 It was love at first lift for Jeffrey Hammond. One session pumping iron as a kid, and he was hooked. How badly? Well, consider this scenario: As a freshman in high school, Hammond got kicked off the basketball team after getting caught lifting weights.
“This guy was powerlifting, and I told him I could do that,” he recalls. “My coach had told me not to lift weights because it would make me musclebound. I tried to tell him it would make me shoot better. Anyway, I was in my uniform, with the bar over my head, and the coach walked in. That was the end of my basketball career.”
Hammond, who has spent all but eight of his 47 years in Sandusky, Ohio, was always athletic as a youngster, particularly excelling on the football field. A severe ankle injury, followed by surgery, cut short his gridiron career. After he put away the pads for good, however, he kept piling on the plates—and he became so proficient that he ended up putting his fellow high school athletes on programs. And so a trainer was born. “I guess I was always destined to help people,” he says.
Upon graduating from high school, Hammond took a job with General Motors, planning to enroll in college a year later, but when the cash started rolling in, the books went out the window. “I never did go to college because I was already making good money,” he says. Enough to get married and begin a family. Jeffrey put the weights on the back burner to dedicate more time to his wife, Kathie, and their two children, Brieanna and Beau, now 19 and 17, respectively.
“I coached my kids all the way from kindergarten to varsity sports,” says the proud papa. “My daughter made All-Ohio in softball, and she made Nationals as a cheerleader. She lifted weights too. She lifted to help her with her cheerleading.
“Beau played high school football and is very strong. He weighs 220, and he ended up benching 315 and squatting 500.”
Hammond, who has read several bodybuilding publications religiously over the years, says IRONMAN eventually became his training bible “because it best fit my needs as a drug-free lifter.” He had always experimented with supplements from different companies, but once more he was drawn to IRONMAN—and its recommendation of Muscle-Link products.
“I tried Muscle Meals first, about three years ago, and I really liked it,” he says. “I eat seven meals a day, and you just can’t eat that much food. Muscle Meals is a meal replacement that fills me up for two to three hours.
“Then I tried Pro-Fusion protein powder and liked that too. I was in contact with the IRONMAN Training & Research Center—they have good deals on supplements if you buy a certain amount—and I started using more and more products. I was talking to Mervin Petralba most of the time, and I sent in pictures to show how much I was improving. He eventually sent me a letter saying if I was willing to do some intense training, IRONMAN would help me. I tried a lot of the products, and liked them all. After my last contest I began taking RecoverX, and I’ve put on 13 pounds of muscle in 2 1/2 months, going from 172 to 185. They used to recommend taking Pro-Fusion and 24 ounces of orange juice; RecoverX has a better source of carbs for an insulin spike, and it tastes like a creamy orange milkshake.”
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Jeffrey Hammond’s
Five-Day Program:
Workout 1
Delts
One-arm cable lateral raises 2 x 8-10
Behind-the-neck presses 3 x 8-10
Upright rows 2 x 8-10
Triceps
Overhead extensions 2 x 8-10
Decline extensions 3 x 8-10
One-arm pushdowns 2 x 8-10
Biceps
Incline dumbbell curls 2 x 8-10
Barbell curls 3 x 8-10
Double-biceps cable curls 2 x 8-10
Hammer curls 2 x 12-15
Workout 2
Quads
Sissy squats 2 x 8-10
Squats 3 x 8-10
Leg extensions 2 x 8-10
Calves
Donkey calf raises 2 x 12-18
Toes-pointed leg curls 3 x 8-10
Standing calf raises 2 x 12-18
Soleus
Seated calf raises 3 x 8-10
Workout 3
Lats
Pullovers 2 x 8-10
Pulldowns to the front 3 x 8-10
Undergrip pulldowns 2 x 8-10
Midback
T-bar rows 2 x 8-10
Behind-the-neck pulldowns 3 x 8-10
Bent-over bent-arm laterals 2 x 8-10
Traps
Forward-lean dumbbell shrugs 2 x 8-10
Abs
Hanging kneeups (weighted) 2 x 8-10
Ab machine crunches 2 x 10-12
Workout 4
Lower chest
Decline flyes 2 x 8-10
Bench presses 3 x 8-10
Cable crossovers 2 x 8-10
Upper chest
Incline flyes 2 x 8-10
Incline presses 3 x 8-10
Incline cable flyes 2 x 8-10
Wrists
Reverse wrist curls 2 x 10-12
Wrist curls 2 x 10-12
Workout 5
Hamstrings
Stiff-legged deadlifts 2 x 8-10
Leg curls 2 x 8-10
Lower back
Hyperextensions 2 x 10-12
Calves
Donkey calf raises 3 x 12-18
Standing calf raises 3 x 12-18
Soleus
Seated calf raises 3 x 10-12
[Note: Hammond uses a hybrid POF program known as Hypercontraction, in which you do the stretch-position exercise first for each bodypart. Standard POF protocol is midrange-position exercise first, stretch position second and contracted position last. For more information, including a Hypercontraction program, see Train, Eat, Grow, available from Home Gym Warehouse, 1-800-447-0008. Or get it free with a two-year subscription to IRONMAN. Call 1-800-570-4766.]
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IRONMAN photo virtuoso Michael Neveux obviously was impressed with the pics too. Last December, Hammond flew out to Southern California and was under Neveux’s magical lenses for four hours. Not too shabby for a guy who has only entered two contests in his life—the first one but two years ago at the tender age of 45. “Friends always told me I had the potential to do well in bodybuilding shows, but it was that or the kids, and my kids came first,” Hammond says.
Hammond’s initial onstage quest took place at the ’99 NPC Ohio Governor’s Cup, one of the premier drug-tested events in the country. He ended up in second place in a tough Masters division, carrying 172 well-conditioned pounds on his 5’9” frame. Hammond also competed in the ’01 Northern USA Drug-tested Championships and finished fourth out of 18 contestants.
“I tried to do the Middleweight class and the Masters in the last show; I will just concentrate on the Masters next time,” he says. “I want to jump from 172 to 190 for the contest. For the pictures I took with Neveux, I weighed 185, and I was very pleased with them. It was the best pump I’ve ever had. I can see I’ve put on a lot of muscle.”
Along with the Muscle-Link products, Hammond also sings the praises of the Position-of-Flexion training regimen, the brainchild of IRONMAN Editor in Chief Steve Holman. “It’s the best program I’ve ever followed,” says Hammond. “Basic POF theory is that there are three types of exercises you should do for each muscle group—the midrange for size, the stretch to allow the muscle room to grow, and the contracted to fill up the muscle with blood and exhaust as many fibers as possible. You’re hitting the muscle from different angles for more complete development—very efficient.
“I liked Holman’s Underground Mass-Boosting Methods [now out of print] and his new POF book, Train, Eat, Grow. I study the programs and take what works for me, modifying as I go.”
Hammond trains five days a week, two bodyparts per day. As he gets closer to contest time, he adds some extra work for lagging bodyparts.
Jackie Gayda has been Hammond’s lifting partner since October 2000. They work out with the same style and intensity and make each other better, he says.
Hammond uses instinctive training by varying his sets and reps. If the workout is superintense, he may do fewer sets. If a set is too easy, he’ll go past the required number of repetitions. He also changes the order of exercises and/or bodyparts to keep his physique symmetrical—and he always uses full-range motion.
Four weeks before a contest or photo shoot he does giant sets of themidrange-, stretch- and contracted-position exercises for each muscle group. He doesn’t do cardio until four to six weeks before a contest, preferring to stay lean by sticking to a clean diet.
Hammond hopes to start his own personal-training company, which he has already named “Make ’Em Sweat,” and since he studied photography with the New York Institute of Photography, he can provide those services to clients as well. He’s also considering opening his own facility. “I have a few ideas I’d like to incorporate,” he says. “I’ve been with GM for 27 years and can retire in three more. By that time I definitely want to be somewhere else.”
Especially since Hammond works the 11 p.m. to 7:30 a.m. shift. “Yes, those hours definitely make things harder,” he says. He hopes to go on the day shift and “work like real people do so I can actually sleep. I only sleep about four hours a night. I go to bed a couple of hours after getting off work, then try to wake up at two in the afternoon and get to the gym by four. That insufficient amount of sleep certainly doesn’t help the body grow.”
Hammond says he’d like to take his competitive career “up another notch” and gives his family a lot of credit for his success to date: “I’d like to thank my son, who worked with me the past two months. He helped me a lot in preparing for the photo shoot with Neveux. Beau is a great athlete, a great person and a great student. He was a winner on the football field, and he did his best to try and make me a winner, to be the best I could be, for the shoot. There’s no better feeling than to have your family involved with what you’re doing. My daughter, who is a sophomore at Ohio State, came out here with me for the photo shoot and is really supportive.”
Daughter Brie also accompanied Hammond to his first contest, since Kathie was busy watching Beau knock down defensive linemen at a football game. Jeffrey laughs as he tells of a conversation that took place shortly thereafter. “My daughter said that it’s really something when you go to a bodybuilding competition ‘and somebody walks out onstage with hardly any clothes on—and you realize it’s your dad. That’s something you never get over.’”
Get used to it, kid. I think the old man plans on being onstage for quite a while. IM
Get everything you need to reach your own physique goals at www.Home-Gym.com
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