From Basics to the Best: What Factors Change?

In any sport or hobby, there are inevitably going to be different things that can impact your results, obviously, and there are always different levels of competition and achievement. For example, in football, at the absolute lowest, you have people who just play for fun and play catch, then playing Football in gym class, then you have high school Football, then college level, then NFL or CFL professional teams. As you get further and further along that continuum, the amount of measurable difference between the best and the worst is going to be smaller and smaller--after all, there is a reason those players got to the level that they did, it was because they were better than everyone else when they were at the lower levels.

The interesting thing is, while the gap between the best of the best and the worst of the best becomes smaller, the relative difference that said difference makes becomes proportionally wider. I'll use powerlifting as an example, because the numbers are easy to use.

Let's say that two beginning lifters are squatting: one works his way up to 350 lbs, but the other can only lift 200 lbs. Then, after a while of lifting, they work their lifts up: the first person (A) gets up to 450 lbs, then the second (B) gets up to 400 lbs. The gap is smaller, but the first guy is still lifting less than the first. Then, much later on, lets say they are both competing at a top level powerlifting meet. Person A is squatting 600 lbs, and person B is squatting 575...that's a 25 lbs difference. If they were at this same relative difference earlier on, or something similar, they would be lifting around (for example): A) 300 B) 280-290 (somewhere around there). However, if that were the case from the beginning, then the person B might have actually overtaken the other guy, or at least be on equal terms.

The point I'm trying to make is that things which might seen to make little difference for a beginner, might make even less quantifiable difference to an intermediate or advenced lifter or bodybuilder. However, The impact that these things are going to have is going to be infinitely greater because the calibre of competitor has gone up.

What does this have to do with bodybuilding?

Far too often people take advice from very experienced people in this sport--as they should--but what they don't take in is the context of that advice. Is the person they're taking advice from a national level bodybuilder, or even a pro? Are they really targeting their advice to maximizing the things that matter at your level? Timing your breakfast to be at 7:30 AM instead of 8:00 AM is going to make almost no difference for you at a lower level--but the 2% difference it will make could be a difference of 1st place and 2nd place for a pro.

All you need to know, is don't sweat the small stuff that doesn't need to be. Know what you're trying to accomplish and do that--you can only work up from that.

Alcohol and You: the Meatheads Guide Booze and Living Life

Before I start this article, I want to clarify my stance on booze. Enjoying alcohol in moderation (especially for the off season, non-competitive bodybuilder) is going to be relatively harmless, if you're still accounting for it in your caloric intake, and it's only a small percentage of your calories.

But hey, where's the fun in that?

Unfortunately, that's just the truth of it: alcohol can have a detrimental effect on gym performance, testosterone, your ability to sleep, and everything else. Be honest: have you ever felt like training at all the night after drinking and partying hard? Few people do. However, if you're careful you can still encorporate alcohol into a balanced diet without sacrficing your waist.

1. Hard Liquor

While it sounds counter-intuitive, hard liquor will generally have fewer calories than beer or wine, mainly because of the lower carbohydrate content. This, combined with diet soda, won't pose much of a huge caloric hit and still allow you to enbibe a little bit.

2. Drink with a Meal

Never mind that alcohol will have a lesser effect on entering bloodstream on a full stomach of food, if you're already eating, you'll probably (in my experience) be less inclined to drink more--however remember this is entirely a psychological trick. It's entirely up to you to actually put this into place. While foods like pizza or deep fried fare might be tough, but you'll have to eat less during the day to create a calorie buffer.

3. Drink Lots of Water

A good rule of thumb would be one glass of water per drink, however that's assuming you are not following my recommendations of drinking only as part of a meal. I will generally still drink a lot of water--on the off chance I do drink without food, I will add in more water than is really necessarily for the sake of being safe.

4. Don't Binge!

If you're really serious about bodybuilding (or really any serious, psychologically intense hobby or job), this is one habit you might want to let die. I'm all for the idea that we can unwind and have fun every once in a while, but be really honest with yourself--how much of a favour are you doing your body when you do that? Didn't you get involve in this sport because you wanted to get the best out of your body possible? Doesn't blotting out your mind for a few hours contradict that? Try and think that the next time you take the time to get wasted...if at all. I still recommend and always will, an attitude of moderation and common sense. That's the best way to end up with a healthy life, healthy mind, and healthy attitude!

Interview with Johnny Hewitt

This is already on the Facebook page, but I'm just letting you know that the interview with Johnny Hewitt is up already on Box.com, where our audio stuff will be hosted from now one. Johnny is training for the Provincials and is already quite lean, and if you check out his Facebook profile, he seems to be growing quite well into the show for being 16 weeks out!

Check out the interview here:

https://www.box.com/s/o52c4einc5ad3vzggyhv

Photo copyright Duane Riz of Manitoba Muscle (reproduced with permission).

Why We Lift: Rediscovering Purpose in the Gym and Why Lifting Doesn't Just Stop at Getting Jacked

I remember last year when I was prepping for the Novice contest (as many are right now), my motivation to lift sometimes waned a little. Nevermind the lack of food, low bodyfat, etc. Sometimes I really had to struggle to get the weights moving. However, the number one thing that allowed me to do that was the other factor.

What comes after this?

Not after the workout, or after the contest. After all the contests, after I'm done and just living life as is.

Where am I going to be?

Am I going to be healthy, fit, strong, and able to walk and lift like a young fit person will when I'm older, or am I going to have aches and joint problems and die weak and sick, instead of on my feet?

When I first started lifting I didn't just want to get bigger and stronger, I wanted to improve myself. I was in a state where I was out of school, in a new setting, and I felt a little unsure of myself--when you're not spending every day with the same people for seven or eight hours (or at least a new crowd of people) it feels a little overwhelming. I realised that I was my maker. I could walk into a gym and it wouldn't be like, "hey, look, he's lifting, that's different!" I didn't have to call attention to myself. I could blend in and be a new person.

The whole "bodybuilding" thing just came as an afterthought. I explored an eclectic number of training ideas and philosophies until I finally came to the conclusion, "this is what I should be doing. It's what I have to do."

However, if all that was gone, if I stopped competing, told myself I was never going to step on stage again, none of that would matter, because what I got when I first started lifting will always be there.

If you don't know what it is--and it's not the same for everyone--then, and only then, should you doubt whether to keep at this sport.

Frequency of Training

One common thread in the world of bodybuilding, powerlifting, and the like is the issue of the optimal training frequency for gains in strength and size for naturals.

While bodybuilding magazines have often promoted the idea of the "body part split" there is still a degree of naivety behind the usage of these "blast a bodypart once a week" sort of programs. Something like this is often caused a misunderstanding of how training is set up for enhanced lifters. Without going into detail of how this works, drug-enhanced lifters are able to maintain protein synthesis for a longer period of time than natural ones--protein synthesis typically goes back down to baseline after two to three days.

This means training more often (but with less volume) to take advantage of this relapse of protein synthesis. However, you have to recalibrate your training volume take this into account. You can't reasonably do a twenty set leg workout, going to failure, and still expect to progress in performance.

Even discounting science and research on the matter (which is won't delve into here), common sense alone would justify this. Imagine you're a student working on a paper. What would allow you to do more work: starting a month away and chipping away at it for an hour or less a day, or pulling an all nighter a couple of days before? The former would be easier. Now, imagine (to extend the analogy) that you did the latter one ten cups of coffee, coked out of your mind, and you'll see how your ability to perform at top level will be that much higher under enhanced conditions.

There's a few different ways you can pull off a higher frequency training, and I will cover a couple of them.

Full Body, Three Times per Week

This is really your basic beginner sort of program, and would require fewer exercises, with greater  volume per exercise, and focusing on only compound excercises. For example, something like:

Squats, 3-4 sets
Bench Press, 3-4 sets

Deadlifts, 3-4 sets
Bent-Over Barbell Rows, 3-4 sets etc.

You would also have other assistance exercises like dips, barbell curls, etc. thrown in to avoid muscle imbalances and the like. The overall volume over the course of the week would be similar to a body part split (though a little less), because of the use of compound exercises on all three days.

Upper Lower, Four Days a Week

This is a variation where you're doing push and pull (for your upper body) and leg work twice a week each. You would be doing a few more exercises, but much lower volume. I am doing something like this right now, which only involves two or three sets per exercise.

The most common variation on this is the Power Hypertrophy Adaptive Training (PHAT), where variations on the weight and rep ranges are done on a weekly basis, so every week you have two lower body workouts (for example), and one is done in the higher rep ranges, around 8-12. This method was popularized by Layne Norton and has proven effective for many lifters (see here for more information on PHAT).

There are many benefits to higher frequency training for natural lifters that do not have the benefits of AAS, Insulin, and the like at their arsenal. As well, a common occurance is that lifters generally aren't as sore, simply because they are not beating the muscles "into the wall" so to speak.

That's all for today...lift heavy.

Training on an Empty Stomach

I want to talk today about a popular subject. While the issue of training while fasted/first thing in the morning is largely a matter of common sense, I think it's important to address. I am interested talking about this issue because it shows how much people can misunderstand a very simple issue.

By and large what and how much you eat before a workout is a matter of preference. However, in my experience, peri-workout nutrition is going to have an impact on training ability more so when you are in a perpetual calorie deficit during a cut.

Think of it this way: if you don't have a lot of money in your bank account, would it not make sense to need more money in the bank account at the time you put more in, to avoid going bankrupt? However, if you're constantly taking money out and putting it back, you're bank statement is going to be the same regardless of whether it stayed there to begin with or not (although the analogy could be extended to having good credit with your bank, but that's a different article). To bring this back to nutrition, having low body fat means you will necessarily have a harder time performing well because of lower glycogen, less leverage, etc.--even this, though, is a generalization. Many people can cut on Intermittent Fasting and train first thing in the morning without food, though I personally can't.

However, the thing I mentioned about contest preparation is important, but keeping some baseline amount of glycogen and carbs in the diet (I'd recommend at least a gram per pound, just as an eyeball recommendation). The thing to remember is that it will be much easier to do this off season, because not only will glycogen stores be full almost all the time, but appetite will be lower, and testosterone and joints will be in better shape. This, of course, means things like post-workout nutrition (which might be more relevant to someone training fasted) become virtually meaningless, because of the same reasons I explained before--the bank account analogy.

That being said, there is always the issue of the placebo effect, which can be very powerful. If you are really sure that eating before a workout will have a positive effect, then I can guarantee that it will. As well, the size and composition of the meal will be important. Eating a pound of bacon and then doing twenty sets of squats, for most people, isn't the most comfortable thought.

(not the most comforting of meals before a workout--only the most tasty).

The Iron LIfestyle: A Balancing Act

For any bodybuilder in contest prep mode, you're inevitably going to have to make some kind of choice  between bodybuilding and life, school, family, work, etc. The sport demands a lot of people--even if those demands aren't really necessary. People need (or at least feel they need) to eat specific foods at specific times, they won't go out with friends; I've even heard of people refusing--or being unable to--have sex with their partner because of the lack of sex drive (or in some cases "lack of time").

The point is there are so many easy ways to forget who you are and what you're trying to accomplish. Even more importantly, what is going to be there for you after you're done.

Ask yourself this--if you come in second instead of first, third instead of second, or 12th instead of 11th, where is that going to put you? Is the standard of your achievement--doing the best you could without sacrificing anything else--being met? Are you living to see the next day?

Having a competitive drive is awesome--it separates the amateurs from the pros, and the pros from the other pros. At that level, you need to do what it takes to win, as in any sport. However, when a top level IFBB pro nearly destroys his liver from too many oral steroids, or has a heart attack from dehydration, what is going to happen then? You won--great! Now what happens five or ten years later when you haven't had a plan in place for hormone replacement therapy, which you'll have to be on for the rest of your life?

On the opposite end of the scale, you've got you're 20 something, 160 lb lightweights who are still in school, their girlfriend is sick of prepping their meals, maybe his grades are failing. He's struggling to keep himself from fainting on low calories at 4 weeks out...again, as with the big guy, he wins his class. Did he really win though?

One important thing to realize is that, as you prepare for the contest, you always need something after the light at the end of tunnel. Is there a broken home and family, a grim reality of struggling to get by now, because you wasted your bills on membership fees at the gym, tanning supplies, etc? Or, is there a loving family who've supported you through the whole ordeal, with enough planning on your part to make sure things are back to normal? Don't forget to have something beyond that light at the end of the tunnel. Without those people who make it all worth it, well, it's wouldn't be worth it!

So when you're prepping, don't forget to apologize for the days when you're not all there--you'll be thankful you did.