Adelfo Cerame 11 Days Out Looking Back 2012 vs 2013 Things I Made Different Things That Made a Difference

2013 aint 2012: Different diet, different training, different macros, different physique... different placing!?

I am not sure if all of you read yesterdays SuppVersity Exercise Science Quickie, but those who did have probably already told their boss that they dont need an extended lunch-break today to listen to the "Thursdaily" 1PM EST installment of the SuppVersity Science Round Up on Super Human Radio. My voice did recover somewhat within the last 24h, but after a hefty dose of NAC I am now sniffin and snortin 24/7 - probably not exactly what you want to hear, I guess.

What you want (at least Id suspect so) to read, however, is Adelfos last blogpost before he is making his third and imho by far best-conditioned and thus promising attempt on winning his pro-card at the NPC Wheelchair Nationals on March 16, 2013... ah, I guess, Id better let him tell the story... enjoy!

Roughly 11 days out & looking back

I am approximately 11 days out from CJ’s NPC Sunshine Classic & Wheelchair Nationals in Palm Beach, Florida, where I will try to make another attempt at trying to win the overall and possibly earn my IFBB pro card for the wheelchair division. So far I feel great! My food intake is high, my energy is up and I’m very confident that I have made all the right moves, adjustments and improvements this year to put myself in the best possible position to take it all down this year ;-) I joined a great team in 3DMJ, and am being mentored by a great coach in Alberto Nunez, who is a seasoned and experienced bodybuilder.

So, lets recap a couple of key features of this to previous ones....

As I reflect on this years contest prep/ bodybuilding season, I thought it would be interesting to compare notes from last years season to this year.  

Nutritional Regimen - Which "diet" have I been following?

• 2012 = IF (Leangains)

• 2013 = IF (Leangains) + IIFYM (flexible dieting)

From a physiological perspective,  125g of carbs per day shouldnt be a problem for any non-diabetic - even if he/she does not work out (learn more)

In 2012 I followed an intermittent fasting meal protocol using a 16h to 8h fasting vs. feeding window. This year I used the same IF meal protocol (since I found success with it last year and it’s a protocol that works with my daily life schedules) but combined it with a flexible style of dieting that is also known as the acronym IIFYM "If It Fits Your Macros".

As I mentioned in previous posts, I dont abuse the IIFYM paradigm to stuff myself with all sorts of junkfood, my diet is still mostly clean, but the leeway it gives you is refreshing and takes away a lot of stress related to picking, preparing, packaging etc. foods (see next point, i.e. Food Choices, as well).

Food Choices - What type of foods have I been eating?

• 2012 = Stuck to your so called “clean foods”  

• 2013 = I am not depriving myself of any type of foods; I’m eating what I want but use a 80/20 to 90/10 ratio of whole “nutrient dense” foods to processed foods, or what you would call “junk” food but I don’t like the word junk so I call it “fun” foods ;-)

Last year; even though I started to veer away from the whole “eating chicken breast and broccoli and brown rice” mentality and began to broaden my horizons in eating more variety of whole foods, I still basically stuck to your so called "clean foods" and I was just in the beginning phases of getting over my phobia of carbohydrates since I consider myself coming from a high fat/ low carb camp for almost 2 years on a dietary regimen that was more or less identical to the "anabolic solution diet".

So yes, even though I was eating a greater variety of lean meats, fruits, veggies, fats and whole food carb starches like tubers, I still deprived myself of foods like bread, oatmeal, grains, cereal because I still believed that they were evil, when it came to a body composition standpoint or even just when it came to general health.

Believe it or not, but the quote on the left, is actually from Adefos very first post, here at the SuppVersity.

However, as you all know if you’ve ever read my very first Blog here on Suppversity and I’ll quote from it:

"My diet and training methods have evolved and will continue to keep evolving, because of my willingness to keep an open mind and apply and experiment with new strategies, methods and philosophies to my diet and training" - me

(Yes! I just quoted myself! Hahaha!)  And that’s exactly what I did, I kept an open mind and gave IIFYM a shot just like I gave “IF” a chance last year, and guess what?

It all worked out for the greater good because the combination of an IF meal protocol combined with a flexible method of dieting has really taken me a step closer to that goal of finding a perfect diet that I can convert into a lifestyle and do long-term. Like I mentioned before… A diet should be able to synergistically co-exist with your daily life and social schedules, and is something that you can convert into a lifestyle and do long-term  - thats fundamentally different from a "dietary intervention", under which you can easily subsume all the fad, single-sided and unflexible dietary regimen that work in the short run, but have you plateau before you even see your abs.

Training - Which type, how much and how intense was my training regimen?

• 2012 = Low volume/ high intensity – cardio was non-existent

• 2013 = hypertrophy/ strength split using an RPE scale – cardio was all throughout prep

Last year the majority of my training was very low volume/ heavy weight. My training consisted of 5x5 and EDT’s and reverse pyramids. The highest rep range I ever flirted with was 6-8. This year, I’m doing a split between hypertrophy and strength training using an RPE scale, and I would say the majority of my workouts would fall into the high volume category by common standards.

Does rest matter? Study finds 7-9% greater increase in muscle size w/ decreasing rest periods (learn more).

The main difference this year was the frequency of hitting the muscles and using just a handful of exercises as my staple and improving on them.

Last year I barely did any cardio except for probably the last 4 weeks of my prep to try to expend a little bit more energy but that was it. This year I incorporated a cardio regimen all throughout my prep... but to be honest: it was very easy – I started the first 2 to 3 weeks with none, then Alberto eventually prescribed 2x cardio session per week for 9 laps each session around a track. I completed those at a self-chosen until a couple o weeks ago, when he reduced the volume by 50%

As you may imagine this type of cardio regimen really wasnt a big issue... nothing compared o my previous HIIT sessions, for sure. I still feel that the additional laps on the track allowed me to keep my food high via carbohydrates -- and if Ive learned one thing from this prep, then it is that the higher you can keep your carbs up while dieting the more beneficial it is for your physique.

Calories/ Macros - How much did I eat at the beginning of the prep?

Caloric zigzagging? (Re-)Read Adelfos guest post "How I Break My Fast, Plan & Time My Macros and Use Caloric Zigzagging & Re-Feeds on a LeanGains Inspired IF Regimen" and learn more!

• 2012 = eeehhhh…??? around 1700/ 2000 kcal. (non-training/ training); 55-7g5 fat/ 150-200g carbs/ 150-200g protein (non-training-training) – skiploading style re-feed (basically eat as much high GI carbs as you can while keeping fat intake as low as possible.

• 2013 = 1960 kcal w/ a re-feed day 1x/ week;  40g fat/ 200g carbs/ 200g protein – 300g carb re-feed

Last year I experimented with caloric zigzagging, so my calories were higher on training days with a higher carb/ low fat intake and my calories were lower on non-training days with a higher fat/ low carb intake. And I didn’t start incorporating refeeds till later towards my prep or until I got lean enough to feel comfortable doing refeeds. This year I stayed consistent with my numbers and just had one re-feed day – so I had low days and one high day

Calories/ Macros - How much did I eat towards the end?

Adelfo has already written about the beneficial effects of a higher carb intake on your physique in a previous post onThursday, January 31, 2013: "Intermittent Carbohydrate Modulation as a Stepping Stone Towards an Anatomy Chart Physique"(read up on the article)

• 2012 = 1300/ 1600 kcal (non-training/ training days)
  50-60g fat/ 50-100g carbs/ 150-190 protein (non-training-training day) – skiploading style re-feed

• 2013 = 2305 kcal w/ a re-feed day 1x/week
  50g fat/ 240g carbs/ 200g protein – 325g carb re-feed

Last year I floated around sub 100g of carbohydrates for about the last 11 weeks of my prep and this year I started to gradually increase my food intakes 5-6 weeks out. I used weekly 25g increments (I’ll explain the process of how I started to bring my food later before I wrap up my blog)

With regards to my re-feeds; it was a bit more controlled this year compared to last years Sunday carb feasts I use to have. My fats this year were also on the lower end but still 20% of my total calories and I feel that this was another of the decisive factors that contributed to the clear improvements in my physique - with the low(ish) fat intake, I simply had way more room for carbs in my diet.

Comparison of Adelfos pre-contest physique 2012 vs. 2013 (photos (c) Adelfo Cerame. 2012-13)

Well that’s all I got for today! I hope you enjoyed the notes PrimalKid ;-) but before I sign off, as I said I would; here’s a brief overview of how I started to gradually bring my food up to where it’s at now.

At about 6-5 weeks out is when coach Alberto started to gradually bring food back up via carbs but prior to that I was on about a  2 ½  week intensive dig of 100g/ day, then we increased 25g (125g) for about a week and a half, then increased another 25 the next (150g), then increased by 50g (200), then increased by just 25g last week (225g)  and now increased by 15g this week (240g)… Oh and fat got increased by 10 somewhere during that week. lol.

But yeah… Coach Alberto felt that my body was lean enough for carbohydrates to start having a positive stimulating effect on my physique, and that my body was more capable of partitioning carbohydrates much more efficiently now that I am leaner.

Block Periodization for Resistance Trainees 3x Higher Strength Gains on the Bench vs Zero Benefits for Legs

The deadlift probably wont benefit from blocked periodization either... at least if you do it only once a week anyway.

I hope you all remember my recent article about the beneficial effects of block periodization on the training outcome of trained cyclists (if you dont Id suggest you read up on it: "Block Periodization - Impressive Performance Gains in Pro-Athletes") and the hypothesis that the mechanism behind the beneficial effects Rønnestad et al. report in the corresponding paper are not actually a consequence of this specific periodization scheme. Rather than that, the benefits the researchers have observed may well have been a mere consequences of the "change", of "breaking out of the rut" and the provision of a new challenge thats absolutely essential to induce what everyone, from housewife to Olympian athlete is training for: adaptation.

Lets discard the mechanism for a moment, though and lets rather focus on the hard facts - hard facts that are complemented by the results of a soon-to-be-published paper by researchers from the University of Bologna and the University of Central Florida.

Whats so interesting about this paper is ...

....that it looks at the effects of block periodization in trained strength athletes and could thus help us answer a question that may have been preying on your mind, ever since I published the previously cited article about the beneficial effects of block periodization in endurance athletes: "Do Different Rules Apply for Strength vs. Endurance Athletes?" Or, put simply: Would a weight lifter benefit to a similar extend from block periodizing his training regimen as a cyclist - irrespective of what the underlying mechanisms may be?

Figure 1: The subjects trained 4x per week - identical training plans in both groups (Bartolomei. 2014)

The answer is "yes and no" - Yes, if we are talking about the upper body, no - and thats interesting because cycling obviously involves the same muscle groups - when we are looking at the lower body performance gains in Figure 2:

Figure 2: Changes in max. strength (1RM in kg), mean power (in % of baseline) and jump height (in cm) in the 24 study particpants in response to traditional linear or block periodization (Bartolomei. 2014)

As you can see, the gains in lower body power was identical - irrespective of the type of periodization (see overview in Figure 1). For the upper body, on the other hand, the subjects who did not simply ramp up the intensity continuously from 5 sets of 8-10 reps at 65-75% of  1RM  with  less  than  2  minutes  of  recovery  between  sets to 5 sets of 3 - 4 reps at 85 -95% of 1RM with 3 minutes of recovery from week 1 to week 12 (TP group), the ...

"[p]articipants  in  BP  were  more  likely  (79.8%)  to increase the area under the force-power curve than TP. Participants in BP also demonstrated a likely positive (92.76%) decrease in the load corresponding to maximal power at the bench  press compared to TP group, and a possible improvement (~ 60%) in maximal strength and power in the bench press." (Bartolomei. 2014)

Whether thats muscle-specific reaction to the three 5-week mesocycles, instead of one 15-week mesocycle is yet highly questionable - or do you think the legs respond less to the periodization program thats depicted in Figure 3, than chest, back, arms & co?

Figure 3: Illustration of the interplay between intensity and volume of the n=14 24-year-old male, resistance trained (>3 years, >3 sessions per week) subjects in the block periodization group (Bartolomei. 2014)

Personally, I would rather come back to the "novelty approach". It goes without saying that we can assume that the abrupt changes on a blocked periodization regimen favor "growth promoting overloads". In the case of the musculature of the lower body, the simple fact that it was trained just once a week may yet have provided a similarly "novel" or at least less accustomed stimulus on every leg-day.

"Periodize Appropriately and Cut 12% Body Fat in 12 Weeks!" | more

Bottom line: Again, its difficult to tell, whether there is any special magic in block periodization. What can be said, though, is that we can again (see "Block Periodization - Impressive Performance Gains in Pro-Athletes: Revolutionary Training Concept, Or Just a Good Way to Eventually Break Out of the Comfort Zone?" | read more) make an argument for the "breaking out of the rut" hypothesis... in this case, however, in an ostensibly muscle-specific manner thats eventually not "muscle-", but actually "training-frequency-specific".

In the end, it does not matter, if my ad-hoc explanation is or isnt accurate. For you as a practicioner who is probably training the muscles of his upper body thrice a week, the results of this study are significant - no matter what the underlying mechanisms are. In other words: The results of the A classic HST-oriented training program that is eventually "block periodized" will yield better training results than one, where you train in the same rep ranger 365 days a year. But lets be honest: Thats not surprising, is it?

References

• Bartolomei, Sandro, et al. "A Comparison of Traditional And Block Periodized Strength Training Programs in Trained Athletes." Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research (2014). [ahead of print]
• Rønnestad, B. R., J. Hansen, and S. Ellefsen. "Block periodization of high‐intensity aerobic intervals provides superior training effects in trained cyclists." Scand J Med Sci Sports 24 (2014): 34–42.