Return to hard times; Dennis James has laid a foundation of muscle with his powerful chest and back training regimens over the years. here's how he stays thick and muscular, front to rear

Flex, July, 2008 by Juliann Schmidt

TIME BARES TRUTH. MORE OFTEN THAN NOT, that truth is a rude awakening that serves as a guardrail to ricochet us back on track; and bodybuilding, driven by passion more than by reason, can always use more guardrails. Ours is an impatient endeavor, but that impatience can be good or bad: good, as long as it rebels against stagnation and fuels progress; bad if it seeks a shortcut around the monotonies of perseverance and exhaustive effort necessary for success. Our daily mortifications of training must be keened to an almost masochistic peak, and only 11 men in history have proven they can sustain it: they were the only Mr. Olympias in 42 years.

Their imitators are learning, but they're doing so by experiencing the difference between resolute and irresolute impatience. Cursed with a gift for growing, they infer from their rapid ascendancy that there must be an even faster way to progress, only to discover later that their abandonment of what worked best left a gap in their progress, and they eventually acquiesce, and return full-circle to their training roots.

Dennis James made it fast in this business, picking up his first jackleg barbell in Thailand in June 1992, straining out four sets of four reps for each exercise, "as heavy as possible," with no attenuation of toil for the next six years; then, winning the overall at the 1998 NPC USA Championships on his first try. To most bodybuilders, such success bespeaks a gift for growing; but D.J., now 39, understands that his original training style, rather than technological advances, wasresponsible for one of the thickest, most three-dimensional physiques in muscledom, particularly his chest and back symmetry that was so spherical you could tip him on his side and use him as a steamroller.

JUST THE BASICS Way back when, D.J. did bench presses, dumbbell flyes and incline barbell presses for chest; for back, it was pulldowns, seated pulley rows, barbell rows, dumbbell pullovers or one-arm dumbbell rows, because, he says, "That's all we had in Thailand, nothing else; and even most of that was self-made. We had no machines at all." That level of sophistication extended also to bodypart splits, but failed to reach the emergent recuperation cop-out: "The more, the better," he thought. In three days, his entire body was trained, after which he took one day off and was back at it again. Basic, but enough to provide D.J. with a four-rep, 585-pound incline bench press and the truckload of muscle that accompanied it.

By 2001, D.J.'s muscularity bore such might that he took third in the Arnold Classic. That's when he entered the inevitable hell of most shooting-star superstars: he's a top pro, now, and big enough, so he should concentrate on refining his physique. Heavy basics would only make him a mighty lump of muscle onstage, he was told.

So D.J. sculpted, rather than hammered. For chest, he switched to machine presses, Smith machine incline or flat benches, dumbbell flyes and cable crossovers. Back training included Hammer Strength rows, Hammer Strength high rows, cable pulldowns, machine chinups, seated pulley rows and high rows. Whatever the bodypart, he chose three exercises for four sets each or four exercises for three sets each, so that each bodypart got 12 total sets. Repetitions were eight to 12.

GOING FOURTH By 2003, the message crystallized when he managed fourth in the Mr. Olympia. Was he more refined? Yes, but he blended with the best, rather than distinguishing himself from them. No longer did he hold a dominant margin of mass. "I hadstrayed from the basics, where I had always felt comfortable," he confesses. "I had to get back to them."

In 2005, he heeded the call and found that neglected, ancient iron as warm and soothing as an old pair of sweats. Still, his wayward ways were not wastrel days. "Some good came of doing something different for a while," he reflects. "It confirmed that what I was doing before was better." He might also have added that he learned some maturity from his kinder, gentler training experience. "My exercises are basically the same as I used in the beginning, but now there's aminor difference," D.J. says. "I was always a strong bodybuilder, so I went with that; it was 'lift heavy, eat, sleep.'" At that fallow stage, it was good for building strength and mass, but the older he got, the bigger and stronger he got, the bigger and stronger he got, which garnered him the dubious blessing of being able to put so much stress on his muscles and joints that he's capable of entering a danger zone without realizing it. "I'm 39 now and at the point where I don't have to worry about size, but I do have to worry about injuring myself, so I've reduced the weight and increased the reps." The results of the new strategy will be on view at August's Tampa Pro and Europa Super Show contests.

To compensate for the decreased weight, he increased his intensity, especially in the cable-snapping tension he wrings from every interminable rep by performing it slower, "sometimes in slow motion--on both the positive and negative," he explains. "That way, I feel it a lot, lot more." When asked if he takes these sets to failure, he answers, "I often can't tell, because it feels so good after six or seven reps, but from seven to eight, all of a sudden my muscles are so fatigued that they lose all feeling and simply collapse. They've failed, but that's not on my mind. I'm just thinking about doing as much as I can on my own, then stopping. Sometimes I do forced reps, but only if my training partner so desires. To tell the truth, I'm not big on forced reps, but I am big on feeling each rep and making it burn as long as possible; that's why I do them ver-r-ry slowly."