Whether you are aiming to compete in bodybuilding or fitness model competitions or just want to get into great shape, you are going to need a nutrition action plan.
Nutritional science has come a long way over the last twenty years and practices which were once common have been replaced by a more informed approach over this period. Years ago, bodybuilders and strength trainers tended to go between two extreme phases: bulking up and cutting.
When bulking up phase the emphasis was on eating a very high calorie diet to increase bodyweight and muscle mass. This involved eating very large amounts of food and often the diet was less well balanced than it should have been, with too much fatty food. Then to prepare for competition, they made a dramatic switch to a very low calorie diet to rapidly lose weight and get into competition shape. Often this involved practically starvation level diets. This yo-yo dieting plays havoc with your body and your metabolism and also has serious implications for muscle integrity and longer-term health.
With improved nutritional guidelines, today the objective for most serious strength trainers and bodybuilders is to remain as close as possible to competition shape throughout the year.
But you still need to do pre-competition preparation including diet and exercise refinements to achieve your best results.
The main difference is that now preparation is carried out in a more controlled way and over a longer timescale. For best results, the preparation for competition should span a period of up to three months, which allows time to make gradual changes and fine-tune both your exercise program and diet.
The process, known as tapering, can produce extremely impressive results in terms of fat loss, muscle definition and performance ability. In bodybuilding competitions success depends on well cut muscles and low levels of body fat.
For this result, a two-pronged approach works best: reduce daily calorie intake and increase levels of aerobic exercise. As an illustration, if you reduce your caloric intake by 250 a day and use up a further 250 calories in additional aerobic exercise, you will ?save? 500 calories a day or 3,500 calories in a week. This equates to one pound of bodyweight and is well within safe weight loss limits of one to 2 pounds a week.
In the lead up to a competition, maintaining your muscle integrity is essential and therefore the protein in your diet is particularly important and needs to be monitored carefully. Protein intake should be maintained at the upper limits of at least 1.8 to 2.0 grams per kilogram of bodyweight during the tapering phase.
To compensate for this, there should also be a slight decrease in carbohydrate and fat consumption. You also need to make adjustment to the types of food you eat at certain times of the day.
In particular, before an aerobic exercise session, you need to restrict the amount of carbohydrates eaten in order to increase the amount of fat being burned during the session.
Water retention is a big problem for bodybuilders and it is a common mistake to think that reducing water intake is the way to avoid it. In fact precisely the opposite is true: you need to drink as much as you can and in this way the body flushes out any surplus water. If you cut down on your fluid intake, the body panics and holds on to every drop of water, causing bloating and puffiness. In the week immediately before the competition a more extreme program can be undertaken to really get cut and lean. But there are limits that need to be observed.
For a limited period, calorie intake can be reduced down to as low as 33 calories per kilogram of bodyweight for men (30 for women) while continuing with the aerobic program. This will turbo charge your final efforts to perfect your competition shape without posing any danger to your health.
On competition day, remember to eat and drink although you may prefer to stick to liquid meal replacements until after the competition. Getting this equation just right is a major challenge but extremely important if you want to achieve your best shape.
If you are really serious about your fitness and training, it is worth thinking about retaining a personal nutritionist or joining to a scientifically developed program like plan:one which uses Dynamic Nutrition Technology to perfect your nutrition plan whether you want to bulk up, taper, cut or condition.
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Nick Williams is an expert in human metabolism and nutrition and holds a BSc Hons in Biochemistry. Combining his scientific training and a lifelong interest in sports and fitness, he has designed and created plan:one, a powerful interactive fitness nutrition program that produces amazing results.. Build Muscle Fast | Reduce Body Fat | Maximize Training Effectiveness. Full Access 14 day Trial at: http://www.startplanone.com
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