All too often we hear people say, "He looked incredible the week before the show, but awful on stage". That's what happens to a lot of bodybuilders who mistime their peak; only to look better a week before the competition or a week after the competition! Getting ready for a show primarily requires that a person systematically strip away as much body fat as possible without shedding valuable muscle mass. When you are extremely lean, you can do a lot of things that final week and actually see changes. That is, you can manipulate your water and carbohydrate intake to produce a fuller or harder look.
Just like dieting, there is no one size fits all approach to the final of contest prep. To illustrate this point, I will draw from personal experience. I have prepped several pro bodybuilders for several competitions; taking a different approach each time. Here are my experiences that prove my point:
1) The 2001 Mr Olympia: Jay Cutler depleted extremely hard and loaded heavily. The result; arguably his best ever. Though, for his 2003 Ironman and Arnold wins, he did not deplete and load.
2) 2003 Night of Champions and 2004 GNC: Victor Martinez's wins at both shows were due to how he depleted hard and loaded mildly.
3) 2005 Ironman: Troy Alves did not deplete or load at all for this show where he was in great condition and I did not have him, nor Eduardo Correa, do much loading for the 2009 season where they were both pretty much in spectacular shape.
The take home message: Every time you approach a show, things are a little different. The body is different and responds differently over time therefore, you have to take these factors into consideration. A lot of knowing what to do or what not to do boils down to experience. However, I will outline the guidelines I use with bodybuilders. Hopefully, you can learn from my experiences and mistakes and apply them to your own body.
1) Fullness
I worked with Chris Cook for just a couple shows. The first time out, he nailed it at the Nationals and won the overall. I went out to his house more than a week before the show to try to figure things out. When he posed, he looked soft with no real hardcore cuts. However, he looked real big and when you touched his muscles they felt like rocks. That rock hard feel and full-looking muscles responds incredibly well to hardcore depletion of carbohydrates. I had him cut his carbohydrates to zero for four days. We went to the gym every one of those four days and did endless sets of light weight/higher rep training for all the body parts. Our goal was to suck every last ounce of stored muscle glycogen from the muscles. After four days he looked tighter. When he added the carbohydrates back (and I believe he went up to 600 grams a day) in the final three days, his body changed every 12 hours and he became as hard as nails.
When a bodybuilder looks full and his muscles feel hard to the touch, never be afraid to deplete the hell out of the body. I know Chris thought I was crazy; no carbs and lots and lots of sets – but I knew it would work. I used the same method with Jay for the 2001 Mr. Olympia. His muscles felt like cement a couple weeks out and I knew that his muscles could withstand severe depletion. When the muscles do not feel that way, cement- like, often the bodybuilder flattens out (the muscles shrink) with depletion. That was the scenario with Troy Alves the first time I worked with him for the 2005 Ironman. His muscles looked full and hard, but when you touched them, they didn't have that super hard feeling. I knew if he depleted too hard, his muscles would flatten out and he'd only look worse from depleting, not better. Therefore, he only mildly restricted his carbohydrates a week out and mildly loaded the final two days.
2) Fatigue
Warning: If you are extremely tired from dieting and go into the final week excessively beat up, then you're setting yourself up for failure if you choose to deplete and load. The final week is an extremely stressful event on the body. If you are already extremely fatigued, then depleting will end up flattening the muscles down too far to the point where the depletion process will only make you look smaller. In addition, many times when you load a fatigued body up on carbs; either the muscles do not readily load up so you end up looking flat or the result is excessive water retention. From my experience, it seems the bodybuilder who carbs up in a severe state of fatigue usually ends up retaining water – which interferes with his condition and definition. That's why I recommend the bodybuilder start his contest prep far enough out from the show so he can take the two weeks prior to the final week and rest more, stop or cut back on cardio, and decrease the intensity of his training. This, somewhat of a "rest phase", makes a big difference in the way the body responds to the depletion and loading process. When the body is fresh and not suffering from excess fatigue, the depletion and loading process is far more effective.
3) Water Intake
I always have bodybuilders drink more from 14 days out from the show to 3 days out. At around the 12-14 day mark, I'll have them double up on their water intake only to sharply reduce it to as little as 6-8 cups a day the final 3 days going onto the show. The reason for this is that a higher intake tricks the body to become more rapidly dehydrated when there is a reduction in fluid intake. For example, if a bodybuilder was drinking one gallon of water a day and reduced that to 6 cups, his body would fall into a dehydration state because switching from a full gallon to 6 cups is a pretty stiff drop off. However, if a bodybuilder goes from two gallons to 6 cups, the dehydration process is not only quicker but greater in scope. And, here is a secret to loading up on carbohydrates, when you increase your carbohydrate consumption during the final 2 or 3 days, you should reduce your water intake. This dehydration creates a tighter look. While many will disagree with that, as on paper from a physiology point of view the formation of muscle glycogen requires water, in the real world, restricting water causes a visual effect that results in greater definition. This is affirmed by the use and misuse of diuretics. Diuretics cause the body to lose water resulting in better definition. However, you can create an incredibly defined look simply by cutting back on water intake.
4) Carb Status
How many carbohydrates to eat those final 2-3 days will vary from bodybuilder to bodybuilder. Eating 90g a day while dieting? Guess what; 700g will make you watery as a broken dam. Eating 400g while dieting? Loading on 400g, 500g, or 600g will leave you flat. As a rule, the fewer carbohydrates you ate while dieting, the fewer your carbohydrate needs while loading. Likewise, if you eat a lot of carbohydrates while dieting, you'll need plenty to bring you back. I advise most bodybuilder to eat 3 to 4 times the amount of carbohydrates they ate while dieting during the carbing up phase, the final 3 days. For example, if a bodybuilder dieted on 100g of carbohydrates, he can load on 300g to 400g. If, for the most part he dieted on 300g carbohydrates, then he would need up to 900g a day the final 3 days. Keep in mind; you should not be training the final 2 or 3 days so you do not need massive amounts of carbohydrates to fill the muscles out with glycogen. Simply by not training, the body will fill out and bounce back from having gone through a depletion phase.
Written by Chris Aceto; Edited by Jeff Pearce
Just like dieting, there is no one size fits all approach to the final of contest prep. To illustrate this point, I will draw from personal experience. I have prepped several pro bodybuilders for several competitions; taking a different approach each time. Here are my experiences that prove my point:
1) The 2001 Mr Olympia: Jay Cutler depleted extremely hard and loaded heavily. The result; arguably his best ever. Though, for his 2003 Ironman and Arnold wins, he did not deplete and load.
2) 2003 Night of Champions and 2004 GNC: Victor Martinez's wins at both shows were due to how he depleted hard and loaded mildly.
3) 2005 Ironman: Troy Alves did not deplete or load at all for this show where he was in great condition and I did not have him, nor Eduardo Correa, do much loading for the 2009 season where they were both pretty much in spectacular shape.
The take home message: Every time you approach a show, things are a little different. The body is different and responds differently over time therefore, you have to take these factors into consideration. A lot of knowing what to do or what not to do boils down to experience. However, I will outline the guidelines I use with bodybuilders. Hopefully, you can learn from my experiences and mistakes and apply them to your own body.
1) Fullness
I worked with Chris Cook for just a couple shows. The first time out, he nailed it at the Nationals and won the overall. I went out to his house more than a week before the show to try to figure things out. When he posed, he looked soft with no real hardcore cuts. However, he looked real big and when you touched his muscles they felt like rocks. That rock hard feel and full-looking muscles responds incredibly well to hardcore depletion of carbohydrates. I had him cut his carbohydrates to zero for four days. We went to the gym every one of those four days and did endless sets of light weight/higher rep training for all the body parts. Our goal was to suck every last ounce of stored muscle glycogen from the muscles. After four days he looked tighter. When he added the carbohydrates back (and I believe he went up to 600 grams a day) in the final three days, his body changed every 12 hours and he became as hard as nails.
When a bodybuilder looks full and his muscles feel hard to the touch, never be afraid to deplete the hell out of the body. I know Chris thought I was crazy; no carbs and lots and lots of sets – but I knew it would work. I used the same method with Jay for the 2001 Mr. Olympia. His muscles felt like cement a couple weeks out and I knew that his muscles could withstand severe depletion. When the muscles do not feel that way, cement- like, often the bodybuilder flattens out (the muscles shrink) with depletion. That was the scenario with Troy Alves the first time I worked with him for the 2005 Ironman. His muscles looked full and hard, but when you touched them, they didn't have that super hard feeling. I knew if he depleted too hard, his muscles would flatten out and he'd only look worse from depleting, not better. Therefore, he only mildly restricted his carbohydrates a week out and mildly loaded the final two days.
2) Fatigue
Warning: If you are extremely tired from dieting and go into the final week excessively beat up, then you're setting yourself up for failure if you choose to deplete and load. The final week is an extremely stressful event on the body. If you are already extremely fatigued, then depleting will end up flattening the muscles down too far to the point where the depletion process will only make you look smaller. In addition, many times when you load a fatigued body up on carbs; either the muscles do not readily load up so you end up looking flat or the result is excessive water retention. From my experience, it seems the bodybuilder who carbs up in a severe state of fatigue usually ends up retaining water – which interferes with his condition and definition. That's why I recommend the bodybuilder start his contest prep far enough out from the show so he can take the two weeks prior to the final week and rest more, stop or cut back on cardio, and decrease the intensity of his training. This, somewhat of a "rest phase", makes a big difference in the way the body responds to the depletion and loading process. When the body is fresh and not suffering from excess fatigue, the depletion and loading process is far more effective.
3) Water Intake
I always have bodybuilders drink more from 14 days out from the show to 3 days out. At around the 12-14 day mark, I'll have them double up on their water intake only to sharply reduce it to as little as 6-8 cups a day the final 3 days going onto the show. The reason for this is that a higher intake tricks the body to become more rapidly dehydrated when there is a reduction in fluid intake. For example, if a bodybuilder was drinking one gallon of water a day and reduced that to 6 cups, his body would fall into a dehydration state because switching from a full gallon to 6 cups is a pretty stiff drop off. However, if a bodybuilder goes from two gallons to 6 cups, the dehydration process is not only quicker but greater in scope. And, here is a secret to loading up on carbohydrates, when you increase your carbohydrate consumption during the final 2 or 3 days, you should reduce your water intake. This dehydration creates a tighter look. While many will disagree with that, as on paper from a physiology point of view the formation of muscle glycogen requires water, in the real world, restricting water causes a visual effect that results in greater definition. This is affirmed by the use and misuse of diuretics. Diuretics cause the body to lose water resulting in better definition. However, you can create an incredibly defined look simply by cutting back on water intake.
4) Carb Status
How many carbohydrates to eat those final 2-3 days will vary from bodybuilder to bodybuilder. Eating 90g a day while dieting? Guess what; 700g will make you watery as a broken dam. Eating 400g while dieting? Loading on 400g, 500g, or 600g will leave you flat. As a rule, the fewer carbohydrates you ate while dieting, the fewer your carbohydrate needs while loading. Likewise, if you eat a lot of carbohydrates while dieting, you'll need plenty to bring you back. I advise most bodybuilder to eat 3 to 4 times the amount of carbohydrates they ate while dieting during the carbing up phase, the final 3 days. For example, if a bodybuilder dieted on 100g of carbohydrates, he can load on 300g to 400g. If, for the most part he dieted on 300g carbohydrates, then he would need up to 900g a day the final 3 days. Keep in mind; you should not be training the final 2 or 3 days so you do not need massive amounts of carbohydrates to fill the muscles out with glycogen. Simply by not training, the body will fill out and bounce back from having gone through a depletion phase.
Written by Chris Aceto; Edited by Jeff Pearce
