LEIGH PENMAN – RX MUSCLE The last time I met Jackie Warner was way back after the first season of Bravo’s “Workout” series had wrapped and she had just been told that it had been picked up for another season. A lot has happened in Jackie’s world since then…clothing line, workout DVD, the expansion of ‘Sky Lab’ (an intense fitness camp), a new TV series (‘Jackie’s Gym Takeover’) sitting on the starting blocks and a book “This is Why You are Fat” (great title!) set to be unleashed on the public. Add to that, the continued success of ‘Sky Sport & Spa’ and plans for a line of sports supplements and you have one VERY BUSY individual!
I was therefore very grateful to her for taking the time out from this whirlwind lifestyle to talk to me about past, present and future happenings…as well as share a little insider gossip( what is life without a little ‘dish’..lol!) with everyone at Female Muscle….
So first of All Jackie, just how did you get involved in weight training in the first place?
“ Well I have always been an athlete my entire life, so thankfully my parents got me started in soccer when I was about 7, I played soft ball in high school and soccer, so I always knew what it was like to push my body and to play team sports, which I think is very, very key – especially for women. Then I got into bodybuilding pretty heavily at around 23/24 years old. The reason I started was that in my freshman year at college I went from 118lbs to about 164lbs…so talk about ‘freshman 15’, I put on roughly 50lbs…and I could not stand myself that way, so I just determined to lose it. I started doing a bunch of research, I got ‘Muscle & Fitness’ magazine, started reading it and I just started straight up bodybuilding, and it really worked for my body type and I started dropping weight pretty drastically and toning up. So I totally immersed myself in that and learned everything I could about it, but that was not a career for me and I didn’t become a trainer till I was 30.”
Did you ever think of competing in bodybuilding?
“Oh god no…are you kidding me! I am not a mesomorph body type; I think mesomorphs are better for competition. For me to get as much muscle as I have on my frame I have to practically kill myself. I have to lift so much, and I have to amp up my training just to kind of maintain any kind of muscle mass, it’s just too trying on me.”
Moving on to TV land, how did the first series of ‘Workout’ come about?
“Well it’s interesting because ‘Sky Sport’ (Jackie’s gym) really brought it to me. What happened is the producer came by my gym to meet with me about shooting a very different show concept that she had an idea for and she wanted to just use my space here as a location. However, after talking with me for about half an hour she said ‘you know I see a whole other show here wrapped around your life, your business etc’. So we worked together on this for about six months to come up with this great story idea, took it to Bravo, pitched it and they bought it!”
The show did tend to focus a lot on the whole lesbian issue. Was that your decision or theirs?
“Well whose decision do you think that was? (Laughs Jackie). They were trying to amp up the drama, so obviously my lesbianism, my being outwardly gay was a huge part of that drama and my personal relationships. So the production company at Bravo is going to love that for sure!”
I have heard that you have a new show in the pipeline, ‘Jackie’s Gym Takeover’….
“We do! I just shot the pilot and we are waiting to see what is going to happen and what changes Bravo wants to make to that pilot in order for it to become a series. I am pretty excited about it as it shows me in a whole different role and I get to keep my personal life out of it for a change, and that’s always good!”
What do you think actually goes into making a gym successful?
“Well first of all you have to have passion and this first pilot really shows that. The main reason the gym wasn’t successful was that the owners decided to take a backseat to their own business and they actually started hating their own business and saw it as a problem instead of a solution for them. So you really have to have passion and find ways to fall in love with your own business again. You have to constantly come up with marketing schemes and constantly come up with ways to promote yourself and make your trainers feel good and just make it feel like a good working environment.”
What do you look for when you are hiring a personal trainer?
“I’ll tell you exactly…I look for passion and personality because training can be taught, great training can be taught if you have the desire to learn and a lot of energy. It’s vital for individuals who come to my office to have that star quality and light up my office and engage me in some way. The rest of it can be taught and most of my trainers already have a degree of certification that is at the level that I need.”
Have you ever trained any bodybuilders?
“I have trained bodybuilders but nobody that you would know of, nobody that was really competing but just people who were really into bodybuilding.”
What are your thoughts on female bodybuilders?
“First of all I have the utmost respect for bodybuilders and I have said this many times in interviews. Nobody knows more about how to transform their body and the science behind exercise than bodybuilders. Everything that we learn as trainers comes out of the bodybuilding community for the most part to tell you the truth. So I have a tremendous amount of respect. Where I find there is too much self destruction is that there are too many drugs in the industry. It’s difficult because for females in particular if you ever want to have children you have to be very, very careful about the drugs that you are cycling on. That’s the thing that people don’t want to talk about…when you see a woman whose complete bone structure on her face has changed… you know that they are taking too much. I mean you can pretty much change your gender by taking the right dose of drugs and that is something that has never appealed to me. I do not want long term effects from anything that I would take. So you just have to be really aware of the consequences of getting obsessed with your own body. I mean everyone is competitive as an athlete but when it has a long term effect on your body and on your brain chemistry that’s something that you really need to be aware of and make an educated decision about.”
When it comes to building muscle what macro-nutrient ratios to you adhere to?
“I eat a tremendous amount of protein, I don’t know what my ratio is but I eat protein at every meal and every snack and that’s what I push my clients to do, and I eat five meals a day. I also eat carbs and a lot of trainers in particular stay off the carbs and pass this on to their clients. However I eat a tremendous amount of oatmeal, I eat dark whole grain breads. In order to gain muscle you need carbs, so I eat carbohydrate and protein at every meal. I also eat a tremendous amount of fruit and a tremendous amount of vegetables.”
What about your fat intake?
“ I do eat fats because I eat meat that has natural fat in it and I always take flax seed oil every day with omega 3’s and I usually eat seeds and nuts for another serving per day.”
I ‘m glad that you adhere to the five meals a day diet theory, a current trend seems to be to cut that down…
“Let me explain myself…I am a totally fat burning machine. I’ve got a metabolism that is very high. I am 5’ 8” and I am about 130-132lbs and I am constantly hungry and I feed my body. I mean, here’s the deal, and here is what I tell clients…the moment that you feel a hunger pain, it’s already too late, your body’s insulin level has already dropped and you never want your insulin levels to drop, I don’t. I never want my insulin level to drop I want it to remain even throughout the day because I am trying to constantly feed my muscle and stay in fat burning mode. So for me, I have to eat about every two hours, and I am hungry every two hours.
“I mean I just worked out for 2 ½ hours today. I did an hour of cardio and an hour and a half of weight lifting, so I need that energy. For a regular client who is only training with me for an hour three times a week, I still have them eat these small meals every 2-3 hours but they just don’t eat the quantity that I do. So whereas I am eating about 3500 calories a day, I cut them back to 1800 calories a day.”
Interesting that in Jillian Michael’s latest book she wants people to eat every four hours and believes that it is not a good idea to keep insulin levels high throughout the day…
“I disagree with her. I’ve read some of her hormone book and just like everything that comes out, there’s always something to support it. However, I personally know what is right for my body and what is right for my clients and I do not like insulin levels to drop. You don’t need to stay in constant high insulin but you want to stay in a rhythm that is not dropping or spiking throughout the day. I think she said she wanted to eat three or four meals…that’s not enough. Then again, I know Jillian very well and the girl can hardly eat anything without gaining weight. So for her body type she has developed a system that I don’t think translates to the general public.”
I think there is a lot to be said for the concept of eating like a diabetic…
“It’s funny because for years honey I have said ‘eat like a diabetic’. So basically what I tell people is that they should be eating like a diabetic. That’s how you should eat in life…as if you already have diabetes because that is a very healthy, balanced way to eat. I think that you are going to see a whole batch of books coming out about diabetes and eating like a diabetic…this is going to be the hot thing. Hey, this year it is hormones, right…it’s all about balancing your hormones, your testosterone, your HGH levels, your estrogen levels. It’s all about hormones right now, next year it’s going to be about diabetes…I guarantee it!”
Getting back to training…you are known for using very high intensity techniques a la Mike Mentzer. Do you every worry about overtraining clients?
“It’s very difficult to overtrain a client because you can rejuvenate the muscle ATP very quickly. All my clients, even my A list clients are on a very strong dosage of amino acids, branch chain amino acids as well as glutamine, so they are already dosing themselves with amino acids. I have been taking amino acids for years and they have actually increased my testosterone levels naturally. I am a fanatic about getting my blood work done because I am 40 years old and I noticed that a few years ago my HGH and testosterone levels were taking a dive. I started consulting with doctors and internists and talking about natural ways for me to increase my testosterone level and to increase my HGH. I had always taken aminos to some degree, but I increased my dosage and started taking them throughout the day and added glutamine to that as well and I can tell you right now my testosterone levels are like a normal 25 year old…and at 40 that is very hard to do.
When your testosterone and HGH levels were low you must have had a hard time holding on to muscle…
“Absolutely …I was wasting away muscle tissue around the beginning of my ‘Workout’ show and by the second season I wondered what the hell was going on. I just couldn’t make gains any more. I had my blood work done and my doctor told me I had no testosterone left and I didn’t have any HGH. So I found that with correct supplementation you can prompt your body to start regulating itself and starts making more of those two hormones- which every bodybuilder knows are vital for building and maintaining muscle mass. I also take creatine, a mixture of the ethyl and the mono, I don’t cycle off of it and I take pretty high dosages every day of creatine every day and that really helps with my ATP. For example I did chest today and I lifted heavy and combined about five different exercises for four to five sets. That’s an enormous amount on that big muscle group and I was able to do it and I didn’t get fatigued and I won’t be fatigued because of my added supplements…my creatine and my aminos. Those are the only supplements I take apart from a mult-vitamin, a liver cleanser and an adrenal cleanser. That’s my regime every day of my life and it really seems to work for me.”
To round everything up on a completely different note (as is my way, lol!) let me throw one of your famous quotes at you and let you respond. You once said, “Most women are just a cocktail away from their first lesbian experience”…..
“Oh boy (laughs)…let me tell you that in LA that is the absolute truth! When you live in the city, when you live in Chicago, New York or LA we are a lot more open minded and there is a sexual freedom here that we are able to kind of play with that you don’t really get where I came from, which is small town America. There’s just a sense of freedom here so you are able to experiment more. So when I say ‘women are a cocktail away from having a lesbian experience’ I truly mean that and that has been my experience all my life with women. I think things are changing so much through the information age and through on line communities and through MTV and a lot more progressive television. Also, actors are coming out, actresses like Scarlet Johansson saying ‘yeah, I’ve played with bisexuality’. You’ve got people across the board, Madonna being the first major one to do this…beautiful, successful women who are saying “I’m into women, so what!’ You have got musicians and actresses who are quite stunning…Angelina Jolie is another one. So that’s going to make America say, ‘well if they are doing it, maybe I should experiment with it’….I’m not saying it’s a good or bad thing, just that our culture is changing. Of course we still don’t accept it for men, there is definitely a double standard. For men we don’t accept that kind of freedom and I don’t know any male actors or musicians who could come out and their career would be okay. On the other hand for women it is much more acceptable. Hey, I was recently on Oprah talking about this, it is definitely a topic that people are interested in!”
Just as Jackie Warner is definitely a person people are always going to be interested in and, luckily for us, it looks like there is much, much more to come from Jackie in the months and years that lie ahead, trust me…you ain’t seen nothing yet!
Leigh Penman – RX Muscle
