The LA Times reports that at the Beverly Center, one of LA's shopping meccas, Santa looks like this:

"Hunky Santa," as he's billed (aka Eli Wilhide), says he achieved his hunkiness with a combination of daily morning runs, a half-hour of cardio on the treadmill or bike (in the upper end of his fat-burning zone, as he points out), then up to 90 minutes of weight training, followed by more low-intensity cardio and some stretching.  When he lifts, he does one body part a day, and uses either heavy weight for low reps, or lighter weights for high reps, depending on whether he's building or cutting.  Oh yeah--he also loves crunches.

If you wanted get muscular and lean in the 80's, as I did, this kind of routine was what you used.  Modern fitness aficianados would classify Hunky Santa as a kind of middle-era bodybuilding enthusiast, and they'd be pretty grumpy about it:  he does fasted, low intensity cardio (gasp).  He uses a split routine (gag!!).  He uses a high volume of exercise (GOFF!!).  And no mention of periodization!

At the moment, there's an upswell of smart trainers out there questioning almost all of those principles:  if Hunky Claus were to swing over to T-Nation, say, and casually outline his routine on one of their threads, he'd be well advised to keep a fire extinguisher handy, because pretty soon he'd be engulfed in flames.  I'd wager that they'd accuse him of using steroids, too, because the only way that such cockamamy routines work is if the person is regularly whacking massive amounts of testosterone into his veins. 

I love T-Nation.  The best writers and coaches in this field either have contributed over there or want to (subtle hint for T-Nation editors over there looking for fresh blood), and if you were to grab any one of them--say, one who staunchly advocates full-body routines, anaerobic energy work, and short, intense workouts--and show them Hunky Santa and his routine, that coach would probably shrug and say something to the effect of "Everything Works." 

And I'd have to agree with them.  In my accumulating years in the world of fitness, I've seen people make progress on the weirdest things:  all-machine workouts.  Weight training combined with long-distance running for muscle mass.  Two-day-a-week fasts.  Veganism.  Slim-Fast.  High Intensity Training. Plenty of stuff that people nowadays insist won't work that actually works--at least anecdotally. 

This doesn't undermine the possibility that other systems may work better for more people, or be more effective or safe in the long run, or are more scientifically supported to build muscle or burn fat--just that there are lots of ways to skin that fitness cat, and if you throw yourself into almost any of them, you're likely to make some progress--maybe even impressive progress.

For the sake of discussion, however, I'll add that most people I know who have achieved Hunky Santa's level of conditioning, or something close to it, have done so using something like the seemingly-antiquaited system he uses:  split system, medium to high volume, lots of low-intensity cardio.  It's certainly not something I advocate for clients, or would ever do myself.  It also doesn't sound like much fun--which, let's face it, is important--but for aesthetic goals, it appears effective.

What are other people's experiences or thoughts on this?  Have we been too hard on those middle-era muscle guys?