A Meathead’s Dream Vacation

My wife and I returned from our Carribean Cruise Vaction yesterday.  Our cruise departed Miami, FL and traveled to three locations in the Eastern Carribean over a seven day period returning to Miami.  Where we went and the activities we participated in seem irrelevant for a blog dedicated to muscledom.  What seems more relevant to report is the muscle building lifestyle I was able to live for these seven days.  For those readers who have never been on a cruise before, imagine 24/7 access to any and every type of food you wanted prepared gourmet style.  Yes, you can literally eat around the clock!  Resturants line all parts of the ship providing acess to any type of food you may fancy.  We cruised on the largest ship in the world.  You can check it out here:  http://www.royalcaribbean.com/findacruise/ships/class/ship/home.do;jsessionid=0000WoHR51ePRHpY4nw_rb1qK0w:12hdhu93n?br=R&shipClassCode=FR&shipCode=FR

In addition to access to endless amounts of gourmet food, the ship had a suprisingly spacious and well equipped workout facility.  My wife and I were in the gym twice a day every day of our cruise except for two days when we had various tours on the islands we visited. 

When it was all said and done, I was 15lbs heavier upon my return last night.  This was really the first period of time since my show on May 10 that I really didn’t worry about restricting calories at all.  I had been trying to keep myself in check prior to the cruise and it felt great to just eat whatever I wanted.  I’ve always been able to eat large amounts of food.  I’m somewhat of a bottomless pit.  Since I was training twice per day on the cruise, my appetite was raging the entire time.As an added bonus to building muscle, I slept a great deal.  My wife and I took two naps on most days from 1-3 hours long.  Oh how I wish I could live this life all the time.  For those of you looking for a great vacation where you can have fun and build muscle at the same time, I highly suggest a cruise vacation.

Post Competition Rebound

For those of you who have competed a few times, you are probably well aware of the window of opportunity you have as a bodybuilder to add a great deal of muscle right after a show.  After remaining in a relative calorie deficit for weeks and months, your muscles are depleted and ready to absorb large amounts of glycogen and protein.  I like to picture a dried out sponge that is about to be held in a tub of water.  The tub of water, of course, being lots of food.  The sponge quickly absorbs the water and becomes heavy and full.

I have been in this rebounding state since my show last month, and it feels great.  My muscles are full and hard, I’m very strong, and I’ve gained about 25lbs.  In the past, I’ve overdone the rebound a bit and gone a little overboard with my eating, but I’ve controlled myself a bit better this time around.  I’ve also continued to do morning cardio for 30 minutes which I think has helped my body process the excess calories and has prevented too much water retention.  I’ve also kept my water intake relatively high (about 2 gallons per day).  As for my diet, I’m drinking three large protein shakes per day with 70 grams of protein per shake.  I’m also eating 3-4 whole food meals which consist of a meat (steak, fish, ground turkey) 1 cup rice, and some mixed vegetables.  I’m also eating peanuts and apples in between meals and I usually have my staple 10 egg whites at night before bed.  I’m eating some miscellaneous snacks at work also.

I’me going on my cruise this weekend.  Its a seven day cruise and I plan to eat a lot and relax.  I will not likely be posting until July as i will be traveling to a conference in Atlanta after my cruise.  I will try and get some photos to post when I get back.  Cheers!

 

Fat Burners

My wife is a big fan of the movie “A few Good Men” with Jack Nicholson and Tom Cruise.  One of my favorite parts of the movie is when Tom Cruise’s character has Jack Nicholson on the stand and Nicholson is being questioned about how the Marines incorporate Code Reds at Guantonomo Bay.  Cruise is pushing Nicholoson to answer a question about what happened to a private who was accidentally killed by fellow Marines using a Code Red.  Cruise’s character is attempting to corner Nicholoson into admitting that he knew about the Code Red and, in fact, ordered it against a sub-par Marine.  As the scene progresses, the exchange between the two characters becomes very heated and at one point Cruise’s Characted says “I want the truth”.  To which, Nicholson’s character says, “You can’t handle the truth”.  Nicholson’s character proceeds to explain about the grotesque nature of what is involved with guarding the wall at Guantonomo Bay and the life or death challenges that Marines face there each day.  He describes how these Marines do a job that not many hear about or want to know about.

When it comes to utilization of fat burners for bodybuilding or for anyone trying to get in shape, I feel like Jack Nicholson.  Most people just can’t handle the truth.  The bottom line is that burning fat, in broad terms, is fairly simple.  Take in fewer calories than you expend over an extended period of time and you will burn fat.  As simple as this sounds, we tend to try and complicate it for ourselves and seek quick fixes with the utilization of some sort of fat burner. 

Before considering utilizing fat burners, consider this: take in 500 fewer calories than you burn each day and you will lose body fat.  If you are not creating a calorie deficit, no fat burner in the world will help you burn fat.  The hard part about creating a calorie defecit is that you are going to be hungry.  There is no way around it.  If you do it right and do it for any length of time, you will hear your stomach growl, you may have lower energy levels, and you may just be grumpy sometimes.  And, if you plan to make a noticeable change, you will be in this state for months at a time.  That’s not to say that you are starving.  If you are doing it correctly, you are eating 6-8 small meals per day.  The hard part about this, though, is that you never seem to be satisfied at the end of the meal.  You always feel like you could eat more.  You have to have the self-discipline to stop yourself and stay on your plan.  The greater the calorie deficit you create, the greater the challenge.  95% of burning fat is diet.  That’s the truth about fat burning.  Can you handle the truth?

With that said, if you get this part of things in check and can do this on your own without any type of fat burner, you can get some great benefits from a good over the counter fat burner.  I use Biotest Hot Rox religiously.  I find it very helpful when I am trying to burn fat before a show.  I would warn beginners that it has Yohimbe HCL in it and this will heat you up.  Use it as directed and assess your tolerance.  I have friends who do not like how it makes them sweat.  If you use it, I would suggest drinking a lot of extra water and doing 20-30 minutes of cardio first thing in the morning on an empty stomach for best results.  You will also notice a reduction in appetite which will make it easier to create that calorie deficit.  There are probably other over the counter fat burners that may be effective, but this is the one that I use.

Tools of the Trade

When I was 19, I prepared for my first bodybuilding competition while I was completing my first year in college.  I really had no clue what I was getting myself into.  I was broke, had no car, and the only real access to food was at the college cafeteria.  I basically dieted on egg whites, tuna, pasta, wheat bread (yes, we used to eat bread back in the day while preparing for a show), rice, and whatever processed meats the cafeteria might have offered.  I didn’t really have anyone to guide me other than a few guys at the gym who never competed and my roomate who played football.  I didn’t really have any connections with any competetive bodybuilders at that time.  While I was coming into my last three weeks before the show, I neeed someone to help me learn how to pose correctly because I really had no clue.  I didn’t even know what pre-judging was.  I met up with a guy who had won some local level shows in the teen division and had about a half dozen shows under his belt.  I had seen him around campus and at the cafeteria, but he was kind of reclusive and kept to himself.  He had a ton of muscle on him and he was a senior at the time.  Long story short, the guy agreed to meet me in his dorm room and help me with my posing.  I arranged to meet him.  I went to his room and I’ll never forget the revelation I had when I went into his room.  I looked in the corner of his one person dorm room and he had bags of potatoes, cans of tuna, boxes of rice, and tupperware containers stacked to the ceiling.  His walls were plastered with diet lists, workout journals, and there were workout clothes hanging from a makeshift clothesline in his room.  A few canisters of protein powder and a blender were in another corner of the room.  This guy LIVED bodybuilding 24/7.  I was a little shocked and maybe even a little scared.  “Is this how all competitive bodybuilders live”, I asked myself?  Is this what it takes to make it in bodybuilding?  No wonder this guy was so reclusive.  His whole life was tied to eating, sleeping, and training.  He helped me with my posing and sort of rushed me off so he could get back on schedule.  I was in awe.  I wasn’t sure if I could do what he was doing.  What was worse, I was more nervous than ever to compete in the upcoming bodybuilding contest.  I definitely wasn’t doing bodybuilding at that level and I worried that I was in over my head with this competition thing. 

Fast forward to today; I ended up doing the show and loving it and now 16 years and 23 shows later I’m still competing and loving it.  I’ve taken diet and training to the highest levels and have improved year after year.  The moral to the story is, to me, bodybuilding is more of a lifestyle than a sport.  To be successful, you have to have the ablility to modify how you live your life.   Today I decided to highlight a few tools of the trade to help you reach your goals.  In my opinion, most of bodybuilding is diet.  To diet right, you need a few important tools.

1. A good blender- I’ve gone through a bunch of them.  I would suggest a glass blender.  They last longer and blend better.  When you make shakes, add more water than the recipe calls for and add a few cubes of ice.

2. Tupperware-Have a bunch of this stuff on hand.  Buy containers that can hold a whole meal and that you can wash in the dishwasher.  I generally prepare 3-4 days worth of meals and place them in tupperware in the refrigerator.

3. Food scale-I can tell how serious a bodybuilder is if he uses a food scale.  Weighing your food is an extreme measure, but a necessary one if you are taking it to the highest levels.

4. An oversize frying pan- I use this to make egg whites en masse.  I eat a ton of egg whites and I find that I have to get creative in how I prepare them.  This large pan makes preparation much easier.

Learning to live the bodybuilding lifestyle is a process that happens gradually as you learn more about it.  If you are a beginner, read all you can and find a good mentor with competition experience.  If you are more advanced, you know what I’m talking about already.  Hopefully you are more enlightened now! 

A Necessary Evil

Most bodybuilders hate cardiovascular training.  I am no exception to this generalization.  After 16 years of preparing for competitions, I have tried many different approaches to cardio.  In the early years I did 20 minutes of high intensity stepping on the stairmaster after my resistance training.  I then went through a period where I did the recumbent bike for 45-60 minutes in the mornings.  For several years, I used a treadmill on a four degree incline for 30-45 minutes.  I learned pretty early on that morning cardio on an empty stomach worked best for me, so most of my cardio over the years happened first thing in the morning.  At one point, I bought a cheap treadmill from Sears that I plopped in the living room of my college apartment.  Luckily I lived with other meatheads who did not have a problem with this or with the fact that it made a lot of noise first thing in the morning.  I liked this because I could watch TV while I did cardio (this was back in the day before they mounted HD TV’s on all the cardio equipment in gyms).  I played with cardio 3-4 days per week, cardio 5-6 days per week, and eventually cardio 7 days a week.  In the years when I did more cardio I was always more shredded, but my muscles were stringy and I often lost a lot of strength.  When I did less cardio and tried to retain more muscle, I was never as lean as I felt I should have been.  These days, I do more cardio than ever.  I still hate it, but I have gotten used to it and it is as routine as brushing my teeth.  Before a show I work up to two 30-45 minute sessions per day.  The first session occurs first thing in the morning on an empty stomach and the second session happens after I finish my resistance training in the evenings.  I usually switch from the stepper, to the elliptical, to the recumbent bike.  I switch for two reason: 1. to avoid boredom 2. so that I don’t get blisters or stress certain parts of my body too much from the repeated motions on one particular piece of equipment.  This definitely makes for a long day sometimes over two hours per day in the gym.  Many top pro and national level bodybuilders do even more than this (I’ve read about a couple guys who do 90 minutes twice a day).  For me, this approach seems to work well, but what I do now that is key, that I did not do in my early years of competing, is eat a ton more food.  I keep calories very high when I’m doing all of this cardio (in the 3500-4000 range) and because of all this cardio I’m doing, I am still in a calorie deficit and am burning fat.  This kind of hurts when it comes to buying groceries as I can eat a ton when I do this, but I feel great when my metabolism is moving real fast as a result of this increased energy expenditure.  Granted, I can’t keep this up for long and I don’t do it year round, but if your looking to burn all the fat off of your body, it works.  I also feel like it helps me gain and retain muscle.  This is likely due to the increased calorie intake during the process.  As I am just coming off of this competition a few weeks ago and I have a vacation coming up in less than three weeks, I am continuing to do morning cardio right now for 30 minutes.  I have to say it really doesn’t bother me at this point and I dare say I even look forward to it a little bit:)

Self Accountability

I make the most substatial progress toward my goals when I write things down.  I posted a photo of my refrigerator here to illustrate an important point that many novice bodybuilders and fitness enthusiasts may miss (or strategically avoid).  When I’m really determined to reach a goal related to building muscle and burning bodyfat, I have to have my plans laid out and I need a way to monitor my fidelity to the plan.  I create daily checksheets for myself and post them on my refrigerator.  The sheets spell out what I will do each day for my cardiovascular training, resistance training, and my diet.  I make note and checks when I do what I plan and I circle the days when I don’t follow what I planned.  This is a way to keep my goals visible on a daily basis and it allows me to see progress.  I refer to this as self accountability.  A lot of bodybuilders keep training and/or diet journals and I do this too, but I feel that by posting things up where they are seen regularly keeps the objectives and progress toward them visible and tangible.  This process is tedious and takes a lot of focus and follow through, but I can almost guarantee greater success toward your golas if you do this. 

Pre-contest Supplementation

This is a topic that can be very confusing-especially for beginning bodybuilders or folks who are just trying to get in shape.  There is a great deal of misinformation out there and there are hundreds if not thousands of irreputable supplement companies that will make false or unfounded claims about the effect a product will have on your body.  In my nearly 20 years of muscledom, I’ve tried just about every type of product out there.  The older I get, the fewer supplements I find myself using.  One important clarification I want to make is what I consider a “supplement”.  For most folks, anything they buy at GNC or their local supplement store might be considered a supplement.  For me, and most competetive bodybuilders, we don’t generally include calorie yielding substances in the categoriy of “supplements”.  Protein powders, meal replacement powders, pre and post workout drinks, and almost any other calorie yielding substance qualifies as part of my food budget.  These items are simply replacing what we would normally derive from food.  We drink these things because it is difficult to get adequate amounts of quality protein, carbs, and good fats from whole food sources.  These various protein based drinks allow us to feed our muscles in a more efficient manner and complement our whole food meals.  In a perfect world, most competetive bodybuilders would want to get all their calories from whole foods, but its next to impossible to do this in today’s day and age.  So, I buy a ton of meal replacements, protein powders, and post workout drinks, but I really do not consider them supplements.  What I do consider “supplements” are multi-vitamins, fat burners, anti-oxidants, creatine, fish oil caps, and any other substance that comes in a pill or non-calorie yielding form.  Walk in to any GNC or vitamin retailer and the shelves are packed with enless amounts of choices.  This is where the confusion begins for most folks.  For me, the longer I’m in the game, I use less and less of this stuff.  Here is what I used in preparing for my show:

Multi-Vitamins-taken in the morning and at night

Vitamin C-taken 3 times per day

Fish Oil Caps-taken 3 times per day

Anti Oxidant blend-taken 2 times per day

Creatine-taken 2 times per day post workout

Fat Burner-taken 2-3 times per day (Biotest Hot Rox Extreme)

Yohimbe HCL-taken 2 times per day to tolerance (this stuff heats you up and makes you sweat-you have to drink a lot of water with it and I do not recommend it for beginners or women)  

And that’s all I used in my prep.  As I mentioned I used a ton of protein powder and meal replacement powder.  I went through a 5 pound tub about every 2 and 1/2 weeks and a tub of meal replacement powder every two weeks.  As for where I bought stuff, here’s the deal:

Protein, MRP’s, Hot Rox, and Creatine I bought from Biotest and can be found here:  https://www.t-nation.com/onlineStore.jsp

All of the vitamins and fish oil I bought from Wal-Mart or Target.  Simple as that!

I’m a big Biotest fan and always have been.  They make quality products and, more importantly, I trust them.  I’m sure there are other trustworthy supplement companies out there, but I don’t know who they are.  The supplement industry is not regulated by the FDA, so there are many scammers who are just trying to make a buck.  I wasted tons of money for many years on potions and powders promising outlandish results.  When it boils down to it, the basics of consistent attention to quality diet and training are all most of us need. 

Pre-Contest Diet Approach

As I mentioned in a previous post, I realize I’m doing this backward and should have posted this stuff as I was approaching my competition, but I didn’t do that.  So here is what I did:  On January 1, 2008 I began cleaning my diet up.  By this I mean I cut out junk food and began eating 6 meals per day.  I started drinking at least two protein shakes per day and drank only water.  I was not completely exacting with my meals at this point and did not weigh any of my meats.  My objective was to re-condition myself to cooking regularly and eating “diet food”.  I ate fish, ground turkey, egg whites, and chicken breast as my main meat source and rice and the malrtodextrin in the meal replacement powder as my carbohydrate source.  In the second week of February I tightened things up substantially.  Here’s what the diet looked like by Feb 15, 2008:

Meal 1: 2 scoops Biotest Metabolic Drive, 1 Scoop Biotest Grow Whey Protein Powder

Meal 2: 4oz. lean meat 1/2 c rice 1/2 c mixed vegs

Meal 3: same as meal 1

Meal 4: same as meal 2

Meal 5: same as meal 1

Meal 6: 9 egg whites and one yolk

I followed this plan up until about April 4.  At that point I cut out the rice from all meals.  Added 2 cups of oats to meal 1 and 2 more egg whites to meal 6.  I also upped my cardio significantly at this point so I became very hungry and the fat burning went into full effect.  To counteract my hunger, I began eating salads (mostly all lettuce) to slow digestion.  I did this mainly at the end of the night before bed so that I could sleep and my stomach would stop growling.  For the last three weeks before the competition, I cut out all the meal replacement and protein shakes and ate all whole food meals.  Here is what that looked like:

Meal 1: 10 egg whites, 1 egg yolk, 2 servings oats

Meal 2: 4 oz lean meat, 1 cup broccoli

Meal 3: same as meal 2

Meal 4: same as meal 2

Meal 5: same as meal 1

Meal 6: 2 cans tuna, 2 cups lettuce

The last three weeks are pretty grueling and restrictive.  For the lean meats, I rotated from Turkey Breast, London Broil, Chicken Breast, and Talapia for three days each.  During the last week, I used Turkey Breast for 6 days and then London Broil the last three days.  I was drinking 3 gallons of water from week 3 until 4 days before the show when I cut back a half a gallon each day down to one gallon the day before the show.  Tomorrow I’ll review supplentation.

Pre-Contest Training

Here is a shot taken a week before the show in the gym.  In the weeks leading up to the show here is what my training looked like:

6am  45 minutes cardio (15 stepper, 15 elliptical, 15 bike)

6:45am core training (abs)

7pm weight training followed by an additional 30 minutes of cardio

I did resistance training nearly every day with very few off days.  This may seem like I was overtraining, but I limited my weight training to machines only with the only free weight exercises being dumbell curls, dumbell side raises, and dumbell tricep extensions.  My leg training was limited to leg extensions, leg curls, weighted lunges, machine leg press, and the inner outer thigh machines.  Because of my back injury, I had to keep resistance relatively light on all exercises and I kept rep ranges in the 15-30 range for all exercises and all body parts.  I did not want to risk injury in any way.  This was a big adjustment for me as I’ve always been the type of bodybuilder who like to train heavy with very low rep ranges.  I was afraid I would be sacrificing muscle size, but this was not the case.  I was as big and full as I’ve always been and I didn’t hurt myself.  Fortunately, the new gym I joined (lifestyle family fitness http://www.lff.com/Default.aspx) has probably the widest variety of resistance training equiptment I’ve ever seen at a gym.  Granted the place is pretty mainstream and musclheads may feel a little out of place, I’m very happy with the spaciousness and professionalism of the place.  Diet was another subject that I’ll write about later.

 

Ok, here’s another show picture that my wife snapped backstage after the show.  I had a painful cramp in my right quad when she took the photo, so I wasn’t squeezing it.  I’m anxiously awaiting the posting of the photos taken by the photographer at the show.  I thought they would be up on his website www.morrisonproductions.net or the North Carolina site www.ncnpc.com but they are not there yet.  Those should be better quality shots.  You just can’t do much with a regular digital camera at these shows due to the stage lighting.  I’ll post a couple more pics over the next few days and talk a little about my preparation before the show.  I realize, I’m sort of doing this backward as I should have been posting my diet and training leading up to the show, but I really had little time to focus on posting leading up to the show.  Basically, I followed Mike Valentino’s approach to diet and training in the Precontest Bible located here: www.precontestbible.com/Valentino.pdf

More coming in the next few days.  Stay tuned.