usman

Bro, your PMs were full so I didn't want you to miss the info.

Here it is:

Well, the volume is going to be different for everyone. It depends primarily on how depleted you are when you come into the deplete mode. Alot of guys are pretty flat by this time and some others aren't. I always recommend that you go until you have a difficult time getting or sustaining a pump. So, it has little to do with actual sets or numbers. Also, when I say I go slow what I mean is that the reps are very controlled - not at all slow motion or exagerating the negative or eccentric phase of the movement. I agree with you as to the tempo - 1:1 is perfect if you are going to put a number on it. I tend to use machine isolation movements to hold contractions and that sort of thing. I still use some basic stuff, too, but I make sure to incorporate alot of isolation, also. Just keep the intensity very low and the weight very low, also. You are going for 'tired' more than you are anything else. You do NOT want to be sore at all.

The depletion phase shouldn't be perceived as a 'balls to the wall - I ain't quittin' till I puke' sort of thing. I take my time and just go between any excercises and/or muscle groups that I feel I want to. When it comes down to it, you have to use your instinct on this one.

Remember, even when you add in fat calories to replace the loss of carb calories, you are still going to have a drop in bodyweight from the depletion of glycogen and a big component of glycogen is water. You will lose a few pounds during this time but almost all of it, if your calories are correct, will be water weight from the drop in glycogen.

Skip

Thanks for the info appreciated, i start tomorrow and now its just a matter of waiting and puting it all together i cant wiat!!

Keep me posted and I wish you well.

Skip

Well todays wednesday last day of the carb deplete which has gone fine. Your right about the workouts i dont feel sore afterwards (only a little), feeling like absolute crap though. I must say I forgot how hard the whole water drinking was its literatlly making me sick!!
But I do have one query, not about carbing up but about the water and sodium. I have been consuming between 8-9 litres of water from sunday untill today, I plan on consuming the same tommorrow on my first carb up day. The second day I am planningon cutting down to 6 litres, and friday 4 litres by 6.00pm. My carb intake will be highest on wednesday with high G.I., cut back slightly on thursd with medium G.I., and taper again on friday, thats the general plan for the carbs but will be felxible depending on how I look. Then on the saturday I will shit load with high fat, sugar and sodium foods in the morning breakfast, then continue to consume some carbs untill the judging 1.00pm, and consume some water while pumping upbackstage about 15-20 mins before I get out on stage. I wasnt planning on using dueretics, but the only ones I have available to me are ferusamide (lasix) and have no experiance with deuretics.
What my basic query is if I shit load on the morn with high sodium foods this will only work if ive done the water thing correct and my aldosterone levels are low and my body is still continuing to expell fluid. From what I understand if my aldosterone levels are high on saturday morn, consuming sodium wouldnt be such a good idea, and this would happen if I hadnt consumed enough water during the week, or tapered my water too early. I also understand that the reason why you would consume sodium in the morn of the show is that if you have done things correct on the morn of the show you should be dry to the bone (well not litereally). Thus your blood volume would be low, so the intake of sodium combined with the intake of fluid prior to going out on stage would allow a person to attain a pump whilst simulaneously increasing blood flow to the muscles and getting vascular (by increasing blood volume). Allowing you to go out on stage dry, hard and vascular.
So how would a individual now whether there aldosterone levels are low in the morning and there body hasnt reached the stage where it trying to promote the reabsorption of sodium. Im assuming that if you had succesfully achieved this and aldosterone levels are low then when you had cut your water out you would keep urinating throughout the night, and your frequency of urination would be somewhat similair to the previous nights of high water intake. Or is there no way of telling whether your aldosterone levels are low, any comments from your previous experiance would be well apreciated, also if I am doing anything incorrect from what you can seen could you also let me know. Your advice would be grately appreciated thanks!! Also if anybody else wants to chime in feel free the more info the better. (BTW i am doing the juniors 21's under, so dont have to weigh in or have a weight requirement to meet!)

Hmmm.....
I like it when I have to actually think. hehe

Well, to be honest, most of my experience is with aldactone so aldosterone levels aren't a problem. With you not using the aldactone (and I do NOT recommend you using that lasix unless you are absolutely in need of it about 1 hour before the stage), there is a bit more of a chance of aldosterone levels being up but I doubt it will be significant enough to matter or change your condition provided everything else goes well. By this I mean, if you are drying out nicely on thursday night and especially into friday, I don't see the aldosterone levels being a problem. If they were, they would manifest themselves before saturday morning almost for sure. This being said, you would have some early indication that things might not being going as 'right' as they could be.

On the other hand, you could be your own guinea pig and keep sodium in there the entire time and just drop the water. As I have said before, in THEORY this should work. However, I haven't had the desire to try it as I have always used aldactone and recommended the same for clients. It is one thing to convince someone to use a shitload for prepping but entirely another to advise them on keeping the sodium in there all the way through. Do I think it would work? It probably would. Is it more of a gamble than just dropping the sodium and dealing with a possibility of higher aldosterone levels? Yup, I think so.

If you are a gambling man, keep the sodium in there.
If you are conservative or unsure, you better drop the sodium.

Also, you didn't mention when you plan to drop the sodium. Are you dropping it on Thursday? Just curious.

Your plan looks good but I am a bit leary of having no diuretics in there at all - even OTC ones. The only thing I would change POSSIBLY is keeping the water higher, longer - like into friday. What you can do is drop your water completely on Thursday afternoon for about 2 hours or 2 1/2 hours to see if you start to dry up and how quickly. This will give you an indication of whether you should run the water longer into friday or cut it earlier. Obviously, if you dry up quickly in that 2 hour time frame, you could benefit from keeping the water in longer on friday and vise versa.

Damnit, next time have some aldactone on hand.

Skip

Thanks for the info appreciated, next time i will try and get hold of some aldactone to make things a lil easier. I think for now I am going to haveto be the boring conservative guy dropping my sodium intake on thursday. As for the water I think i will simply let the mirror dictate on what i do, if i am drying up nicely on thursday and friday morn i will probably keep water at 6 litres or so on friday, then cut it out on friday evening about 8 or 10pm. Then depending on how dry i look on sat morn if i see a further change, i will make my mind up then on how to approach the shit load. If im happy with the way i look i probaly will just go for it, like you said if aldosterone levels did start to rise i would no prior to sat morn.
Basing on my previous two shows when i did not use diuretics, also drank no where near the amount of water that i should have been i did dry up nicely. So with that in mind i dont think this will be a major issue here and probably am over scrutinising this a little. I am going to take vit c as it can aid some form of a dieretic, how much of a diffrence it will make i dont know but it better than nothing i guess. Also i am going to try some liquid muscle that i purchased for cheap its just basically glycerol with 20g protien, and going to take approximately five tablespoons upon waking on contest day with eight ounces of water. Again i dont know whether this will contribute significantly to vascularity, but it shouldnt harm my contest prep. Anyway i have any further probs i will post in, if i dont i will post in an update on sunday with my results and thoughts on how things went. Thanks for all the help appreciated!!

Good luck and if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to ask.

Skip

Yes usman, knock-em dead bro!

Good luck usman!

Hope it goes well usman! Try to enjoy it - the hard work is almost over now!

I'm with Skip on keeping your water high until later on Friday night. I would not taper down from the 6 liters, in fact even keeping it at 8 liters would not be a bad thing until you drop it Friday night.

You mention taking in about 8oz of liquid in the morning on Sat and then about 15-20 minutes before pre-judging. If you are feeling flat and aren't getting good muscle contractions as you try to pose and pump up before pre-judging you should probably take in some water a little earlier. For example, maybe 8 oz or so 45 minutes before hand. Everyone is different, but you should be able to tell if you need the water intake by how your body looks and is responding to muscle activity as described above.

You won't be peeing all through the night on friday after you drop the water - probably only for a few hours - then you will be "empty" until you start to consume water again.

I also agree with dropping sodium on Thursday until Saturday morning (or friday night if you had started the shitload then)

Do you have a second show after this one?

Yes at the end of november a month later, il be better prepeared next time!!

Empty out your PM box bro

Don't forget to also empty out the sent and tracking parts of your PM box.

Seems to me that you have been doing quite a bit of research and planning - you should do fine.

Might be interesting to try keeping water in for your next show if you want to try something a little different. I think that you probably saw that thread - It was the Dr. Joe thread, but we ended up talking mostly about a strategy that kept water in all the way through. You would still drop sodium and use some natural diuretics.

Anyway - best of luck. Get some good pics to post! Find someone with a digital camera - that is the easiest way.

Re: Empty out your PM box bro

VA MadDog said:

You would still drop sodium and use some natural diuretics.

Click to expand...

Wait a minute, I thought he advocated for keeping the sodium in so that the balance of sodium/potassium didn't get out of whack or aldosterone levels would be phuked up?

I think he says that sodium should be kept in there (which I disagree with).

Skip

Who is he - I'm confused!

Did usman think he should leave sodium in? I thought that he was going to play it safe and take it out?

I'm with you, I still think sodium should come out. How else would you draw the water away from subqutaneous if you kept it in? By overcompensating with something else?

I don't think that aldosterone levels rebound that fast if you have been keeping water high for several days prior and only limit sodium starting on Thursday. Doesn't it usually take 36-48 hours for the rebound reaction/ bodies natural compensation?

This whole equation and theory might be different if you were to keep water in. If you kept water in through the show day there would be little chance of a rebound until much later if there would even be one would there?

Like I said - I'm feeling confused now and I don't have time right now to go through my file of info on this issue. Long day...

VA MadDog said:

Who is he - I'm confused!

Click to expand...

I was speaking of the Dr.. lol

The more I think about it, I am a bit confused myself.

Skip