Q & A with Tom Venuto
Author of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle
The #1 Best Selling Diet and Fitness E-book
|
HOW BODYBUILDERS AND FITNESS COMPETITORS GET SO LEAN: PEAKING SECRETS FOR GETTING SUPER-"RIPPED" Dear Tom, On your http://www.BurnTheFat.com 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?? Susan It's all about "peaking" Any shape you can stay in all year round is NOT your "peak" condition. 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? The intelligent approach to nutrition and training (which almost all bodybuilders, fitness and figure competitors use), is to train/diet in a seasonal or cyclical fashion and build up to a peak, then ease off to 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 illusions whatsoever of walking around 365 days a year at 3.7% body fat like I appear in the photo on my website. Off-season, when I'm not competing, my body fat is about 9.5%. Mind you, that's very lean and still single digit body fat (I don't like double digits!) 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 ripped, and 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 to force yourself to hold extreme low body fat. Your body will fight you unless you're a natural "ectomorph" (skinny, fast metabolism) body type. 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 6-8%, (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 cant lose weight and keep it off --they haven't mastered the art of training and dieting in seasons or cycles. 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. 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 doesn't slow down. 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. They have the tools and knowledge to hold a low body fat all year round (such as 9% for men, or maybe 14-16% 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 really 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? This is powerful, life changing stuff. Don't model yourself after the huge crowd of losers who follow weight loss gimmicks and fad diets like automatons! Instead, find out how fitness competitors and natural bodybuilders get so ripped, exactly when they want to, by manipulating their diets between precontest "cutting" programs and off season "maintenance" or "muscle growth" programs. You can learn all their secrets in Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle by going to http://www.BurnTheFat.com About Tom Venuto, The "Fat Loss Guru" Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer, certified strength coach (CSCS), and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book in the world, "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle." Tom has written hundreds of articles and been featured in IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men's Exercise. For info on Tom's e-book, visit the Burn The Fat website at http://www.BurnTheFat.com. To subscribe to Tom's Fitness Renaissance free monthly newsletter, visit http://www.fitren.com |
|
IS IT OK TO LOSE MORE THAN 2 POUNDS PER WEEK? Dear Tom, I know you preach losing one to two pounds per week. Does this apply to everyone? I'm currently at a 31% body fat level. I was curious to know if it's ok to lose up to three pounds per week until I get to a 25%-20% body fat level. Will my body fight against such a loss? Thanks in advance for your time, knowledge, and response to this matter. Sincerely, Mac Diamond
It's usually best to aim for one or two pounds per week of weight
loss. This is the recommendation of most nutrition and exercise
organizations such as the American College of Sports Medicine and
I'm in 100% agreement with this guideline. However, it's definitely
ok to lose three pounds per week when you have a lot to lose. The
more you have, the more you can safely lose per week because fat
loss is relative to total body weight. Generally the rule is that
it's safe to lose up to 1% of your total body weight per week, so if
you weigh 300 lbs to start, then 3 lbs a week is a reasonable goal.
But there's a catch. What really matters is not how much weight
is lost, but how much fat is lost. Where did the weight come
from? Are we talking about fat weight or lean body mass? For
example, let's take a 260 pound man who has a lot of body fat to
lose - let's call it 32%. With 32% fat, a 260 pounder has 83.2
pounds of body fat and 176.8 pounds of lean mass. Using this
example, let's look at a few possible scenarios with weight losses
ranging from two to four pounds per week. Scenario 1: Suppose
our 260 pound friend loses four full pounds instead of the
recommended one to two pounds per week. Is this bad? Well, let's
see: If he loses a half a percent of body fat, here are his body
composition results: 256 lbs Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer, certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, "Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle. "Tom has written hundreds of articles and been featured in IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men's Exercise. To contact Tom or get information on his e-book, visit http://www.BurnTheFat.comTo get Tom's FREE Fitness Renaissance monthly newsletter, visit: www.fitren.com |
|
1000 CRUNCHES A DAY AND STILL NO ABS? "What should I do to get abs?" is still one of the most frequently asked questions I receive out of the 15,000+ emails my office receives every month. Although the question is often phrased differently, the answer is always the same: Dear Tom, I have been working out for around a year now and I cannot get my lower abs into any type of shape. Despite doing 900 various crunches, ab roller, and 100 sit-ups four days a week, along with running and my regular workout on the weights, I still have a tire around my waist. What else can I do? Josh Seeing your abs, or any other muscle group for that matter - is almost entirely the result of having low body fat levels. You get low body fat from proper diet (as well as cardio), not from doing hundreds of ab exercises every day. You didn't mention whether you knew your body fat level or not. My guess is that it may seem like your lower ab muscles are hard to develop, but it's not really an issue of "muscle development" at all, you simply have too much body fat and are storing it in your lower abdominal region more readily than other parts of your body and you can't see the muscles through the fat. Most people don't have their fat distributed evenly throughout their bodies. Each of us inherits a genetically determined and hormonally-influenced pattern of fat storage just as we inherit our eye or hair color. In other words, the fat seems to "stick" to certain areas more than others. Men often tend to store fat more readily in the lower abdominal region (the "pot belly", "spare tire", "beer gut", or "love handles"). In women, the "stubborn" areas are usually the hips, thighs ("saddlebags") and the triceps ("grandmother arms"). You could focus on more "lower ab" exercises like hanging leg raises, reverse crunches and hip lifts ("toes to sky"), but even these won't help as long as you still have body fat covering the muscles. You can't "spot reduce" with abdominal exercise. The lower abs is often the first place the fat goes when you gain it, and and the last place it comes off when you're losing it. Think of ab fat like the deep end of the swimming pool. No matter how much you protest, there is no way you can drain the deep end before the shallow end. I would suggest cutting back the volume on your ab training and spending that time on more cardio work instead. Personally, I only do about 15 minutes of ab work two times per week. (About two to four exercises with reps usually ranging from 10-25 reps). Here is a recent ab routine that I used (for bodybuilding/ ab-development purposes). I do this routine only twice a week and I change the exercises approximately every month so my body doesn't adapt. I prefer slightly higher rep range than other muscle groups, but as you can see, it is far from doing a thousand reps a day. (if you want to see what my abs look like, just checkout my picture at www.burnthefat.com) A1 Hanging leg raises 3 sets, 15-20 reps Superset to: A2 Hanging knee ups (bent-knee leg raises) 3 sets, 15-20 reps (no rest between supersetted exercises A1 & A2, 60sec between supersets) B1 Incline Revere Crunches 3 sets, 15-20 reps C1 Weighted Stability ball Crunch 3 sets, 15-20 reps For maximum fat loss, you should do cardio 4-7 days per week for 30-60 minutes (the amount is variable depending on your results). You could continue running or mix up the type of cardio you do (stationary cycling, stairclimbing, elliptical machines, and other continuous aerobic activities are all excellent fat burners without the high impact and joint stress of frequent running). If time efficiency is an issue for you, you could perform high intensity interval cardio training and achieve very efficient results with even briefer workouts (20-30 min per sessions, or less, if the intensity is high enough) Once you are satisfied with your level of body fat and your abdominal definition, you can cut back to 3 days per week for 20-30 minutes for maintenance. As far as nutrition goes, here are a few fat-burning nutrition guidelines in a nutshell: * Eat about 15-20% below your calorie maintenance level. If you use a more aggressive calorie deficit, then do not keep calories too low for too long; increase calories to maintenance or maintenance +10-20% 1-2 days per week. * Spread your calories into 5-6 smaller meals instead of 2-3 big ones. Be very conscious of portion size. eat too much of anything and you can say goodbye to your abs. Period. * Eat a source of complete, high quality lean protein with each meal (egg whites, lean meat, fish, protein powder, etc) * Choose natural, complex carbs such as vegetables, oatmeal, yams, potatoes, brown rice and whole grains. Start with aprox. 50% of your calories from natural carbs and reduce carbs slightly (esp. late in the day) if you are not losing fat. * Avoid refined, simple carbs that contain white flour or white sugar * Keep total fats low and saturated fats low. Aim for 15-20% of your total calories from fat (and no more than 30%). A little bit of "good fat" like flax oil, fish fat, nuts & seeds, etc is better than a no fat diet. * Drink plenty of water - a gallon is a good ballpark to shoot for if you are physically active. 1000+ reps of ab work four days a week is an amazing feat of endurance, but thats not how you get visble, rock hard, 6-pack abs! You probably have outstanding development in your abdominal muscles. (you certainly have great muscular endurance). Unfortunately, if your abs are covered up with a layer of fat, you wont be able to see them even if you do 10,000 reps a day! You "get abs" from reducing your body fat and you reduce body fat mostly through diet and cardio. if you want to learn more about how to BURN THE FAT off your abs so you can finally SEE them, grab a copy of my ebook at http://www.BurnTheFat.com , It's the "bible" of fat burning nutrition: Tom Venuto is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, an NSCA-certified personal trainer, certified strength & conditioning specialist (CSCS), and author of the #1 best selling diet e-book, "Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle." Tom has written hundreds of articles and been featured in IRONMAN, Natural Bodybuilding, Muscular Development, Exercise for Men and Men's Exercise. For info on Tom's e-book, visit
http://www.BurnTheFat.com To get Tom's FREE Fitness Renaissance monthly newsletter, visit: www.fitren.com |