Contest prep for the natural bodybuilder: 4 rules
When it comes to fat burning, bodybuilders preparing for competition are in a category of their own.
Trying to hold on to hard-earned muscle mass while burning fat at the same time makes dieting and organizing your training fairly complicated. Below I lay out four rules that apply first and foremost to natural bodybuilders preparing for competition.
Four rules for natural bodybuilders…
With their approaches to training and nutrition, chemically assisted competitive bodybuilders have done their natural colleagues something of a disservice. Because performance-enhancing substances improve recovery, raise energy levels and help preserve muscle, the structure of training and attention to the finer details of the diet aren’t nearly as critical for pro bodybuilders. Preparing without chemical support, natural competitors run a real risk of losing the muscle mass they’ve built. To hold on to as much muscle as possible during a diet phase with restricted calories, you should keep a few extremely important rules in mind.
Rule no. 1: don’t let yourself get too fat during the bulking phase after competitions…
The longer you have to be on a diet, the greater the risk of losing muscle. As a general rule, male bodybuilders shouldn’t let their body fat percentage climb above 10 – 12% between competitions; for women the level is 13 – 15%. Keeping your body fat percentage within these limits ensures two things. First, you don’t have to stretch your diet phase out unreasonably long. Besides the risk of losing muscle mass, a long diet phase also means that after the competition people fall into uncontrolled eating in wild quantities. The less time you spend on a diet, the less “messy” your eating gets after the competition. In addition, if you start your prep from a fairly sensible level, you won’t have to cut calories much and/or add a lot of aerobic work, which in turn is harmful to muscle mass.
To keep your body under control, a bodybuilder who competes regularly and preps periodically should measure their body fat percentage from time to time. The mirror and body weight also give you feedback, but with the mirror you may end up seeing what you want to see. Very many people tend to underestimate their body fat percentage, believing they are “leaner” than they really are. A regular caliper method also gives you a fairly good picture of where you stand. A skinfold thickness of 3 – 4 mm points to near-maximum leanness. When skinfold thickness starts approaching 20 mm, prep can drag on for quite a while, and getting into shape in a reasonable amount of time becomes a problem.
Rule no. 2: don’t radically change your approach to training during contest prep…
The second big mistake bodybuilders tend to make in the pre-contest period is switching to lighter weights and longer sets. It’s yet another idea from chemically assisted bodybuilders, through which they supposedly try to increase separation and improve definition. If you train with substances, then indeed, lowering the weights and lengthening the sets doesn’t cause muscle mass loss; the effect, if anything, is greater calorie expenditure and thereby more fat burning. For a natural bodybuilder preparing for competition, this approach simply doesn’t apply or work. For a natural, working this way isn’t the optimal option for holding on to muscle mass during a diet.
Training with weights (strength training) shouldn’t be turned into aerobic training, or the other way around. If you’ve built decent muscle mass through heavier weights and proper progression, you should try to maintain the weights you’ve reached in your workouts as well. Fat is burned by the calorie deficit itself and by added aerobic training. The striations, grooves, stripes and “cuts” you show on competition day depend very largely on genetics, body fat percentage and subcutaneous fluid.
Of course, it’s naive to hope that your training weights will stay exactly at their usual level during a diet. But you should hold on to your training weights until the last possible moment, for as long as that is realistic within reason and with your health in mind. Training weights should stay more or less the same until 2 weeks before the competition. A noticeable drop in weights, or a falling rep count on sets at a given weight, is a direct sign of muscle mass loss. It is also vital to aim to maintain a certain level, or even make minimal progress, while dieting. It’s important to keep a log of how your weights are progressing.
When contest prep is well into its final phase, many people are nevertheless forced to reduce their weights, because in the end energy levels get so low that the bulking-phase level can’t be maintained. Also, as body fat percentage falls, the “lubrication” of the joints decreases, which together with heavy weights means a high risk of injury. But yes, you shouldn’t give in on the weights until there is a real need or a logical reason for it. Otherwise you won’t manage to preserve your muscle mass either.
Rule no. 3: allow enough time for prep, rather a little more than less…
Besides the fact that most people underestimate their body fat percentage, a great many bodybuilders tend to give themselves too little time to prepare. Often they try to get in shape in 8 weeks or even fewer. It’s better to be in shape 2 weeks early than 2 weeks late. If your body fat percentage is 10 – 12% (men) or 13 – 15% (women), 10 – 12 weeks is enough time to reach contest shape. If you know about individual quirks, such as a body that is stubborn about mobilizing fat, allow 16 weeks for your prep. If you aren’t sure how quickly your condition will come together (for example, before your first competition), it’s better to allow more time rather than less. Building in a buffer has another advantage: if you turn out to be right on schedule (or even ahead of it), you can take an easier week in between. That in turn is good for your metabolism, and your body doesn’t panic and hold on to body fat in response to a relatively linear, ever-deepening deficit.
Rule 4: know how much you eat, and keep an eye on your calorie intake between competitions too…
This tells you where your diet should start. If you have no idea what your nutrition looked like during your mass phase, note that a good starting point is 33 kcal per kg of body weight. Of course, depending on how your body composition responds to that calorie intake, you’ll need to make adjustments as you go. Once the diet is up and running and working, an initial deficit of 250 – 500 kcal per day is a good starting level. That should produce a fat loss of 250 – 500 grams per week, and if the amount of protein in your menu is sufficient, your muscle mass should stay untouched. And once again, you need to keep adjusting your calories based on changes in body weight. This also applies to carbohydrate loading and cycling, if you practice them.
If your body weight drops by less than 250 grams per week, you should add another 250 kcal to the daily deficit. If the weight loss turns out faster than 700 – 800 grams per week, you should put some calories back. And remember: adjust calories through the proportions of fat and carbohydrates; your daily protein intake should stay more or less constant from day to day throughout the entire diet.
The rules come from: “The Ketogenic Diet: A complete guide for the Dieter and Practitioner” by Lyle McDonald
Author: Janar Rückenberg (translation)
Source: Turg.Fitness.ee
Come and train! ArtGym
