Last week preparation, succeed or fail!

[Mattias]

How do you guys/girls do?

I think it´s hard to find the right way to do it, some people got it right the first time they compete and for some it takes years.

Me myself i have problem to get dry and hard i always store little water under the skin and i´m very sensitive to carbs and salt and water so i have to be rally careful the last week.

Would be really interesting to hear how you do it.

/Mattias

 

[Shrek]

Whilst I've never competed I have used a herbal diuretic to shed water on a cut a couple of years back. I supplemented with magnesuim / pottasium and found I did loose water but I really don't think i had my bodyfat level down enough to really notice the full effect.
What are your plans om shedding water assuming Lasix is not an option?

 

[Mattias]

Whilst I've never competed I have used a herbal diuretic to shed water on a cut a couple of years back. I supplemented with magnesuim / pottasium and found I did loose water but I really don't think i had my bodyfat level down enough to really notice the full effect.
What are your plans om shedding water assuming Lasix is not an option?

It depends on my weight the last week but my plan is to carb deplete for 3 days, drink lots of water and use much natrium and next 3 days cut down on water every day, load up with carbs and supplement with potatissum, i will Write more in detail when i have the time now it´s pumping iron time and then work.

/Mattias

 

[NPR]

Are the actually any competitive bodybuilders on this site?

 

[Fadi]

It depends on my weight the last week but my plan is to carb deplete for 3 days, drink lots of water and use much natrium and next 3 days cut down on water every day, load up with carbs and supplement with potatissum, i will Write more in detail when i have the time now it´s pumping iron time and then work.

/Mattias

Mattias,

My advice to you is this: don’t ever think for a moment that you can be somehow smarter than your body by “tricking” it to work against itself. You drop the water, eliminate the sodium whilst increasing the potassium, carb up then wonder what the hell went wrong when your effort result in a smooth look. All these “tricks” bodybuilders delve in inorder to manipulate their body’s fluid environment, more often then not work toward sabotaging your contest day instead of making you shine. I say work withyour body instead of against it.

Take the water issue for example, your main aim here is to drive the water inside the muscle cell and for that you cut out sodium whilst increasing your potassium. What you’ve done here is you’ve basically waged war against your body by using extreme tactics and for that a retaliatory action from it would not be far behind with a strike. What you need to do is work with it and by that I mean keeping a balance of sodium and potassium, not eliminating one whilst drastically increasing he other.

Sodium plays a huge factor in blood volume and eliminating it will bring your blood pressure down which in turn will force water out of your vascular system and out into the subcutaneous area which spells SMOOTH! Why not reduce instead of eliminating anything, be it carb or sodium?

So you reduce your sodium and carb whilst at the same time increasing water consumption to flush excess sodium out. Please note I said reduce and not eliminate. Keep on training which causes you to perspire which in turn will cause more excess water and sodium to be flushed out. Do not cut on water unless you want your body to hold to excess water, which defeats the purpose here of eliminating excess water in the first place. Do not cut carbs but reduce them and monitor for what is needed as a next step leading to the comp.

An excess in potassium as you would be creating if you took potassium whilst eliminating sodium would stimulate Aldosterone. Check out page 30 of the book Clinical biochemistry: metabolic and clinical aspects on that subject if you like.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=bhP4XLBEHtcC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=excess+potassium+stimulate+Aldosterone&source=bl&ots=QA5hzzB8Q6&sig=8BLJH6ZdkXMmT1iTTgnDDr2RL3k&hl=en&ei=pIySSrrjDtiPkQX5rMm7Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=excess%20potassium%20stimulate%20Aldosterone&f=false

Take home message: do not go to extremes or you’ll be met with an extreme reaction. Look at sodium, carbs, and water as steps that need to be manipulated by reduction and feedback instead of elimination and extreme reactions. There’s not one size fits all here and even with you Mattias, what may work for you in 2009, may have to be slightly altered in 2010.


Fadi.

 

[Mattias]

Mattias,

My advice to you is this: don’t ever think for a moment that you can be somehow smarter than your body by “tricking” it to work against itself. You drop the water, eliminate the sodium whilst increasing the potassium, carb up then wonder what the hell went wrong when your effort result in a smooth look. All these “tricks” bodybuilders delve in inorder to manipulate their body’s fluid environment, more often then not work toward sabotaging your contest day instead of making you shine. I say work withyour body instead of against it.

Take the water issue for example, your main aim here is to drive the water inside the muscle cell and for that you cut out sodium whilst increasing your potassium. What you’ve done here is you’ve basically waged war against your body by using extreme tactics and for that a retaliatory action from it would not be far behind with a strike. What you need to do is work with it and by that I mean keeping a balance of sodium and potassium, not eliminating one whilst drastically increasing he other.

Sodium plays a huge factor in blood volume and eliminating it will bring your blood pressure down which in turn will force water out of your vascular system and out into the subcutaneous area which spells SMOOTH! Why not reduce instead of eliminating anything, be it carb or sodium?

So you reduce your sodium and carb whilst at the same time increasing water consumption to flush excess sodium out. Please note I said reduce and not eliminate. Keep on training which causes you to perspire which in turn will cause more excess water and sodium to be flushed out. Do not cut on water unless you want your body to hold to excess water, which defeats the purpose here of eliminating excess water in the first place. Do not cut carbs but reduce them and monitor for what is needed as a next step leading to the comp.

An excess in potassium as you would be creating if you took potassium whilst eliminating sodium would stimulate Aldosterone. Check out page 30 of the book Clinical biochemistry: metabolic and clinical aspects on that subject if you like.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=bhP4XLBEHtcC&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=excess+potassium+stimulate+Aldosterone&source=bl&ots=QA5hzzB8Q6&sig=8BLJH6ZdkXMmT1iTTgnDDr2RL3k&hl=en&ei=pIySSrrjDtiPkQX5rMm7Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1#v=onepage&q=excess%20potassium%20stimulate%20Aldosterone&f=false

Take home message: do not go to extremes or you’ll be met with an extreme reaction. Look at sodium, carbs, and water as steps that need to be manipulated by reduction and feedback instead of elimination and extreme reactions. There’s not one size fits all here and even with you Mattias, what may work for you in 2009, may have to be slightly altered in 2010.


Fadi.

I´ve totally missed this post

Thanks again for your help Fadi.

 

[Kyle Aaron]

Are the actually any competitive bodybuilders on this site?

One woman, at least - Chussen.

 

[Chussen]

WOW! Thanks Fadi, I missed this post before and in a sense this is what we try to do - trick the body. Good reading here.

Quote:
Originally Posted by NPR
Are the actually any competitive bodybuilders on this site?

One woman, at least - Chussen.

Thanks for the recognition too Kyle.

 

[Zarkov]

And obviously Mattias and there was a young dude in the photos thread.
At least 3 by my count.

 

[PowerBuilder]

I did a serious cut with a pre planned photo shoot earlier this year. My 1 week out plan was pretty basic.

I pretty much didn't change a thing up until the day before the shoot (friday). For about a month or so, I'd been on a TKD (total keto diet). So carb reduction wasn't possible, since none were comming in, cept for the carb up's. This stoped 2 weeks out. The day before the shoot i did the water loading thing. Then the morning of it, it was game on for a clean pump up.

bottom line...for the 1 week out prep, keep it business as usual for as long as possible. if it works it works