As
I had mentioned on one of my previous video blogs, I was going to talk about
how sometimes you have to trick your body in order for it to respond well.
About 5 weeks ago, I began my contest preparation and everything was going
great up until week 4. For some reason I felt that my body was not responding
well to the cardio. During my training, I was looking and feeling more depleted
and tired I began to wonder why.
I
decided to take a moment and think about it from ‘outside the box’. To be
honest, I hadn’t really stopped cardio, even from the off season, I would train
3 times a week, 30mins in the winter and as the summer was approaching, I would
increase it to 5 times a week- I live in Cyprus so yes I wanted to look good
for the beach.
I slowly starting to come to the
conclusion that the constant cardio had caught up with me and as a result, the
training was refusing to show any signs of change; in terms of both burning
more fat and decreasing body fat. Like it or not, our bodies are not made to be
ultra lean with very little body fat. Our bodies are built to store fat this
concept can be traced back to the Stone Age era where we had to hunt for food.
Back in the day we did not know if we would have food from one day to the next,
therefore our bodies needed to store that fat to survive. A bit similar to how
camels store water in their humps.
Yet
fast forward to today, we are now living in a time where we no longer need to
stock up on our food intake. Instead, our main preoccupation is looking lean
and fit by burning away any excess fat. However our bodies to a certain degree
are still programmed to function the same way they functioned during the
hunting/gathering era. Therefore if we are constantly exercising, at some point
our bodies will react by not burning as much fat as one would desire. So what
do you do when you reach this plateau?
The answer is quite simple, do the
opposite from what you were doing; if you were doing cardio 6x a week, decrease
it to 3. If you were training heavy and with a slowish tempo, train fast with a
fast tempo and even add a cheat meal to shock the body on the weekend. Do this practice
for about 1-2 weeks and then jump back to your normal routine. I tried this
tactic out myself and I must say, results can be definitely seen. I generally
felt more relaxed and rested, both physically and psychologically.
At
the end of the day, what is important is to always listen to your body and
think outside the box. Both body and brain are highly advanced mechanisms, yet
every now and again there needs to be a change-a shock-a stimulation in order
for both to maintain their effective functionality.
Love
peace and big muscles.
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