Drying and muscle definition

For bodybuilding competitors, the weight loss is a consequence of the progressive improvement of their muscular definition. As you know, bodybuilding is based on the maximum development of the muscle mass , sometimes to the benefit of body fat. Indeed, increasing calorie, carbohydrate, and protein intake to support energy release and lean muscle tissue growth is often considered an essential step in gaining mass. This period of high-calorie eating before the cutting phase is often necessary for strength athletes. Then, the “cutting” period will lead to achieving the highest possible muscle definition.

Stimulating muscle growth necessarily involves gaining strength and calories

Naturally, before you consider building muscle, you need to gain enough of it. In other words, building muscle mass will necessarily require higher calorie intake to stimulate muscle growth. drying phase will occur afterward, but muscle loss is generally inevitable. No matter what you do, your body will draw calories from your muscles and protein if it needs to maintain energy balance. With the right diet and workouts, however, this kind of discomfort can be significantly reduced. Total calories, carbohydrates , Proteins and fatty acids are all important in this phase of seeking muscle definition.

While most beginner bodybuilding competitors often make this mistake, muscle loss before a competition can nevertheless be avoided as long as carbohydrate intake is maintained and then gradually reduced. Indeed, the main fault of beginners preparing for a bodybuilding competition will always be wanting to go too fast. And the more weight loss The faster the weight loss, the greater the muscle loss. If you force your body to lose weight quickly, the survival instinct will quickly take over by activating all possible possibilities for using energy substrates, your muscles first.

• When the amount of calories ingested is reduced, our body will automatically try to reduce energy expenditure in order to regain balance. The result: you burn less energy because you eat less. Your body will oppose these changes in calorie intake and eating circumstances.
• There weight loss will therefore be less rapid than what you had planned!
• Your basal metabolic rate (daily energy excluding exercise) will also decrease with weight loss.
• Thermogenesis will also decrease because you are eating less
• Energy loss from exercise will be reduced because you will have lost weight (unless you increase the intensity of the training)

Furthermore, the delicate balance between the three macronutrients, depending on your personal metabolism, will always be at the heart of the problem. The better you understand your nutritional needs, the more you can avoid losing muscle mass.

Knowing your metabolism allows you to successfully dry out while losing significantly less muscle.

For these obvious reasons, cutting and gaining muscle definition, while maintaining muscle mass and apparent muscle density, is an operation that must be prepared several months in advance. Logically, if you know how to increase your calories to stimulate strength and muscle gain, you also know the point at which your caloric intake allows you to maintain your muscle mass, without losing weight but without gaining any either. This maintenance value will be your benchmark during the dry . This also implies that you know perfectly what your daily intake of calories, carbohydrates, proteins and fats is. The first criterion to take into account will necessarily be based on the daily quantity of calorie intake, before taking into account the balance of macronutrients. However, it is obvious that you will not be able to get to know each other And master Your metabolism can only be improved with years of experience. You won't avoid diet mistakes, but they will serve you well by helping you gain insight into your own body. In any case, you'll avoid precipitating a drop in calories in order to preserve lean muscle mass from a loss that can't be recovered.

Knowing how to adapt your diet according to your metabolism is essential to obtain better muscle definition

Then, each case is particular and will depend on individual values ​​that we cannot consider here, such as your metabolism, your ability to lose fat more or less quickly, depending on your training. These criteria will be considered with your coach. He will supervise the weight reduction period with you. However, certain rules must be respected. The first of these concerns your carbohydrate intake, which cannot fall below a certain threshold, to be determined according to your body weight and your metabolism . Next, don't neglect protein intake because it is essential for maintaining muscle. This may seem like an obvious thing to say, but most competitors make this mistake, even the most experienced. Finally, fat intake must also be taken into consideration in a relative way because fats allow the synthesis of androgen hormones while representing a dense source of reserve calories. This way, you are aware of most of the elements that will allow you to lose weight and fat now lean muscle.

To summarize, the criteria for drying and muscle definition are:

• Precise knowledge of the quantity of calories needed to maintain body weight, without gaining or losing weight

• A good understanding of your personal calorie burning capacity and adapting your training according to the cutting phase. You should be able to assess your energy expenditure (exercise and basal metabolism)

• A carbohydrate maintenance at a level that prevents you from burning protein instead of glycogen

• A maintenance or an increase in protein intake For maintain lean muscle during the dry season

• A minimal intake of quality fats high nutritional value to maintain a cholesterol level allowing optimal synthesis of androgen hormones

Finally, in terms of diet and the quality of nutritional intake, you can always support the gradual reduction in calories by maintaining protein, or gradually reduce carbohydrates to increase protein intake. This is naturally a difficult exercise since caloric intake must remain deficient during the cut. However, the balance between the three macronutrients can be modified in order to lose your calories stored in the form of fat and improve your muscle definition while maintaining lean muscle. To achieve this result, you will need to start by knowing your metabolism perfectly and aim for very gradual weight and fat loss. Get help from a coach by working very closely with them.

Based on these few facts, you'll be able to achieve excellent muscle definition before your competition. However, you may not achieve the best cutting results from your first competition. In this case, repeating your cutting phases and modifying your protocol will allow you to achieve increasingly convincing results over time.