Competition Conditioning

Hello there CT.
I am looking to compete in an amateur bodybuilding competition one day. I find gaining muscle reasonably easy and can maintain a reasonable body fat (11-13%) but can never get it below 11%, irregardless of how hard i try.

I was wondering what combination of diet, weights and cardio (if you use cardio) you recommend to get your bodybuilders to competition-ready body fat percentage?

Different techniques I have identified and a few I have trialled to limited success:

Diet: Keto/carb cycle. Also, eat big and clean or small and clean?
Weights: Lifting heavy low rep to maintain mass / lifting moderate weights and reps for more caloric burning
Cardio: None / HIIT / steady state / mixed?

I usually use a Poliquin keto diet and have tried adding in HIIT (2x 30min sessions w/ BCAA’s). The scales went down but the BF was the same

Any advice would be appreciated

(( 6"4 240 pounds 12%))

Hey dude,

What does your current intake look like in terms of amounts of fats and protein percentages?

GJ

[quote]Intermezzo wrote:
Hello there CT.
I am looking to compete in an amateur bodybuilding competition one day. I find gaining muscle reasonably easy and can maintain a reasonable body fat (11-13%) but can never get it below 11%, irregardless of how hard i try.

I was wondering what combination of diet, weights and cardio (if you use cardio) you recommend to get your bodybuilders to competition-ready body fat percentage?

Different techniques I have identified and a few I have trialled to limited success:

Diet: Keto/carb cycle. Also, eat big and clean or small and clean?
Weights: Lifting heavy low rep to maintain mass / lifting moderate weights and reps for more caloric burning
Cardio: None / HIIT / steady state / mixed?

I usually use a Poliquin keto diet and have tried adding in HIIT (2x 30min sessions w/ BCAA’s). The scales went down but the BF was the same

Any advice would be appreciated

(( 6"4 240 pounds 12%))
[/quote]

You are kidding right? I’ve never used the exact same diet and energy system strategy with two competitive bodybuilders. I had bodybuilders train twice a day or 3 times a week; do low intensity cardio, intervals or none at all; I’ve had some diet on less than 50g of carbs and others at 400g. I do not have one approach… the strategy used will depend on the individual.

Right. My apologies

Intermezzo, with all due respect I’m going to guess your problem is lies somewhere in your diet/nutrition plan. It should not be too difficult to get below 11%, unless you don’t have a good grasp on your daily macro intake. Not that training methods are not important, but the best training program coupled with a poorly designed diet will kill progress from my experience.