance is fairly simple."
TOM'S POWER MOVES
Cortesi does three sets of one power exercise with heavy weights and relatively few repetitions -- 10 in the first set, eight in the second, six in the third, using more weight on each set. Then he'll do three sets each of two or three more exercises, completing 15 to 20 repetitions. For example, here are his chest, back, and leg routines:
CHEST Power exercise: barbell bench press Other exercises: incline dumbbell press, decline dumbbell fly, cable crossover or pec-deck fly
BACK Power exercises: wide-grip pullups to the front and back of his head (three sets each, as many repetitions as he can do) Other exercises: underhand-grip lat pulldown, seated cable row
LEGS Power exercise: squat Other exercises: leg press, leg extension, leg curl
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NATHAN OGILVIE
Age: 31
Lives: in Chicago
Most recent cover: October 2000
You look at a man like Ogilvie -- 6'1'', 171 pounds, with a huge chest and tiny waist -- and you think: college athlete, maybe a point guard, a free safety, leadoff hitter and outfielder. "I played saxophone in the marching band in high school," he says. "I never really played sports."
Well, you would think, he at least pushes some heavy weights around in the gym. Wrong again. "I'll lift a little heavier if I need to look bigger for a shoot, but heavy for me is light for almost anyone else," he says. "I can only bench, at the most, 205."
NATHAN'S 30-30 WORKOUT PLAN
Ogilvie is on the 30-30 plan: Each workout consists of 30 minutes of lifting, followed by 30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise. He does five workouts a week: one each for chest, legs, arms, back, and abdominals. He also does abdominals before two of his other workouts. A typical Monday workout is abdominal exercises followed by four chest exercises: bench press, incline press, decline press, and pec-deck fly. He alternates weekly between dumbbells, barbells, and Hammer Strength machines. He does three sets of 12 to 15 repetitions of each exercise. "I'm at the size I want to be, so I can do light weights with more reps. I'm just trying to tweak here and there to maintain what I have."
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ROBERT GOOLD
Age: 39
Lives: in San Diego with his two sons
Most recent cover: June 2000
A surfer, beach-volleyball player, and triathlete, Goold works hard in the gym three times a week. But he prefers the fresh air. "My favorite part is that euphoric feeling" -- the endorphin release that follows a long run, swim, or bike ride, he says.
In the gym, Goold looks for exercises and routines that help him maintain his athleticism. He usually supersets upper-body exercises for opposing muscle groups--a chest exercise followed immediately by a back exercise, for example.
He tries to maintain tension on the muscle throughout each exercise. If he has a weight in his hands, he wants his muscles to feel as if they're flexing. "I think you get results a lot quicker if you maintain that resistance," he says.
It's hard to argue that point. "People ask me how old I am, and they can't believe I'm 39," he says. "I look at them and I think, 'If you'd just stayed consistent....' I think that's the key."
ROBERT'S HANGING KNEE RAISES
Goold's favorite abdominal workout is with Ab-OrigiOnals elbow-supporting straps, which hang from a pullup bar
[1] He starts with hanging oblique crunches
[2, 3] and after 10 repetitions to each side, switches to hanging knee raises
[4] (Check out
www.aborigionals.com.)
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JIM BUOL
Age: 33
Lives: on Cape Cod with his wife and two children
Most recent cover: April 2000
It's a little incongruous that an Iowa farm boy travels to Milan and Paris to wear other people's clothes for a living. "I grew up doing hard manual labor," Buol says. "I get gratification out of building things, working with my hands."
Before modeling, he made his living doing masonry work, which he still does when he can. Some days, he hauls bricks up a ladder all day, 110 pounds at a time. And in between his two jobs, he found time to build his own house on Cape Cod 3 years ago.
Buol's workouts used to consist of 2-hour gym sessions 4 or 5 days a week, but now he avoids the gym. Instead, he runs three times a week, 5 to 6 miles at a time, carrying 2-pound weights in each hand. He breaks up the runs with calisthenics.
He can push himself hard on his runs -- he's run races in which he finished with sub-6-minute miles -- but usually trains at a 7-minute-mile pace. "I run along the Cape Cod National Seashore, and it's really beautiful. So I don't want to full-bore it. I enjoy it too much, to be honest."
JIM'S ROUTINE
Buol stops his runs four times: twice to do pushups and twice to do pullups. At the end of the run he does more than 100 repetitions of abdominal exercises with his legs resting on a bleacher seat (he hooks his toes under the seat above it). He does 40 oblique crunches to each side, then 40 straight crunches, then finishes with 40 more repetitions that mix the two exercises randomly.
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JACK GUY
Age: 39
Lives: in New York City and Hermosa Beach, California, with his wife
Most recent cover: June 1999
After 15 years of modeling -- and five Men's Health covers -- Guy retired about a year and a half ago. He's now on the other side of the camera, shooting celebrities, album covers, and fashion layouts.
He still works out, just not as fanatically. Instead of 6 or 7 days a week, he'll train 4 to 6, depending on his work schedule. And instead of struggling down to 185 pounds for his photo shoots, he keeps his weight at a more comfortable 200 pounds. He works hard in the gym, but doesn't attempt the 300-pound bench presses of his youth.
The most important lesson Guy learned from a decade and a half of looking good for a living is that there's no single way to get the body you want. "Everyone thinks there's a book or a formula, but you have to find out what works for your body," he says. "It's learning how your body works, how to use diet, training, and rest to get to your optimum level."
And now that he's learned, he's got the rest of his life to enjoy it -- without the pressure of having to display his applied knowledge on 1.6 million magazine covers a month.
JACK'S CABLE CROSSOVERS
A youth filled with heavy lifting left Guy with severe shoulder problems in his late 20s, which he countered with the help of Rich Barretta, owner of Duomo gym in Manhattan. Barretta had him limit his range of motion on chest exercises, which allowed him to train pain-free.
Start with your shoulder blades pulled together in back
[1] Then, keeping your middle-back muscles contracted, pull the two handles toward the middle of your chest
[2] Don't be confused by the name of the exercise: "Your hands won't get close to each other in front, much less cross over," Guy says. But you'll make your chest work harder and save your shoulders.
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RICK ARANGO
Age: 34
Lives: in Miami
Most recent cover: April 1999
Arango is a naturally skinny guy who has trouble keeping muscle on. His work and sports activities don't help. He's a landscaper when he's not modeling, spending long days in the Miami sun. He also swims, water-skis, windsurfs, rides a mountain bike, and, in the winter, snowboards. And he runs wind sprints a few days a week, too.
When he lifts, he likes to go heavy, focusing on power exercises like cleans and push presses, along with pullups, bench presses, and squats.
Two things Arango doesn't go for: abdominal exercises and a strict diet. "For many years, I did a lot of ab work, but not anymore. I can't remember the last time I did any." He feels that his overwhelming slate of sports and fitness activities gives those muscles plenty of work.
Likewise, he eats and drinks whatever he wants. "I eat a lot of ice cream. I drink beer. If I just ate salad and stuff, I'd disappear," he says. A problem we'd all like to have.
RICK'S STANDING PUSH PRESS
Hold weights at shoulder level, drop your hips as you bend your knees about 30 degrees, then push the weights up as you straighten your legs. Try four to six sets of three to five repetitions.
--Additional reporting by Adam Campbell, C.S.C.S.
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Owen's Shoulder and Biceps Workout
Exclusive to MensHealth.com
"I do this routine more to prevent injury than to build muscle," says Owen McKibbin. But anybody who tries it for a few weeks is bound to get some muscle-building benefit, as well as strength and stability around the fragile shoulder joint.
"I've put people on this shoulder routine, and it makes everyone feel better," he adds. McKibbin starts with a pair of 35-pound dumbbells and drops all the way down to 10-pounders. But when you try it for the first time, even if you're in pretty good shape, you probably want to start with 20-pounders and work your way down to 5's, or even your wife's plastic-coated 2 ½-pounders.
1. Press-and-curl combo
Sit on the end of a bench, holding the weights at arm's length, palms out. Curl the weights up to shoulder height, then twist them so your palms are facing out again. Now press them overhead. Lower the weights and repeat. Do 10 repetitions of the press-and-curl combo, then 10 of just the shoulder press.
2. Lateral raise
Drop those weights and pick up lighter ones (Owen uses 10's for this). Hold the weights at arm's length, with a slight bend in your elbows, palms facing your thighs. Now lift them straight out to the sides. Do 15 repetitions.
3. 90-degree lateral raise
Now put down those weights and pick up slightly heavier ones (Owen uses 15-pounders). Bend your elbows 90 degrees and do 15 to 20 more lateral raises.
4. Front raise
Put those weights down and grab the lighter ones (Owen uses 10's). Hold the weights at arm's length, palms facing thighs, and raise them straight out in front of you. Do 10 repetitions.
5. Reverse-grip press
Without resting or switching weights, hold the weights in front of your shoulders, palms turned toward your torso, as if you've just finished a biceps curl. Now press them up 15 times.
6. Rear-deltoid raise
Finally, without resting or switching weights, hold them down at arm's length again, palms turned toward thighs. Bend over at the waist. Raise the weights out and back, as if you were flying. Do 18 to 20 repetitions. Believe it or not, McKibbin then repeats the whole process. He may drop down to 8-pound weights for the final exercises. "But if my form is good, I stay with 10-pounders," he says. Do yourself a favor and wait a while before you build up to that.
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