By: Tracy Doll

I will talk about my last 6 weeks of dieting and the nutritional program I followed. I switched over to KETO or CKD (Cyclic Ketogenic Diet), it is a diet consisting mainly of proteins and fats and very little to none carbohydrates. There are a lot of recipes and products that have been created for Atkins Diet, which is basically the same kind of program. I purchase their non-carbohydrate products like Pancake Flower and maybe even sneak in a protein bar after my workout if I really feel the need.

Protein/Fat Diet

Remember it is better to have a no-carbohydrate protein bar to curb your cravings then to go out and cheat at a fast food restaurant. I follow this protein-fat diet for six days (Sunday through Friday) and on the 7th day of the week I have protein and carbohydrates and limit my fat intake. By following this kind of program it allows me a lot of freedom on the 7th day and almost all low fat carbohydrate sources are good.

I will also do a quick 1-hour Decarb workout. It is a workout completed in hopes to further reduce the amount of glucose in the body and allow for the carbohydrate super-compensation to take place. I will follow this kind of diet all the way to the show now, maybe making slight caloric adjustments if I fell I need to.

As I stated in last article this only works because off the 6-day carb depletion phase and all of the carb ingested in such a short time are absorbed by the body very efficiently and deposited as glycogen in the liver and muscle cells. I feel this a very effective way of loosing body fat for me, as it allows me one day to curb my cravings. When you get this close to the show time, it is very hard to stay on track and motivated.

As the body fat levels get lower and lower your body's survival mechanism kicks in and the hunger increases dramatically.

Having one day a weeks to refocus and indulge a little bit into food that taste great is all I need to stay on truck the rest of the time. I do not regain any fat on my carb day; even known I am eating about 1000 calories above my maintenance caloric level.

By: Andreas Lillebo

Typically with weight training alone, fat loss is similar to muscle gain, give or take a few pounds. Another great thing that adding muscle mass by strength training will do for you in terms of fat loss is change your total body composition. Most people think that this is hard, but I'll let you in on a secret. It is acquired through hard work, knowledge, and dedication.

So little wonder that fat loss is on our minds. It is essential in any weight loss and fitness program, and is best brought about with a sensible diet combined with a rigorous exercise program and intelligent supplementation.

For over-all health and rapid fat loss, your nutritional strategy must include high fibre foods. This help and keeps things moving. Now that's good stuff. There will be periods where you will experience more rapid progress as you continue building muscle mass.

But, like I said, if your goal is fast fat loss, give it a miss for a couple of weeks. Are you wondering if this is actually possible? Water is a great natural appetite suppressant and when combined with bulk forming fibres the two works wonders for you. Sensible weight loss will always give result in the long term for your training.

Should Women Train Like Men?

by Elzi Volk

The answer to that question is yes and no. This column will explain the reasons why.

For generations women have been perceived as being the weaker sex. But it is simply not true. Strength and speed are not a monopoly of the male gender. Women and men have the same capability to develop strength and speed. Relative to fat-free body mass, women have nearly the same strength as men. If one were to take the same muscle unit from a woman and a man and put it in an identical artificial environment with the same growth media and the same stimulation, the muscles would grow at the same rate. However, in the body the hormonal and metabolic environment varies between men and women. Women have smaller muscle fibers and ordinarily have less overall muscle mass. Nevertheless, women are gaining in rate of competitive performance on a par with men in both speed and strength.

There really are no specific gender-oriented strength training programs. Generally, what works for men also works for women. As mentioned previously, women have a similar biological ability to develop strength as men do, but will not acquire the same muscle mass due to hormonal differences. Nevertheless, women will derive the same benefits from most exercises that men do.

However, gender differences exist in the response to strength training and there are several biomechanical issues to consider for many movements. We will examine the hormonal and physiological responses of women to strength training and also biomechanical issues and how they relate to training programs.

Hormones and the Body

The sex hormones largely contribute to the various gender differences in most physiological responses to training. Although both genders produce both testosterone and estrogen hormones, the relative ratios are significantly different. Men normally produce higher levels (approximately 10 times that of women) of testosterone and lower levels of estrogen. Women produce the opposite. Most of the professional female bodybuilders that grace the pages of muscle magazines, gain their extreme muscle mass with the aid of supplemental anabolic/androgenic steroids. Federally classified as Schedule II drugs, their usage carries legal ramifications as well as potential physiological side effects.

By: David Robson

As popularized by no less than six-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates and bodybuilding legend Mike Mentzer, HIT (High Intensity Training) - formerly a controversial method of training requiring ultra-short duration workout sessions - has become a muscle building system in its own right that is now impossible to ignore.

Despite the undeniable fact that HIT, both from a theoretical perspective and as it is practically applied, is both logical in its methodology and works wonders for muscle growth while cutting workout time by up to 60 percent, many people look upon it with scepticism entrenched through many years' conventional style training requiring upwards of five sets per exercise and four to five exercises per body part.

Since HIT is a proven system of training that is easy to implement and timesaving, why might it then be difficult for people to break from the conventional training mindset that preaches volume and massive amounts of backbreaking work over the HIT mentality of short, sharp sessions encompassing a handful of high intensity sets? There are several factors not the least being misinformation and training attitude.

Since the bodybuilders we see in the popular magazines proudly portray massive muscles while grinding out multiple sets of a staggering array of different exercises (as explained in the training programs that accompany the articles), the logical conclusion most draw is that to gain the kind of size and shape demonstrated in the glossies one must similarly train under a volume methodology. These people don't factor in drugs and genetics.

The champions, you see, possess enviable genetic predispositions for gaining extreme size while taking all manner of bodybuilding performance enhancing drugs to fully exploit said genetic ability.

For most of us, training with average genetics while remaining drug-free might cause the application of the comparatively excessive training sessions featured in the magazines to constitute muscle-building overkill. Better to train less often and more intensely one would think.

Bodybuilders - both recreational and competitive - also tend to possess a mindset geared towards volume. After all, to achieve anything worthwhile in life we are to work long hours and apply ourselves for the long haul, right?

Stretching & Muscle

A recent article that said stretching can decrease power and another that said it can increase it. Which is right? One study suggests that if you stretch right before an all-out attempt on an exercise, you increase the length of the tendon and muscle, and the elongation can cause a delay in contraction reaction time (The American Journal of Sports Medicine 18(3):300-309. 1990.) In other words, immediately after you stretch, the muscle and its support structures are in a loose state that's not conducive to contraction and you can get a decrease in strength. Doing light specific warmup sets on your first exercise after you stretch, however, should retighten the target muscles and support structures through contraction, to prevent a decrease in performance.

So that means you shouldn't stretch between your warmup sets and your work sets and you definitely shouldn't stretch between your work sets, right? Wrong, according to earlier Soviet research.

A Soviet study done in 1977 found strength increases of up to 9.4 percent in weightlifters who stretched between work sets, according to Pavel Tsatsoullne, Soviet Master of Sport (John Parrillo's Performance Press, November 1998.). The technique is called Loaded Passive Stretching, and it's done with a relatively light weight-30 to 50 percent of your 1RM-holding the stretch for five to 20 seconds. Tsatsouline says that you shouldn't flex or relax the stretched muscles, as it's a passive stretch, He recommends two stretches for each bodybuilding set, one a minute before and the other immediately after-and the stretch after is the most important because "it could make a 50 percent difference in muscle size gains."

by Lee Labrada

One of the topics that invariably arises in each of my seminars is cycling. People are constantly asking how they can employ this training technique. Cycling can be as simple as dividing your training year into phases such as mass-building, refinement and pre-contest craning. Or it can be the planned variation of workout intensity exercises, sets and reps on a week-to-week basis. You must also allow time for recovery which is just as important as the other elements of bodybuilding.

The process all begins with setting a goal. The subject of setting goals get a lot of flip service these days from the self-help people. Why?

1. If it helps you get a clear picture of what it is that you want to obtain through your training regimen.
2. It sets a time frame within which to do it

This keeps you motivated. Some people are afraid to set a goal for fear of failing to reach it. Just remember that goals are not written in stone. They are there to guide you, much like the beacon in a lighthouse. Along the way you may have to make adjustments in your goals, but that's okay. The key is to have them.

THE MR. O

At this stage of my career, my goal is win the Mr. Olympia. Starting 10-12 months before the show, I'll enter my mass cycle. During this phase, I'll concentrate on putting on muscle where I feel I need it. I'll take stock of my physique, writing down things I need to improve. I'll let my bodyweight go 10 pounds over my contest weight as I find this helpful in handling heavier poundages while staying injury free. This is not to be confused with bulking up, which should be called "porking up" for all the good it does you. Don't let your body weight go up more than 10% over your best contest condition, since you'll pay the price when it comes time to diet for a show.

by Chris Dickerson

It's difficult to elaborate on my bodybuilding philosophy. Bodybuilding has become such an integral part of my life that it's almost impossible for me to identify where the bodybuilding stops and the rest of my life starts.

I think it's important initially to understand that bodybuilding is my life, and it has been my life since I became serious about the sport 15 years ago. To be a truly great champion in any sport -- and particularly in one as all-consuming as bodybuilding -- you must be so dedicated that the sport becomes completely woven into the warp and woof of your life.

What I can do in this article is give you my views on five factors crucial to any man's (or woman's) success in bodybuilding. These factors are training, nutrition, rest and recuperation, mental attitude and skin preparation. Let's look at each of these individually.

by Gino Edwards

Few bodybuilders will disagree that the chest is just about the easiest part of the body to develop. It is!

It is also one of the most impressive areas once you have built your pectorals. "Gee look at the guy's chest!" is a not uncommon remark when the uninitiated first set eyes on a bodybuilder.

The chest is also the most pleasurable area to exercise, mainly because most chest exercises are done in the supine position. Lying on a bench on your back. Who could ask for anything more comfortable?

Recently the bench press has come in for a lot of criticism. Some say it's not a very good chest builder, while others say that it is definitely the number-one chest exercise. One thing is for sure; the great Arnold Schwarzenegger practiced the bench press an awful lot, and he believed it contributed to ninety percent of his chest development. Another man, Serge Nubret of Paris, France, a Mr. Universe winner known to have one of the most perfect chest developments of all time, practices the bench press exclusively. He just does not get much from the other chest exercises, and accordingly they are eliminated from his exercise routine.

Ten Rules for Bodybuilding Success
by Mike Armstrong

TRAIN REGULARLY

Every workout you miss will set your progress back almost a week. It takes that long for to recoup the losses you experienced form the missed workout and then get back to gaining again. And every workout you miss isn't missed to someone who will best you in a contest this year or next, or the year after that.

Absolutely every champion bodybuilder has gone long periods of time without missing a workout. It is fact that the great champion Robby Robinson has not missed a workout since he moved to California in 1975. That's nearly four years of steady training, and he had the muscles to prove it. While I never miss a workout, there are some times of the year in which train less intensely than just prior to a contest. After last year's Mr. Universe I coasted in my tainting for about six weeks, doing only what I felt like doing in the gym each workout day. This was a resting phase at a time when I had to recharge my mind to again push for the top. If you have injuries form pre-contest training, this is also a good time to heal them.

After a rest I begin to gradually build up my trailing intensity until I am at a frenzied pace with fairly heavy weights. But if I was to keep at this pace all year long, I would soon burn out and stop making gains. So, even though I do not miss workouts, I do cycle my training to allow periods of coasting and mental and physical rejuvenation.