Got Built?

The place: Tournament of Champions - Anaheim, California

The date: September 22, 2007

The event: Joshie-poos very first bodybuilding competition.

The challenge: to get this 210 lbs of lean mass into a sub-6% body in time for the show. And to find a banana hammock big enough to contain him.

We have 57 days - basically 8 weeks - to drop 15+ lbs of fat.
We’re gonna push the envelope here and have one (and possibly a second) cycle of PSMF to diet down, then push the cals back up slightly as Josh goes into pre-contest prep for the last couple of weeks.

I really don’t see any way around this given the timeline. Anything else he does will simply chew through too much mass.

Here’s my take on this:

Josh is a category 1 dieter because he’s under 15% bodyfat:

Exercise plan:

• three workouts a week for weights (this is pushing it. Lyle suggests TWO.)
• brief HIIT twice a week, “8 seconds of glory” for five minutes followed by no more than 25 minutes of SS cardio (ALSO pushing it)
• ss cardio half hour a day - any modality, pick your poison (actually recommended)

Lifting Plan:

• Lyle suggests doing a full body workout with a few heavy sets per bodypart in the 6-8 repetition range. These need to be heavy - long rest breaks are perfectly fine. This is NOT iron cardio.
• Start with dynamic warmup rather than pre-workout cardio
• NO pre-workout cardio. You won’t have enough energy.

Whole body workout - 3 times a week

Done as a pair, start and end with the deads, rest well after each set - this is NOT cardio:

• 3×6 RDLs OR off the floor deads (alternate from workout to workout if you like)
• 2×8 Front squats OR back squats (alternate from workout to workout if you like)

Done as a pair, rest well after each set

• 3×6 weighted chins (vary grip from workout to workout if you like)
• 3×6 Arnies (if your RC feels up to it) or lateral dumbbell or cable raises (if your RC whines at the Arnies)

Done as a pair, rest well after each set

• 3×6 BO rows OR T-bars (alternate from workout to workout if you like)
• 3×6 Incline DB OR BB press or whatever you CAN do for chest that doesn’t hurt your RC.

**optional, could move to a cardio-only day if you prefer**

• 2×8 Weighted abs
• “tinkering sets” of perhaps bicep, tricep, calf work, face pulls… - like 1×8-10 of each at the most.

Additional notes

• Around 20 short sets in total (note that there is more emphasis on pulling relative to pushing. I’m being mindful of that RC)
  
• To avoid exhaustion, you could also do these in a big circuit: set of fronts, rest, set of RDLs, rest … keep sipping that whey and dex shake.

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Diet plan: for 11-12 days, then 2-3 day full refeed. No free meals.

“I know its tempting just keep dropping fat like crazy but without some major drugs to deal with metabolic slowdown and muscle loss, you will cause more harm than good. I should mention that the crash diet schedule of 11-12 days into a 2-3 day refeed could conceivably work to carb-up an athlete or bodybuilder up for their meet or contest.”

- Teh Lyle

• Protein: max is 2g/lb LBM = 400g protein = 1600 calories. He might be able to get away with a little lower.
• Fish oil: 10g = 90 calories
• Veggies - he knows the drill. Basically lettuce and broccoli. Salt, vinegar, lemon juice, mustard for condiments. Expect about ooooh, 300 “tag along” calories from assorted veggies and the odd scrap of fat that slips into his diet.
• This works out to under 2000 calories a day. We’ll try to keep it there.
• Water water water

Supplements:

• EC stack baby!!!
• Multivitamin
• 1200mg calcium citrate
• Extra gram of vitamin C consumed after ALL training.

Lifting days only:
**Whey with dextrose: 20g whey with 30g dextrose in 1L water sipped before/during lifting workouts only**
If dex is just too much of a friggin’ nuisance, use an equivalent number of rice cakes to make up 30g carb - they’re ALMOST as fast as dextrose.

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14-day “cycle”

0 - Tuesday July 24: Starting weight 239

1 - Wednesday July 25: Weight 236

• full body workout - 20g whey with 30g dextrose in 1L water sipped before/during workout
• ss cardio - half hour, any time of day

2 - Thursday July 26: Weight 233.8

• ss cardio - half hour, any time of day

3 - Friday July 27:

• full body workout - 20g whey with 30g dextrose in 1L water sipped before/during workout
• ss cardio - half hour, any time of day

4 - Saturday July 28: HIIT on bicycle “8 seconds of doom” for 5 minutes followed by 25 minutes ss

5 - Sunday July 29:

• full body workout - 20g whey with 30g dextrose in 1L water sipped before/during workout
• ss cardio - half hour, any time of day

6 - Monday July 30: HIIT on bicycle “8 seconds of doom” for 5 minutes followed by 25 minutes ss

7 - Tuesday July 31: ss cardio - half hour, any time of day

8 - Wednesday August 1:

• full body workout - 20g whey with 30g dextrose in 1L water sipped during workout
• ss cardio - half hour, any time of day

9 - Thursday August 2: ss cardio - half hour, any time of day

10 - Friday August 3:

• full body workout - 20g whey with 30g dextrose in 1L water sipped during workout
• ss cardio - half hour, any time of day

11 - Saturday August 4: HIIT on bicycle “8 seconds of doom” for 5 minutes followed by 25 minutes ss

12 - Sunday August 5:

• full body workout - 20g whey with 30g dextrose in 1L water sipped during workout
• ss cardio - half hour, any time of day

13 - Monday August 6: Refeed carb-o-rama (20-30 minute walk after first carb meal to enhance carb absorption)
14 - Tuesday August 7: Refeed carb-o-rama (20-30 minute walk after first carb meal to enhance carb absorption)

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From The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook - Lyle McDonald (somewhere around page 29)
Guidelines for exercise: athletes, bodybuilders, those already exercising.
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First let me get the easiest group out of the way first: the folks who are already on an established exercise program, the athletes, bodybuilders and obsessed exercisers/dieters (Id expect most of these folks to be in category 1, category 2 if they got sloppy in the off-season). You should keep up your training program but the total volume and frequency of your training should be cut way back; you simply wont have the recovery capacity on so few calories. Studies routinely show that both volume (number of sets, amount of aerobic training done) and frequency (days/week) can be cut back significantly (by up to 2/3rds) as long as intensity (weight on the bar, speed) is maintained. Given those parameters, performance can be maintained for many weeks. If youre as overtrained as most athletes, cutting back on your training during a crash diet will act as a minitaper, you might even show some improvement. But dont hold your breath. Basically, Id say cut weight training back to maybe once every 3-4 days (or twice a week) or so, doing a full body workout with a few heavy sets per bodypart in the 6-8 repetition range. This will give you the best strength and LBM maintenance on this diet. If you wanted to do a little bit of high rep work (12-15 reps) at the very start of the diet to deplete muscle glycogen and enhance fat oxidation (see my Ultimate Diet 2.0 for more information on this), that wouldnt be a terrible idea either. Yes, I know that full body workouts are out of vogue and dieting bodybuilders are almost pathological in their desire to increase both the frequency and volume of training when they are contest dieting but this is a mistake, more so during a crash diet. Trust me on this: cut your training back during this diet. You are likely to get into real problems if you try to train too frequently or too much on too few calories: dont say you werent warned.

I want to add that the low blood glucose that typically occurs on a low-carb diet can really sap training intensity, especially in the weight room. My hunch is that its a central effect, the brain simply isnt sending neural signals to the muscles as well when blood glucose is low. Consuming 5 grams of carbohydrate (Ill mention this again in another chapter) about 10 minutes before you train can help a lot with your ability to maintain intensity, by increasing blood glucose back to the normal range. Conceivably,you could even increase this to 15-30 grams of carbs taken during the workout (this only adds 60-120 calories to your diet) as well. If you want to save some of your protein intake and consume it around training (maybe 15 grams of whey immediately before and/or after the workout), this will help to support protein synthesis and limit LBM losses as well.
And what about cardio? Well, as above, too much cardio when added to a crash diet such as this one can cause more problems than it solves. At the same time, once you get down to extreme levels of leanness (12-15% or lower for men, 21-24% for women), some cardio certainly appears to help with fat loss. This is more true for women and losing lower bodyfat than it is for men (many male bodybuilders can get ripped simply with lifting and diet).

So moderate cardio, perhaps 30-40 minutes 3-4 times/week (maybe daily if it helps keep your appetite at bay) is probably ok. Just dont go nuts with it. Typical 2 hour/day bodybuilder contest aerobics is definitely a bad idea on he crash diet. Its unnecessary, unproductive and, most likely, actively damaging to muscle mass.

And what about intervals? Honestly, with everything else going on, I cant see folks recovering from interval training during the crash diet. If you must try them (or youre involved in a sport that requires interval training), Id keep the interval length in the 45-60 second range with rest periods equal or double (45-120 seconds) and do 4-5 repeats a maximum of twice per week. I dont recommend such on this diet but thatd probably be about as close to ideal for fat loss as anything else.