One on One with CT Fletcher

It’s Still His Motherf*&^ing Set

Building Bigger Bis with the Superman of Compton

“How much do you bench?” is usually the first thing that comes out of someone’s mouth when they meet a fellow weight lifter, but biceps are the first body part everyone flexes when taking a selfie. This is because huge, defined arms are the cornerstone of a well-built physique. As early as the 1480s, Leonardo da Vinci was carving out the ideal proportions for the human physique and shaping our definition of symmetry and perfection. His drawing of the Vitruvian Man is based on the correlations between ideal human proportions and geometry. These proportions were originally drawn up by the Roman architect Vitruvius, who described the human figure as being “the principal source of proportion among the Classical orders of architecture.”

Why am I giving you a history lesson about da Vinci? Because if you fast-forward 490 years to 1977, the year Pumping Iron came out, you’ll hear Ken Waller say (about Mike Katz), “He’s good, but he lacks too many things. His arms aren’t big enough to match his chest. His thighs are too big for his calves.” Once again, this time in the 20th century, proportion and symmetry come into play. There’s no denying that if you want to make it in bodybuilding, you need to bring up weak body parts, and focusing on arms is a perfect way to do that. And who better to teach you how to bring up your biceps than the man who is rumoured to have trained arms every single day for a year. All right, so it’s not a rumour: “For a motherfucking year and a half, I trained fucking arms every goddamned day.” He also broke a record when he EZ-bar curled (strictly, I might add) 225 pounds. Are you inspired, or at least curious, yet?

CT Fletcher, our two-time cover recipient, is one of the most inspirational people on the planet. Not just because of how he trains, but also because of how he talks and relates to people. If you’ve ever watched his YouTube videos and seen him yell at the weights, or Dana Linn Bailey, or Kai Greene, you’ll know that there’s never a shortage of enthusiasm or passion emanating from his pores. He also recently released his own “album” on iTunes called “Sleeve Busters Union,” under “Fitness and Workout”; it’s a compilation of 12 different motivational speeches straight from CT to you. For an inside look at what it actually takes to join the Sleeve Busters Union, keep reading, as we get an in-depth look at how CT blasts his biceps and the routine he used to build cover-worthy arms.

The Exercises

1. Cable Hammer Curls
- Using the rope attachment, grab it with a narrow, palms-in grip and stand straight up, keeping your body stationary.
- Put your elbows by your sides, and keep them there during the entire movement.
- Only the forearms should move, not your upper arms. This will be your starting position.

Why: The reason I choose these are because I can contain the weight so easily because of the pin. The pin in the stack helps me adjust the weight so easily and then I can do what I like to call, multiple “random selection.” I can move the pin to various different weights—heavy to light, light to heavy—in a random fashion with the cable. Of course, the hammer curls are big forearm/biceps tie-in movements. In the beginning, I strictly used dumbbells, but now that I’m older, it’s a lot easier to do it on the machines.

2. Standing EZ-Bar Curls
- Stand up straight while holding an EZ-curl bar at the wide outer handle.
- Keep your elbows close to your torso and your upper arms stationary.
- Curl the weight up while contracting the biceps, focusing on only moving your forearms.
- Raise the weight until you feel your biceps fully contract. The bar should be around shoulder level.
- Slowly lower the bar back to the starting position.

Why: These are a favourite of everybody, because usually you can handle more weight in the standing position than in the preacher curl. You can overload the muscle more easily in the standing position than any other for curling.

3. Standing Alternating Dumbbell Curls
- Stand upright with a dumbbell in each hand held down by your thighs, elbows close to the torso, and the palms of your hands facing in
- Hold your upper arm stationary and curl the right weight while you rotate the palm of the hand until it’s facing forward/up. Only the forearms should move, not the upper arm.
- Hold the contracted position for a second as you squeeze the biceps. Twist the palms back to the starting position (facing your thighs) as you come down.
- Repeat the movement with the left hand. This equals one repetition.

Why : All the bodybuilders from my era and my day were doing these. If you went into the gym, you’d see everyone doing these, and that’s because that’s what we saw on the pages of the muscle magazines. We’d see our heroes like Arnold, Franco, Robbie Robinson, and Sergio doing this, so that’s what we’d do. All old-school guys from yesteryear were heavy proponents of standing alternating dumbbell curls. I still do these because I’m an old-school guy. We all had to learn from somebody. I got my basics from the old guys; specifically, someone named James Briggs was essential in my early weight-training education.

4. Seated EZ-Bar Preacher Curls
- Using a regular preacher bench, grab an EZ-curl bar with both hands using an underhand grip (palms facing upwards).
- Curl the bar up to shoulder level, keeping your armpits resting in the peak of the bench.
- Return the weight back down slowly to the starting position.

Why : One of my favourites. The reason I started doing them was because of Larry Scott. I read somewhere that it was his favourite move, and I thought that he had the best biceps ever, so I wanted to emulate his arms. So if the preacher curl worked for him, I figured it would work for me.

5. Standing Dumbbell Hammer Curls
- Stand upright with a dumbbell in each hand being held by your thighs, elbows close to the torso.
- The palms of the hands should be facing your torso, and holding your upper arm stationary, curl the weight up while contracting the biceps.
- Continue to raise the weight until the biceps are fully contracted.
- Slowly begin to lower the dumbbells back down to the starting position.

Why: It’s what I leaned towards in my earlier days, to work on that forearm/biceps tie-in. It works the hell out of your forearms. Forearms are an often neglected body part, but I think they make the arms look impressive, overall.

JF: What are your thoughts and methods on training for size in general, in terms of how to gain mass and strength?

CT: I don’t try to train for size anymore; I’ve had my day for that, and now all my training is geared towards conditioning and to charge me up a little bit. Most mass guys keep the weight heavier and the reps lower. So that’s the formula that has been around as far as I know, since the beginning. Lower reps, higher weight. Lower reps, higher weight. This isn’t necessarily scientific; this is from experience that I speak. It’s also important to focus on the Big Three powerlifting moves. That’s my bread and butter. That’s my foundation.

JF: What do you do to get yourself hyped up before you train?

CT: I was born a little bit more hyper than the average fella. I think at this point it’s because I have so many people looking up to me that I can’t fail. I cannot fail them. I train more for them than I do for myself at this point. I don’t want to let anybody down. It’s incredible for me to hear kids tell me they look up to me. I never thought I would be in that position to have a kid from Russia, or Hungary, or Australia say, “You are my role model.” I never thought I’d be anybody’s role model. I carry the responsibility very heavily. I would do anything not to fail, and not to let those people down. Whether I feel like it or don’t feel like it, I get myself to the gym. I’m not going to let them down.

JF: There have been points in your life where you’ve lost everything; how do you find the strength to keep going? Where does your why come from?

CT: My fans are my ultimate motivation. If people wait to see me, I make sure that I shake their hand. I go past the time I’m supposed to be there all the time because I will go down the line and shake everybody’s hand. Those people came, and waited hours, and they’re going to see me. I will stay and help, and shake everyone’s hand.

JF: You were turned down from so many gyms as a personal trainer because you didn’t have the certificate. What do you say to those people now?

Nothing. Fuck y’all. I was walking around to different gyms (because my car broke down), thinking for sure I could get a job as a personal trainer because I looked at some of the guys who had a uniform on, and they looked like they never trained a day in their life. So I thought, surely, I can get a job as a personal trainer. That was definitely not the case. They said, “Where’s your certificate?” and I didn’t have one, but I knew how to lift weights! I broke out my world titles and certificates, which I thought would qualify me to train people. But they said, “I’m sorry,” and told me to go get ones from a recognized organization. So I’d tell them that it all worked out.

JF: What kind of ventures and projects do you have on the go now?

CT: Franchising Iron Addicts is most definitely an option and I’m in the negotiation stage to make that happen.
I didn’t have a supplement line up until now; it’s coming out November 1. I’ve always worked with other people, but they weren’t really my supplements. Now, Iron Addicts supplements will be mine, will be happening, and this little guy from Compton, for the first time, will have his own supplements. I’ll be 51 percent owner of this company.

The Sleeve Busters Union is my project on iTunes. For a long time there was a company that had me on iTunes, and they were making the money, but it was my voice. I’ve been able to take over the recordings of myself. Three or four years ago, nobody wanted to be CT Fletcher; now everybody wants to speak like CT Fletcher. A lot of the things that are put out now make other people money, but finally in the last two or three months my daughter has taken over, and it’s really me for the first time.

My good friend Bill Goldberg and I have already done one movie, and it’s a comedy, and personally I think it’s going to stink. But it should still be coming out any time. Now Bill is going to do an action film and he invited me to play a role in that. I’m looking more towards being on the big screen. I had a little part in Batman v. Superman, and got a few calls, and I want to get outside of just YouTube.

JF: What is your advice for young up-and-coming YouTubers or just people who want to make a name for themselves in the industry?

CT: First of all, it took me 35 years. You don’t have to wait 35 years, but still you can’t expect things to happen. This is Rule #1, though, when young guys ask me all the time how I got to where I am and how I do it: Be yourself. They want to imitate me. You know, when I started out, no one was saying “Fuck.” Now, if you look at it, the internet is loaded with it. When I first started, everyone told me not to do it, they said, I was just going to look like an unintelligent guy from the streets, just another thug from the ghetto, and they’re not going to take you seriously. “They’ll think your vocabulary has not reached past “Fuck.”“ So I brought them over to my side. My side was always about just being yourself. No one was big on YouTube, so I couldn’t imitate anybody. I didn’t have a guide. I just figured if people wanted to watch me they would, and if they didn’t, they wouldn’t. I didn’t care. But being unique and not trying to emulate someone else is Rule #1. People can tell an imitation, or smell a copy or a fake, a mile away. Be you, be genuine.

CT on The Best Arms in the Industry:
Roelly Winklaar has the best arm development, period, on the Olympia stage. When you’re on the Olympia stage, you have to have good biceps just to be in the Olympia, you do. Everyone on stage has 20-plus-inch arms, but when Roelly Winklaar throws up a double biceps on the Olympia stage, he stands out. He’s by far the best. That’s just my opinion though.

CT on Instinctive training
I don’t go in with a written-down workout. I think that the best workouts are the ones that are intuitive, and that you plan when you’re there. When you get there, your body will tell you what you’re going to do that day. If the exercise feels exceptionally good to me while I’m doing it, I’ll continue to do it probably with the same weight, for the whole time that I’m training. I can do those alternating dumbbell curls for two hours, or two and a half hours.

My arm workouts usually take two to three hours. Definitely. When you’re doing 100-rep sets, then they take a while.

CT on competing
I always considered myself much more of a powerlifter than any kind of bodybuilder. I was a bodybuilder by accident, but a powerlifter on purpose.

CT on fame
People have a bullshit sensor, and I think they can tell genuine from bullshit. And I can’t explain any other reason why people wait in line to see me. I think that’s it.

Social Media

Twitter: twitter.com/ctfletcherisymf
Facebook: facebook.com/CT.ISYMFS
Instagram: Instagram.com/C.T.ALI.FLETCHER
Youtube: youtube.com/CTTheTrainer