The Ripple Effect of Improper (Upper) Chest Training.

Yesterday was chest day. Before I hit the gym, I get myself into a certain mindset – focus on the body part I’m training, visualize the exercise motions, imagine the muscle growth – to better establish the mind-muscle connection so important to advanced bodybuilders. My chest workout today was more explosive, more painful and definitely more effective than it had been for some time. The reason is this: During the past eight years I’ve been training and the past four years I’ve been competing, I’ve been training my chest all wrong. That is until yesterday. If you work out, guess what. You’re training wrong too. In this blog post, I’m going to explain to you why so many people train their chest improperly, and I’m going to tell you exactly what to do – including the exercises – to increase your chest size, symmetry and aesthetics.

The pectoral area in what’s known as a classic physique of 60s and 70s pro bodybuilders is a dense pair of square-shaped masses. It stretches T-shirts and conveys a look of strength more than any other muscle group. The problem is, during the past 30 years or so, the evolution of the chest has lagged far behind every other major muscle group. Take a look at the following photos.

The first photo is of – of course – Arnold Schwarzenegger, six-time Mr. Olympia winner. The second photo is of Dexter Jackson, the 2008 Mr. O. Now, obviously, due to much mechanical and pharmacological advancement in the bodybuilding world, Dexter is much, much larger than Arnold ever was, but pay close attention to the differences in muscle symmetry (how the mass of one muscle group compares with that of the other groups). What is the most prominent feature on Dexter? It may be his shoulders or biceps, whereas on Arnold, it is unquestionably his chest, and most important to what I’m going to discuss here, the way his upper chest sits far out away from his body, bringing his shoulder and neck back. Imagine a string stretched from Dexter’s right shoulder to left shoulder. His chest may just barely touch that string. Imagine the same string across Arnold’s shoulders. You’d have to add a lot of length to that string to make it reach around his pecs. Here begins our problem with chest training.

If you spend any amount of time in the gym, you know that the bench press is the most-used piece of (non-cardio) gym equipment (OK, maybe besides the curl bar). Unfortunately, it’s also the most-often improperly used piece of equipment. Guys pound out rep after rep of bench press with horrible form in the hopes of being able to proudly answer the “How much can you bench?” question. The bottom line is, even if performed correctly, the flat bench press is only good for one thing: Allowing you to be able to bench press more weight. Good if you’re a powerlifter. Bad if you’re trying to put on some size to fill out your shirts and impress the ladies. Even worse if you’re a bodybuilder. Now don’t get me wrong, properly executed, heavy bench presses will build mass in your pecs, but the angles of the press prevent you from building the part of the chest that really matters, the upper pecs. Read any bodybuilding or fitness forum and you’re likely to hear the question, “How can I build size in my upper chest?” The most common answer is “Incline bench press.” This myth has been passed around for so long, no one knows where it started. But, here’s a pretty solid theory: Pro bodybuilders. Pro bodybuilders spreading bad information about training methods? “No way,” you say. Well, not pro bodybuilders, but “enhanced” pro bodybuilders. I’ll let you in on a little secret; those guys you see in the pages of Muscle & Fitness don’t get to look that way naturally. Another not-so-well-kept secret is that steroid use really screws up your body, so these guys have had to adjust over time to prevent catastrophic injury. Here’s where the extinction of the chest and the myth of the incline bench press began.

One of the most debilitating injuries in bodybuilding is a shoulder injury. It can end careers, or, at the very least, set your progress back a year or more. In the top ranks of steroid-freak bodybuilding, the risk of that setback in unacceptable. For this reason, the shoulder ligaments and tendons have been protected while sacrificing upper chest development. This is why the incline bench press, the incline dumbbell press and Hammer Strength machines have become so prominent. They keep a safe angle on the shoulders to minimize stress to the connective tissue. If you’re throwing around 160lb dumbbells, you might have to worry about this. For the rest of us, let’s get down to the physiological motor aspects of chest training and start getting some real results.

It’s not that incline bench presses don’t work the upper chest; it’s that the incline bench press at your gym doesn’t work your upper chest. It’s a great front deltoid workout, but the angle is completely wrong for chest training. The incline benches at most gyms have a back pad that sits on a 35-45deg angle from the floor. Again, that’s a great angle for working shoulders, but the upper chest is targeted more directly when sitting at a 20-30deg angle. Raise your arms to a 125-135deg angle from your torso and feel what muscles begin to tighten more – it’s your anterior deltoids (the front of your shoulder). Now, lower your arms to 110-120deg. Your shoulder muscles will loosen and you’ll incorporate more of your upper chest.

STEP #1: Change your incline bench press angle. How to do that? Easy. If your gym happens to have an adjustable incline bench, lower it to 20%. If not, place a weight plate or a block of wood under the lower feet to decrease the angle.

The angle of the press is the first step to more effectively targeting your upper pecs, but there’s more – much more. Next, let’s look at your hand position when you perform bench press or dumbbell press movements. Generally, most people use the pronated, or overhand, position. Basically, this means your palms are facing your feet. Try this: While remaining relaxed, extend your right arm directly in front of your body, palms facing the floor and close your grip. Place your open left hand over your upper right pectorals, no higher than your clavicle. Now, rotate your right hand outward (clockwise) until your palm is facing upwards. What did you feel? You should have felt a contraction in your upper chest even if you weren’t flexing your pecs (If you felt no contraction, you really need to pay attention to this article). Some people give the advice that, while doing pressing movements, we should rotate our hands inwards, like a punching movement. Watch a commercial for The Perfect Pushup, and it will demonstrate this motion repeatedly. The problem is IT’S COMPLETELY BACKWARDS. Rotating your hands inwards brings more shoulder involvement into the motion. In order to better isolate your chest, and especially your upper chest, you should be rotating your hands outwards. You can easily do this with your dumbbell movements on your (20-13deg) incline dumbbell press. This motion is difficult to perform on a regular barbell bench press, but we’ll address that concern later.

STEP #2: Rotate your hands outwards towards the top of your pressing motion (CAUTION: You may have to significantly reduce the amount of weight you use to perform your incline dumbbell presses)

Another problem with regular pressing movements is their inability to provide a complete contraction of the pectoral muscles. Barbell, dumbbell and machine exercises do not allow the elbows to cross the body’s center line and therefore do not completely stimulate the chest. Even cable crossover exercises do not allow for a complete contraction as the contraction of the right pecs limits the range of motion of the left pecs and vice versa. During biceps curls, we’re taught to squeeze at the peak of contraction to further work the muscle group. The same idea should be applied to chest training.

STEP #3: Bring your elbows past the body’s center line for a more complete contraction at the peak. How do you do this? One-arm cable crossovers. Stand in the middle of the crossover apparatus and grasp the handles. The height of the handles should be set so that, when grasping the handles in the relaxed position, your arms are at a 45%angle to your torso and legs. Raise the handles up and across your chest. Be sure to follow that 45deg line of motion provided by the cables, and remember to keep you elbows slightly bent and locked and rotate you hands outward as much as possible as discussed in step #2. Alternate your left and right sides, keeping a tight squeeze at the peak.

The final problem with training your upper chest is that the normal rotation of the shoulder joints doesn’t allow for efficient targeting of the muscle group. During a press motion, the elbows are angled down to allow you to meet the bar with the chest. This motion naturally incorporates more anterior delt than we’d like to.

STEP #4: Angle the elbows upwards to reduce anterior deltoid incorporation.

OK, so, why don’t we simply angle the elbows back up to where they need to be while bench pressing? Well, if we did that, we’d be meeting the bar with our necks. Good angle, very uncomfortable. And not very safe. What can we do to make that movement easier and safer? We step over to the dreaded Smith machine. OMG! No serious bodybuilder would ever go near a Smith machine! Well, in this case, the ends justify the means, so we’ll suck it up, ignore the laughs and go for it. The Smith machine is going to allow us to incorporate steps, 1, 2 & 4, so the next exercise is really going to hit the upper pecs. It’s important to find a Smith machine that extends upwards on a slight angle. Some extend vertically, but that’s not going be as effective. If that’s all your gym has, I guess you’re going to be stuck using that one. OK, to perform the exercise, place a bench in the Smith machine and set it at a 20-30deg angle. The upwards angle of the machine should extend over your head, not towards your feet. Lie on the bench and position it so that when you lower the bar, it meets your body directly above your clavicles. Yes, right on your neck. Remember to keep your head slightly upwards to avoid catching the bar between your neck and chin. START WITH A LIGHT WEIGHT and perform your incline pressing movements as normal except instead of grasping the bar completely, rotate your hands outwards so that the bar is resting on the meat of your thumb & palm and barely touches the pinky finger of your open hands. You’ll probably have to disengage the bar catches before you position your hands. Lower the bar to your neck and extend fully upwards.

STEP #5: Exhaustion. I feel that fully exhausting your muscle groups is the only way to make big gains. This is what works for me. It may not work for you. I always finish my workouts with a light exercise and completely blast whatever group I’m working that day. For chest, it could be pec deck supersets or even pushups, but exhaustion exercises should always be done with the help of a spotter or on a machine/movement that won’t allow you to drop weights on your face. Therefore, I do not suggest barbell bench press as an exhaustion set.

OK, so let’s get this party started. The following workout incorporates all of the steps listed above, and is exactly what I did during my chest workout yesterday.

1. Incline barbell bench press (remember to lower the incline or place a weight plate under the bench feet)

One warm-up set + three working sets of 10. Increase the weight on each set. (I ALWAYS try to reach failure on my last working set off every exercise)

2. Incline dumbbell press. Again, remember the angle of the bench. Rotate the handle outward as you reach full contraction and squeeze for a two count on each rep.

Three working sets of 10. Increase the weight on each set.

3. Incline Smith machine press. Refer to step 4 for instructions.

Three working sets of 10. Increase the weight on each set.

4. Incline cable crossovers. Refer to step 3.

Find a weight you can do for 12 reps and use that weight for three sets until failure.

5. Pec Deck drop sets.

Pick a weight you can do for 10 reps. Perform that set and immediately reduce the weight ands perform another set. Continue as you work your way down the weight stack.

That’s it. 13 sets for chest day. None of these 30-set workouts. Just intense, effective training. You should really feel the pain for the following few days. I know I’m really feeling it today. This workout should not be performed more than once a week. If you’re just beginning your bodybuilding endeavors, you can alternate this workout with a more-general chest workout. If you’re an advanced trainer and you’re looking to bring your out your upper pecs, use this method for 4-6 weeks as it will still work the entire chest, but will focus on bringing the upper pecs more inline with what you’ve already accomplished. As always, I can’t stress enough proper form, intensity, nutrition, recovery and supplementation.

Dave Minella is a WNBF Pro bodybuilder. Any questions about this article or about bodybuilding in general may be sent to dminella31@gmail.com

For more information about the WNBF, please visit http://www.wnbf.net.

For information about the WNBF’s amateur affiliate, the INBF, please visit http://www.inbf.net.

Penguins defeat Kings, 4-1

Penguins scored an easy victory tonight against the Los Angeles Kings. [Game Summary].
The win - another Crosby/Malkin freakshow - put the Pens one game closer to the Stanley Cup playoffs and puts Evgeni Malkin a few points closer to the Art Ross & Hart trophies.
Although I was in Pittsburgh today, I wasn't lucky enough to go to the game, but I did get to watch with D-Money and re-live some old-school Pittsburgh sports memories.

Narcissistic Bodybuilding Video #2

I had more footage, so I decided to edit another training video.

Canadohta Lake

For the twitter faithful, you may have wondered why you haven't been blessed with my cynicism & sarcasm during the past few days. It's not that I've taken permanent leave of the twitterverse, but I have taken temporary leave of the Triangle area, the Dell Latitude D830 and the daily grind that usually accompanies those two entities. Oh, how I would love to say I packed up and departed for a long-planned getaway to northern California, Lake Como, Italy or even Wrightsville Beach, but as luck would have it, I'm spending an impromptu, unpaid vacation at beautiful Canadohta Lake in northwestern Pennsylvania.

You see, if you've been living in a cave, you may not be aware that the economy isn't fairing so well (actually, if you've been living in a cave, you're probably better off than most of the US population). It has hit most parts of American industry, but no industry has been hit as hard as mine - the manufacturing industry. I work for a company that manufactures robotic tools, mostly for the building industry. One of our major markets is cabinet makers. The housing sector is down. building is down. Our sales are down. We restructured in January and repositioned for what we knew was going to be a few slow months, but, unfortunately, our sales hit rock bottom in March. So, last Friday, our company president called a meeting and announced half the company would be on a mandatory two-week unpaid vacation. Hopefully, in two weeks, we'll have a company to go back to. We were completely blindsided by the announcement. We had no time to plan and budget accordingly. We were told, out of the blue, that we wouldn't be receiving a paycheck for the next month. Fuck you. Good luck.

We were surprised, bitter, but what could we do? I left the meeting, called my old man and told him to be expecting company for the next week. I knew what I was going to do, and it didn't make sense for me to sit around my apartment all day looking for a new job when I could take a well deserved trip to the lake and relax, sort things out and dig into the job search. I decided to leave on Monday and come back the following Saturday so I'd have a week when I got back to schedule interviews and also so I wouldn't have to be away from Jen for more than a few days (yeah, I'm a baby that way). I packed a bag and my laptop, and Jen dropped me off at RDU on Monday morning for my trip to Union City, PA via the Buffalo airport and a Dulles layover.

My dad has been retired for a few years now, and after my mom died of cancer in June of 2007 he decided he had to get away from things. This past summer, he sold his house in suburban Pittsburgh and bought a little cottage on the Canadohta Lake in (very) rural Crawford County, PA, about 30 miles southeast of Erie. Now when I say little cabin, I really mean little cottage. Although I didn't grow up in what could be considered a big house by any means, his two-story dwelling is cramped by anyone's standards. It has one bedroom downstairs and a small two-room upstairs with a pair of single beds in one room and Big Dave's office in the other room. He has a well, limited hot water, basic cable and no Verizon reception. The nearest town to Canadohta Lake is Union City, population 3,000, which is about eight miles away. If you've ever seen The Great Outdoors with John Candy, you have an idea what I'm talking about. The lake is beginning to thaw, but there are still ice-fishing huts littering the shoreline, and a sign outside one of the local bars announces "WED SNOWMOBILE NITE." His new girlfriend, Susan, who's actually a friend from a long time ago, has all but abandoned her own cottage down the road to shack up with pops. Susan's an animal lover and she and my dad are surrounded by Tinkerbell, a Maltese former show dog who was rescued from her owner, an elderly woman who affectionately groomed Tink everyday but somehow forgot to feed her for weeks. Then there's Alex, a pug rescued from a puppy mill. (On a side note: Tink, who's a female and is fixed, climbs on Alex, who's a male and is also fixed, licks his ears and relentlessly humps him while he doesn't seem to be paying attention). Outside the cottage live a small pride of cats who occasionally venture inside. There's Sigfreid, Roy, Spot, El Gato and Spare Cat among others. It's very quiet in the winter, as most cottages are summer homes abandoned during the cold months. It's low key, peaceful, and the two of them are happy there, sharing each other's companionship away from the city and the craziness that is the Minella clan.

D-Money (my dad's rapper name) picked me up at the Buffalo airport on Monday afternoon (his place is equidistant from Buffalo, Pittsburgh and Cleveland, so it's easy to find a cheap flight into one of those airports). I spent the day Monday relaxing and catching up since I hadn't been home since Christmas of 2007. On Tuesday, I ate breakfast and spent the next four hours applying for jobs and emailing resumes. [Since then, I've already received some good responses including an email response to fill out a prescreening questionnaire and a phone call about setting up a telephone interview]. This morning, I drove about 10 miles to the "local" gym, had a great workout and waited for my sister and her kids to arrive. My sister has two kids - Angelica (4) and Avery (2) - and is currently going through a divorce. I'm an opponent of divorce - as any good Catholic is - but I'm so happy she's getting out of this one. We all went down to the Sugar & Spice Amish restaurant at the Eagle Hotel in waterford, PA for some comfort food (the most expensive restaurant in town, the bill for four adults and two kids which came to less than $100). Then we headed back to the cottage and tried to figure out where everyone's going to sleep.

So, that's been my week so far. I'm not sure I'll have a job when I get back, and I'm surprisingly OK with that. I've come to realize I have an amazingly supportive family, and for the first time in my life, I feel like I have a girlfriend who stands behind me 100%. I've also realized that I have some pretty desirable skills and, regardless of whether I do have a job in a week & 1/2, it's time to move on career-wise. Wow, this quick blog post has become a novel. It's 11:15, and I have another long day of looking for a job and torturing the living daylights out of a certain four years old and two year old.

Good night.

Quick thought for today

In between work, bills, taxes, plans, mistakes, worries and all the responsibilities of adulthood, I stopped for a moment and realized I had found the woman of my dreams. And then I remembered how to breathe.

2009 Contest Season Preparation Progress

2009 Contest Season Preparation Progress
I forgot to post a photo last week, so I'm posting 11 weeks and 10 weeks out.



Last week, I weighed in at 175 and about 8.5% bodyfat. This week I hit 173 on the scale, but I didn't have my body comp done, so I'm not sure where I am. I should be about 7-7.5% based on weight and what I'm seeing in the mirror, but, due to water weight and what muscle group I trained that day, looks can always be deceiving. Two pounds per week is a good guideline for contest prep, as losing weight too quickly leads to loss of muscle mass as well.
From experience I know that I lose bodyfat from the top down, so I know I'm on track, I can definitely notice it in my face, and the veins are beginning to show in my shoulders and upper chest. My traps now have more of a dip down into my medial deltoids. There's also a visible decrease in the fat around my obliques (my love handles). And my boy bubble in the back is starting to disappear. I can tell because my ass is usually what holds my pants up, and it's not doing such a great job now. The upside is that I can now fit into certain dress pants without looking like I have a ham shoved in the back of my pants. Yeah, I have fat pants and skinny pants.
I've yet to start cardio, and unless things start to stagnate, I shouldn't have to worry about that for another two weeks.

My narcissistic bodybuilding video

I've been documenting my 2009 bodybuilding season through photos and video, and as I was going through the vids I've shot so far, I had the idea of putting together a little montage. I'm sure I'll do some more editing once I get more footage, but here's what I have so far.

Debunking the zero-carb myth

Whenever I'm dieting down for a bodybuilding contest, I'm constantly asked about my diet. What I eat. When I eat. How I prepare my meals. Many times, when I give the chicken & sweet potatoes answer, I get this response: "Sweet potatoes? But those are carbs. I thought you can't eat carbs."

And there it is, the great carbohydrate myth. Thanks to the Adkins diet and many others, carbohydrates have been stigmatized as the evil, anti-weight-loss macronutrient. Not only is that an unfair label; it’s completely untrue. Carbohydrates are important for many body functions including energy transport and storage, blood clotting, proper immune system function and brain operation (read: the brain and neurons cannot burn fat and need glucose – carbs – for energy). While, yes, the body can survive on a lack of carbohydrates for short periods of time, I wouldn’t recommend it as part of an overall healthy lifestyle regimen. Not only does a lack of carbs lead to a decrease in organ function – the liver being another major organ affected by low-carb diets – but also results in increased fatigue, and the accompanying reduced fiber intake leads to gastro-intestinal distress & irregularity.

So, why are sugary foods so unhealthy? It’s not because of the amount of carbohydrates they contain, but it’s the types of carbs present in certain foods. In order to make educated decisions about which carbs to consumer during your weight-loss cycle, it’s important to pay attention to the glycemic index. The glycemic index is a measure of the effects of carbohydrates on blood glucose levels. Carbohydrates that break down rapidly during digestion releasing glucose rapidly into the bloodstream have a high GI. Carbohydrates that break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the bloodstream, have a low GI. For most people, foods with a low GI have significant health benefits. A lower glycemic index suggests slower rates of digestion and absorption of the foods' carbohydrates and may also indicate greater extraction from the liver and periphery of the products of carbohydrate digestion. A lower glycemic response is often thought to equate to a lower insulin demand, better long-term blood glucose control and a reduction in blood lipids. The insulin index may therefore also be useful as it provides a direct measure of the insulin response to a food. A low GI food will release glucose more slowly and steadily. A high GI food causes a more rapid rise in blood glucose levels and is suitable for energy recovery. So, when beginning and maintaining a weight-loss cycle, choose foods that rank low on the glycemic index.

Here’s a link to a chart showing the glycemic index of many popular foods.

"Wait a minute," you might say. "Sweet potatoes have a GI of 54. I thought you said they were a good source of the right carbs." Well, here’s where you have to weight your options. During my contest-prep cycle, I’m still consuming about 250 grams of carbohydrates per day (you’ll most likely want to consume about 1/6^th of that amount). If I wanted to use, say, peppers or broccoli to get those 250g of carbs, I’d have to eat 10-times the weight of those veggies as do with sweet potatoes – not very practical. So, I have to determine the intersection between quantity and glycemic index. Plus, I'm burning so much energy on a daily basis that the carbs I'm taking in can be higher on the index since I'll need them to fuel recovery. So, another guideline is, the more physical energy you're exerting on a daily basis, the higher the glycemic rating of the carbs your consuming can be.

Another great way to maximize your carb intake for proper weight loss is the carb-cycling method, which is described here.

Contest Prep Progress: 12 Weeks Out

2009 Contest Season Preparation Progress.
12 weeks out from the SNBF Capital City Natural Pro, Montgomery, AL.
Weight: 178
Bodyfat: 9%

Making Brand Evangelism Work for You

From my guest blog at Capture Carolina...

Although it may not have always been known by such buzz-worthy jargon, Brand Evangelism has been around for ages with many different names. Fanaticism, passion, zeal, devotion. People like to feel a connection to a team, celebrity or brand, and being able to preach their love to others is their way of demonstrating that they’re in the loop, part of a certain tribe, as Seth Godin puts it. This step above mere customer loyalty is a measuring stick by which a company can tell that they’ve made it, that they’ve struck a chord with the consumer, that they have a pretty special product. Brand evangelism isn’t something that can be forced or coerced. It is most powerful when it occurs naturally, from the bottom up. Notice that the title of this post is “Helping brand evangelism work for you,” not “Making brand evangelism work for you.” Although a company is able to provide certain opportunities and outlets for such devotion, there is no way to push it if the underlying passion isn’t already present. I can only speak for myself and my company because I believe we’re facilitating our customers’ evangelism the right way. However, I – and any anyone else who would make such a claim – would be lying if I were to say my marketing genius was behind this phenomenon.

Let me give you a little background on my company. We make CNC tools – ShopBots – basically robotic cutting machines that fabricate parts from wood, plastics and metal – obviously a niche product. We make industrial tools that we sell to large furniture, aerospace and sign making plants and small, garage-size tools for artists, instrument makers and do-it-yourselfers. The founder of my company created the first tool in his barn, a personal-use device to help him cut out parts for plywood sailboats. His intention was not to start a business, but to make his hobby a little bit less time consuming - a classic example of necessity being the mother of invention. The devotion to the product began there, and as he experimented with a very rudimentary tool (made from parts – including patio door rollers – that could easily be found at Home Depot) he shared his ideas with anyone who was interested. Excitement about such an affordably priced CNC machine grew within a small circle of boatbuilders and woodworkers, and ideas began to flow. Ted, our company president, welcomed the input, and this original group began to take personal interest in the development of the first ShopBots. That was 13 years ago, and the tools have come a long way from the build-it-yourself machines to the precision pieces of equipment that they are today. We sell approximately 1,000 tools a year, making us the number-one-selling producer of CNC machines on the market. We have no distributors, no outside sales team, and we make no cold calls whatsoever. Of course we have a very successful advertising and public relations plan in place, but there is absolutely nothing that can take the place of the power of word of mouth that is generated by our brand evangelists. What I’m offering here is sort of a case study of some of the best practices that we’ve been able to put into place to help our customers preach about our brand and spread the word.

This is one of the things we make

I believe we manufacture a great product. Our long-time customers believe we manufacture a great product. We have a very skilled development team, a lean business model and a knowledgeable, helpful technical support team. But what makes our machines so great is that we let our customers tell us what they want. Here’s my first piece of advice for building brand evangelism: Let your customers design your product. Now, we don’t have our customers sending us schematics and specs on what the tools should look like or telling us what components to use, but we’re always open to suggestions – and criticism. We offer a fairly comprehensive warranty on our product, but what makes us so different is that it’s nearly impossible to void that warranty. We encourage our customers to push the limits of their tools and provide us with feedback. If they want to modify something, we tell them to go for it. If they mess things up, we’ll still give them the same tech support as we provide for all our customers (tech support, by the way, is free and is good for the life of the machine, whether it was bought new or used. Try getting that customer service from any other company). Our machines are run with a windows-based control software, which is open source. When we change or upgrade that software, it’s posted in beta on our website as a free download. Take it for a test drive and let us know what you like/don’t like about it. We also give them the opportunity to beta test other programs. Our customers know they’ve helped make our product what it is, and that is a source of pride. They’re very willing to share those successes. What’s the best way to help your customers share that pride? That brings us to number two:

If your customers want to shout, give them a megaphone. OK, so you already have great customers who have a loyalty to your product and want to tell others about it. Help them out. Provide them with a forum. Since our beginnings, ShopBot has provided and online forum, www.talkshopbot.com. We’ve created categories to help our customers navigate, but other than that, we just let it go. Take a laissez faire attitude to your forum, and you’ll get the most out of it. Of course, you’ll need to monitor it for the usual forum problems – from vulgarity to personal attacks on other users – but for the most part, let the group make their own decisions about what is acceptable. If you let it run its course, a forum will provide you with tons of valuable feedback. And remember, the most outspoken members will be your biggest evangelists, and should someone come along with something negative to say, he or she will be instantly policed by other members. If a negative poster has a legitimate gripe to voice, let it happen. Let forum members address it, and if necessary, take the necessary situation-management steps to address it yourself. Allow the community to evolve, and when a potential customer visits your forum, they’ll be able to learn a lot about your company by the attitudes of your users.

Give them a stage, and let them be the star. We’ve broken our customer base down by application, what kinds of projects they’re making with their ShopBots. We’ve identified cabinet makers, sign makers and woodworkers, among others, and recruited them to share their stories on our website. We offer them space to offer their expertise on what they do with their ShopBots. As a company, we can tout the features, functions and benefits of our products all day long, but as you may have learned in Marketing 101, a testimonial is far more valuable than company-produced product collateral. You can see some examples of our customer-written Web Columns.

A forum or message board is a great way for your customers and potential customers to interact in the virtual world, but what about in the real world? Take your community offline. Every month, we sponsor what’s known as Camp ShopBot. Camp ShopBot is an informal gathering of customers and potential customers. It is hosted by a current user in his or her facility, and we provide food, product materials and a company representative. The Camps take place in shops across the country and around the world. It’s a chance for our customers – known as ShopBotters – to get together and share what they know about automated manufacturing. The agenda is never set in stone, but many times the Camps will have a certain theme – from cabinetmaking to boatbuilding to rapid prototyping to digital fabrication. They can be a half-day long or encompass a full weekend. They’re run by our customers, and we’re present to inform attendees about what’s in the works and also nip in the bud any incorrect information. These events are completely free whether you own a tool or not.

ShopBotters attend Camp ShopBot in Troy, VA

Put them on your payroll. As I mentioned earlier, all of our products are sold direct. No sales team. No distributors. Would you ever buy a car without first test driving it? Probably not. Likewise, we would never recommend dropping upwards of $50,000 for one of our machines without at least seeing it in action. It would be extremely difficult - not to mention expensive - for all of our potential customers to take a trip to out headquarters for a demonstration, so we've identified demo sites around the world. We've chosen our best customers with the most-desired machine models who are passionate about their work and passionate about ShopBot and have agreed to pay them commission on every demonstration they host that leads to a sale. We gain a new customer and they put some cash in their pockets (not to mention you'd be hard pressed to find a ShopBotter who doesn't love bragging about his or her work).

Let your customers into your home, or at least into your company. Probably the most well-known instance of this is Saturn, who was the first large company to invite customers for a day at the factory. They made a party out of it, with a barbecue, facility tours and an open house. My company has the ShopBot Jamboree. Since the beginning of the company, we’ve had a yearly event where we invite customers and non-customers to our Durham headquarters. It’s a three-day event consisting of formal training sessions, presentations by partner vendors, workshops on marketing and business operations, tours of the facility and the inside scoop from company personnel. In the past few years, attendance has gotten so high that we’ve had to move many of the activities off-site. We’ve also gotten so much interest from customers who are unable to travel to NC that we’ve since added Jamborees in California and Texas. Our customers can put faces with the names and voices they hear on the phones, and they can get a real sense of the passion our employees, from the top down, put into this company.

ShopBotters at the ShopBot Jamboree in San Mateo, CA

Reward your biggest fans with free swag, and let them advertise your products for FREE. We recently had a customer ask us if we’d pay to have his truck vehicle-wrapped with our logo and graphics. Being a small company, we couldn’t justify taking such a large chunk out of the budget for such focused publicity, but if we would have had the funds readily available, we’d certainly have done it. There are other, more affordable, ways to let your customers be your advertisers. Print your logo and website on stickers and GIVE them to your customers. Apple includes a little logo sticker with the purchase of their products, and tell me you’ve never seen those on the rear window of someone’s car. We give out T-shirts for customers who participate in the show-and-tell portions of our Camps, and we make special-edition T’s for each Jamboree. The T-shirts have become collectors’ items, and our stickers have appeared on vehicles in such far-away places as Norway and Afghanistan. Make sure your logo and photos are readily available online in case your customers want to include you in their websites.

Give ‘em some gear

Help your customers succeed. If your customers are successful, you’ll be successful, and if you help your customers become successful, they’ll tell others about it. This is especially useful to b2b companies, but can be adapted to whatever audience you’re trying to reach. Use your customers in your marketing campaigns. Put them in your ad materials, your brochures, feature them on your website. Help them share their successes. We feature a different customer each month in our print advertising materials, but we also open our website for them to share their successes. If our customers make the news, we feature them on our ShopBotters in the News page. If something exciting happens with their company, we put them on our Spotlight page. We talk about them in our newsletter and tweet about them on Twitter. We let them create our wiki. We also offer them free marketing advice and, if needed, local media lists so they can have more tools to conduct their own PR. They appreciate this and it only leads to even more loyalty and evangelism.

Customer-focused ad materials

Fix problems as soon as they happen, and if you can’t, don’t sweat it. The bottom line is, not matter how good your product, no matter how strong your brand, you’re never, no matter how hard you try, going to be able to make everyone happy. Strive to continuously improve your customer service and your crisis reaction time. Ensure that there are open lines of communication established so your disgruntled customers can voice their concerns, and make sure there’s always a knowledgeable representative available who has the proper authority to make things right. Sometimes though, even that doesn’t work. So what do you do? After you’ve done all you can, grit your teeth, take the hit and fight back the best way that you can: Continue offering a great product and great support. ShopBot is known throughout the industry for our impeccable technical support and customer service. We’d rather lose money than lose a customer, and we sincerely do everything within our power to satisfy our customers’ needs and address their concerns and gripes. Some customers, however, are destined to remain unsatisfied and unhappy no matter what you do to fix things. If you have a strong brand with a strong legion of evangelists, the customers that get away will not have much of an impact. Your zealots will defend you as they always have, and – here’s something you won’t often hear – if you can’t make him happy, sometimes it’s better to lose a customer now than to be forced to deal with him later.

These things are only a few examples of what you can do to foster evangelism for your brand. Give your customers a reason to be excited and an outlet for their enthusiasm, and they’ll be more than willing to share that excitement with anyone who’ll listen.

Dave Minella is the communications director at ShopBot Tools, Inc. He may be reached via email. Connect with him on Twitter, @DaveMinella or @ShopBot, or at his personal blog.

Do chicks take a class to learn how to improperly argue?

So, I was reading through the list on the site The Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About (pointed out to me by my friend Lisa - @Glowbird), and I came across these two points, which - perhaps not coincidentally - were listed back to back. Before I even got through reading the first one, I came to the sudden realization that this must happen more often than I think, as it was close to the top of the list of things about my last serious girlfriend that drove me fucking insane. When I got to the next bullet point, I had to go back to the website and make sure the author wasn't dating my ex, since that point was #2 on the list of things that tempted me to strangle another human being.
I guess it's a common complaint among men. Glad I don't have to worry about that in my current relationship.



• Arguments. There are many arguments we have over arguments. 'Who started argument x', for example, is a old favourite that has not had its vigour dimmed by age nor its edge blunted through use. Another dependable companion is, 'I'm not arguing, I'm just talking - you're arguing,' along with its more stage-struck (in the sense that it relishes an audience - parties, visiting relatives, Parent's Evenings at school, in shops, etc.) sibling, 'Right, so we're going to get into this argument here are we?' An especially frequent argument argument, however, is the result of Margret NOT STICKING TO THE DAMN ARGUMENT, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE. Margret jack-knifes from argument to argument, jigs direction randomly and erratically like a shoal of Argument Fish being followed by a Truth Shark. It's fearsomely difficult to land a blow because by the time you've let fly with the logic she's not there anymore. A row about vacuuming gets shifted to the cost of a computer upgrade, from there to who got up early with the kids most this week and then to the greater interest rates of German banks via the noisome sexual keenness of some former girlfriend, those-are-hair-scissors-don't-use-them-for-paper and, 'When was the last time you bought me flowers?' all in the space of about seven exchanges. 'Arrrrrrgggh! What are we arguing about? Can you just decide what it is and stick to it?'
  
  
• The key to a successful relationship is communication. That's the First Rule. Margret's corollary to the First Rule is the Timing clause. This states that the best time to initiate a complex and lengthy talk about, say, exactly how we should go about a loft conversion is (in reverse order of preference):
  - When you see that Mil is playing a game online and is one point away from becoming Champion Of The World, Mil is racing out of the house to catch a train, Mil is in the middle of trying to put out a kitchen fire, etc.
  - During the final minutes of a tense thriller Mil has been watching for the past two hours. Ideally at the precise point when someone has begun to say, 'Good Lord! Then the murderer must be...'
  - Just at the moment, late at night, when Mil has finally managed to fall asleep.
  - In the middle of having sex.

Bodybuilding Contest Prep: Supplementation

For beginning bodybuilders, and especially drug-free newbies, supplementation is an important but oft overlooked piece of the bodybuilding equation. Whether due to lack of information, lack of education or lack of financial means, many bodybuilders – and those just getting into any type of fitness regimen – skip these vital weapons in any training arsenal. I can’t stress enough that muscle gains DO NOT HAPPEN IN THE GYM. The exact opposite is true. When you work out, you’re destroying your muscle fibers. Increase in size only occurs when your muscles heal, adding additional fibers to strengthen those that have been destroyed. In order for muscle cells to properly strengthen those fibers, you’re going to need proper nutrition, rest and supplementation. During the bodybuilding contest prep phase, nutrition becomes even more important.

When dieting down for a contest, your body is constantly in a state of nutritional deficit. In order to lose weight, you must be burning more calories than you’re consuming, therefore you’re eating less, and simply by cutting back on your food intake, you’re cutting back on the nutrients you’re taking in. Nutritional deficits are the worst thing you can do to your muscles, so in order to combat any unnecessary muscle loss, you must increase the amounts of nutrients your body receives through supplementation.

There are several supplements I swear to, both during the contest-prep phase and in the offseason:

• Universal Nutrition Animal Pack - This multi-vitamin should be the foundation of any serious bodybuilder’s diet. Scroll down for a list of the nutrients contained in these ready-to-consume packs. Yeah, there are a lot of pills to swallow, but it’s what your body needs to survive the torture you’re putting it through in the gym. This should be taken once a day, 365 days a year.

• Universal Nutrition Animal Pump – This stuff will make you a monster. It contains creatine, nitric oxide boosters, energy boosters and anti-oxidants. As the name rightfully states, this stuff is essential for producing that pump that is the goal of anyone hitting the weights hard, day in and day out.

• Universal Nutrition Animal Nitro – Amino acids increase protein synthesis and aid in muscle recovery. Therefore, they’re a post-workout essential. These packs are consumed immediately after your workout to kick the recovery into high gear.

• Hydroxycut Hardcore – A no-nonsense fat burner will help keep your metabolism chugging. During periods of decreased caloric intake, your body will want to store fat as a survival method. You can counter that with a good blend of caffeine and other metabolism-boosting compounds. IMPORTANT: Although still readily available, ephedrine is listed on the BANNED SUBSTANCE list of most natural bodybuilding organizations, and the use of the substance will void your drug-free status. Be sure to check the labels of any fat burner before you buy.

Your body may have different needs, and you’ll certainly want to tailor your supplements to your personal goals. Be smart and educate yourself on the effects and risks of consuming any bodybuilding product. Also, be sure to purchase your supplements from a reputable source.

The topic of the next blog post will be actual in-the-gym training, with a focus on types of exercises and number of reps and sets as well as proper rest and recovery techniques.

New Media Douchebags

I can't believe this video has been on YouTube for more than a year & I've only discovered it today. I LOVE the first rule, Don't do real work. I've often wondered how social media "experts" make money since many of them don't have - and have never had - a real job in any form of media-related field. My question gets partially answered by the amount of emails & DMs I get from so-called experts asking me if I know any of any real media job openings. They can have their social/virtual/whatever media, I'll practice my profession in the real world.
New Media Douchebags

Contest Prep: The Day Before

Tomorrow is the day. Day one of contest prep. I really don’t mind contest prep. I mean it’s not the most awesome 12-14 weeks of my life, but, being through it many times before, I know what to expect. I know that I’m going to be hungry and tired constantly for the next three months. I know I won’t be able to drink anything but water. I know I’ll be spending most of my evenings cooking plain chicken & sweet potatoes. I’ll be irritable; my sex drive will be all but nonexistent. It’s definitely not sunshine & rainbows, but it has become my routine, and I readily accept everything that comes with it because I’ve seen the results of the hard work and dedication. But it’s going to be a little different this time.

My next show will be my first as a pro. The game’s a little tougher now. As an amateur, I became accustomed to winning. I have as many first-place trophies as I have all other places combined. It has never been a walk in the park, but I’ve seen the score sheets after the fact, and I know that several times I've been picked as the winner unanimously by the judging panel. In my last two INBF amateur shows, no one has come close to beating me, but I’m not so naive to expect that at the pro level. For the first time as a bodybuilder, I’m a little bit nervous.

I’m not going to get into the specifics of my contest prep (it will bore your socks off), but since I’m asked about it a lot, I will give a rundown of what I need to do to go from fat boy to shredded in time to step on the stage.

PRE-CONTEST PREP-PREP:
I call myself fat in the offseason, but actually I never really get higher than 12% bodyfat. I eat like crazy and don’t watch my diet, but I don't need to because I’m blessed with the metabolism of a 17 year old (let’s hope that keeps up). I’m what’s known as a hard-gainer, a once-skinny kid who has a hard time putting on any weight. Burgers, beer, pasta, pizza. These are my weight gaining weapons in the offseason. My body also adapts quickly, so when I’m ready to begin my contest diet, I jump right into it. Some competitors begin to eat clean – cutting out unnecessary fats and simple carbs – several weeks or even months before they begin their contest diet, but I’ve found that I can drop a lot of fat weight relatively quickly if I just get into it.
16 weeks before my contest date, I make an early morning trip to the Meredith College Human Performance Lab. There, Dr. Chris Eschbach performs a complete body composition test on me. He determines my bodyfat & lean body composition and provides me with a printout of how much I should weigh at 12%, 10%, 8%, 6%, 4% & 2% bodyfat. I then have a scale to determine when I should begin my diet and how on-track I am throughout the contest prep phase.

THE DIET:
The goal of the contest prep diet is to lose weight as slowly and steadily as possible while maintaining as much muscle mass as possible (now is not the time for gaining muscle mass; that is done in the offseason). A properly designed and executed diet will ensure that I am reaching my optimum body composition exactly at contest time, a process known as peaking (which we will cover later). I have my own set of equations and other guidelines that I go by to determine my daily nutritional intake, but, for a beginner, the Basic Metabolic Rate Calculator and the Harris Benedict Equation are good starting points.
Once I know the number of calories I need to be consuming each day, I divide by six to determine the average number of calories I need to be consuming per meal. I then decide on the best methods to cycle my macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates & fats) to take in the optimum number of each at the optimum times of each day. Once all that is determined, I’m ready to begin my diet cycle. What does each meal consist of? Some combination of the following: Egg whites, oatmeal, chicken, tuna, sweet potatoes, broccoli, green beans and a little bit of red meal. No sauces, minimal spices. All fat trimmed. Raw or baked. That will be my menu for the next three months.

In my next few blog posts, along with a mini journal about that I’m doing each day, I’ll cover more about the diet as well as my training routine, supplementation, peaking, proper recovery and the amazing phenomenon known as the cheat day.
Stay tuned…

Unheard Radio Podcast

On Jan 23, we played a show at the Pour House in Raleigh with Parmalee & The Influence. The show was podcast live on Unheard Radio.
If you were unable to attend the show, you can still hear the podcast right HERE.
Simply click on "Live Broadcast with Parmalee, Downfall, and the Influence."

The City of Champions

I spent the first 18 years of my life in Pittsburgh, PA. I also spent my 27^th through 30^th years there. I love the town. I grew up there, my entire family still lives there, most of my friends are still there or at least in the general vicinity. That being said, there’s no way in hell I’d ever move back. I just don’t like the snow.

If you’ve never experienced pro football season in Pittsburgh, you’ve never witnessed true fanaticism. Wait, let me take that back. There’s no such thing as football season in Pittsburgh, only Steelers season. And it lasts 365 days a year. It ebbs and flows, slowly building in early August, and, depending on the results of the regular season & playoffs, either coming to an abrupt – although temporary – downturn in December, or, like this season, builds and builds to a Super Bowl championship crescendo. There may be some downtime for the players, but for the fans, there’s always something to cheer for. “Here we go Steelers” can be heard up and down Carson Street in the middle of the summer, and if you’ve ever worn black & gold through any airport in this country, you know you’ll need more time than expected to catch your next flight because of the number of other fans who’ll stop you to talk about their favorite plays, players or whole seasons.

Regardless of the outcome of each NFL season, Pittsburghers’ love for their football team never wanes. Unlike Philadelphia and Cleveland, which are notorious for their relentless treatment of a losing home team, the Steeler Nation stands behind their team like they stand behind their city. This steadfastness is evidenced by the fact that the Steelers have only had three coaches – Chuck Knoll, Bill Cowher & Mike Tomlin – since 1969. Journalists and sports historians are quick to draw similarities between the working class attitude of the Steelers and the grungy history of the clue-collar Steel City, but that parallel runs deeper than a simple Sports Center metaphor. We Pittsburghers know we’ll never have the glamour of New York City or the sunshine of Miami. The steelworker clichés abound, but rather than live in denial or attempt to refute the unfair stereotypes we’ve been given, we embrace our history while knowing that the truth is we’re a cutting edge city still covered by the soot of the steel industry.

Carson Street, Pittsburgh's Southside after the Steelers Super Bowl win

Here are a few things you may not know about the Steel City:

• In 2008, Forbes magazine ranked Pittsburgh #13 on its “Best cities for young professionals” list.
• Entrepreneur magazine ranks the city ninth on the list of best cities in which to start a small business.
• In 2007, Forbes ranked Pittsburgh as the 10^th cleanest city (so much for all that coal smog)
• Places Rated Almanac gave Pittsburgh the title of “America’s most livable city” in 2007.
• Pittsburgh is the headquarters of nine Fortune 500 companies (ranks seventh in the nation).
• The Carnegie Museum of Art opened in 1895 as the world’s first museum of modern art.
• Pittsburgh boasts the lowest crime rate out of the top-25 US metropolitan areas.
• Pittsburgh is home to 34 colleges and universities, including Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, two schools consistently ranked in the top 25 in the country.
• Pittsburgh is second only to NYC in its number of theater companies.
• Pittsburgh has more certified “green” buildings than any other US city.
• The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center consistently ranks in the top 10 best US hospitals and is a leader in cancer treatment and organ transplant research.

Pittsburgh doesn’t brag about its accomplishments, doesn’t feel the need to self promote. It’s a humble city with a huge heart. The people that make up its population reflect the hard exterior, deep roots and unyielding perseverance of a town that was left for dead in the early ‘80s but slowly and steadily has reinvented itself. There was a time when Steelers football and four Lombardi trophies were the only pieces of metal left shimmering under the collapse of the steel industry. The last bit of greatness; memories of what once was. In the town’s hardest times, Steelers football brought everyone together. Now, more than two decades later, the Pittsburgh Steelers are on top, and the skyline of the Steel City once again stands tall and proud as the backdrop of champions without ever forgetting its past. Oh yeah, make that six Lombardi trophies.

I-279 (Parkway West) inbound, Monday morning

First Triangle Tweetup of 2009

Like 150 other people, I attended the Triangle Tweetup last night at edge office. I have absolutely no idea what the topics of any of the presentation were. I think they were something like How to use Twitter to increase your online coolness, How to use Twitter to make a million dollars, How to use Twitter to pick up chicks, score high on the LSAT, increase your penis/bust size (not at the same time), whiten your teeth, etc. It’s not that I’m not interested in what was being said – OK, I really wasn’t interested. I still find it hard to believe that anyone in attendance gained anything from what seemed like common-sense, basic marketing sermons. Granted, I’m sure there are people who are brand spanking new to the internet – or at least to Twitter – and some people really don’t have marketing talents or backgrounds, but, in my opinion, since it was a Triangle Tweetup, there would have been better things to talk about. It’s a captive audience; bring in someone from the museum or the Durham Performing Arts Center or a local politician. Instead of talking about Twitter to people who are on Twitter, open up the forum. Now Ginny Skalski (@GinnySkal) did suggest turning it into a food drive – which was a great idea – so I won’t say it was without any social impact.

The real reason I attended last night wasn’t to learn anything about social marketing, but I do enjoy real (offline) social interaction and seeing the people who I, admittedly, met via twitter but who I’ve come to consider real friends. It’s also good to put faces to avatars, but my favorite experience is meeting new people and being able to honestly say, “Hey, I knew you before we followed each other.”

Rock & roll is interfering with my life.

You know, being a (wannabe) rock star isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, yeah, there are the women and the booze and the drugs, but sometimes, you just want to put the instruments down and have a normal weekend.

We’re in the middle of a month of weekend shows. This Saturday we’re heading to Charlotte (well Salisbury really) to play a show with our friends from Smashed Alley. It should be a good show, definitely high energy, and we do enjoy playing with those guys. But, really, could it come at a more inopportune time? Sunday is Superbowl Sunday, and this is no ordinary Superbowl Sunday. This is a Superbowl Sunday when my Steelers are playing. Coincidentally, this is also the last Sunday before I begin my diet and preparation for my next bodybuilding competition (but more about that in a later post). In a perfect world, I’d wake up on Sunday morning, have breakfast, hit the gym and be done and in football mode by noon, giving me plenty of time for pre-game preparation. That’s not going to happen this weekend.

Even if I remain completely in control on Saturday night (i.e.: don’t take part in the free-beer-for-the-bands program), there’s still little hope of getting out of the club before 2:30AM. Gear needs to be loaded, money collected, etc., and then there’s the matter of getting back to the hotel and dealing with any after-action reviews and any randoms that may have decided to join us. I’m hoping that, since our entourage will include one wife, one fiancé and two girlfriends (I’m the only one rolling solo) that we can wrap things up at a decent hour. In the morning, we still have the two-hour drive back to Raleigh and getting everything unloaded and back into the studio. Of course there’s the option of remaining completely sober and pulling the red-eye drive after we get loaded up; however, doing so would mean I can’t take advantage of the evening’s full potential.

Beer & an interview

So, I was thinking about beginning to blog again, and I thought, "Ya know, Dave, at last count there were 13.5 million blogs on the web (not really), and most blogs are self-centered ego masturbation. What fun is that?" And, although I'll blatantly admit that most of what I'll post is going to be what I happen to be thinking at the time, wouldn't it be nice to focus on other people as well? So, at tomorrow's Triangle Tweetup at Edge Office, I'll be conducting the first few episodes of "Beer & an Interview."
What is Beer & an Interview? Easy. I'll be bringing a cooler of Carlsberg - by favorite Danish beer, my flip camera and a tripod. I'll sit down with a few of the more interesting people in the triangle, share a beer with them, and they'll give me their spiel. I know some people have no problem with self promotion, but for those of you who don't particularly love to toot your own horns, it's a great opportunity to get your story out there. Who's going to see it? Damned if I know. But, if people actually start reading this blog, it may actually get noticed.
Since I probably won't know who I'll be interviewing before I get there, have a two-minute or so pitch or story thought out. If we go longer, who cares, I'll edit it.
If you want me to prepare some good questions for you (I do have experience in media training), DM me at @DaveMinella or send me an email at dminella31 (at) gmail (dot) com and tell me what makes you so interesting.
We WILL NOT be discussing Twitter or other social media!
Cool.
See everyone tomorrow.