3 Days Out
This week Nathan goes into day by day exact detail of his peak week protocol leading into the Arnold Classic Australia, what he is doing differently from the Melbourne Champs, and why he is doing it. Stay tuned for next weeks video to find out how Nathan shaped up.
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"So here we are, we're currently three days out from Arnold Classic Australia, feeling super flat, feeling super depleted, which is awesome, means I'm on the right track. After, at the moment we're training a bit of upper body, we're just going to do some shoulders, some backs some chest, just to get a bit of blood flowing through the muscle, nothing too crazy in the arms, I can make sure the inflammation is nice and low. After the short workout I'm going to explain to you guys my breakdown process, day-by-day process, what I'm eating leading in between now and the Arnold Classic Australia. In the meantime it's really important in my peak week I'm utilizing a few products, organic maca powder, organic acai berry powder and greens. Let's get it.
So we just finished doing a little bit of back, as the upper half, that was my last workout that I'd planned on doing. I ended up splitting the workout in two because I feel like my muscles are fatiguing a little bit too fast, and when you're training for a certain amount of time you get that feeling when you know you're going to be sore the next day. And the last thing I want is to be sore tomorrow, I don't want to create any inflammation. I thought I'll split my training up into two today, I'll go back and do another small session tonight. Did a bit of back just then, I'll go back tonight and do a bit of shoulders, I'll do a bit of of biceps, triceps.
Also, another reason why I did that is yesterday being my first day of my peak week protocol being Monday, I'm on stage on Saturday, which Arnold Classic starts on Friday, I'll be onstage on the Saturday, Monday was my first day of my peak week protocol. In the Melbourne Championships what I did was I did a couple days of depleting, this time I did the same thing, I decided I'd do the same thing. So Monday was my first day, my depletion. In my entire prep I haven't taken any days at all off whatsoever, so yesterday I was a bit tired, a bit lethargic, I got a massage done, muscles were a little bit achey. So I thought for the first time I'll take one day off, let my body regenerate, recuperate, it'll do me a world of good. It turned out it actually did the opposite.
When your body's at this level and your body's used to doing something on such a frequent basis on such a long period of time, when you make those small changes it makes a massive difference in your body. I ended up taking a day off training, on top of that I was depleting so I had zero carbohydrates in my body.
My body's been used to having one carb meal per day. I had that for five days prior to the Monday. I took my carbohydrate meal out for one, two I didn't train either, so I got really blocked up in my midsection. My colon just wasn't passing through. It was a really uncomfortable feeling all day, a tightness through my chest, I just couldn't go to the toilet. And I kind of put that down to when your body's so used to training two, three times a day, every single day, your body is used to using that training as your metabolic release, my body is also using the carbohydrates as my metabolic release. It turns out having that day off training really didn't do me any good whatsoever. It just blocked me up, made me feel really uncomfortable.
This morning I kept my carbohydrate meal out as planned from the Tuesday. Tuesday, today, is also a depletion day. I will be depleting the whole entire day today, no carbohydrates. I just made sure I put in a little bit of magnesium citrate. What magnesium citrate does is it opens up your colon a little bit, opens up your sphincter a little bit, so that everything kind of relaxes. It enables everything to pass through a little bit faster. That was a bit of a back-up plan. I utilized that in my peak week this time just so I don't get blocked up, as my last prep, in my last peak week in the Melbourne Championships I did find I got a little bit blocked up. That's one of the changes I'm making coming to Arnold Classic Australia. I'm going to make sure that the magnesium citrate really helps keep my colon moving through.
Today being Tuesday, I'm going to make sure that I deplete for the entire day, but I'm going to utilize those two training sessions, one being now, the back workout I just completed then, and one again tonight. I'll probably do it a bit later on just so that I can get that metabolic release.
Tomorrow will be Wednesday. Wednesday will be my first day of carbing up. For my first three meals I'll be having no carbohydrates whatsoever, and then as my fourth meal, fifth meal, sixth meal, seventh meal is when I'll start my carb up. Now my last prep into Melbourne Championships, I didn't start my carb up until Thursday morning. This time I'm starting it on the Wednesday night. I feel like this time I'm trying to get that little bit extra carbohydrates in, on top of that I've depleted for one whole day, one and a half whole days less than the Melbourne Championship. I think that those small little changes are going to make a massive difference coming into the Arnold Classic. I'm going to bring the exactly same condition, but I'm going to be a lot fuller and a lot harder on stage which is going to be fantastic.
Come Thursday, that will be my full day of carbohydrates as per usual. Now why I do a full day of carbohydrates, another change that I'm going to make with this full day of carbs, is again magnesium citrate, I'm going to be utilizing. Another thing that I'm going to be doing is I'm going to be putting green vegetables with every single carb meal. Just a small portion, maybe 50 or 60 grams. I feel that when I didn't have the vegies in with my last peak week with the Melbourne Championships, that may have been a factor to why I was a little bit blocked up. We worked it out and I wasn't blown up or anything on stage, but it was just an uncomfortable feeling, it may have increased cortisol levels a little bit, may have made me stressed out a little bit that I wouldn't have had to. I just want to eliminate all those issues so I make sure that coming into this show I'm fully relaxed, I'm fully happy and I'm ready 100% to take on the entire world.
That's what I want to do this time, so Thursday I'll have a carb meal every single, for eight or nine carb meals as opposed to seven for the last one, so that’s an extra two carb meals. I'm going to add in the green vegetables, 50 gram serving, raw green beans every single meal as well. And I'm going to make sure my protein is nice and low. You still need protein for a bit of fullness, but what's happening to make my body fill up is the carbohydrates. That's the change that I'm making the Thursday.
Friday for me - as I'm competing this time on a Saturday whereas Melbourne Championships I competed on a Sunday - the Friday will be another big carb day for me, which will be the day right before the Arnold Classic on the Saturday, the pre-judging show. I'm going to do the same thing I did on Thursday, pretty much exactly the same thing. All I'm going to do different is I'm going to cut my sodium Friday morning, opposed to cutting it Thursday night. With the Melbourne Championship Show I cut it 48 hours out, this time I'm going to cut it about 36 hours out which is a little bit shorter. That way the sodium through my body has a little bit longer, so as sodium and carbohydrates together work as a sponge, it's just going to help my muscles absorb the glycogen a little bit more effectively, so I can get even that little bit fuller.
Like I said, the Melbourne Show, my condition was going, I looked great, I was happy with how I looked, I just could have been a little bit fuller. We don't want to make massive changes, just very, very small changes. Drop my sodium 12 hours later, as opposed to dropping it 24 hours later. I think that should make that little bit of change.
Also on Friday, I'm going to do the same thing as last time. I am going to drop my water, I've decided. I was a little bit iffy on whether I'm not going to drop my water or keep it in, because I was very very dehydrated on the day and I could've been a little bit more hydrated, I found it very hard to hit my poses and contract my muscles because of my dehydration level. I will be cutting my water, but I'll be cutting it probably five hours later than when I cut it coming into the Melbourne Championships. Friday I'll be cutting my water at about 4:30pm, whereas the Melbourne Championships I think I cut it at about 11am the day prior. That's a few extra hours of water that I'll be getting in to my body.
Friday night, what I'm also going to do, is I felt what worked for me really well at the Melbourne Championships. I only did it for one meal because I wasn't 100% certain, it was kind of a test, which actually worked out to be really, really good. I'm going to be using, my last three or four carb meals are all going to be dry oats. Now, dry oats are fantastic, they worked really good for me, they suck my body right in. Those little last bits of water that I had in my body the oats just absorbed up overnight. And I woke up the next morning feeling really, really creased.
So if we can utilize these few little changes in my prep, making sure I'm going to the toilet, making sure cortisol is even lower, making sure that I put in that little bit more carbohydrates, making sure that the water is in a tiny bit longer, I don't take up the sodium quite so early, these little tiny changes should make that massive difference on stage, is what we're hoping to be. I might even be two or three kilos heavier. And that's going to be the end goal.
Saturday morning we'll wake up, and the first meal of the day for me, I try and time about five, six hours out from when I'm jumping on stage. A massive show, the Arnold Classic, there's thousands of competitors. It's really, really hard to time it exactly, because you never know, one class might be bigger than the other class. I don't know how many people are going to be in each class. I've got to really time that the best I possibly can. I'm going to have a nice big steak with some eggs, some runny eggs, cooked sunny side up, fried. The eggs have a little bit of sodium in it as well, that's going to put the sodium back in my body since I've cut it 36 hours out prior to the show. It's just going to put that little bit of sodium back in, so on the day when I put those dry carbs in like rice cakes and honey, those eggs absorb with the muscle. Even better, because of that tiny, tiny bit of sodium I'm putting into my body from the eggs.
I'm going to make sure I focus those last six hours, so leading into the show's all about me. I'm going to be lying on the floor, my legs are going to be elevated so that the fluid can be draining out of my legs, no fluid whatsoever going into my legs so I get that nice, crisp look on stage. I'm going to have my headphones in with some nice, calming music. I'm just going to be relaxing as much as I possibly can. Cortisol super low, I'm going to make sure my tan is on, 100% ready to go on my top coat at least an hour before stage.
Melbourne Championships I was super rushed, I had to put my sodium in, do my tan, do my pump-up all in the space of about five or ten minutes. Which is what made me stress out that little bit. This time that's not going to happen. My tan's going to be on an hour before stage, absolute minimum. My sodium, I use dry sources of sodium, I use Doritos as my sodium source, usually that will go in around about 45 minutes before stage. This time - I felt like I put it in about half hour last time, but I felt like I was a bit bloated - so I'm going to put it in about an hour this time, just to make sure that I don't have any bloat whatsoever, no feeling of bloat.
Right before stage I'm going to use a really, really fast-acting carbohydrate with some beetroot extract and some arginine, from Bulk Powders. What that does is really dilates my blood vessels. All those carbohydrates drop straight into molecular glycogen so I can get that nice popping look right before I go on stage. As I'm driving that in, I mix it into a paste, no water, and I drip feed that in about 30 minutes before I go on stage, an hour or 30 minutes before you go on stage.
Then you start pumping up. Slowly start pumping up is to drive those carbohydrates into your muscle bellies, and then jump on stage relaxed and ready to rock it. Saturday's going to be the pre-judging so I'm really really excited about that, I'm going to give that everything I can, because the top six from that show make it through to the finals.
Sunday's the finals, this is where it all happens. There is no real system to this day, as my body's dried out 100%, I've peaked as hard as I can for the pre-judging show, and I need to peak for that because only the top six do make it through. That night, usually what I do each year is I'll have some rice cakes if I need, I do a lot of red meat actually that night. I feel like the red meat works for me. When I have red meat my muscles pop. I digest red meat really, really well. I'll be having red meat that night. Also red meat works by expanding your glycogen cells, so if you want to put in that little bit of extra carbohydrate, or glycogen, the red meat works by expanding that cell slightly, so your muscle can hold a little bit more. It's a very, very fine line between having too many carbohydrates, spilling over and getting fluffy, and not having enough carbohydrates and walking on stage flat.
You really want to listen to your body, write everything down, and every single show you do, if you feel that you could have done something to be a little bit better, make those changes for the next show. But make sure you jot that down on paper, because I guarantee a year later you're going to forget it.
If I was to win out of my top six in my class, the heavyweight class, then I go through to the next round which is the pro qualifier. Which is what I'm hoping to go through to. Basically what happens is you jump off stage after the top six. We come back on, they award first place, second place, third place, and medallions to the rest of the guys. We walk off stage and then the rest of the classes get done. First place of every single weight class go all on stage together, and they show down. They do quarter turns, compulsory poses, they do absolutely everything. The judges push them really hard for that event. And then the person who comes first gets awarded their pro card on stage from Arnold Schwarzenegger himself, which, man, that would be an absolute dream come true.
I put my whole entire life on hold for this the last 15, 16 weeks, it's been a really emotional time for me, and I'm going to do everything I can to do this. If I get it, I get it, if I don't, I don't, no hard feelings. Every single show I've ever done in my life apart from last weekend I've come second. This will be my sixth show, I've done open heavy weight bodybuilding class in every single division. This year I've really planned this prep out, right from my last show. Arnold Classic 2015, I finished that stage 6am, I was in the gym the next morning doing my cardio, and my prep for the Arnold Classic 2016 this year started straight away. It's been a massive year, my body's changed dramatically, my condition has changed dramatically, and I'm super super excited to do this. Win or lose, I've won in my eyes, because I'm super super happy.
In the next video, post-Arnold Classic, we're going to go over how I placed, we're going to go over what I've done, we're going to go over what I could have done to be better. We're going to go over if everything was perfect, I'm going to tell you exactly why I was perfect. I'm super excited for that. Also I'm going to go over with you guys my post-comp re-feed days. When I come back, expect my head to be three times the size. I do this every single year, whether it be good or bad, I diet my arse off for like 15 weeks as hard as I possibly can, and then I utilize those couple of days of eating and eating and eating. And I do put quite a lot of weight on. It's a lot of good fun, but within two or three weeks past those few days of eating I do pull it back quite fast. See you guys then.
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Song: Biometrix - Fire
To continue to follow Nath's journey, like the faceboook page, follow our instagram, and subscribe to our youtube channel, that way you won't miss a thing!
