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Written by IFBB Pro Johnnie O. Jackson
The Masters Olympia: ‘I like the sound of that!’
The Strong Survive!
By IFBB Pro Johnnie Jackson
Sponsored by ALLMAX
MD is proud to announce the return of Johnnie Jackson to its pages each month! Johnnie is one of the legends of the modern generation of bodybuilders and rightfully earned the title of “The World’s Strongest Bodybuilder.” He’s been quiet for a few years, but now he’s back on the scene.
Do I miss competing? I miss it like I would miss my left hand if it got chopped off! I’m not one of those guys who tells you how happy they are in retirement. I am, but I miss the stage, the journey, the posing, the crowds and being up there with my peers. I haven’t applied for the Masters Olympia yet, but I am heavily leaning toward coming back for that show. The minimum age is 45, and I just turned 52 at the end of January. I am a competitor by nature. I competed in over 80 pro shows. You can count how many other pros did that on one hand and still have a couple of fingers left over. Of those, I won seven and got second in way too many, about 20. Many of those were lost to my Achilles’ heel, Darrem Charles.
The Last Time You Saw Me
I last competed in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. I was slightly off in my timing for the prep of the Arnold that year and was watery, then a few months later I did the Chicago Pro (in Atlanta). I looked better there, but I didn’t fill out enough and wound up flat. No excuses. You can do everything perfect and miss the mark with just a slight misstep in timing of carbing-up or drying out. I remember doing the Iron Man Pro in 2003 and waking up the night before, I looked in the mirror and was just perfect, rock-hard. When I started cramping, I began sipping on Pedialyte and by the time I got onstage my stomach was protruding and I was spilling over. It’s so tricky to nail it in those critical few moments onstage. I worked with some of the best coaches in the game like Chris Aceto and Milos Sarcev, and even they don’t bat 1,000 hitting that elusive fusion of fullness and condition perfectly.
Yes, I Still Train ‘That Way’
I was very fortunate to be able to train with Branch Warren for many years, and those were the greatest workouts of my life. We are both dads now (I have a 14-year-old daughter, a 28-year-old son and a 29-year-old daughter) and haven’t hit a workout in quite some time. We trained very heavy, with almost all free weights, and yes the form would be called ballistic, very similar to how Ronnie trained. Branch and I did a ton of videos for GASP and MD as well as our own training DVDs. The question I get now that I’m over 50 and haven’t competed in a few years is, do you still train that way? Absolutely!
It’s funny because all those years, people were telling me and commenting about how I was going to incur serious injuries and wouldn’t be able to even move by the time I was 45-50. I still squat heavy. I never deadlifted heavy unless I decided to do a meet and train for that. Most people don’t know that I did those meets to get out of depression after contests where I placed poorly. I’d go home and find the next powerlifting meet I could jump into, because I knew no one would beat me at the deadlift. Then I’d feel better and look for my next bodybuilding contest to enter.
These days I don’t use the same weights in training that I did 10-20 years ago, but it’s only because I don’t want to. If I focused on getting the weights back up, I can. I have no injuries and I can still run a mile any time.
I started working on a farm in New Jersey at 7 years old, stacking full boxes of peaches onto pallets, with the stacks much higher than I was. That was my first experience doing deadlifts and overhead presses! By 8 years old I had started weight training with equipment my older brother and I slapped together out of cement and car axles. We trained in the attic, where it was probably 120 degrees in the summer. The goal was to get bigger and stronger for football, which I played for years. Once I was able to get into a gym, I really found my groove. I used to love shrugging eight or nine plates a side as a kid, which is how I built the traps I became known for.
I can honestly say that after over 40 years of training, the only time I didn’t enjoy training was shortly after the 2020 shows when I built my gym. It was so much work that training with Branch after those long days would leave me feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. The only time I didn’t hurt was when I was training with him. Since I wasn’t competing anymore, I actually stopped training for a few months. I found that I was able to focus so much better on training my clients and figuring out different ways to help them get the most out of the various exercises. I didn’t train them the way I trained. Proper form and mechanics were things I strongly emphasized. Now I can apply some of that to my own workouts.
Will I Do the Masters Olympia?
Now that I’m a little older, I realize there are certain phases of opportunity we have in our lives that once they are gone, they are gone. My first dream was to play in the NFL. That didn’t happen and it’s not happening now. Same thing with Open bodybuilding. My goal was to become Mr. Olympia, and that’s not going to happen. But it’s the right time and opportunity now to possibly become the Masters Mr. Olympia – so stay tuned because I have poured my heart and soul into bodybuilding for my whole life. I have to at least try to win that show!
Next month, Johnnie tackles your training, nutrition and supplementation questions!
Instagram @johnnieojackson
Website: www.jojfitness.com
allmaxnutrition.com
https://allmaxnutrition.com/pages/johnnie-jackson
DISCUSS ON OUR FORUMS
SUBSCRIBE TO MD TODAY
GET OFFICIAL MD STUFF
VISIT OUR STORE
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
ALSO, MAKE SURE TO FOLLOW US ON:
FACEBOOK
TWITTER
INSTAGRAM
YOUTUBE
Click here to view the article.
The Masters Olympia: ‘I like the sound of that!’
The Strong Survive!
By IFBB Pro Johnnie Jackson
Sponsored by ALLMAX
MD is proud to announce the return of Johnnie Jackson to its pages each month! Johnnie is one of the legends of the modern generation of bodybuilders and rightfully earned the title of “The World’s Strongest Bodybuilder.” He’s been quiet for a few years, but now he’s back on the scene.
Do I miss competing? I miss it like I would miss my left hand if it got chopped off! I’m not one of those guys who tells you how happy they are in retirement. I am, but I miss the stage, the journey, the posing, the crowds and being up there with my peers. I haven’t applied for the Masters Olympia yet, but I am heavily leaning toward coming back for that show. The minimum age is 45, and I just turned 52 at the end of January. I am a competitor by nature. I competed in over 80 pro shows. You can count how many other pros did that on one hand and still have a couple of fingers left over. Of those, I won seven and got second in way too many, about 20. Many of those were lost to my Achilles’ heel, Darrem Charles.
The Last Time You Saw Me
I last competed in 2020, the first year of the pandemic. I was slightly off in my timing for the prep of the Arnold that year and was watery, then a few months later I did the Chicago Pro (in Atlanta). I looked better there, but I didn’t fill out enough and wound up flat. No excuses. You can do everything perfect and miss the mark with just a slight misstep in timing of carbing-up or drying out. I remember doing the Iron Man Pro in 2003 and waking up the night before, I looked in the mirror and was just perfect, rock-hard. When I started cramping, I began sipping on Pedialyte and by the time I got onstage my stomach was protruding and I was spilling over. It’s so tricky to nail it in those critical few moments onstage. I worked with some of the best coaches in the game like Chris Aceto and Milos Sarcev, and even they don’t bat 1,000 hitting that elusive fusion of fullness and condition perfectly.
Yes, I Still Train ‘That Way’
I was very fortunate to be able to train with Branch Warren for many years, and those were the greatest workouts of my life. We are both dads now (I have a 14-year-old daughter, a 28-year-old son and a 29-year-old daughter) and haven’t hit a workout in quite some time. We trained very heavy, with almost all free weights, and yes the form would be called ballistic, very similar to how Ronnie trained. Branch and I did a ton of videos for GASP and MD as well as our own training DVDs. The question I get now that I’m over 50 and haven’t competed in a few years is, do you still train that way? Absolutely!
It’s funny because all those years, people were telling me and commenting about how I was going to incur serious injuries and wouldn’t be able to even move by the time I was 45-50. I still squat heavy. I never deadlifted heavy unless I decided to do a meet and train for that. Most people don’t know that I did those meets to get out of depression after contests where I placed poorly. I’d go home and find the next powerlifting meet I could jump into, because I knew no one would beat me at the deadlift. Then I’d feel better and look for my next bodybuilding contest to enter.
These days I don’t use the same weights in training that I did 10-20 years ago, but it’s only because I don’t want to. If I focused on getting the weights back up, I can. I have no injuries and I can still run a mile any time.
I started working on a farm in New Jersey at 7 years old, stacking full boxes of peaches onto pallets, with the stacks much higher than I was. That was my first experience doing deadlifts and overhead presses! By 8 years old I had started weight training with equipment my older brother and I slapped together out of cement and car axles. We trained in the attic, where it was probably 120 degrees in the summer. The goal was to get bigger and stronger for football, which I played for years. Once I was able to get into a gym, I really found my groove. I used to love shrugging eight or nine plates a side as a kid, which is how I built the traps I became known for.
I can honestly say that after over 40 years of training, the only time I didn’t enjoy training was shortly after the 2020 shows when I built my gym. It was so much work that training with Branch after those long days would leave me feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. The only time I didn’t hurt was when I was training with him. Since I wasn’t competing anymore, I actually stopped training for a few months. I found that I was able to focus so much better on training my clients and figuring out different ways to help them get the most out of the various exercises. I didn’t train them the way I trained. Proper form and mechanics were things I strongly emphasized. Now I can apply some of that to my own workouts.
Will I Do the Masters Olympia?
Now that I’m a little older, I realize there are certain phases of opportunity we have in our lives that once they are gone, they are gone. My first dream was to play in the NFL. That didn’t happen and it’s not happening now. Same thing with Open bodybuilding. My goal was to become Mr. Olympia, and that’s not going to happen. But it’s the right time and opportunity now to possibly become the Masters Mr. Olympia – so stay tuned because I have poured my heart and soul into bodybuilding for my whole life. I have to at least try to win that show!
Next month, Johnnie tackles your training, nutrition and supplementation questions!
Instagram @johnnieojackson
Website: www.jojfitness.com
allmaxnutrition.com
https://allmaxnutrition.com/pages/johnnie-jackson
DISCUSS ON OUR FORUMS
SUBSCRIBE TO MD TODAY
GET OFFICIAL MD STUFF
VISIT OUR STORE
SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
ALSO, MAKE SURE TO FOLLOW US ON:
YOUTUBE
Click here to view the article.
