Ive been reading up on Gironda for the past week or so, and find his work fascinating… but I dont know if I buy it. His ideas were obviously revolutionary for his day, but Im not sure if they translate into todays world. No squats, drinking half and half, isolating every muscle, no true compound excersises… Everything he says just seems a little off the wall in some cases…
i just wondered what everyone else here thought…
What do you think would happen if somebody followed his recomendations exactly? What do you think their gains would be? How would their health be effected (all the fats advocated, liver and glandular tablets, eggs, half and half)?
I hope some people chime in as I think this could be a really interesting discussion…
[quote]MurrDawg wrote:
Ive been reading up on Gironda for the past week or so, and find his work fascinating… but I dont know if I buy it. His ideas were obviously revolutionary for his day, but Im not sure if they translate into todays world. No squats, drinking half and half, isolating every muscle, no true compound excersises… Everything he says just seems a little off the wall in some cases…
i just wondered what everyone else here thought…
What do you think would happen if somebody followed his recomendations exactly? What do you think their gains would be? How would their health be effected (all the fats advocated, liver and glandular tablets, eggs, half and half)?
I hope some people chime in as I think this could be a really interesting discussion…[/quote]
I like Gironda’s work a lot, but agreeing with every little thing would just be blind following. Looking at the big concepts, increasing density proper exercise selection and cyclical carb dieting are very good principals.
His dietary recommendations(not counting liver tabs etc) are very similar to the immennsley popular Anabolic Diet. He succesfully trained some of the best looking(in my opinion) bodybuilders of the last 40 or so years. Larry Scott and Don Howorth being my favorites so he had to be doing some things right.
Read CT’s article the Gironda Method to get his opinion on it which is obviously better and more thorough than mine.
Man O Man do I miss the old Muscle mag with Vinces Q&A. It was the closest thing to T-Nation back in the day. One classic I’ll never forget:
Q: Vince don’t you know advocating raw eggs can lead to samonella poisoning?
A: Wilber don’t you know most Bodybuilders are injecting horse steroids and your affraid of an itty bitty egg! Go take up Ping Pong and leave me the fuck alone!
Fucking Guy was a classic! I loved everything about Vince except No Squats=Skinny flat ass, which is exactly what Vince had LMAO.
I like some of his training ideas. But the thing that always puts me off is that, apparently, he didn’t know much about eating. Namely, eating to gain muscle. The ‘wide-lats-no-arms look’ really doesn’t appeal to me.
If you’ve ever done Tabatas, then you might want to consider Gironda’s 8x8 workout. It’s a new kind of wicked.
On the whole, yeah, it is interesting how many of his practices (and many of the old school practices, in general) are trickling back into circulation. Says something about the circle of life, I guess. And it does remind us that there isn’t much in the fitness or training world that hasn’t been invented yet. There’s just a bunch of stuff “we” forgot that someone already did.
Say somebody took his “Masters Series” (one year of training, laid out by Vince, nutrition, supplements, training etc.)… what kind of results do you guys think you would see?
My personal feeling is that you would probably get pretty cut up, with some size… but Im kind of unsure… I think you could actually lose some size…
So try it and see!
Ive read tons of vinces stuff, and he often said that he would try new ideas on himself for several months, tweaking etc then telling people about it.
Ive got the master series, may well try it next year.
Been on ‘a muscle has four side’ which ive really liked.
I have been following the work of Vince Gironda for some time (prior to CT’s article summarizing the Gironda methods). I’ve recently purchased several of his books and courses and find many of his recommendations truly fascinating and cutting-edge for their time (and many still hold true today).
Although I don’t agree with all his methods and advice (who would?), I have have found the good and have been using it in my own training.
In addition, Vince did recommend squats for certain people, or certain variations of squats. So you can’t say that he didn’t recommend them at all. As all of his courses do have a squat or squat variation listed as the dominant leg exercise.
Vince Gironda has also had a profound effect on CT’s workouts, and if you are a Precision Nutrition member and have access to the bodybuilding program that CT posted, you’d see many similarities. Even in CT’s Jekyl/Hyde Body Transformation book, there are many workouts that use many of the methods and exercises that Vince promoted. But CT has updated some of Vince’s recommendations or improved them in some way without losing the overall idea.
I’ve only made the switch to “bodybuilding” in the past nine weeks, and I’ve found Vince’s methods, CT’s methods and several others as good sources of information.
Keep an open mind, find what works best for you, and feel free to challenge things. If you remember that advice from Vince, you’ll have the keys necessary to make great progress.
[quote]Majin wrote:
I like some of his training ideas. But the thing that always puts me off is that, apparently, he didn’t know much about eating. Namely, eating to gain muscle. The ‘wide-lats-no-arms look’ really doesn’t appeal to me. [/quote]
Didn’t know much about eating? How can you say that? What I have read about Gironda includes alot of nutrition reading.
Consider this:
He got his results without steroids
He had a very ripped physique… If he had some fat on he would look a lot bigger.
What doesn’t appeal to you? Not getting huge with steroids, but with hard work and eating?
I like the ideas he has but they dont work for me.
On everything I read on him , I think his stuff works for folks with greats genetics like Reeves, etc or folks that are already advanced.
I was followed a gironda message board for about a year and it seems almost everyone following his style of workouts where lean but did not have much size.
[quote]SteinJorgen wrote:
Majin wrote:
I like some of his training ideas. But the thing that always puts me off is that, apparently, he didn’t know much about eating. Namely, eating to gain muscle. The ‘wide-lats-no-arms look’ really doesn’t appeal to me.
Didn’t know much about eating? How can you say that? What I have read about Gironda includes alot of nutrition reading.
Consider this:
He got his results without steroids
He had a very ripped physique… If he had some fat on he would look a lot bigger.
What doesn’t appeal to you? Not getting huge with steroids, but with hard work and eating?
gimme a break.[/quote]
LOL. “If he had more fat he’d look bigger”, I should frame that.
Gironda was completely unimpressive as a bodybuilder. His arms were very small, as was all of his body. Maybe back then his knowledge was unsurpassed, but now most of the material written by him is obviously outdated. Although I’m sure he had some sound advice I so far had not read any that wasn’t common knowledge already. I did however read a lot of his stuff that was completely stupid and unfounded.
[quote]Majin wrote:
Gironda was completely unimpressive as a bodybuilder. His arms were very small, as was all of his body.[/quote]
I guarantee that he looks better than most of the people who post on the forum.
He may not have had as much arm mass or overall mass, but for his height, weight and the era, he was extremely shredded and created the “illusion” of being bigger than he was.
Maybe his arms were a weakness due to short muscle bellies and long tendons. Vince spoke about the challenges some people must overcome to compete in bodybuilding in his books and courses. Someone with a small frame, short muscle bellies and small wrists and ankles won’t be able to build the same amount of mass as someone with better genetics. However, by working on those weak areas and creating an illusion, you can appear larger.
I don’t see how his information is outdated or stupid.
[quote]Majin wrote:
SteinJorgen wrote:
Majin wrote:
I like some of his training ideas. But the thing that always puts me off is that, apparently, he didn’t know much about eating. Namely, eating to gain muscle. The ‘wide-lats-no-arms look’ really doesn’t appeal to me.
Didn’t know much about eating? How can you say that? What I have read about Gironda includes alot of nutrition reading.
Consider this:
He got his results without steroids
He had a very ripped physique… If he had some fat on he would look a lot bigger.
What doesn’t appeal to you? Not getting huge with steroids, but with hard work and eating?
gimme a break.
LOL. “If he had more fat he’d look bigger”, I should frame that.
Gironda was completely unimpressive as a bodybuilder. His arms were very small, as was all of his body. Maybe back then his knowledge was unsurpassed, but now most of the material written by him is obviously outdated. Although I’m sure he had some sound advice I so far had not read any that wasn’t common knowledge already. I did however read a lot of his stuff that was completely stupid and unfounded.[/quote]
this is ignorant, it’s not like he had a lot to work with himself genetics wise but besides that point his “idea” in his head was aesthetics not size.
He worked on creating the wide v-cut down to a small waist and all that, he did not care for size on himself. Plus, he hated “fat people” so i doubt he ever really bulked, but that is due to his ideals and beliefs, whose to say if he had a different mindset(more modern) he wouldn’t of had the knowledge to actually put some mass on him.
[quote]Nate Dogg wrote:
He may not have had as much arm mass or overall mass, but for his height, weight and the era, he was extremely shredded and created the “illusion” of being bigger than he was.[/quote]
For his era, perhaps. But this is not his era and we know much more now. Just about any natural bodybuilder from our era looks better than Gironda.
[quote]Nate Dogg wrote:
I don’t see how his information is outdated or stupid.[/quote]
don’t mix carbs and protein
never work out more than 45 min
don’t do bench press for chest
don’t do presses for delts
don’t do one arm exercises
A lot of it sure is. And most of the stuff that isn’t bullshit we know already and know more extensively.
Most people on this site are after gaining muscle. Why the hell would you look for advice from a guy who disliked big muscles? Read it, learn it, it’s all good. But please don’t forget to get over it.
[quote]That One Guy wrote:
this is ignorant, it’s not like he had a lot to work with himself genetics wise but besides that point his “idea” in his head was aesthetics not size.[/quote]
How do you know what his genetics were? And why is everyone using genetics as a cop out? If his idea was aesthetics then why do you assume he knows anything about gaining size or that his knowledge would be better than what we have today? It’s not. Aesthetics have changed.
This may be outdated unless you follow the anabolic diet.
If working out with the intensity that Vince recommended, then you shouldn’t be working out for more than 45 minutes. Remember, his workouts were based on doing as much as possible in a short period of time. Also, he recommended working out 5-6 days a week.
If training with short rest periods and at that frequency, I would agree that training no more than 45 minutes would be recommended.
He recommended the neck press, which is basically the wide-grip bench press. He also recommended dips (done his way for chest) and flyes. He’s right that some people won’t build a large chest from bench presses as it may be a deltoid or tricep dominant exercise.
I don’t agree that you should avoid all overhead pressing (and neither did Vince), but he does recommend working on width and the illusion of width through lateral raises.
I can see this both ways.
History repeats itself. We know more thanks to people like Vince who challenged many beliefs during this time.
Absorb what is good and let go of that which is not.
I still believe that Vince had many good thoughts, even if pure mass wasn’t his goal.
