I did mention a while back that I had plans for a show in the fall and so it begins or I should say it has already begun since I have been consistently training with this goal in mind since April doing my best to stay fairly lean while adding some extra muscle before the really hard prep begins. The show I am doing is called the Vancouver Fall Classic and it looks like Popeye's is the main sponsor with many other sponsors coming to the table so I expect it to be a really good show with a decent turn out. I will be entering Open Physique and perhaps a Masters Class of some sort. Classic Physique I am not sure about but I will consider it as I get closer to the show and see how I am looking, specifically if my legs are up to the challenge.
I am currently sitting at around 205 pounds and would say I am around 11-12% body fat so I need to lose around 10 pounds of fat and would like to be come in right around 195+ pounds before I carb up and fill back in for contest day.
Over the next month my focus will be to slightly cut fat with around a 500 calorie deficit per day which should put me on track to losing around 3-4 pounds of fat for the month, I hope to add an additional 2-3 pounds of muscle so my weight should not change all that much during the next month of prep.
Heading into 2 months out the plans will be to cut a bit harder while maintaining the muscle I have gained, maybe even gaining a pound or two if I'm lucky. I will be in closer to a 1000 calorie deficit during this time which should lead to around a 6-8 pounds of fat loss but everything will be adjusted based on how I look and how I feel.
The final month before the show will be all about getting every last bit of fat off of me which means around a 1500 calorie defect which in order to achieve means with a BMR of around 2100 I need to do at least 1500 calories of exercise each day while eating around 2000 calorie of food. I have done this many times and for me this works. With this calorie deficit I can lose as much as 3 pounds of fat per week but anyone that has done this before will understand that your body does not always cooperate and your metabolism can crash.
Well that's the plan for now but it can change at anytime depending on how I look and feel along the way.
In a world full of fake Natty’s, is being on TRT just an excuse to be on steroids and get all the benefits of steroids and still claim being natural?
There are for sure lots people who should be or need to be on TRT because their bodies just are not producing enough Testosterone to be in what is considered a healthy range.
That healthy range can depend on many things…
Are you a man or woman and yes some women are prescribed Testosterone by their doctors as a means to increase low Testosterone and even increase estrogen in women.
Age is also a factor when considering what is healthy so in other words it is not expected for a 20 year old and a 70 year old to naturally produce the same amount of Testosterone but there are still healthy ranges each age group should be within.
Geography, yes each country will have their own Testosterone range allowances set since each country has their own health system and guidelines in place.
So lets say you find yourself with low Testosterone, your blood-work shows this to be true and you feel the symptoms of low Testosterone which can be a lack of energy, low libido, a hard time recovering from physical activity, fat gain, sleep disorders, depression, erectile dysfunction being the most common. It would only make sense to get this looked into for better over health and well-being! After all being on TRT is a medical therapy much like if a woman is going through menopause and requires supplementation of hormones or even people on specific drugs to help with chemical imbalances to get them back to a more normal state.
Getting more to the topic of this video, why is it that people think that just because a person is prescribed Testosterone by their doctor to get them back to more “normal” ranges, that somehow they are cheating and have super human powers and advantages? I would go so far as to say that most men on TRT would be hard to pick out since being at normal ranges will not make you jacked or give you super human strength. Yes if your Testosterone was really low, going on TRT will help you gain some muscle back and get stronger but it should bring you back to where you normally would have been if your Testosterone levels where in more normal ranges to begin with.
I think the main reason why people get "set-off" when people claim they are on TRT but still claim to be natural, is because many of these So called "Natty’s" simply do not look natural. This is because I would say most of these people while they may be on TRT, are probably also abusing their TRT to some degree by either upping their Testosterone dose or adding other performance enhancing compounds and yes that would for sure take them out of the “Natty” category. No argument here!
I often hear the argument that when a person is on TRT, their levels of Testosterone in their system are more consistent and this can be true since a true natural person will produce small amounts of Testosterone at different times of the day which can make their Testosterone fluctuate from hour to hour. Many people on TRT only get their injection twice per month or even once per month which means right after the injection they will be at their highest levels but right before their next injection they can actually be crashed especially if they have monthly injections so I am not really sure which is worse at the end of the day. Personally I believe that you don’t really feel the effects of Testosterone so much based on exactly how much is in your system at any given time but more as an average over time and that is why it take a good month or so after going on TRT to feel the benefits.
At the end of the day plain and simple if you are on TRT you are not Natty since you are not making the bulk of your Testosterone naturally. That said if you are at normal healthy ranges while on TRT, I feel there is little advantage over a person with similar Testosterone levels making it naturally. Of course if you are taking more Testosterone than you need putting yourself into above average ranges then you will be getting extra benefits because now are you are essentially at body builder levels of Testosterone.
Do what is right for you and don’t worry about what other people think, you do not need to tell people if you are "Natty or Not" but don’t make a video showing your 3 month transformation after going on TRT and call it a Natural transformation, that just adds fuel to the already burning bonfire of calling out Fake Natty's.
All that said if you are interest in finding out if TRT may be right for you, you can checkout the Link Provided to get your blood-work done and if you do end up going on TRT you can save $45 per month with my “GFO40” discount code. This is for US residence only at this time.
There are many ways to program how you weight train, some people like to hit each muscle super hard once per week usually splitting each workout focussing on one to two muscle groups per workout but hitting each muscle group really hard with multiple exercises.
Then there is the other extreme where you hit every body part each workout but only doing one quick exercise per body part, this can be a bit of a marathon for sure…
I have tried both and both do work but which one is best or perhaps is there something in the middle which will get the absolute most out of each weight training session.
Personally I believe volume at the end of the day is the most important factor. What I mean is if you add up all the sets and all the reps you did for the week and totaled the weight you lifted. Then more is better. This is also assuming you spend the same amount time in the gym each week weight training.
One other factor we need to make sure we consider is recovery time. How much do you really need? Most people would say at least 24 hours but 48 hours is a good rule of thumb especially if you trained a muscle pretty hard with multiple exercises, sets and reps. I would even go so far as to say that in some cases three days may be required for a muscle to fully recover, especially a large muscle group like your legs after a full leg training day with squats, deadlifts and accessory work. But let’s stick with 48 hours in most situations.
So if we use 48 hours as a baseline for muscle recovery then that means you could workout each body part 3 times per week based on a two day split meaning you hit half your body one day and then the other half the next day repeating daily with one day off per week.
If that seems like too much time in the gym for some people with busy schedules then you could do a two day split four days per week and train each body part two times per week. Still good!
The real question is, would it be better to do a two day split and hit each body part two to three times per week or would it be better to do what is commonly called the Bro-Split and train each body part once per week but hit it crazy hard with three to four exercises per weight training session?
There is one more factor we need to consider before going into this further and that is muscle atrophy. Muscle atrophy is when a muscle does not get stimulation and essentially starts to lose size and strength because of lack of use. But how long does it take before noticeable muscle atrophy begins? Most people will say even after a week it can start to happen but I would say two to three weeks is when it really become more noticeable. Does that mean muscle atrophy is not happening on a more micro scale during the week if you are not using a muscle for say three to four days post recovery? I believe it happening on a small micro scale but even if I am wrong and you are not training a muscle for several days post recovery then you are at a bare minimum not utilizing potential training opportunities with that muscle group. So in the example of the Bro-Split hitting a muscle on only once per week, you may be experiencing a micro amount of muscle atrophy since that muscle group is not being stimulated much for at least four to five days at a time between workout session.
Getting back to training volume which again I feel is the measuring stick for workout efficiency which at the end of the day should get you the best results. To me it is pretty obvious that training a muscle with one exercise to failure and then moving on to a new muscle will yield the most weight moved in a workout or weight training session and for the week. Using the example of three exercises per week for a muscle group, If you hit a muscle with multiple exercises in a session then you either have to pace yourself the entire time or go all out on the first exercise with each follow up exercise having less and less strength available, so moving less and less weight. If you where to split the three exercises up into three separate weigth training sessions (Monday, Wednesday, Friday), then you will have full available strength for each exercise session.
The key is to be smart about how you break down your two day split as to not overlap already worked muscles. I find it best to hit Chest, Back and Shoulders with Calves and Core on day one and then I hit Legs and Arms with Core on day two. I also make sure to only do one press exercise on upper body day. For example if I start with a chest press then I would do back between chest and shoulders followed by something like shoulder raises so as not to hit my already weekend triceps doing a shoulder press. And similarly if I started with a shoulder press I would do something like Flies for Chest. The key is to really mix up your workouts and always be doing a different exercise for each muscle group. Here is an example of what I mean… Shoulders Day One - DB Shoulder Press, Shoulders Day two - Raises with DB or Cables, Shoulders Day three - Upright Row or Machine Shoulder Press.
Now what works for me may not work for you and some people just like to workout a certain way because that is what they are use to and at the end of the day being motivated to get into the gym consistently is really the most important factor. Of course you have to do the work when you are at the gym but if you are hitting the gym often and training hard you will see results no matter what workout program you use. You can give my methods a try and see if it works for you or not?
Everyone knows the best way to burn calories and lose weight is to do lots of cardio right! Well yes you can burn lots of calories and lose weight doing lots of cardio but is it the best way to go about this?
To lose weight you need to be burning more calories than you are eating and put yourself in what is called a calorie deficit. For instance if you are able to burn 500 calories per day more than your body requires than over a week you will lose 1 pound of body weight, and usually most of it will be fat.
Some people have a lot of weight to lose or are needing to get really ow in body fat for an event and so a much higher calorie deficit may be required, as much as 1000 to 2000 per day. To do this requires managing your food very closely along with a high level of activity to burn calories.
Generally speaking cardio is a very effective way to burn a lot of calories in a short amount of time as cardio requires some sort of more intensive activity that get your heart rate up fairly high for a sustained period of time. For sure this works to help you get into a more extreme calorie deficit but it cam come at a cost which is the loss of both muscle and fat, not just fat.
In this YouTube video I talk about why too much cardio can have a negative effect in what type of body weight you end up losing. I also offer some suggestions on how you can achieve a more aggressive calorie deficit to lose body weight while keeping your muscle and targeting your fat for the weight loss.
A huge part of making content for a YouTube channel or really most social media platforms is being able to record videos in good quality and not just the actual video but also the audio. The RØDE USB-C Vlogger Kit is an all in one fairly affordable solution that comes with all the tools you need to produce high quality videos no matter what the environment challenges you with.
You get RODE's most popular accessories to help you get the best out of your Smart Phone and in this case my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra uses a USB-C interface and so I went with the RØDE Vlogger Kit USB-C Edition of this kit but you can get it in iPhone compatible version and also Universal version that simply use a mini jack for Smart Phones that support analog inputs.
My RØDE USB-C Vlogger Kit came with the following accessories:
Three-position tripod for hand-held or static use
Gimbal tripod head for accurate camera positioning
All-metal mount with rubberised grips for phone 65mm to 85mm wide
VideoMic Me-C directional sound pickup to reduce background noise
WS9 Deluxe Windshield (DeadCat)
MicroLED light offers over four hours operation on a single charge
Clip-on diffuser with eight coloured filters
In this video I unbox the RØDE USB-C Vlogger Kit, show you everything that comes inside the box and then test out how it works in a number of shooting environments using my Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra so you can decide if the RØDE USB-C Vlogger Kit really improves the video and sound rather than simply using the built in microphone and natural lighting.
Friday, August 12, 2022 at 1:52PM ;)
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