landonm5
MuscleChemistry Registered Member
How Much Cardio?
From what I've seen and read, everyone has different approaches to pre-competition cardio, but one thing is common, duration is always high.
I recommend doing cardio for at least 30 minutes per day, preferably at a medium-high intensity. Cardio will help brings them together, so don't take your cardio sessions lightly.
You'll need to start off with less and build up the amount of cardio as the competition comes closer. How you progress with cardio is largely determined by your fitness level. If you did a lot of cardio during the off season, you'll find it a lot easier to accommodate to the demand.
Which type of cardio? Some prefer longer duration, low intensity cardio such as walking, other prefer to keep it slightly higher intensity at a medium duration, whereas others like it sky-high, balls-to-the-wall for short duration.
This last option I think is the most productive option for off-season training as it will reduce overall cardio time while maximizing benefit, but I find lower intensity, higher duration being the better option pre-competition as you want duration to stay high.
Overall, your goal should be to burn as many as calories you can through cardio, but not overdoing it for the sake of losing more weight. You also want to preserve energy for your workouts.
Diet:
What It All Comes Down To!
When it comes to shedding weight, your diet is the ultimate. Cardio will help, but if you don't make the sufficient changes to your diet, you're not doing to get anywhere.
How you cut calories is the single most important factor. It will mean the difference between coming to the stage shredded and looking dry, and coming in smooth and un-conditioned.
With diet, your goal to get this condition is to lose the most fat you can without sacrificing any muscle. Therefore, finding the right balance in nutrients is vital.
As calorie control is of utmost importance, I'll start with this. I recommend you should start out at your current off season calories, and slowly reduce calories as the competition comes closer.
As a general rule, start 4,500 calories and reduce by 300 calories a week for the first 6 weeks, and maintain this amount until competition time. This means a baseline of around 2,700 calories. Ultimately though, these figures are highly individual, and this amount will not work for everyone. Therefore, I've outlined some factors in the next section that we as individuals need to take into consideration as well.
Of course, this daily amount doesn't consider the up and down changes when carb cycling, so some days will naturally be up and down.
Where the calories come from can be just as importance. You want to maintain your protein levels to keep as you anabolic as you can, and maintain fats for the same reason.
But you also don't want to completely rid carbohydrates as they will sustain you through workouts which are equally important for anabolism. The best option here is to maintain protein to what it was prior contest prep, say 300 grams a day, while focusing the cutting back on carbohydrates. I recommend around 140-150 grams, and only eating simple carbs at appropriate times such as breakfast, and pre and post-workout.
As fats are the highest concentrated in calories, cutting back on these is a smart idea, but ensure you aren't going too far as they are important for testosterone production.
I would opt to reduce consumption of highly concentrated fats such as oils, and reduce these with grains and a moderate portion of nuts and seeds. Fat is anabolic, so I'd still eat around 80-100 grams of fats daily. If you are sensitive to fats, you can continue to reduce this amount.
Stick to un-roasted nuts such as peanuts, almonds, Brazil nuts and hazelnuts, seeds such as sunflower, sesame and hemp, as well as grains, flaxseed oil and avocado.
For carbs, I recommend replacing any fast digesting carbs with more fibrous slow-digesting ones such as vegetables, legumes and whole grains, and eating around 15 grams per meals during the day, and 40 grams pre- and post-workout. Your protein sources should pretty stay the same as what they were off season, providing they were low in fat.
Bodybuilding.com - What Is The Best Pre-Contest Training Routine?
From what I've seen and read, everyone has different approaches to pre-competition cardio, but one thing is common, duration is always high.
I recommend doing cardio for at least 30 minutes per day, preferably at a medium-high intensity. Cardio will help brings them together, so don't take your cardio sessions lightly.
You'll need to start off with less and build up the amount of cardio as the competition comes closer. How you progress with cardio is largely determined by your fitness level. If you did a lot of cardio during the off season, you'll find it a lot easier to accommodate to the demand.
Which type of cardio? Some prefer longer duration, low intensity cardio such as walking, other prefer to keep it slightly higher intensity at a medium duration, whereas others like it sky-high, balls-to-the-wall for short duration.
This last option I think is the most productive option for off-season training as it will reduce overall cardio time while maximizing benefit, but I find lower intensity, higher duration being the better option pre-competition as you want duration to stay high.
Overall, your goal should be to burn as many as calories you can through cardio, but not overdoing it for the sake of losing more weight. You also want to preserve energy for your workouts.
Diet:
What It All Comes Down To!
When it comes to shedding weight, your diet is the ultimate. Cardio will help, but if you don't make the sufficient changes to your diet, you're not doing to get anywhere.
How you cut calories is the single most important factor. It will mean the difference between coming to the stage shredded and looking dry, and coming in smooth and un-conditioned.
With diet, your goal to get this condition is to lose the most fat you can without sacrificing any muscle. Therefore, finding the right balance in nutrients is vital.
As calorie control is of utmost importance, I'll start with this. I recommend you should start out at your current off season calories, and slowly reduce calories as the competition comes closer.
As a general rule, start 4,500 calories and reduce by 300 calories a week for the first 6 weeks, and maintain this amount until competition time. This means a baseline of around 2,700 calories. Ultimately though, these figures are highly individual, and this amount will not work for everyone. Therefore, I've outlined some factors in the next section that we as individuals need to take into consideration as well.
Of course, this daily amount doesn't consider the up and down changes when carb cycling, so some days will naturally be up and down.
Where the calories come from can be just as importance. You want to maintain your protein levels to keep as you anabolic as you can, and maintain fats for the same reason.
But you also don't want to completely rid carbohydrates as they will sustain you through workouts which are equally important for anabolism. The best option here is to maintain protein to what it was prior contest prep, say 300 grams a day, while focusing the cutting back on carbohydrates. I recommend around 140-150 grams, and only eating simple carbs at appropriate times such as breakfast, and pre and post-workout.
As fats are the highest concentrated in calories, cutting back on these is a smart idea, but ensure you aren't going too far as they are important for testosterone production.
I would opt to reduce consumption of highly concentrated fats such as oils, and reduce these with grains and a moderate portion of nuts and seeds. Fat is anabolic, so I'd still eat around 80-100 grams of fats daily. If you are sensitive to fats, you can continue to reduce this amount.
Stick to un-roasted nuts such as peanuts, almonds, Brazil nuts and hazelnuts, seeds such as sunflower, sesame and hemp, as well as grains, flaxseed oil and avocado.
For carbs, I recommend replacing any fast digesting carbs with more fibrous slow-digesting ones such as vegetables, legumes and whole grains, and eating around 15 grams per meals during the day, and 40 grams pre- and post-workout. Your protein sources should pretty stay the same as what they were off season, providing they were low in fat.
Bodybuilding.com - What Is The Best Pre-Contest Training Routine?
