by The Immolator
Exclusive to OnlineOnslaught.com

"I’ve been… TRAINING… Master Fuji! I’ve been in the river… biting heads off stinkin’ SALMONS!” — The Bezerker

Welcome back to The Ring. The Immolator here. First name “The,” last name “Immolator."

Let’s see… since the last time we talked, I’ve had two more lessons, bringing me up to a total of nine out of 50. I’ve fallen behind, it seems. Most people are in the mid-20s already. As a result, there are a few holes in my learning process. For example, on Tuesday, I was learning how to do a powerslam off an Irish Whip before I had learned a basic bodyslam. I’ve also been hit with a few clotheslines without having learned to deliver one. At some point, I need remedial training. Then again, I suspect there are holes in every wrestler’s game at every level. Much in the same way as actors have “lines of business,” roles in which he or she excels within a certain emotional range, wrestlers tend to compartmentalize. Power wrestlers. Technical wrestlers. High-flyers. Comedy acts. Hardcore. Old school. In my own dumb opinion, each one could learn something from the others.

Tuesday’s lesson, Number Eight, was led by The Man They Call Bubba. He’s about 6-foot, 270 pounds, and built like someone on the All-Madden team. Unsurprisingly, he seems to favour teaching power moves, like the side slams I wimped out of last week. The timing has improved a lot on my bumps, though, so I was game to learn the powerslam. First, we did a ton of hip tosses. I was getting good air on the receiving end, and it felt more natural to do. Repetition, repetition, repetition. Still, every once in a while, I receive a move and I instinctively throw an arm out to break my fall. This is not a good thing. If I keep doing it, it’s likely I will break my arm. It also makes a move look very, very sloppy. And everyone in the class groans and says, “Don’t do that!” Ah, the power of positive reinforcement.

The problem I face while learning these moves on the fly is that there are about ten things going on in my head at once. And there’s only room for seven. Here’s a rough sketch of Immo’s brain as he’s trying to deliver a beautiful, crisp, Ted DiBiase-like powerslam off the ropes.

1: Footwork. Where’s my feet?

2: Gotta square up the body to pick up the guy. Where’s my hip?

3: Where am I in the ring?

4: Okay, pick him up. Get a deep scoop.

5: Holy &*#$, this guy weighs a ton.

6: Squeeze him against your chest, make his weight yours. Now pivot!

7: Pivot, you idiot!

8: Where am I landing?

9: What the hell am I doing?

10: Crap, I just dropped him.

Out of this list, Numbers One, Two and Three should become almost second nature after a few repetitions. Four requires a little thought. Five should disappear. Six also needs to be remembered. Eight becomes second nature, the rest are bad thoughts that should disappear. So, out of that list of ten, there should only be two, maybe three things to think about. I’m processing all ten. Helluva way to learn.

Wednesday’s lesson, Number Nine, was taught by the main man, “Gorgeous” Michelle Starr. He spent a good portion of the lesson emphasizing the need to keep a journal of what we have learned, the quality and development of our moves, and so on. Without it, it’s easy to miss the holes in your education. He also went over the aspects of calling a match, some of the vocabulary of the industry, and the psychology of the heel and the face. Moves-wise, there were some hammerlock reversals, notably the snap mare, and how to maintain a hammerlock after receiving a snap mare. That took a while. People, especially yours truly, were twisting this way and that like dying fish. It’s also hard to hold onto a hammerlock when your victim is sweating like a stuck pig.

After the lesson: a match! Suh-weet. Immo’s first taste of action. I was part of an eight-man tag match. And, yes, I got to play the bad guy. I started the match off for our team. A transcription would probably look like this:

Collar-and-elbow. Face with the side headlock, and a takedown. Reversal into a head scissors by Immo. Face pops out, gets the headlock again. Immo turns it into a hammerlock. Reversed by the face, into a side headlock again. Off the ropes, shoulder tackle by the face. Off the far ropes, Immo drops down, gets back up, face re-applies the side headlock. OLD SCHOOL! Face tags to Face2. Clothesline. Irish Whip, drop toehold. Immo scurries to his corner, holding his nose, and tags Heel2. Then Immo hugs Heel4 around the waist and cries about how his nose hurts. Yar!

Simple stuff, for the most part. Just a little sloppy by yours truly. Hey, first time in the ring, and all. Us bad guys controlled the match from there, until the end. Heel4 made the hot tag to me, but the faces also tagged in their secret weapon: A five-foot French-Canadian named Monique. She clotheslined me out of my boots, then cleaned house as all my teammates ran in ninja-style. Dazed, I got up, only to get small packaged for the pin. Alas! The agony of defeat! I protested loudly to the referee, of course, but inside, I loved it. Ohhhhh, what a rush.

Now all I need is a gimmick. (grin) Actually, I’ve got something in mind, and it’s in the final stages of development. I’ll release the prototype soon, maybe even next week.

I mentioned in the previous column that my conditioning is improving by leaps and bounds, and that I’d go into more detail about my weight program this week. So here goes.

I was a skinny teenager. “Stick,” my friends called me. Bastards. I got even skinnier in 1987 at age 17, after a bout of mononucleosis that left me at 6-feet, 128 pounds. Yikes. After I got back on my feet, I saw a physio dude at Carleton University in Ottawa, where I sometimes attended classes. He put me on a basic program to add strength, and suggested I pay far more attention to my diet. My roommate and old pal Wayne was a black belt at the time, I believe, and his brother Ken liked to look good for the ladies, so we’d go to the gym on a semi-regular basis. We’d also buy gawd-awful tasting weight gain powders. When I was working the assorted joe job, I was making enough money, barely, to feed myself. Often, however, clinical depression won the day, as did the family-size bag of Doritos.

I managed to get up to about 160 pounds before eventually getting my life straightened out on the Left Coast. Some semi-regular gym time at the University of Victoria, along with a better diet, got me up to 180. By this time, I was learning as much as I could about bodybuilding and supplements. No, not those kind. I mean vitamins and powders and stuff. I found that most of the product out there only makes a difference at the elite level, where a subtle difference in body appearance can determine whether you get a paycheque or not. Otherwise, a lot of that stuff winds up going right through your body, and your wallet. Today, I only use a basic protein powder, a multivitamin, and creatine. Plus a good teaspoon of fibre in my shake. Like Robin Williams says in “The Fisher King,” there’s nothing like a good, satisfying bowel movement every day.

As for technique, bodybuilding is a terribly inexact science. There is no consensus on what constitutes a “proper” workout. I found myself enjoying Mike Mentzer’s columns in FLEX Magazine, where he’d stress the importance of not overtraining, while throwing out Ayn Rand quotes at random. His approach was this: a muscle should be trained once to the point of failure, using heavy weights and low repetitions, then it should be given ample rest. Any further training of that muscle will only damage it. Made sense to me. Still does. There are exceptions to the rule, of course. Some muscles, like quads, seem to respond better to higher repetitions. Muscles like calves and forearms seem to recover much more quickly than the rest, and can be trained more often. Abs, hell, my abs suck. There’s only so much work you can do on abs before you realize that it’s cardio and diet that determine how good your stomach looks.

In a nutshell, here’s Immo’s two-day-per-week workout. The actual day of the week I go may vary. Each workout starts with 10-15 minutes of light cardio, followed by a through stretch. Each muscle group is done all at once with minimal rest. Percentages are approximate.

Monday

CHEST

Dumbbell presses: 15 reps at 50% maximum weight; 6-8 reps at 80-90% max

Dumbbell flyes: 8-10 reps at 70% max

TRICEPS

Tricep pulldowns: 6-8 reps at 80-90% max

SHOULDERS

Shoulder presses: 6-8 reps at 80-90% max

Front lateral raises: 8-10 reps at 70% max

Side lateral raises: 8-10 reps at 60% max

Shoulder shrugs (trapezius): 15-20 reps at 80% max

FOREARMS

Forearm Curls: 15-20 reps at 60% max

QUADS

Squats (preferably Smith press): 15-20 reps at 50% max; 15-20 reps at 70% max

Leg extensions: 15-20 reps at 60% max

CALVES

Calf presses (seated or standing): Two sets of 15-20 at 80-90% max

ABS

Three sets of 15-20 crunches

Friday

BACK

Lat pulldowns (medium grip): 15-20 reps at 50% max; 6-8 reps at 80-90% max

Reverse-grip pulldowns (close grip): 10-12 reps at 60% max

Reverse sit ups: Two sets of 15, carrying extra weights as needed

BICEPS

Any kind of curl: 6-8 reps at 80-90% max

Hercules curl (cables): 12-15 reps at 60% max

FOREARMS same as Monday

HAMSTRINGS

Leg curl: 15-20 reps at 50% max; 6-8 reps at 80-90% max

CALVES as Monday

ABS as Monday

And that’s it. I think it took me longer to type that out that to actually do the exercises. Each workout ends with another 10-15 minutes of light cardio and a good stretch.

Again, I’m no saint. I miss workouts all the time, although I find a lot more motivation to go to the gym now, simply because I love wrestling. I need to get stronger and look better if I am to have any chance of furthering my craft.

Even if I never set foot in a ring professionally, I will still have gained the health benefits from working out, both in the ring and in the gym. To quote The Iron Sheik, I am in (slaps chest) best shape of career!

Time to fly. I will regale you with more tales from in and around The Ring next week. Until then…

Peace.

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