HE IS MUSCLE’S SHREDDED BEEF!
THIS IS HOW THE PREDATOR, KAI GREENE TRAINS, SUPPLEMENTS AND EATS!
by Steve Downs, C.S.C.S & Oscar Ardon – Kai’s Former Mentor, Trainer & Training Partner
Perhaps the most parodied and repeated TV commercial of all time was the one by Wendy’s in 1984, where 2 little old ladies were getting ready to eat and someone shoved a fast food burger in front of them. Both stared blankly at it for a moment and then, one looked up and asked, “Where’s The Beef?”
Fast forward 25 years to the man known as The Predator, Kai Greene. When asked ‘how much beef’ it takes to build the most muscular beef in bodybuilding today, he says, “For me, it was 6-9 pounds a day.” Yes, you read that right — that’s NINE POUNDS of beef each day. (We’d guess that’s about 140 of any of those puny fast food burgers as no one has any idea where that meat comes from and none of them ever even seem like they are actually meat at all).
Kai goes on, “Historically, since the great Roman gladiators, red meat has always been ‘the’ power food. The fact is, for a very long time, the more red beef I ate, the bigger and stronger I got. As I was growing, I did reach up to 9 pounds of beef a day. I always figured you couldn’t be a Brooklyn Behemoth Predator without it! I’ve downed my share of chicken, fish, eggs and shakes, but none of that was ever anabolic enough. For me and my mass, red meat was where it was at.”
Kai Greene made the pro ranks in 2004. Along the way, he had found that he needed all that beef to climb his way out of the amateurs and the beginner pro ranks to get into the upper echelon of body mass superstars. So, he did his ‘meat and eat’ thing! But that being said, Kai noted, not only was this red meat eating breaking his bank (faster than Goldman Sachs was breaking the rules on paying bloated bonuses), but it also made his intestines ‘bloat’ like a gastroenterologist’s dream patient. Problem is, having a waist as big as the Zeppelin Hindenburg is not exactly conducive to winning the Arnold or the Olympia. Then, just about 2 years ago, Kai found out about MuscleMeds’ new nutritional research brainchild called Carnivor.
Carnivor is the world’s first beef isolate protein powder with 20 times the creatine of an equal share of beef, 350% more concentrated amino acids than a serving of filet, but without any cholesterol at all! Soon enough, with Carnivor supplementing his famous Oscar Ardon – engineered ultra high-intensity training, Kai bulked into the 2009 Arnold Classic at a shredded 275 lbs. While he had added incredible hulk-bulk, he maintained an unseen, special sinewy, paper-thin skin with a rope-like venous vascularity.
Kai took home the bacon …. err, we mean the prime rib!
WHERE’S THE BEEF? PREDATOR TRAINING
It’s no metaphor that Kai’s extremely high protein intake ‘fuels’ his incredible workouts. Kai has been seen pushing weights that make other pros shudder in muted fear and silence.
Kai has hit a whopping 314 lbs. of mass. He grows on compound, multi-joint exercises, so there’s no playing with cable crossovers or other shaping movements for this powerhouse. He routinely pushes 6 reps on the bench with 495 lbs. He inclines a whopping 425 lbs. for 8 repetitions, squats 685 lbs. for 6-8 ultra-deep reps and deadlifts 585 lbs. for 6- 8 reps! Kai has been seen doing single-arm dumbbell rows with 200 lbs. and bent- over barbell rows with 405 lbs!
Oscar notes, “Kai trains heavier and heavier all the time. The weights are his tools. While he goes very heavy, he and I really don’t care how much is actually loaded on the bar. It has to be about intensity of effort and while his mind may know, his muscles don’t know what he is lifting. Kai trains God-awful heavy, but uses instinctive intensity techniques to increase stimulation with systemic recovery.”
- I have Kai hitting his pecs and abs or calves on day one.
- Kai’s massive quads get the treatment on day two. Kai hits legs so hard that he’s on the floor between sets. Once more, he ONLY does squats and leg presses, nothing else. If you saw the PLANET MUSCLE cover 2 issues ago, Kai has the most massive legs in bodybuilding.
- The day after legs, he rests (and he needs it).
- Then he does a day of just hamstrings.
- Then big Kai rests again.
- Kai does shoulders also by themselves.
- Then just his back on the following day.
- Kai takes another rest day after back.
- The truth is, most who train this hard, MUST get a day of rest as just going through the motions does not cut it.
- The final day in Kai’s rotation is arms. Sometimes he reserves one day just for traps, calves and abs together.
Kai is the reincarnation of the great Blond Bomber’s (Dave Draper’s) free-styling rotations where there is no fixed set schedule. But Kai does start every morning with 30-60 minutes of cardio on an empty stomach (after he pops MuscleMeds MethylBURN fat burner).
In his off-season, he does cardio at a moderate pace to increase capillary density. Capillaries are the ‘hand off’ from arterioles to offload oxygen to contracting muscle fiber. His leg day is the only day where he goes sans cardio.
When contest prep kicks in, Kai goes hard on the Step Mill (his favorite cardio machine). He uses interval training, 2 minutes hard, 1 minute easier (recovery) with repeats in the cycle. By week 8, he doubles up cardio each day. Kai tosses iron in the afternoon after his daily power nap, and always immediately following his MuscleMeds Methyl Arimatest. (This is his 2nd daily dose for testosterone release, his first being with breakfast). The Kai catnap and Methyl Arimatest, which won a PLANET MUSCLE Best of the Best award, also helps him recover.
Critically, all bodybuilders need to recovery to grow. It’s called ‘bodybuilding’ because if you have the same muscle mass and strength as you had 1-2 years earlier, you’re not building, you are only maintaining.”
EATING LIKE THE PREDATOR
One thing Kai learned early on was eat to grow, but not to gain fat. Kai knows, (and found out from all that beef), that there is a point of diminishing returns with piling in caloric energy. Yes, you gain strength and mass, but you also can add too much fat. Some fat may be okay, but it all has to be cleaved by competition day. Even when Kai hit 300 lbs. -plus, rather unbelievably, it still was mostly lean muscle.
Kai has done his best to imitate the great Paul Newman, (RIP) as Cool Hand Luke (without the yolks), eating 50 eggs a day. Kai has also certainly raised the stock worth of Zacky Farms by eating more than a dozen chicken breasts a day. While he has topped protein out at 850 grams a day, (so much for the nonsense that protein harms healthy kidney nephrons), he was never just on a dietary nitrogen high. By the way, Kai has always been allergic to lactose sugar. He had to give up on milk, whey and casein supplements right away! As noted, eating lots of red meat steak was how he got the massive protein and creatine he needed. Kai says, “When I started working with MuscleMeds, I first thought that there was no way Carnivor was going to replace a Porterhouse or New York Strip, but man it did! I got more anabolic than ever before and my mass, thickness, strength and density just shot through the roof.”
Kai eats carbs and some fat for energy and to ‘spare’ protein, especially in the off-season. His favorite carbohydrates (carbs for carbon and hydrate meaning hydrogen and oxygen are added), include baked and sweet potatoes, oatmeal and raisins (in the morning), plus rice mid-morning. After training, he swigs a carb drink with another meal.
He enjoys baked or sweet potatoes with each meal. When in contest prep, he eliminates starchy, multi-sugar carbs the last eight weeks and drops his protein as he brings his calories down.
“Instead of eating so much red meat, Carnivor makes it easier to digest and hold protein,” Kai adds. Kai drinks 3 Carnivor shakes daily with his meals, one early on, one after training with rice, chicken breasts or eggs and another shake at night with oatmeal (around midnight). The last supplement he takes before bed is Hexaghen. This helps release more GH and IGF-1 for more anabolism. At 8 a.m., it’s off to the dietary races again!
Kai Greene is bodybuilding carried to the power of infinity. He finalizes it all, “I love bodybuilding. It’s what I’ve wanted to do ever since I can remember. Standing on the Olympia stage with a Sandow statue in my hands, it’s what I live and push for every single day! For me, it’s where the beef is!”
