Estrategias didácticas de aprendizaje

In the first week of December, my dad passed away at the age of 89. His name was also Victor Martinez. Dad came to the USA in the late ’70s and worked at the old Woolworth department store for years before he retired. We clashed a lot when I was younger. I was getting in a lot of trouble in high school so I dropped out. Dad saw me lifting weights and didn’t approve because he thought I was throwing my life away on this dopey dream of being a muscleman. At one point he even threw my weights out in the trash! Eventually I went back and got my GED, and he was relieved about that.

Dad came around to the whole bodybuilding thing once he saw how dedicated I was and how it gave my life structure and discipline. He was very proud of my accomplishments and would cut out any newspaper arti- cles and send copies out to all our relatives. Dad was also happy any time I gave him a magazine that had an article about me. I know he had quite a collection of MD issues. Dad was a lot older by the time I was competing as a pro, so traveling to my shows wasn’t something he was able to do. Unfortunately, he never saw me compete. We took him back to the country town of San Francisco in the Dominican Republic to bury him. I miss him just like I miss my mom, who passed away going on three years ago. Now they’re together again.

MD

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March 2009 www.musculardevelopment.com

I just tore my pec about two hours ago (bench pressing). I went to the ER and have to go see some- one tomorrow. It seems like a partial tear, and I remember reading that you rehabbed yours. I was wondering if your protocol was written somewhere, so I could follow it.

It really wasn’t any- thing too complicated like a routine to follow. The main thing was that I made a conscious effort to keep my arm extended so that scar tissue didn’t form and limit my range of motion. I also had a lot of soft-tissue work done by a certified massage therapist, which was also aimed at prevent- ing scar tissue from building up. You have to keep stretching the pec out even though it feels more comfortable to just tuck your arm into

your body. Make sure you have an MRI done to find out exactly how serious the tear is. It may need surgical reattachment and it may not, but without the MRI you won’t know. X-rays never tell the whole story. You might have to be a little aggressive and demand an MRI if your health care provider isn’t immediately willing, but stick to your guns. It’s your body and you have to be the one to look out for it!

Assuming I live in a country where everything is legal and that’s not the issue, which is worse for bodybuilders: alcohol or marijuana?

That’s easy— alcohol. For one thing, it’s full of empty calories. Alcohol itself is really a sugar, and almost any alcoholic beverage uses even more sugar to dilute it. Some of those girly drinks have as much sugar as a few candy bars! Also, people tend to skip meals when they drink. It blunts the appetite. Then, if you drink too much like a lot of people do, you get what’s called a hangover. This means you are feeling nauseous for hours, maybe even the whole next day, and again you’ll miss meals. If you were supposed to train that day, you probably won’t feel like it and will skip the workout. Alcohol also raises estrogen levels and suppresses testosterone.

Compare all this to marijuana. Pot tends to make most people sleepy and hungry. There have been many bodybuilders who use it to relax after a tough workout and to stimulate the appetite so they can take in the quality calories they need. Obviously, if someone gets the munchies and eats a bunch of junk, that defeats the purpose. There is no hangover with weed. It does affect short-term memory and some people also have issues with los- ing motivation in general if they smoke on a regular basis. So really, neither alcohol nor marijuana is something I would recommend to bodybuilders, but you did ask me to pick the lesser of two evils.

PHO T OGRAPHY BY PER BERNAL

www.fantamag.com

www.musculardevelopment.com March 2009

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Victor Martinez—

The True Victor

Victor, I read about how you now prefer doing step-ups to lunges and I want to give them a try, too. Just wondering, how high does the bench or box need to be off the ground? My choices at my gym are to either use a flat bench, which has that pad on it, or to stack Reebok steps from the aero- bics room. Also, does it matter whether I use a barbell or dumbbells?

Whether you use barbells or dumbbells really depends on how good a sense of balance you have. Holding dumbbells gives you a lower center of gravity. If you’re not the most graceful or agile person, that’s the

way to go. The height of the object you step up on needs to be such that the quad of the leg you are step- ping with is parallel to the ground when your foot lands on the surface. Unless you are really short, a single Reebok step wouldn’t be anywhere near tall enough, so stacking a few of them would be better. I wouldn’t use the flat bench because the padding is too unstable of a

surface. It’s almost as bad as trying to step up on to one of those big

Swiss balls! That’s too bad, because that height is about right

for most guys.