Five for Five with Tommy Jeffers – Part One

It’s not surprising, given the online company we keep, that Tommy and I were trolling the same online forums and within a few years he’d catapulted himself into the limelight of the fitness interwebs. Beside winning the 2007 OCB Mr. Natural Indiana and gaining his IFPA pro card the same year, he’s plastered near naked on the cover of Lyle McDonald’s The Stubborn Fat Solution. Not bad for a bodybuilding nerd. I had the opportunity to interview him, so without further ado, here’s the first of a two-part interview with ‘Sporto’ Tommy Jeffers.

RZ: Tommy, you’ve been elevated into the professional ranks of natural bodybuilders.  Why don’t you give us a little history lesson as to what got you here?

TJ: Growing up, I’d always been involved in sports and had a very athletic childhood.  When I reached middle school, and then high school, I had become quite the skinny kid.  My family didn’t have a lot of money, and I never wore any of the nice, preppy clothes, so I was picked on all the time by the “cool” kids.  And then one day it just hit me.  I remember the exact day too.  It was during my sophomore year of high school, and on this particular day of being picked on, I had simply had enough.  I remember being so mad at myself for not standing up to these kids that it was right then and there I decided to do something about it.  It was then that I literally became OCD with training, nutrition, supplementation, all of it. I essentially got started into weightlifting because of insecurity issues I had with myself at the time.  I mean, who isn’t insecure at that age right?

Obviously, the reasons why I do what I do now have changed, but that was my birth into the world of weightlifting.  Now, as for bodybuilding, I never really had aspirations for it growing up.  It didn’t even occur to me as something I would do until I the year 2004.  I had just been through a very emotionally tumultuous time in my life – ended an engagement, ended my professional baseball career, didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life, etc.  We’ve all been there, and if you haven’t yet, you will!  But, it was that year I decided to actually try bodybuilding out at the local contest that my college has annually called Mr. ISU.  It was a great experience.  It gave me something in my life I felt like I could control again with the dieting, the training, etc.  And best of all, I ended up winning the competition that year and I have been hooked ever since!

RZ: Tommy, that’s awesome. I think a lot of the guys in the game today can relate to your story. I was surprised about your approach for this most recent competition. In the past I know you experimented with aggressive, cylical diets. Even Lyle’s now infamous Ultimate Diet 2.0. For your latest competition, it seems you took a moderate approach vis-à-vis diet and training. Intensity non-withstanding (as obviously it was through the roof), how could the average trainee adopt the broad strokes of your modality so as to apply some of your ideas to their own plans?

TJ: That’s just it!  There isn’t anything fancy or complicated with what I do.  And, what I do isn’t difficult at all.  You know what is?  Making what I do a habit, that’s the hard part. I mean, how difficult is it to sit food on a scale and weigh it?  It’s not.  How difficult is it to remember to do that all the time?  That’s the trick.  It’s those very little things that you don’t even notice that separate the average from the elite.  Let’s face it, there really hasn’t been anything revolutionary come out in the fitness industry that has caused the big and ripped look to happen any faster than doing the mundane basics over a period of time.

You know why?

Because that’s the big secret.  What you see in my physique is nothing more than hard work ethic and discipline over a long period time.  Consistency is what separates the average from the elite.  Most people will do it for awhile, then back off, then get back in it, then back off, etc. I have been training, eating right, and supplementing the necessities for years and years.  If there’s one thing I would love to hammer into the brains of all the “average” trainees it would be to stay consistent with all of this and make it part of your lifestyle.  Once you do that, the results will inevitably come and it’s all downhill from there.

RZ: I know you’re not a fitness guru by anymeans, but I also know you’ve worked as a trainer. You strike me as the eternal student, but presume you have 12 weeks to take a “skinny-fat” trainee at a roughly intermediate level.  He needs to get into awesome shape for (okay, let’s aim high here) a movie role.  What sort of protocols what you employ to develop your ideal “Spartan?”

TJ: This is where the fun begins on my part as a trainer, and is why I love doing what I do.  Most trainers that you see at a local franchise gym, have a couple of cookie-cutter programs that they put everybody on.  What separates the good trainers from the bad ones is the ability to adapt and tailor specifics to each individual for whatever their needs are.  As much as I’d like to think so, not everyone wants to look like a pro bodybuilder!

In a situation like that, here’s what you’d have to do.  First, you have to find out roughly how much he/she needs to lose to get the desired look that he/she is wanting.  That will determine what their weekly fat/body fat loss needs to be to hit their desired goal.  Now, we take the weekly goal and use that to determine the calorie level per day that we need to achieve that goal.  Then, I would decide the best approach (macro-nutrient ratio wise) based upon what body type they have, to determine what daily numbers he/she needs to hit.  Then the training approach will be tailored to them base on recovery ability, any injuries or limitations, what machines/equipment they have access to, etc.  So, essentially what I end up with is a big puzzle and my job is to put the pieces together in the most optimal way possible based on everything that I have learned over the years.

RZ: There’s been much talk recently of the merits of compound routines versus plans that focus on lower frequency and greater isolation (i.e. body part splits).  I noticed for your latest competition you took on a fairly traditional bodybuilding style approach.  Could you talk about your philosophies when it comes to training?

Ah yes, the infinite debate on what’s considered the most optimal approach. My training philosophy, which everything I do, preach, and teach with, does not focus on any particular routine, rather thebalancethat lies within that routine.  The 3 variables that we have at play with any training routine are volume, frequency, and intensity.  In my opinion, what’s far more important that what training routine/split you choose, is the balance that you have with it.  Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t think that some programs are more optimal than others, because I certainly do – and that all depends on what the ultimate goal is for that individual.  But, as long as you can find and attain the right balance of those 3 variables…I believe the program will work.  So, again, my philosophy on training isn’t within any particular style of training, rather the balance within that style of those 3 variables.

RZ: Okay, seriously, how did you develop that kind of volume tolerance?

TJ: Hah! I will admit, for whatever reason, I have found that my body has downright freaky genetics when it comes to recovery ability and volume tolerance.  And honestly, I think that’s really what it boils down to: genetics.  I haven’t seen anything in my own research that has shown prolonged adaptation to high volumes of training, i.e. you can’t “train” your body to have better volume tolerance – which is why we have over-reaching/over-training.  Now, I do believe that your body will adapt to anything that you can throw at it in the acute sense, but trying to prolong higher volumes of training than what your body is genetically able to recover from will just result in overtraining.  So, unfortunately, it’s just that I’m a genetic freak.

Check back soon for Part Two of this installment of Five for, um, More than Five with IFPA Pro Tommy Jeffers.

Tagged as: bodybuilding