Bodybuilding - the natural way by Wilfried Dubbels.

How to become muscular and athletic and stay in shape your whole life without steroids.

When you are a beginner, it’s fairly easy to build up muscle size without increasing your percentage of body fat. You just have to maintain or slightly increase your calorie intake that you had before, making sure that your body gets enough protein and vitamins from your food. Your workouts will burn calories and your body also burns them at a slower rate when you rest. Your metabolism now works on a higher level than before.

When you are a hard gainer you will maintain your bodyweight or even lose bodyweight, but gain muscle mass! When your metabolism is slow by nature, you will still gain weight, but the body composition will change. Same as the body composition of a hard gainer. People with a slow metabolism gain muscle and lose fat too.

However the more advanced you are, the harder it is to gain muscle and to lose fat or just to retain muscle definition. It’s nearly impossible under normal circumstances to gain muscle when losing fat. The best way to improve as an advanced natural bodybuilder is to be in good shape all year round. Without a radical diet it’s easier to increase muscle mass, while retaining definition. Also you cannot increase the number of sets and reps steadily to burn more and more calories. Your body will respond to this with high cortisol levels, and overtraining with its negative effects is the result. You will lose muscle mass.

To solve this problems, you must trick your muscles and fool your metabolism. When your body gets used to the usual workout it does not get the stimulation to grow, and when your metabolism gets used to your extreme diet, the body will respond to this by changing from a fast to a slow basic metabolism! 

The best way to fool your muscles is to change the sequence of exercises or to change the training system. Switch from a pyramid system to reduced sets, or from very strict form to cheating style, from short rest to long rest with extremely heavy weights and so on. In this way you can stimulate your muscles to faster growth by a limited number of sets and reps, without overtraining. Keep in mind, that basic exercises with heavy weights not only burn more calories than isolation movements, but also release more free endogenous testosterone. This is important to natural bodybuilders.
High volume pumping movements are primarily just for steroid users. If you want to speed up your metabolism, do aerobic exercises on the “off days”. Preferably using a treadmill.

Also not eating junk food all year is a good idea. Cut sugars and reduce fats and alcohol with the exception of one glass of red wine a day, if you so desire. Red wine contains bioflavonoids and other antioxidants. Resveratrol, the most important ingredient, is good for your health.
  
Preparing for a contest is another story. You have to fool your metabolism again to make further progress. With dieting in small cycles your basic metabolism works on a high level. To get all nutrients your body needs, it’s not good to follow a strict zero carb or zero fat diet over a long period. Your body will respond to this by lowering the basic metabolism and storing more fat and water, as soon as you return to your original eating habits. But the worst thing of all: by using a zero carbs or low fat diet you will lose mostly muscle mass and not lose fat mass.

That’s why you should reduce one nutrient for at least three days only. The body needs 3-5 days to recognize, that it has been fooled and then will switch the metabolism from fast to slow. To avoid this, take large amounts of carbs on the fourth day, when you are on a low carb diet for example. Repeat this cycle until you have reached your goal. I don’t strictly count the calories, but when I feel weak, I just put in more days for loading up with carbs. In this way the metabolism stays fast and you will not lose muscles, as insulin, which will be released on the fourth day, and the other “loading up days” if necessary. Insulin is a powerful anabolic hormone.                                      

The fats, which your body ingests all the time, act as endogenous testosterone precursors. The same applies to low fat diets, but in reverse order when referring to the nutrients. Never consume large amounts of carbs and large amounts of fats in any one meal or on any diet! This leads to long lasting insulin peaks. Insulin is not a powerful anabolic hormone only, but stores carbs as glycogen too, which is good. But the bad news is that too much insulin stores fat as well!
 
And this is not the whole story. Too much insulin in the evening inhibits the release of growth hormone and its fragment insulin like growth factor I. Growth hormone and IGF I are, besides testosterone, the most important anabolic hormones at night. They burn your body fat and regenerate your muscles when you are sleeping , whereas insulin and testosterone are the dominant endogenous anabolic hormones in the morning and during the day. So, don’t eat carbohydrates in the evening. Steak and eggs with salad are OK. No sweets and soft drinks are allowed, but make sure that you always get enough protein.

The more advanced you are, the harder it is to put more muscle on your frame without any chemical support. That’s why I recommend you try some supplements as soon as you reach a plateau. Your basic supplement should be a high quality protein powder. Whey protein isolate taken with maltodextrin 30 minutes before a workout, or right after finishing your workout, supplies your muscle tissue very quickly with new building blocks (amino acids) to repair the muscles. 
Milk protein with casein taken in between your regular meals, or as meal replacement, prevents protein catabolism.

Omega-3-fatty acids not only speeds up the burning of body fat like conjugated linoleic acid does, but also prevents protein loss by sealing the muscle cell membranes.

Phosphatidyl Serine has been shown to reduce the amount of cortisol produced by the body during diets and overtraining syndrome. In addition PS is an important brain nutrient and as a phospholipid keeps the membranes of the muscle cells and brain cells functioning correctly.

Glutamine prevents protein wasting and enhances the health of your immune system. Besides this, glutamine helps the body to secrete endogenous growth hormone, which triggers the release of insulin like growth factor I (IGF-I). Creatine and arginine also do the same thing.

Creatine is the key substance that helps accelerate the ATP refuelling of the muscle. Muscle contraction is driven by energy in the cells supplied by Adenosintriphosphate (ATP). How much ATP is produced depends upon the amount of Creatine phosphate stored in the cell.

Arginine has an influence on the rate of exercise recovery through the production of nitric oxide. Nitric oxide helps to open blood vessels. So muscle cells receive more oxygen, glucose and amino acids.

Please keep in mind, that you don’t have to take supplements all the time to improve. Follow the basic rules, good regular meals, avoid junk food and try to eat properly at all times. 

Article Copyright Wilfried Dubbels 2010


All photos by Wayne Gallasch, copyright Wayne & GMV Productions