Excerpts from the diary of a pissed off bodybuilder
Science vs. Experience

Well, this shit aint working no more. I used to do cardio 7 times a week last year when I was preparing for my contest. Now, I can barely do 3 sessions and they’re all shitty. One day I’m 190 lbs, a couple of days later I’m 197 lbs. The sugar intake on Tuesday just f***s me up so bad. I take in 200 grams of glucose in one hour after 4 days of no carbs and BAM! 30 minutes later, I’m cold, shaking, bloated, my stomach blows up (literally, It gets hard to breathe from how big it gets), and I feel as tired as hell. My joints are starting to hurt, and I injured my left bicep and delt after my spotter fucked up and let me drop a 120 lb dumbbell while doing inclined presses. So, I want to try something different. One of the trainers at the gym I work out in is a competitive bodybuilder from qatif (guys from qatif compete internationally, that’s how good they are). He showed me some pictures of him one day after the KSA championship and the guy was f***ing shredded to the bone! We talk a lot about nutrition, supplementation, steroids, training (he has a B.S. in nutrition). Last week he asked me why I don’t do high reps while cutting. I told him that I don’t believe in that bullshit. He set me straight when he told me that he wasn’t talking about doing 30 reps of flat presses with 30 lb dumbbells. He got my attention. So, he told me that he was talking to crazy moe (my old trainer) and they were kinda talking about me. Crazy moe told him that I had thick skin, especially on my back (it’s called fat…) and I wouldn’t be defined well enough unless I use a diuretic. So, the guy told me that he had been watching me train back for a couple of months (gay… I know) and he noticed that the more reps I did, the more separation I got in my back. So he told me that according to his experience, it’s not thick skin or fat, it’s glycogen spillage. (for those who don’t know what that is… glycogen spillage is when you load the muscles with sugar “glycogen” and water till they get full and start spilling the glycogen mix out of the muscle cell and into the sub-q space under the skin). And he told me that I should do high reps to get rid of that. I asked him to be specific about high reps and to explain more. He told me to do about 15-20 reps with 50-80% of my max lifts. Lots of sets, lots of reps, and to separate the muscle groups. So, we sat around and started discussing diet and cardio and all and worked out a plan to have 6 cardio sessions, 3 weight training sessions, and 2 refeed days per week. Here’s the plan and explanation:

Saturday
400 grams protein, 100 grams carbs (breakfast and post workout only), minimal fat
Chest 20 sets, back 20 sets, abs 20 sets
Cardio 40 minutes high intensity

Sunday
400 grams of protein, 100 carbs (breakfast+2nd meal), minimal fat
Cardio 1 hour in the evening moderate-high intensity

Monday
400 grams protein, 400 grams carbs (meal 1,2, pre workout, post workout), minimal fat
Quads 20 sets, hams 15 sets, calves 20 sets
Cardio 40 minutes high intensity

Tuesday
400 gr protein, 100 gr carbs (breakfast+2nd meal), minimal fat
Cardio 1 hour in evening moderate-high intensity

Wednesday
400 gr protein, 100 grams carbs, minimal fat
Delts 20 sets, biceps 15 sets, triceps 15 sets, traps 10 sets
Cardio 40 minutes high intensity

Thursday
Reefed day….. ok ok… cheat day…. I’M 16 WEEKS OUT!! GIMME A BREAK

Friday
400 gr protein, 100 carbs (meal 1+2), minimal fat
Cardio 1 hour in the evening moderate-high intensity

Explanation:
I start carb depleting on Friday… cardio will help burn all the left over from Thursday

Saturday I have enough protein to spare muscle loss, and enough carbs to make me not kill myself and NOT go into ketosis. Leptin levels will start to drop (leptin is responsible for putting your body into starvation/burning mode… very long story). The workout is kind of a cardio/type I&II fiber stimulation/glycogen burning workout that is aimed to create maximum separation (I have no scientific evidence to back this up… but hey… the guy is naturally fat and showed up in the contest looking as shredded as hell… it won’t hurt to try). By the time I do cardio, I’m already burning fat for fuel from the cardio-type workout. Carbs after workout to help replenish some of the burnt glycogen.

Sunday I just do cardio while I’m depleted. Leptin levels plummet further.

Monday is same as Saturday except for the carb refeed. The whole point of the refeed is not to load glycogen, but to raise leptin levels to refresh my body’s metabolism.

Tuesday and Wednesday… I think you get the point…

Thursday… yum yum…

Friday… start depleting again.

Remember, I do not believe in high reps/light weights…. But this is high reps/heavy weights…. We’re talking about 75 lb dumbbells for 20 reps when doing flat dumbbell presses, and 45 lb dumbbell bicep curls for 15…. I hope this works…