keeping your muslces

[buffguy900]

so i did my first competition this summer and it was sweet, but i think i lost too much muslce when i cut down.

can anybody give me any tips for keeping muslce while losing fat?

i feel tried to do a decent job of it when i was cutting, but i'm not sure.

i did 30-40 min of walking on a steep incline tredmil in the morning before breakfast 5x a week
then i would eat 2-3 meals (once every 2hrs)
lift + whey+gatorade
eat 2 meals (every 2hrs)
eat 2-3 servings cottage cheese right before sleep
i would drink 1.5-2 gal of water (not counting 1week out)
for carbs i did 300g/day dropping 50/g/day/week for 6 weeks to 0carbs 1 week out, then loaded

also while loading i found that i still couldnt get a pump or much vascularity going (until i ate a ton of chinese food after competition)

any tips/advice is appreciated, thanks guys

at competition time : 20yrs old, offseason weight ~195-200, competition 178-180

now : 21, ~210lbs

i plan on competing in nyc in june and through the summer in some inbf competitions, lemme know if any of you guys are too

thanks again

[Cosmonaut]

i did 30-40 min of walking on a steep incline tredmil in the morning before breakfast 5x a week

There is a debate about doing cardio on an empty stomach before eating. Some people say that cortisol levels are highest at that time which leads to a greater loss of muscle. Try to cut by doing cardio at night instead. Have you tried HIIT?

[Moreps]

It could be a variety of factors.
Were your calorie totals very low the final 2 weeks prior to your carb load? Did you notice a stregnth drop in the gym the last 2-4 weeks? Were you supplementing to support lean mass maintanance? When you say you kept water high, except for the final week, how much water were you drinking during the final week? Were you staying with heavy free weights all the way through, or did you resort to more machine and cable work employing higher reps?
Also, excessive cardio combined with a hypo-caloric diet can be extremely catabolic.
Maybe, thru the use of these questions, we can zero in on what you may have done wrong and what you can improve upon for next season.
Nontheless, competing for the first time is a great personal accomplishment. An endeavor which not too many people will ever attempt. So you deserve congratulations.

[buffguy900]

thanks for the replies guys

Cosmonaut :
as far as HIIT i have only done that a couple times, my cousin who has been bodybuilding for a while recommended the cardio in the am for me. i also got the impression that the other option for cardio is after lifting, but thats harder to do and i feel its important to get the post carbs/protein asap, instead of 30min later after cardio.

Moreps :
yea as far as calories, it was pretty low, i guess like 50g carbs, 200g protein, 30g fat, so thats around 1300 cal and i was dragging ass like every day, i had virtually no energy even after sleeping 10hrs.
as far as lifting, i pretty much stuck to supersets and reps around 8-12 area and did not focus on strength at all, i def had to drop the weight i was doing, my strength was way down.

is it more typical to cycle carbs at all? i never changed them, just lowered them by 50g/day each week. the diet was really hard and i really dont have a gauge on how i should feel, but i basically felt like garbage all the time, except on days when i didnt do lifting/cardio ( sat and sun )

could that be why i couldnt get a good pump going or any huge vascularity (as i expceted i would) i also plan on cutting for longer (15+ weeks instead of 6 weeks)

thanks guys!

[Cosmonaut]

In theory cycling carbs should keep your metabolism at a higher level then when dieting for an extended period of time. I suggest you talk to Derek aka Beast in his contest prep he has been doing it for a while and might be able to provide better help with this type of diet.

[Moreps]

yep.... cals were waaaaay too low. Especially protein.
You have a choice next time for cycling carbs - One very high carb day in the week, say on leg day, or - a high carb meal as your final meal of the day on Monday nite and Thursday nite.
Was your water intake low as well for that final week?

[buffguy900]

Originally Posted by Cosmonaut

In theory cycling carbs should keep your metabolism at a higher level then when dieting for an extended period of time. I suggest you talk to Derek aka Beast in his contest prep he has been doing it for a while and might be able to provide better help with this type of diet.

thanks a lot, that sounds like a good idea.

[buffguy900]

Originally Posted by Moreps

yep.... cals were waaaaay too low. Especially protein.
You have a choice next time for cycling carbs - One very high carb day in the week, say on leg day, or - a high carb meal as your final meal of the day on Monday nite and Thursday nite.
Was your water intake low as well for that final week?

ok, that would prob make the diet more bearable too, as far as water i did something like this:

thurs (9days out) 8L water
fri 8L
sat 8L
sun 8L
mon 8L
tues 8L
weds 8L
thurs 6L
fri 4L
stop drinking water 10hrs prior to show

thanks

[Moreps]

Water looks good although I would have taken it just a bit higher.
As far as training, recovery will be a balancing act the last few weeks due to the low cals, so you want to eliminate most intensity techniques and actually drop the volume of work while keeping weights high and reps low. Not good to train to failure at this time also.

I envy your youth and there is no doubt you will improve every year you compete.

[buffguy900]

thanks for the great advice, yea i never really reaped the benefits of heavy low volume lifting until recently and my body responded very well to it. so when, if at all, do you think intensity techniques and lifting to failure is appropriate? i was under the impression that lifting like that would increase separation/definition.

[Moreps]

Intensity techniques and taking sets to failure have their time and place. Personally I would not go too overboard with them as the show approaches. With low bodyfat levels chance of injury are greater. With below maint. cals, muscle and CNS recovery would be compromised as well. However I'd continue to train as heavy as possible to keep the mass you've already established in the off season.
It's going to be the diet and supplementation which will create the definition. I would also bump up posing practice to 1/2 hour a day at 6 weeks out, to facilitate muscle hardness and separation, and to prepare you for the rigors of the stage. You never know how long you'll be up there posing with your class or classes.

[buffguy900]

awesome, thanks for the great advice, hopefully ill have some success stories to tell you about, haha. good luck to you too in your bodybuilding

[Most Muscular]

I used to lose more muscle then I wanted to while dieting but found that both my diet and training were the cause of it. Although I've always dieted for a long time (20+ weeks) to allow minimal muscle loss (if you try to lose to much too soon you'll end up losing muscle along with the fat) you should try and maintain a healthy carb intake to give you the energy to continue lifting as heavy as you can. What got you the muscle in the first place (heavy weights) shouldn't be abandoned for light weights during this period. If it's not broke, don't fix it.

nuff said....

[buffguy900]

cool, thanks a lot, im a little confused now though. i should keep lowering my carbs, but maybe do a higher carb day every 3 days or so to keep my body in line, except in the final couple weeks before i carb load, right? i just want to make sure it is actually advantageous for me to do 0 carbs/day for a few days before i do like 600 carbs/day 3 days before competition. thanks again

[RyanR]

Originally Posted by buffguy900

so i did my first competition this summer and it was sweet, but i think i lost too much muslce when i cut down.

can anybody give me any tips for keeping muslce while losing fat?

i feel tried to do a decent job of it when i was cutting, but i'm not sure.

i did 30-40 min of walking on a steep incline tredmil in the morning before breakfast 5x a week
then i would eat 2-3 meals (once every 2hrs)
lift + whey+gatorade
eat 2 meals (every 2hrs)
eat 2-3 servings cottage cheese right before sleep
i would drink 1.5-2 gal of water (not counting 1week out)
for carbs i did 300g/day dropping 50/g/day/week for 6 weeks to 0carbs 1 week out, then loaded

also while loading i found that i still couldnt get a pump or much vascularity going (until i ate a ton of chinese food after competition)

any tips/advice is appreciated, thanks guys

at competition time : 20yrs old, offseason weight ~195-200, competition 178-180

now : 21, ~210lbs

i plan on competing in nyc in june and through the summer in some inbf competitions, lemme know if any of you guys are too

thanks again

I just did the Eastern USAs last week Nov. 13th. I qualified for nationals. Which show did you do?

[buffguy900]

wow, nice job. 5'6", 210lbs is really huge dude. no wonder you won, haha.

i did inbf natural nyc this past july, i will compete more this coming june through the summer, and i want to make sure i do it better this time, ive been up 10lbs (i'm 210 now) on my last year's offseason weight for a while now, and i hope to get up to 220 by jan/feb, then cut down feb-june and compete. any tips/advice are welcome!