Radical fat-loss

From the two PhD info-articles elsewhere on this site, “PhD mass gaining essentials” and “The PhD weight management checklist” you will be able to see how PhD Nutrition can help you structure your diet and training to allow you to target specific goals and meet them head-on.
This section basically takes the ethos of those two articles and goes into a little more depth, including training plans and additional supplements choices that may help accentuate the progress made from the basic plans.
Whilst the PhD weight-management checklist essentially targeted weight-loss for all kinds of athletes, the radical fat-loss plan is more specifically aimed at those who seek extreme condition, rather than simply being able to “see your abs”. There is a staggering difference between getting into good shape and getting “shredded”. The difference is gigantic and it’s felt in every way possible. Gaining extreme condition is severely mentally taxing, it requires inhuman discipline and constant inner-motivation. If you don’t possess all of these attributes, you probably won’t succeed. Having tackled all the presumed-negatives, let’s deal with the positives, because gaining extreme condition is so immensely uplifting it defies belief. Being able to succeed where 99.9% of the population would fail at the first hurdle is extremely self-gratifying and it builds an inner confidence than can never be stripped away.

The first step.

The first move you have to make is to maximise your weight-training.
One of my pet hates within the supposed knowledgeable body building community is the premise that if lifting heavy builds your muscle all year, lifting heavy will keep your muscle when you’re dieting. It sounds plausible if dealing with basic machinery, but the human body is far from such. So we have countless body builders fighting with every last breathe to maintain their personal best weights for low reps and then dealing with the mental dilemma that occurs when strength gradually declines as body fat becomes less prevalent. I’ve been there “Oh no, if I’m losing strength, I’m losing muscle, what do I do?”. It happens, believe me. One of the things you may have to get used to is that as you get lighter and in better condition, certain lifts may become weaker! This is often hard for many body builders to deal with, which in itself is down to the misconceptions we’ve all been force fed throughout the years. What you will have to begin to realise is that much of what we’ve been taught in the mainstream body building press throughout the years, is all plain circumspect and rhetoric. Very little, if in fact any, has been based on solid scientific fact. Sure, we get stronger and we get bigger. That’s the one basic ideal that cannot be reputed, it’s the hundreds of incorrect presumptions in-between that we need to address and in many circumstances, dispel.

Training to get shredded!!

Since around the 2002 mark, my training has altered quite substantially when preparing for a competition. To put it bluntly, I train more, with more sets, more reps and less rest. These four pointers essentially sum up my entire training plan when preparing for a competition. In the past I’ve tried training 3-4 times per week and included cardiovascular work, this didn’t work for me. So after consistent trial and error, I stumbled upon the German Body Comp (GBC) system, introduced to the mainstream fitness world by Charles Poliquin, renowned Canadian strength and conditioning coach. The GBC system revolved around maximising Growth hormone output and increasing work capacity by using large amounts of volume (or larger than traditional body building programs) and short rest periods.
A traditional GBC weekly training plan would look like this:

Monday: Chest and hamstrings
Tuesday: Quads and triceps, abs.
Wednesday: Delts and Biceps, calves.
Thursday: Rest
Friday-Repeat.

As you can see, the program is set out quite similarly to one of the variations within my good friend Gavin Laird’s UHT system (Ultimate HyperTrophy), with the whole body being trained over 3 days, rest, then repeat. This equates to every body part being trained with 3 full days rest between workouts. This is a similar workout to what I recommend for the PhD Mass and strength gaining system, which in itself is based loosely upon Gavin’s UHT system and the many discussions we’ve had, simply with my own additions.
One thing you will notice with the GBC system is that Poliquin recommends pairing an upper body part with a lower body part. For example training Chest with hamstrings and utilising the pair of exercises in an alternating fashion, for example:

A1- Bench Press- 12 reps
Rest 60 seconds
A2- Good morning- 10 reps
Rest 60 seconds
A1- Bench press- 12 reps
And so on.

Whilst I can definitely see the benefit to such a pairing of body parts and coupling of exercises, I simply prefer to split the body in half when preparing for a competition, opting to tackle quads with hamstrings and calves and then maybe split the upper body 2 ways over 2 days days, for example:

Monday: Upper body (back, chest, triceps)
Tuesday: Lower body (quads, hamstrings, calves)
Wednesday: Upper body (delts, biceps, abs)
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Repeat

As you can see, the frequency is the same in that every body part is trained every 4th day, yet the split is different. Though like the GBC, I will mainly use alternating exercises throughout my preparation.

Alternates.
The benefit of using alternating exercises for me are two-fold. It’s an approach I’ve followed now for around 5-6 years, though always on and off and never used for the entirety of the year. Firstly they allow me to maintain an effective tempo throughout the workout. For example, if I attempted to train bent over rows with 4 straight sets and only 60 seconds rest between, the sequence of reps may resemble something like, set 1- 10 reps, set 2- 9 reps, set 3- 7 reps, set 4- 5 reps. However if I couple bent over rows with a pushing exercise like flat dumbbell press, I can still maintain a 60 second rest between the exercises, yet essentially I’m getting around 3 times as longer between actual sets of bent over rows, yet the workout as a whole is being completed in the same time. So I’ll train the two exercises back to back with 60 seconds rest between each set of opposing exercises and be able to maintain a higher level of strength throughout my 4 sets, thus being able to keep weights high. Secondly because you are training opposing muscle groups (usually) the lactic acid build up isn’t quite severe as it would be if you completed 4 back to back sets of the same exercise. Therefore perhaps you can crank out a few extra reps that lactic acid build up may have prevented.

The PhD radical fat-loss training plan.

To avoid confusion, let’s use the training split I highlighted above, though in truth be told, you could split the body up over 3 days, anyway you choose. Though having used this approach for a while, I can testify to it’s productivity.

Monday- Upper body- back, chest and triceps.

A1- Bent over rows- 4 sets of 8 reps
Rest 60 seconds
A2- Flat bench press (or dumbbells)- 4 sets of 8 reps
Rest 60 seconds

B1- 1-arm dumbbell row- 4 sets of 10 reps
Rest 30 secs between each arm and then 30 secs before beginning B2.
B2- Incline dumbbell press- 3 sets of 10 reps

C1- pulldowns- 4 sets of 15 reps
Rest 30 seconds
C2- cable crossovers- 3 sets of 15 reps
Rest 30 seconds

D- Flat skull crushers with EZ bar- 3 sets of 8 reps
Rest 60 seconds between each straight set.

E- Rope pushdowns- 3 sets of 15 reps
Rest 30 seconds between each set.

Day 2- Lower body- Quads, hamstrings and calves.

A1- barbell squats- 4 sets of 8 reps
Rest 60 seconds
A2- Seated leg curls- 4 sets of 8 reps
Rest 60 seconds

B1- Leg press- 3 sets of 15 reps
Rest 60 seconds
B2- Good mornings- 3 sets of 8 reps
Rest 60 seconds

C1- smith machine lunges- 3 sets of 20 reps each leg
Rest 45 seconds between each leg, then 60 seconds before beginning C2.
C2- hyper-extensions- 3 sets of 20 reps with body weight.

D- Toe press- 6 sets of 10-20 reps.
Rest 45 secs between each straight set.

Day 3- Upper body- Delts, biceps, abs.

A1- Seated dumbbell press- 4 sets of 8 reps
Rest 60 secs
A2- Standing hammer curls- 4 sets of 8 reps
Rest 60 secs.

B1- 1-arm side dumbbell raises- 4 sets of 15 reps
No rest between each arm, then 30 secs rest before B2.
B2- Standing barbell curls- back against a wall- 4 sets of 15 reps
Rest 30 secs.

C- Bent over rear delt raises- 3 sets of 10 reps
Rest 45 secs between each straight set.

Day 4- rest.

Day 5- Begin cycle again.

The PhD radical fat-loss diet.

There are so many experts around the world, touting so many differing ways to lose body fat and it drives me mad. Losing body weight is a simple task, eat less calories than it takes to maintain your body weight. The mainstream diets drive me mad. Ok they’ll work for the regular person, but athletes are far more complex, body builders even more so. We have it hard. Not only do we have to lose weight, we have to do it whilst minimising muscle loss, that’s the hard part.

The strength and mass gaining diet was written with a mid-afternoon training schedule, so for the sake of consistency, I’ll do the same here.