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QUESTION:
"Tom, on your www.burnthefat.com
website, you wrote: 'Who better to model than bodybuilders
and fitness competitors? No athletes in the world get as
lean as quickly as bodybuilders and fitness competitors. The
transformations they undergo in 12 weeks prior to
competition would boggle your mind! Only ultra-endurance
athletes come close in terms of low body fat levels, but
endurance athletes like triathaletes and marathoners often
get lean at the expense of chewing up all their muscle. Some
of them are nothing but skin and bone.’"
"There seems to be a
contradiction unless I'm missing something. Why do
bodybuilders and fitness competitors have to go through a 12
week 'transformation' prior to every event instead of
staying 'lean and mean' all the time? If they practice the
secrets exposed in your book, they should be staying in
shape all the time instead of having to work at losing fat
prior to every competitive event, correct?" |
ANSWER:
There's a logical explanation for
why bodybuilders and other physique athletes (fitness and figure
competitors), don’t remain completely ripped all year round, and
it’s the very reason they are able to get so ripped on the day of
a contest…
You can’t hold a peak forever or it’s
not a "peak", right? What is the definition of a peak? It’s
a high point surrounded by two lower points isn’t it?
Therefore, any shape you can stay in
all year round is NOT your “peak” condition.
The intelligent approach to nutrition
and training (which almost all bodybuilders and fitness/figure
competitors use), is to train and diet in a seasonal or cyclical
fashion and build up to a peak, then ease off to a maintenance or
growth phase.
I am NOT talking about bulking up and
getting fat and out of shape every year, then dieting it all off
every year. What I’m talking about is going from good shape to
great (peak) shape, then easing back off to good shape.... but never
getting "out of shape." Makes a lot of sense, doesn’t
it?
Here’s an example: I have no
intentions whatsoever of walking around 365 days a year at 4% body
fat like I appear in the photo on my website. Off-season, when I'm
not competing, my body fat is usually between 8 – 10%. Mind you,
that’s very lean and still single digit body fat.
I don't stray too far from
competition shape, but I don't maintain contest shape all the time.
It takes me 12-14 weeks or so to gradually drop from 9.5% to
3.5%-4.0% body fat to "peak" for competition with NO loss
of lean body mass...using the same techniques I reveal in my e-book.
It would be almost impossible to
maintain 4% body fat, and even if I could, why would I want to? For
the few weeks prior to competition I’m so depleted, ripped, and
even “drawn” in the face, that complete strangers walk up and
offer to feed me.
Okay, so I’m just kidding about
that, but let’s just say being “being ripped to shreds” isn’t
a desirable condition to maintain because it takes such a monumental
effort to stay there. It’s probably not even healthy to try
forcing yourself to hold extreme low body fat. Unless you’re a
natural “ectomorph” (skinny, fast metabolism body type), your
body will fight you. Not only that, anabolic hormones may drop and
sometimes your immune system is affected as well. It’s just not
“normal” to walk around all the time with literally no
subcutaneous body fat.
Instead of attempting to hold the
peak, I cycle back into a less demanding off-season program and
avoid creeping beyond 9.9% body fat. Some years I’ve stayed leaner
- like 6-7%, (which takes effort), especially when I knew I would be
photographed, but I don’t let my body fat go over 10%.
This practice isn’t just restricted
to bodybuilders. Athletes in all sports use periodization to build
themselves up to their best shape for competition. Is a pro football
player in the same condition in March-April as he is in
August-September? Not a chance. Many show up fat and out of shape
(relatively speaking) for training camp, others just need fine
tuning, but none are in peak form... that’s why they have training
camp!!!
There’s another reason you wouldn’t
want to maintain a “ripped to shreds” physique all year round
– you’d have to be dieting (calorie restricted) all the time.
And this is one of the reasons that 95% of people can’t lose
weight and keep it off --they are CHRONIC dieters... always on some
type of diet. Know anyone like that?
You can’t stay on restricted low
calories indefinitely. Sooner or later your metabolism slows down
and you plateau as your body adapts to the chronically lowered food
intake. But if you diet for fat loss and push incredibly hard for 3
months, then ease off for a while and eat a little more (healthy
food, not "pigging out"), your metabolic rate is
re-stimulated. In a few weeks or months, you can return to another
fat loss phase and reach an even lower body fat level, until you
finally reach the point that’s your happy maintenance level for
life – a level that is healthy and realistic – as well as
visually appealing.
Bodybuilders have discovered a
methodology for losing fat that’s so effective, it puts them in
complete control of their body composition. They’ve mastered this
area of their lives and will never have to worry about it again. If
they ever “slip” and fall off the wagon like all humans do at
times … no problem! They know how to get back into shape fast.
Bodybuilders have the tools and
knowledge to hold a low body fat all year round (such as 9% for men,
or about 15% for women), and then at a whim, to reach a temporary
“peak” of extremely low body fat for the purpose of competition.
Maybe most important of all, they have the power and control to
slowly ease back from peak shape into maintenance, and not balloon
up and yo-yo like most conventional dieters!
What if you had the power to stay
lean all year round, and then get super lean when summer rolled
around, or when you took your vacation to the Caribbean, or when
your wedding date was coming up? Wouldn’t you like to be in
control of your body like that? Isn’t that the same thing that
bodybuilders and fitness/figure competitors do, only on a more
practical, real-world level?
So even if you have no competitive
aspirations whatsoever, don’t you agree that there’s something
of value everyone could learn from physique athletes? Don’t model
yourself after the huge crowd of losers who gobble diet pills, buy
exercise gimmicks and suffer through starvation diets like
automatons, only to gain back everything they lost! Instead, learn
from the leanest athletes on Earth - natural bodybuilders and
fitness competitors…
These physique athletes get as ripped
as they want to be, exactly when they want to, simply by
manipulating their diets in a cyclical fashion between pre-contest
"cutting" programs and off season "maintenance"
or "muscle growth" programs. Even if you have no desire to
ever compete, try this seasonal “peaking” approach yourself and
you’ll see that it can work as well for you as it does for elite
bodybuilders.
If you’re interested in learning
even more secrets of bodybuilders and fitness models, visit the Burn
The Fat website at: www.BurnTheFat.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Tom
Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning
specialist (CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). Tom is the
author of "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you
how to get lean without drugs or supplements using methods of the
world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid
of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting:
www.BurnTheFat.com
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