In Episode 3 of the NxLabs Body Challenge Podcast, we give you some tips to help you get in shape for your body type – ectomorph, mesomorph or endomorph.
When you understand what classification of body type you are, you will be able to adapt your routine and diet for better results. For more information on how to enter the NxLabs Body Challenge, check out our website.
If you like the Body Challenge Podcast, you can subscribe to them for regular updates through RSS or iTunes.
I’ve seen it a thousand times – realizing his error, he screams to me from the stage as I sit in the stands “Help me!” It’s the new bodybuilder on stage in his swimming trunks. Granted – far less disturbing than the fat man on the beach in his G-String – but an error nonetheless.
So the debate ensues: Before you try to pass off a swimsuit as your gear for the day, hold on. While similar in structure and style, there are a few differences you need to know about. And while the thought of wearing such a skimpy piece of clothing on stage may seem embarrassing, losing to the guy who did wear one is even more embarrassing, don’t you think?
Remember that the reason that you are in competition is to show off the work you have been doing on your musculature. A posing suit is cut to show off as much of your leg sweep and help narrow your waist as possible, within current standards of modesty. Sure, there are those who jokingly call them “Daisy Cutters” or “Banana Hammocks” – but these puppies are the necessary tools of the trade. It is not designed for speed in the water like a standard swim trunk would be. While this will go against all logic for most of us, the key feature you are looking for in a suit is exposure. However I cannot stress the following enough! There are limits – and while posing suits are small – anything resembling dental floss is just plain wrong! While some European contests are open to thongs, North America still frowns on “Whale Tails.” And for that, we here at NxLabs are thankful.
Much like a crowd around the urinal in the men’s washroom, stage fright is the last thing you need to worry about during competition. My advice is to practice posing at home – in your posing trunks. The key to this is wearing it a few times before competition to not only help you get the most flattering fit, but also get used to an otherwise humbling experience. A great tip is to buy two suits; one that fits and one that is two sizes smaller. Some competitors can drop over 15 pounds in their last week of contest prep. There is nothing less flattering than a posing suit that has lost its shape.
If you’re the type of guy who drops weight without effort, it’s easy to dismiss the concept of somatotyping. There is ongoing debate amongst bodybuilders about how much your body type, be it ectomorphic (e.g. slender athletes like marathon runners or swimmers), mesomorphic (e.g. sprinters), or endomorphic (e.g. powerlifters or strongmen) matters. We believe it’s something you should keep in mind.
As a competitive bodybuilder, you have a goal of packing on muscle and being ripped, while also having a well-proportioned, symmetrical physique. So while some of us can drop fat without even trying, the same people usually have a tougher time putting on muscle. On the other hand, there are people that have the exact opposite problem. This is where knowing your body type and what diet and training strategies have worked for others with a similar physique like your own will provide you with a good starting point to help you reach your goals. That being said, talk to guys in your gym with a similar body type to see what strategies work for them. Also, stay tuned for Episode #3 of the Body Challenge Podcast for further advice on training and dieting for your somatotype.
In Episode 2 of the NxLabs Body Challenge Podcast, we go over the mandatory poses you need to know for the competition, including front double bicep, front lat spread, side chest, side triceps, back double bicep, black lat spread, ab & thigh, and most muscular variations.
Follow this posing advice, and you’re one step closer to great photos for the Body Challenge. For more reference, check out the reference photos for all of the mandatory poses.
Remember, if you like the Body Challenge Podcast, don’t forget to subscribe for regular updates through RSS or iTunes.
After witnessing the Gong Show last night at the gym, I find it necessary to clear up once and for all when it’s OK to cheat and when it’s not.
It’s an epidemic that’s plaguing gyms across the world. The bucking of hips, the swinging of shoulders, even the craning of necks. The affliction? Those who think every rep should be a cheat rep. Perfect from when doing an exercise is a rarity these days.
Little does one know that by cheating every rep. you’re risking injury and actually robbing yourself of gains. There is a reason an exercise is done a certain way. It’s time to get your mind away from quantity and focus on quality for a while. Do a reality check. Drop the weights you’re using by half and do each rep. slowly, while you watch yourself in the mirror. Better yet have a buddy or training partner watch you. Are your hands in the correct position on the bar? Are you bringing the bar down low enough to get the full range of motion? Are you putting as much energy into the negative movement as the positive one? And finally, are you breathing with every rep?
This might seem like a checklist for a rookie, but look at the guys around you. The pride of adding an extra plate can come at the cost of form and that will hurt muscle development and can lead to injury. Perfect form beats a loaded bar any day for gains that last. Whether you’re a powerlifter, a bodybuilder, a football player or somewhere in between, it’s all about the right technique first; the weight will come.
Welcome to the first episode of the Body Challenge Podcast. Over the next few months, I’ll be sharing training, nutrition and competition tips to help you get to the top of the pile in the NxLabs Body Challenge. We’re starting off with an overview of the contest, and what you’re going to need to get started.
Keep up with the Body Challenge Podcast on a regular basis by subscribing through RSS, or get the videos downloaded directly to your desktop through iTunes.
As odd as it sounds – you shouldn’t trust your gut when sticking to a meal plan. No matter how strict you may think you’re being, nothing keeps you as honest as sticking to a nutrition journal. A daily account of not only what you plan to take in, but what you actually did take in is one of the best ways to stay on track. Not only will you have the ability to plan your meals ahead of time, it is an easier way for you to track calories, proteins and carbs in advance. Just like keeping a journal of training, with a solid record of your diet you can retrace your steps to see where you went right and where you went wrong. Then from there you can make the necessary tweaks to take your progress even further.
Don’t want to carry a big fat notebook around with you? No problem, now there are no excuses when your cell phone or your PDA both have calendar functions that can be synched to your online schedule. Plan out your six meals a day in advance and you’ll have access to them at any time. You can even set alarms to keep you on track during busy times at work. The key to success is to be honest with yourself; if you know that you need a snack after every workout, write it down. It’s tougher to cheat if everything is accounted. It will make it easier for you to be disciplined and it will make your shopping list that much more accurate.
Got a few tips about sticking to the meal plan? I’d like to hear them. Just post them up in the comments section.
It seems the question I get asked most often is: “What’s the best program for (insert goal here)?” To which I almost always reply: “Well, that all depends …”
At which point the individual asking the question usually wanders away either pissed off or confused (usually both), reinforcing my belief that the typical gym-goer isn’t really looking for the truth but rather quick sound bites that will help make ‘em ripped, stronger or HEEYYOOOOGE. Unfortunately, folks with short attention spans and unwillingness to learn usually end up spinning their wheels, doing the same 10 year-old program their buddy’s cousins’ next-door neighbor did!
See, everyone is looking for the secret. That one tidbit of information or workout program all the really massive guys use to look the way they do. Ultimately, there’s no such thing. Believe me, I have wasted what seems like years and thousands of dollars on magazines promising to make me grow like a weed. I listened to so-called guru after guru who looked great but almost always led me down the wrong path. Fortunately, I didn’t give up and I continued to study and read and learn until I found what works.
Here’s a story that clearly highlights this phenomenon. A few years back I was training with a buddy who was in the throes of a brutal pre-contest diet (read: he was miserable!) After a particularly difficult workout, we were approached by an eager, young fellow who was looking to glean “the secret to getting big.”
“What do you guys do to get so big?”
Now, before I could start into my practiced response – “Well, that all depends …” – my buddy jumps in and points to his post-workout carb meal of mashed yams and says, “Carrots, lots and lots of carrots, at least a pound a day!” Thinking the young guy was going to realize it was a joke, I didn’t say anything, but watched him walk away with a quizzical look. Thinking nothing of this, the weeks went by till one day we were approached by this fellow again, only to see his skin had taken on a distinct orange coloration!
So what’s the moral of the story? (other than: don’t bother dieting, bodybuilders!) There is no secret program. There is no magic tool. It’s all about finding what works for you as an individual. There exists infinite variations from person to person and body to body to suggest somehow a magazine-published workout performed by an Olympia contender with freakish genetics can build you a similar physique. No matter how diligently you follow his plan, this is ridiculous! Everyone is different; what works for him will not likely work for you.
What, then, is an eager, young aspiring athlete like you supposed to do? Simple – read, listen and learn everything you can. However, make sure your BS meter is well-calibrated and turned on. The old adage about things seeming too good to be true, will serve you well here. Ask questions of everyone, especially someone who claims to be an expert, including myself! A genuine expert should be willing to take the time to answer your questions regarding his or her advice and not expect you to blindly follow it ‘cause he or she is always asking questions of others! To that end, join me at this same spot next week where I’ll do my best to answer your questions and provide some basic tools to get you started on your quest for a lean, powerful and muscular physique!
If you’re seriously after optimal progress in either direction – fat loss or muscle gains – you’ll do far, far better if your nutrition supports those goals. If you’re chasing fat loss, again, you need to be eating in a deficit (we’ll go into more specifics on how to set up a fat-loss diet shortly). If you want to pack on some beef, you really need to be eating a lot.
There’s an old saying that says if you’re not growing, you’re not eating enough and honestly, for the most part, it’s true. The biggest reason more people don’t get bigger and stronger is that they simply do not have enough calories/energy coming in to 1) sustain them, and 2) support the growth and maintenance of new muscle tissue.
So let’s say you want to get in shape for the NxLabs Hardcore Bodybuilding Challenge and need the full six months to transform your physique and reach your goals. I suggest you take a look at yourself, do a hard assessment and determine what you need to do first. With 24 weeks, you have the time to split up those weeks into different sub-goals to reach your overall goal. Maybe you start out trying to add some size, while minimizing fat gains and then you transition into trying to get ripped while maintaining some of the newly earned muscle. Or maybe you have a lot of fat to lose in which case you want to jump right into a fat-loss program. Maybe you’re in desperate need of more muscle. Regardless, the bottom line is that your training, your cardio, what you do in the gym, while important, is going to end up being secondary to ensuring that your nutrition supports your physique goals.
One of the biggest mistakes people – both males and females – make in their pursuit of physique improvements, whether that is fat loss or muscle gain, is not ensuring that their nutritional program supports their goals. Sounds logical – doesn’t it?
If you want to lose fat, you have to eat in a way that supports fat loss. If you want to gain muscle, you have to eat in a way that supports muscular gains. Yet look around your gym. How many people ever really look much different? I’d say not too many. It’s not for lack of trying in the gym, as I’m sure you see many of the same people week in and week out and they certainly appear to be working hard. They’re lifting weights, they’re doing their cardio, but for some reason, they don’t look much different. Why? Nutrition! Their diet doesn’t support their goals.
Now if you stopped and asked any one of these individuals what their goals were, they might say they’re trying to get bigger … and leaner. That’s what most of us tend to want, but the problem is trying to do both at the same time. I’ll keep this simple, but basically, to lose body fat you have to be in a caloric deficit at the end of the day. You can get there by dietary restriction (eating less calories than your body requires to maintain its current weight); by exercise; or by some combination of both – the latter being optimal.
Contrast that to the goals of gaining muscle. You need to be in an energy surplus to gain muscle. That begs the question – how can you be in a caloric deficit and a caloric surplus at the same time? You can’t. They’re mutually exclusive positions. Now maybe you’ll argue the point of simultaneous fat loss and muscle gain with me – what we affectionately term a “recomp” – but let me try a little logic. First the easy one: does it make sense that the body would be forced to call on fat stores (an energy reserve) when it’s getting a lot of calories? There’s no reason to.
On the flip side, when you’re eating in a deficit, your body is trying to survive. You’re not providing it with enough energy to sustain itself, hence the need for it to call on fat reserves to maintain metabolically active tissue and bodily functions. Ok, pretty straightforward. But to bring some logic back into the equation, does it make sense that your body would go through the trouble of adding more metabolically active tissue – muscle, which needs to be grown AND sustained – when it already doesn’t have enough energy/calories to sustain its present self? The process of adding size to the body is an energy costly process. That’s a huge strike against those who state their goals as being simultaneous fat loss and muscle gains. More often than not, you’re going to be disappointed.
Now does that mean that one can’t ever gain muscle while simultaneously losing fat? No, it doesn’t. However, it is very unlikely unless you fit into one of the following categories – you’re a “newbie” just starting out, you’re coming back from a lay off and as such are basically in a de-trained state, or you’re new to “effective” training.
