Australia - Bodybuilding .com

This interview is from Flex magazine [USA version] 2003 and is entitled “Leaving Smallville”

When teenage Clark Kent grew into adult Superman, he left rural Smallville for urban Metropolis. Similarly, when teenage Superman superfan Lee Priest swelled into a pro-caliber bodybuilder, he left his native Australia for America. Journey with us now through a tale of yesteryear as Lee Priest explains how he expanded from an undersized Aussie to a world-beater. Faster than other speeding motorists, more powerful than most powerlifters, able to leap a KFC bucket in a single bound: Look! Up on the stage! It's a comic-book drawing in the flesh! It's SuperPriest!

FLEX: Were you always a Superman fan?

• Pretty much. Every year, my mother would make me a new suit and a cape for the dog, and I always had Superman stuff. I wasn't so much into the comic books, but I remember getting up at 5 AM before school to watch the old black-and-white George Reeves TV show. I was always interested in strength. When I was 10 or 11, before I even started bodybuilding, I'd have my sister sit in the car in the driveway and take the brake off, and I'd push it one way and then the other. We used to go to this place where the river emptied out into the beach and I'd put her in a raft and tie a rope to her and I'd run against the current, pulling her back and forth.

What were you like before you started weight training?

• I was a normal skinny twerp. I had lean muscle, but because I started so young [at age 13], as I got older and the hormones kicked in, I always progressed. At 13, I weighed about 120, and when I moved to California at age 20, I was over 200 pounds. I was about 186 in my first pro contest [1993 Niagara Pro Invitational], so I gained more than 70 pounds of muscle in my teenage years.

What was your training like as a teenager?

• Pretty much the way it is now. The only difference was I did lifts like bench presses and presses-behind-the-neck that I later decided didn't work for my body. I believe in the old Arnold style of high-volume basic exercises and heavy weights with six to eight reps. I did at least 20 sets per bodypart, sometimes 30 or more, and that's not counting warm-ups. I go by how I feel. I've always been a very instinctive trainer. I never had a set routine in mind before I started a workout. I always make it up as I go, depending on how I feel and what equipment is available.

What kind of training split were you using?

• I never really stuck to one split. Most often, I'd go four-on and one-off, but sometimes I'd train for two weeks straight if I felt strong and wasn't tired. I'm still that way. Sometimes I'll train biceps and triceps on one day. Other times, I'll do bis one day and tris on another. I mix and match as I go along. Sometimes it might be a chest day, but if I don't feel like training chest, I'll do shoulders.

Which intensity techniques did you use?

• I liked forced reps. I've always had a training partner and that person would help me with the last one or two reps, just enough to keep the weight moving. I did supersets or giant sets occasionally, just when I got a silly idea to try something different. I often did them when I didn't feel like going heavy, but I usually ended up going heavy anyway. It seems I just can't escape going heavy, damn it. That's the only way I know how to train.

Did you push most sets to failure?

• Yep, every set. If I don't get to failure when I get to eight reps, then I don't count that set. I'll increase the weight and do the set again.

How did you settle on six to eight reps?

• I tried more, but I never really liked it. I'd rather increase the weight than the reps. Say I was doing dumbbell presses and I was using 140-pounders and I got to 10 pretty easily, I'd think it was a wasted set and I should've grabbed the 150- or 160-pound dumbbells. I just prefer to use the heavier weights all the way through.

What sort of equipment did you use?

• In Australia then, we just had free weights and the basic machines, things like the leg-curl and lat-pulldown. We didn't have any of the fancier machines like Hammer Strength, because it was too expensive to import them down there. I've always felt the basic movements are best anyway. These days, guys depend too much on machines. You see a lot of good physiques, but they lack that dense muscle that the guys had in earlier days.If you have a choice between barbell rows or a row machine where you just have to change the pin, people go for the easier one, but you can't make it easy on your muscles if you want to grow. You can get a good workout with machines, but it's not the same because you're not using stabilizing muscles. When you squat, for example, you're putting your whole body into the movement to balance the bar and that brings out a muscle quality you just can't get from machines.

What would you recommend to an average bodybuilder who wants to gain size?

• Stick to the basics. You can use machines to warm up or finish off a muscle, but the free-weight basics should form the core of your program. Use trial and error. Some exercises might not work as well for you. Sometimes it takes a long time to figure out the training and diet that works best for you. Everybody is different.You also need to focus on your whole lifestyle. Bodybuilding isn't just 90 minutes in the gym; it's a way of life. I know a lot of guys who train hard, but their eating isn't good or they go out and party and drink until four in the morning. Then I hear them say they might be training too much. No, they're just not getting enough sleep and good food. Both are crucial if you want to build muscle.

Do you advocate high-volume training?

• It works for me, but it doesn't work only for me; it's always worked for my training partners. I think a lot of people don't train enough. I don't know if they're lazy or they just don't want to spend as much time in the gym, but they do 45 minutes and they're gone. I guess it's just the way society is today. You can buy premade meals, stir them and go. Everything is done so quickly; I guess people want bodybuilding to be the same.

 You're notorious for gaining a lot of weight in off seasons. Do you recommend high-volume eating, as well?

• If you're going to gain size, you have to gain some bodyfat. When I was trying to gain size, I'd drink a liter of full-cream milk and eat a whole chicken and half a loaf of bread for a meal. I was eating pretty much like they did back in Arnold's day. To this day, I stick to the basics--steak, potatoes, chicken, pasta, dairy products--stuff like that and occasional junk food. I do the old bulk-up and diet phases, more calories to gain mass, less calories to lose fat and, of course, cardio when I'm dieting. I've never made this bodybuilding thing very scientific. The more scientific you make it, the greater the chance for screwing up. If you stick to the basics, you can't go wrong.

You train mostly at home now. Is there any special advice you have for our readers who train at home?

• I have a gym in a shed outside my house. It's probably 116 degrees in there today, and my training partners are on their way over now to hit back. I have a lot of free weights, but I have machines, too. I'm sure my gym is better equipped than the average home gym and even some commercial gyms, but people can get a great workout with just free weights.My main advice would be to train safely. Be very careful going heavy without a spotter. If your gym is away from the house, like mine, make sure someone always knows you're training so they can at least be listening for your cries of help if you get stuck. When you're training in a gym alone, don't go to failure for any lift like a bench press or squat where you could get squashed.

Do you have any specific advice for younger trainers?

• It's crazy that when I was 17, people used to say, "You need more thickness here and there," and I'd say, "Hey, I'm only 17." It takes time to grow into the physique you were meant to have. Guys go into the gym these days and they want to be huge right away. When it doesn't happen, they resort to drugs and whatever they can to get there. They don't understand that it takes years to grow a lot of muscle. Just take it slow and don't get crazy with it and the size will come.

When did you decide you wanted to be a pro?

• It snuck up on me. Even when I moved here, it wasn't my goal to be a pro bodybuilder. The first day I arrived and dropped my bags off at the hotel and went to Gold's Gym [in Venice, California], people said I should be a pro, but that wasn't my ambition. I just liked training. I hear all these guys today saying, "I'm going to do this and I'm going to be a pro," and most of them don't even have the potential to be a pro nose picker.Whether it's Superman stuff or car racing or bodybuilding, I just do things I enjoy doing. With bodybuilding, I've managed to make it a living, but if I hadn't, I still would have had a good time training. That's always been my attitude. I train and diet for shows and come in the best I can, and if that's not good enough, so be it. I don't get caught up in all the B.S. criticism and the sort of negative stuff you read on the [Internet] boards. Bodybuilding is meant to be fun. When it's not fun anymore, I'll quit and get a real job.

Priest's Sermon

Even as a teenager, Lee Priest utilized high-volume workouts. Performing 20 or more high-intensity sets per bodypart may lead to overtraining, but even if his First Mass Program (see chart) isn't right for you, here's how you can follow the Priestly path.

• Instinctive Training: Priest monitors his physique before and during each workout and uses only those exercises and techniques that work best for him on that particular day
• Variety: Priest regularly alters his exercises, the order of exercises and his training sprit.
• Heavy Basics: The one constant in Priest's training has been his dependence on free-weight basic lifts and the fact that virtually every set is heavy (six to eight reps).
• Helping Hands: Priest has always benefited from training partners to assist with forced reps and encouragement.
• Keep it Simple :From his home gym, to his meat-and-potatoes diet, to the fact that his world-class teenage muscle was built naturally, Priest proves you don't need the latest equipment, "prep guru" or chemical to reach your true potential. 

Priest's Idol Worship

"I didn't really have one idol, but I liked Tom Platz for his legs, Dorian Yates for his back and Eddie Robinson for his arms. A few years ago, I trained with Tom Platz for a while, and they were some of the best workouts I ever had. He'd always get mad because I'd never give up. Tom believes in doing forced reps and then negatives and then partial reps. I'd just keep going. He'd joke about having to crawl out of the gym, but I'd still be walking. We got along very well, and I always liked his honesty, as opposed to a lot of guys today who just whine or profess their Christianity and then live a life only the devil would approve of."

©2003 Weider Publications, 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning