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America, y’boy got mad skills!  About a month or so ago my laptop died.  I had no clue as to what the problem was.  But thank God for the internet.  I went online and troubleshot it – turns out I needed a new screen and inverter.  But before I found that out I kept doing other things.  At one point I had this thing totally dismantled down to the individual component parts with over 75 tiny screws on my counter. Now I gotta admit, the most I’d ever done to a computer before as far as hardware was to install a couple new memory modules, so this was major to me.  But as I’ve said many times, if I can dial in for a bodybuilding show, I can do anything if I put my mind to it.  To net it out, I put everything back together (no…I didn’t have any screws left over…), said a prayer, and turned it on.  It worked!  So now I have no excuse to blog more as I’d rather blog from my laptop in front of the tube rather than from the Mac in my office (c’mon ladies…I’m a guy – what did you expect?).

Hey, my partner, Turk, called me yesterday morning.  The first question out of his mouth was, “So how you lookin’? That’s the question that should be asked right about now.  The next question that should be asked about 3-4 weeks out is “How y’feelin’?”  So lemme see if I can help you guys figure out if you’re on schedule or not.

I’m gonna write from the perspective of the Vancouver Natural as we’re less than 6 weeks out from that.  I’ll write from the EC timeline as well, just not today.  The first thing you need to know is your timeline, or how much bodyfat you have left to lose verses how much time you’ve got left to lose it.  All of you should know that we can lose between 1-2 lbs of bodyfat (BF) each week if everything is done right and not sacrifice lean mass.  So right away we should be able to figure out if we’re ahead of schedule, on schedule, or behind the power curve.  With a maximum of 2 lbs fat loss per week with 5 weeks to go, everyone should be within 10 lbs of contest weight minus water.  If you’ve got more than 10 lbs of BF to lose as of today, you might want to reconsider doing the Vancouver.  Doesn’t mean you can’t compete, it just means you probably won’t reach your best potential unless you take drastic measures, which will probably cost you some hard-earned muscle.  To lose two lbs of BF each week foods have to be spot on – eating the right foods in the right amounts at the right times.  You’ll also need to be doing upwards of 2 one-hour cardio sessions/day. 

Now I’ve gotta digress a bit to explain the science of all this.  You should know that a pound of fat is roughly 3500 calories.  To lose one pound each week (7 days) you’d have to create an energy deficit of 500 calories (7 into 3500 = 500).  To lose two pounds each week, you’d need to create a 1000 calorie energy deficit.  Losing more than that without sacrificing muscle is extremely difficult.  Why?  Well…if you go more than 1000 calories below your daily caloric maintenance level the fat-burning mechanism literally comes to a screeching halt and the body starts looking for alternative energy sources – you guessed it – muscle.  Trust me on this.  So how do we create this 500-1000 caloric deficit?  One of three ways. 

One, we take in less energy (calories) than we burn in a 24 hour period.  For example, if your maintenance level is at 1800 calories and you want to lose one pound per week, then you’d cut calories to 1300 and that should do the trick.  But I caution you on going much below 1100-1200 calories per day.  Research shows that most human adults, even small women, need about 1200 calories a day as baseline just to get through life.  So if you cut below 1000 calories AND are training hard on weights, more than likely you’ll lose muscle. 

Two, we expend more energy (calories) than we consume.  For example, if you take in 1800 calories and you want to lose one pound per week, then your cardio exercise should create a 500 calorie burn each day to allow for that one pound loss each week.  To lose two pounds per week, then you’d need to burn 1000 calories on cardio each day. 

Finally, we can do a combination of the first two – cut calories slightly while increasing cardio slightly – this is what I recommend.  As long as your calories are of sufficient amount to prevent muscle wasting then you should safely lose your excess bodyfat.  But even with that said, cardio has to be of sufficient intensity, duration, and frequency for this to occur.  To summarize, if you’re within 10 lbs of your contest weight you’re good to go as long as you stay on task.  Even though 5+ weeks is a long time, it’ll fly by! 

Now let’s talk about your look – I call it your ‘checkpoints’.  First off, all you bodybuilders should be fairly vascular by now.  Figure and Bikini should be coming in very soon.  Veins should be popping out after you finish eating – this is called the ‘Thermic Effect of Feeding’.  Obviously you should be nice and veiny during and after your workout – this is called the ‘Thermic Effect of Exercise’.  That will probably change in the coming weeks as you continue to de-carb, but that’s another blog.  Your ‘snuffbox’ should be in.  The snuffbox is that space between the two tendons that pop out when you pull your thumb back.  Another checkpoint is your tri/bi/delt tie-in.  That should be coming in nicely, and all three heads of your delts should be delineated.  There’s a dimpling in your outer pec by the armpit that should be coming in if you cross your arm over your pec and flex.  You should also see a dimple in the lateral aspect of your clavicles (collarbones).  It’s hard to see your back muscles without a three-way mirror, but if someone looks at you, they should see your ‘Christmas Tree’ in your lower back when you rotate your lats medially.  When you hit your back double biceps, all the muscle groups should be separated and some of you might even have veins running along your upper back/traps.  For the men, your quads and hams should be separated nicely.  For most of you ladies, I know that’s an area that usually comes in last for you, so you’ll probably see more leanness in your abdominal region right about now than most men, whereas they’ll see leanness in their legs before you.  One of my female competitors, Kath, is already veiny upper body, with the two main veins running up her abs.  Yet her legs are barely separated.  Don’t worry Kath…they’ll come in. 

There’s so many more checkpoints that I use to gauge a person’s leanness and contest readiness, but this is a good starting point.  If you have NONE of these…well…as I said, you probably shouldn’t be doing the Vancouver.  But I’m trusting and believing that all of you getting ready have been on task and are looking good at this point, which means that you’ll look even better next week, and you’ll look fantastic the day of the show.  Oh…and let’s not forget your posing and routines.  I finished editing my song this past weekend.  I changed it up a bit today and listened to it over and over and over during my second cardio session to start putting together the routine in my head.  That’s how I process – I’ll listen to the song close to 100 times before I ever start posing.  I’ll know every nuance of the song – the beat, bass, snare, and words, and I start timing everything out in my head.  About 4 weeks out I start my actual practice. 

Well…that’s about it for today America.  Sigh…so much to say…so little time.  Holla at’cha boi if you need any help or have questions.  I’m at your service.  Peace…

The Dr.

David “Dr. Buff” Patterson

Personal Training Systems

“There Are No Shortcuts!”

 www.personaltrainingsystems.net 

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Mobile:  253.576.4859

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