Let’s get one thing straight proper off the bat: As a lot as may suppose you possibly can, you possibly can’t flex fats. You are able to do all types of different issues to it—achieve it, lose it, jiggle it, inject it, get it sucked out, tan it, pierce it, tattoo it—however regardless of what number of mirrors you stand in entrance of or filters you slap on, fats doesn’t striate. It doesn’t separate. You may’t contract it, and no veins come out of it. It simply sits there and obliterates every thing price taking a look at—from a bodybuilding perspective, in fact.
That being the case, the objective of any competitor within the physique sports activities (“bodybuilding” hereafter) is to construct/preserve as a lot muscle as doable whereas burning away as a lot fats as doable. Since everyone knows—or ought to know by now—that fats mass and muscle mass take up a lot completely different volumes. Muscle is denser than fats and therefor takes up much less house.
Fats, by comparability, shouldn’t be as dense and takes up far more quantity. Subsequently, if you happen to’re preparing for a bodybuilding competitors—with the objective to return in shredded, i.e., extraordinarily low physique fats—and since fats is extra voluminous than muscle, dropping it will scale back, not solely your physique weight, but in addition your measurement—dropping fats means you’re getting lighter and smaller. But, individuals maintain pondering they’re dropping muscle throughout prep.
“I’m getting smaller,” they cry. “I have to be dropping muscle!”
No, bro. You’re dropping fats—the issue you’re having with it’s that each one the fats you gained within the off season isn’t deposited underneath your pores and skin. A few of that fats is within the muscle—like a well-marbled steak. Merely put, you’re not as huge as you thought you have been. (No one was.)
Right here’s the way it works: Fats will get saved in two important locations—subcutaneous (underneath the pores and skin) and intramuscular (contained in the muscle). Now, suppose prime rib. That big lump of white stuff between the cap and the attention? That’s fats. That’s the stuff that’s marbled all through each single muscle in your bones. It makes you look larger as a result of it’s taking on house within the muscle—like nature’s synthol. That being the case, return to the prime rib—minimize out that glob of chub and push the steak again collectively. It’s smaller isn’t it? However did you lose any muscle?
When your physique begins burning fats—via food regimen, coaching, medicine, or any mixture thereof—it doesn’t concentrate on one spot like like everybody needs it will (as long as you would specify the place). It’s a systemic burn. Which means it pulls fats from in every single place concurrently. Subcutaneous, intramuscular, visceral—all of it will get dumped into the bloodstream and oxidized. You may’t goal one over the opposite. And also you positive as hell can’t maintain the stuff that made your arms appear to be they belonged in a Marvel film whereas solely ditching the chub round your low again.
Are You Actually Dropping Muscle?
One of the best metric to know if you happen to’re dropping muscle? Energy. That is particularly vital for the primary time competitor. In the event you’re nonetheless sturdy, you’re good. In the event you’re lifting near what you have been when energy have been in a surplus, you’re not melting away. You’re simply getting peeled—which is what you need.
Will you are feeling weaker in a calorie deficit? Sure. Will you be flat, depleted, and foggy? Generally. However that’s a part of the grind. It doesn’t imply you’re shrinking. It means you’re lastly seeing your bodybuilder’s physique for the primary time.
What freaks out most individuals is that because the fats leaves, the size drops, the fullness dips, and the panic units in. “I’m smaller!” Sure—however in one of the simplest ways doable. Smaller and tougher isn’t worse. Larger and softer is worse. Watery is worse. Dry and exhausting makes measurement largely irrelevant.
The Storage Sport
So when does fats storage truly occur? As quickly as your consumption exceeds your want.
There’s one caveat, although: a lot has been fabricated from what’s often called “the optimum window of assimilation.” This happens about 1–2 hours after a tough exercise, when your physique preferentially oxidizes fats and carbs for restoration. Some say you possibly can make the most of as much as half your every day caloric allotment throughout that window extra successfully than spreading it out over the day.
However be careful for these cheat meals! A cheat meal is a chance to present right into a craving, not harm your self—certainly one of my shoppers as soon as proudly informed me his cheat meal was a big double-meat pizza, three orders of tacos (9 tacos complete), and a dozen wings.
That’s not a cheat meal—that’s a cry for assist.
Such reckless extra spills into fats storage and drags tons of water with it, sooner than your final progress pic hits Instagram. It should take you days to recuperate, assuming you went proper again to the grind.
Give it some thought: In the event you prepare your ass off, eat exactly to the gram to recuperate, and keep just below your tipping level, your physique will use meals to construct and restore. Go over that line, and it shops the additional. Each time. The physique solely makes use of what it wants. And you’ll’t power it to make use of greater than that—nicely, you possibly can, to some extent, however, let’s simply say, it’s not for everybody.
The tragedy? Most individuals are strolling round 30 to 40 kilos over stage weight pondering they’re jacked. And they’re—if you wish to depend the marbling. Getting peeled is the one technique to know what you’re working with. Every contest prep after that will get simpler as a result of you understand the reality stepping into. And that information can significantly scale back the psychological torture of prep.
The Laborious Reality
Bodybuilding isn’t nearly constructing. It’s about separating, shaping, detailing… revealing—showcasing what you constructed. And which means coming to phrases with a number of genetic elements that rear their head throughout prep—particularly the primary one, the place you lastly pull again the curtain and see what’s beneath.
One of many many harsh realities you’ll face? The “muscle” you thought you constructed may’ve been principally manteca.
However you by no means know till you go low.
One of many largest obstacles to next-level conditioning for first-time opponents is the abject worry of shrinking. They spent months strolling round with their lats flared, sporting three hoodies, and turning into Golden Corral’s worst nightmare—all within the title of “getting enormous.” And now they should money in most of it?
Yeah, that’s a troublesome one. Particularly for somebody already mentally irregular sufficient to wish to be a bodybuilder within the first place.
Don’t worry getting smaller—worry being gentle. Situation will at all times trump measurement—particularly from the again. Don’t chase fullness at the price of definition. And for the love of all that’s holy, cease calling fats “measurement.”
As a result of if you happen to don’t, in the future it’s possible you’ll face the mirror, the stage, or the photographer’s glass, Flexing a blob you tried to move off as lean mass. Everybody is aware of actual muscle mounds up and striates if you flex it, like a 22-inch Olympian gun. Fats, my pals, flexes none.
