Michigan Muscle Boy

The Gym Business

I've been interested in the gym business for quite some time, mainly because it combines working out with making money; given the amount of time I spend in the gym, seemingly not a bad thing.  This past Friday, Paul Wright owner of Gold's Gym, Ann Arbor, and I had a chance to sit down and discuss his entry into the gym business.  We're going to do a short series of it on Muscle Ventures, typically 5 to 7 minutes a shot.  I just posted the first episode.

We talk about how Gold's got started in Ann Arbor.  We're now about 10 months out from launch, and Gold's has over a thousand members.  At $45 per month, that's a base cash flow of $45K, making for $540K in annual revenue.  The target membership of 2300 leads to an annual revenue of $1,242,000.  Initial investment appears to have been well over a million, plus there's a franchise fee, employees to pay, and rent.  My guess is that full membership leads to a business that is barely profitable for the franchisee.  Multiple locations where the franchisee can spread costs is probably more lucrative.  As we'll see in later episodes, Paul is looking to open additional locations.

Nancy Arnold

It is with sadness that I inform you that Nancy's mother in law, Virginia, has died.  I met Virginia at Nancy's last bodybuilding show.  She was a vivacious woman who you might think was in her early sixties though she was substantially older than that. 

What I remember about Virginia is that at the dinner after Nancy's show, she chastised me for a story about teasing one of my two sons.  I think she thought I was taking advantage, which in fact I was.  She wasn't mean about it, but she had caught me.  You had to watch yourself with her.  She was sharp.

I'm really sad for Nancy and Jim.  Nancy had been in Ohio visiting her sister, and Jim was having a bachelor's weekend.  There had been no hint of anything wrong.  Then, Virginia had a massive strong, passing on just today.

In these situations, it's really hard for the families.  Their loved one just suddenly disappears, and they have a hard time figuring out what just happened.

I'm sure Nancy would appreciate it if you dropped her a note.  Her blog has her email address in the upper left corner.

The Arnold Overhead Press Does the Trick

So, I noted in our training diary series over on Muscle Ventures that my shoulder was bugging me a bit.  I think I have tendon issues that flare up from time to time.  As Chris Dorr and Andy have pointed out, it has something to do with bringing my elbows out on the overhead press.

Today, I substituted in Arnold Presses for the overhead press.  As you can see in this video analysis, the Arnold press starts with your elbows down by your side and your hands curled up to your face.  During the whole lift, your arms basically go straight up.  It pulls stress out of the front delts and associated tendons.

Today was Day 4 of hypertrophy.  Nancy was unexpectedly not there (see next post).  For the record, here was the workout:

• Bench Press (60% 1RM):  115 lbs./12 reps X 4 sets
• Incline flye (60%):  30/12X4
• Arnold Press (60%): 30/12X4 (I had to drop weight at the end of the second two sets).
• Cable Lateral (60%): 17.5/10X3
• Shrug (60%): 50/12X4
• Prone dumbbell curl (60%): 25/12X4
• Seated Calf (60%): 120/12X4

Eccentric Training: The end of max strength training

Arnold and I just completed our sojourn in max strength training.  Maybe the most interesting thing was the eccentric training we did at the end.  In eccentric training, you go beyond what you can lift and just do the negative of each exercise.  We did 120% of 1RM.

So, in the leg press, say you think your 1RM is 545, you would do 655 for 120% 1RM.  Obviously, you can't lift that, so you have to have spotters.  We did that for 5 sets of three reps.

Initially, it's very mentally challenging, you think the weight is going to come down and crush you, but no, you actually control it.  To get maximum benefit, you need to lower the weight slowly.

It is typically the case that you can lower a lot more than you can lift.  The difference is a measure of how far you are from exerting your absolute strength potential in your 1RM.  If you are very good, you can get up to 90% of your aboslute strength potential, but usually you get 80% or less.  Our Muscle Ventures post provides more details.

Maximimizing Max Strength: Hip Flexor Stretch

So, Nancy and I have put up some new videos at muscleventures. This is our hip flexor stretch. It was a hoot to make at 8:30 AM last Sunday.  We do these stretches to help get us in shape for max strength.

In our training, we've been progressing from 5 sets of triples at 90% to 5 sets of doubles at 95%. Those are hard.  Here's a sample workout:

• Hammerstrength Leg Press (95% 1RM): 505 lbs/ 2 reps X 5 sets;
• Partial stiff legged deadlift (80%): 167.5 lbs/6X5;
• Bench press (95%): 182.5/2X5;
• Seated bent over row with cable (95%): 160/2X5;
• Hack machine calf raise (95%): 300/2X5;
• Hammerstrength ab machine (80%): 40/6X5

Nancy and I have never done max strength before this cycle.  It's kind of fun but hard.

Seven Months till Competition (Workout Diary)

This podcast inaugurates our workout diary series as we work toward Nancy's competition.

Note how we're using Google video.  You can get the downloadable, ipod compatible version at the original muscleventures article. In this diary, we're completing the medium week of max strength training.  The video cuts across two workouts, one on a sunday morning (ugh) and the other on a friday afternoon (better).

Nancy recently wrote about the challenges of max strength training, particularly the mental component, and you can see them in this diary.

Leg Press Fandango

So, a few months ago, Scott asked us for a leg press series on Muscle Ventures.  At the time, we were doing squats.  Leg presses seemed the furthest possible thing from our minds.  Well, we're back on leg presses hard core.  Not because we think squatting is bad, but Nancy's back problems seemed to preclude it.  Because the back is supported in a leg press, two things happen.

First, your back is not strained in the exercise, a good thing if you have back issues.  Second, you do not get the same level of gluteal involvement.  You have to sub in something else, if you want to work the glutes.

The first picture on the left shows Nancy doing the paramount leg press (see the full analysis).  It's a 45 degree press that closely approximates a squat in terms of how the legs move.  The second picture on the left shows me doing the  Hammerstrength iso-lateral leg press.  The interesting thing about this device is that legs move indepedently, increasing the level of difficulty (see the full analysis).

The "This Old House" of bodybuilding

For readers who may not be familiar.  This Old House is a show that appears on public television in the United States.  It's about a group of housing contractors who go around fixing up old houses.  It's interesting because it's shows the all the ins and outs of the process, and you really learn something from the show. 

With the Gold's sponsorship of Muscle Ventures, I've had to think about that site's direction.  The guys at Gold's like the amateur feel of it, something This Old House had at the beginning.  The thing I think we need to do there is add to our repertoire.  So, you'll see us do more podcasts with different people and exercise analyses.  Gold's and Liberty should give us a good set of people and material to work with.

Catching up

I continue in super work mode.  I've been blogging regularly with students on my learning remix site, a sort of blog mash-up for students in my classes.  We've also done a sponsorship deal with Gold's Gym in Ann Arbor for muscleventures.  That won't really result in too many changes to the site.  Likely, more of our content will be originating from Gold's because we will work out there more.