How Do Bodybuilders And Fitness Models Get So Lean?
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How Do Bodybuilders And Fitness Models Get So Lean?
How Do Bodybuilders And Fitness Models Get So Lean? By Tom Venuto, NSCA-CPT, CSCS |
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Burn The Fat And Feed The Muscle Book
Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle Syndicated Q & A Column
(Ask Tom Venuto - The Fat Loss Guru)
QUESTION: "Tom, on your burnthefat 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: burn the fat
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Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer (CPT), certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best-selling e-book, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle.” Tom has written more than 200 articles and has been featured in print magazines such as IRONMAN, Australian IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men’s Exercise, as well as on hundreds of websites worldwide.
