Two of the most commonly asked questions dealt with getting a lean midsection and six pack abs and leg training. Throughout the year the Natural Champ covered both fat loss and abs and the dreaded or revered (sometimes both) squat exercise on two occasions each. Here’s a brief month-by-month review:

May, 2006: A reader who was about to start training in a garage and had access only to basic equipment – barbells, dumbbells, a bench, squat rack, and dip and chin bars – wanted to know if he could make good gains without the fancy equipment found in some gyms.

The answer was that having “limited” equipment was probably a blessing in disguise, as the basic are still the best for gaining size, strength, power and functional athletic ability. We then listed a virtual encyclopedia of exercises for each body part, from calves to neck, that could be performed with basic free weights.

June, 2006: “You Got To Pay Your Dues” dealt with the question of whether a drug free athlete or trainee should train less than someone on steroids. The Natural Champ answered that, despite a lot of articles that feel drug free athletes should train ‘less’ than their steroid enhanced counterparts, drug free athletes should train harder – with maximum concentration and intensity – and smarter, allowing for proper rest and recuperation.

July, 2006: “To Squat Or Not To Squat” focused on whether or not the squat was necessary for maximum muscle mass in the thighs and hamstrings as well as for overall sports performance. The answer was an unequivocal YES. The squat is, without a doubt, one of the most taxing of all weight resistance exercises – which is one reason it is, without a doubt, one of the most result producing.

August, 2006: The question was actually two questions related to the same subject: How to ‘burn’ the fat off the abs. The readers asked if the Natural Champ advised working the abdominals every day and doing extra high reps to help burn fat off the ab section.

The answers were “No” and “No”. The Natural Champ advised working the abs pretty much like any other body part – twice per week, with three times being the maximum, and keeping the rep range perhaps slightly higher than that for other body parts but relying more on intensity and concentration to thoroughly ‘work’ the abdominals and proper nutrition to help peel away that extra layer of fat.

September, 2006: This month’s question was from a Catholic priest who at times felt that his vocation had been at odds with his training and questioned whether he should continue to try to reach his physical goals because he is in the ministry.

The Natural Champ, who is an ordained minister, answered as follows:

“I can honestly say that my physique has been an aid in my ministry, especially in the early days when I worked with troubled youths in a ‘street’ ministry. The boys and young men most definitely tended to listen to my words in the beginning because of my muscular image.

”I feel that the more you take care of your body, the more God can use you. On the other hand, neglecting your body, abusing it, or tearing it down limits the use God can make of you.

”If I liken my body to a car…a vehicle for God…then taking good care of it – keeping it well tuned by exercising regularly, putting high quality fuel in it in the form of good, clean food, not abusing it by taking drugs, I can get more mileage out of it and God can get more mileage out of me.

”Another way to look at it is that whatever I do, I do for the glory of God, not for Charles Hawkins, so I try to do the best at whatever I lay my hand to. If I do anything less than my best, whether it’s training or preaching a sermon, then I fail to give glory to my creator.”

The column for October/November, 2006 was entitled “How Low Should I Go?” and dealt with the question of depth in the squat. All too often we see guys in the gym loading up the bar and performing little 5 or 6 inch movements, which don’t do a thing except for the ego, and can in fact be dangerous. The Hawk emphasized the need to go to at least parallel to get full benefits from the squat, though he did say he normally does the movement in non-lock style to keep tension on the target quadriceps muscle group.

December, 2006: This column raised the question of how to maximize results when you’re pressed for time. The Natural Champ outlined a routine he called the Basic Eight – eight compound movements that work the entire body in no more than an hour.

January, 2007: Another Shakespearean title - “To Bench Or Not To Bench” – raised questions of the value of the favorite exercise of gym rats everywhere, the bench press. The Natural Champion’s take on the exercise was that the bench press is a valuable compound movement that works the chest, shoulders and triceps plus several stabilizing muscles, but one that is often overused and overemphasized. The Hawk recommended that, for the most part, trainees should treat the bench press like any other exercise in their arsenal, keeping their form tight and not attempting max weight except on rare occasions.

February, 2007: This month the Natural Champ addressed another question about abdominals in “There Are No Instant Abs”. A reader wrote in asking the Natural Champ’s opinion on the various gadgets for working the abdomen as seen on TV…the plastic crunch machines, ab tracks, ab twisters, ab rollers, ab toning belts and so on. The answer was short: Save your money! As the Natural Champ explained, the best exercises for the mid-section are the ones that can be done without any special equipment – crunches, twisting crunches, reverse leg raises, hanging knee-ins. He also noted that no matter how hard you work your abs, you won’t get a defined six-pack without attention to diet.

March, 2007: The question for this month was whether the Natural Champ believed in the High Intensity training concept of doing one all-out set to failure.

The Champ’s reply was that he certainly believed in training with intensity, but didn’t think one set would get the job done if you’re interested in maximum results. He cited the need for a warm up plus stating his belief that while you might temporarily exhaust a muscle with an all-out effort, you can still stimulate additional fibers with succeeding sets.

As a final note, the Natural Champ mentioned that any number of the ‘one set to failure’ advocates do not count the warm up sets but only count that one, final set – which makes the whole argument a matter of semantics, not actual training techniques.

April, 2007: In last month’s issue, a reader named Todd asked for advice on how he could get his girlfriend, who is afraid that she’ll get ‘big masculine looking muscles’ if she trains with weights, to start working out (a myth that just won’t go away).

The answer was that in all truth, most women could never develop really large muscles even if they wanted to. This is due to several factors, including the number and arrangement of muscle fibers and the size and strength of connective tissue, but the main reason is hormones. The body requires certain amounts of the primary male hormone testosterone to build a large muscular structure and while females do produce a small amount of testosterone, they produce primarily estrogen – not exactly the best hormone for muscle and strength building

But what about those female bodybuilders and some other athletes who do have a very marked degree of muscular size and definition? The answer here is that they are the exception rather than the rule…and such size and overall may just be the result of some ‘hormone manipulation’ (can you say ‘steroids’?).