Peak Week!

We are well into peak week now with just 3 days until show time! So, what are we eating now? What changes have we made? Are we carb depleting? Are we water loading? Are we cutting water? Are we sodium loading? Are we cutting sodium? Are we manipulating potassium? Are we boring you yet? Thought so. Peak week has so much broscience surrounding it, it's almost comical. Here's our theory, quite straight forward and easy to comprehend.

If it aint broke, don't fix it.

Simple as that. We've both followed your typical dieting protocols i.e; Steadily dropping carbs, implementing cardio, gradually increasing time spent doing cardio also sessions completed, had carb refeeds every 5-7 days when intake dropped below approx 120g per day, or simply when we needed a miracle (In this case, yes...carbohydrates) to survive a grueling legs session at the gym. We've taken each day at a time to carefully assess carb intake. Only when you go below 100g do you find out what kind of person you really are. James took ONE bite of his Moms garlic bread last week, blacked out, turned into the Hulk and woke up covered in crumbs; true story. The sensitivity from the gradual depletion is no joke! Our plan from here on is to moderately carb load on Friday & Saturday so that by Sunday our muscles will have a more full/harder appearance whilst on stage. On the day of the competition our diet will be as follows (If we're on stage at 5pm like we've been informed from a reliable source):

6am - 100g Oats
9am - Steak & 3 fried eggs
11am - 100g Sweet Potato
1pm -100g Oats
3pm - FlapJacks
4.30pm - Dark chocolate

Complex carbs spread throughout the day, then simple carbs towards stage time! Water will remain what it has been for the past months, 6 litres per day. Nothing is being randomly put in or taken out, we've achieved the condition we're in by what we've done up to this point, so why do something else? According to many Pro's, a perfect peak week can only make you look approx 5% better than you did leading up to it anyway. We both agree that competing at 95% is far better than trying to achieve 100% during peak week, messing it up and stepping on stage at anything below. Until next time, bathe in nutella, dip your fries in your strawberry milkshakes...and stay shredded.

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Road to the UKBFF!!

Greetings fellow Fit fam, long time! Apologies from Fortai Fitness, we hope you haven't dropped off from your fitness goals and targets! Even though we haven't posted for a while, that doesn't mean we decided to scrap fitness, watch 24 from the very beginning again whilst occasionally racing to see who can eat the most Krispy Kremes in 60 seconds. As much as we hate to admit that such activities are relatively appealing, they don't particularly coincide with our number one goal... To be in the most sickening condition we can when we as training partners go head to head on stage at the UKBFF Men's Physique qualifier at the MuscleTalk show in Bedford on June 29th!!

"Caloric breakdown, 1g Carbohydrates: 4 calories, 1g Protein: 4 calories, 1g Fat: 9 calories" (Clark, 2013)

We both began our 12 week diet back on April 1st. Macro nutrients were as follows: 300g Carbs, 200g Protein, 60g Fat, 2540kcals in total. Over the course of the past 11 weeks we've steadily dropped 20g Carbs per week and increased Protein by 20g every 2 weeks, whilst leaving Fats the same. It's important we mention that this is only our second year competing seriously and so it was still impossible for us to know exactly what our diet plan should have looked like from the very beginning this time round and so had to go from the knowledge we gained from last year and literally take one day at a time, be patient and not do anything drastic.

It's all a numbers game. 300g Carbs, 200g Protein, 60g Fat = 2540kcals during week 1 of dieting meant that over the course of 12 weeks of minor changes, we would end up around; 60g Carbs, 320g Protein, 60g Fat = 2060kcals. We haven't yet discussed the one thing we all truly hate with a passion, cardio! Do we do high intensity? Low intensity? How long for? We do what works for us, and the only way to find what works for you is to try it yourself. Everything fitness related; diet, weight training, cardio whether it be high intensity or low intensity, is dependent upon the individual. One size does not fit all. (No pun intended) Cardio began for us both around 6 weeks into the diet, and as time continued more cardio was implemented. Right now, we're both doing approximately 5 cardio sessions per week. Whilst Aaron favours fasted HIIT cardio upon waking and LISS post weight training, James prefers to do fasted LISS upon waking and HIIT cardio post weight training. Be sure to know we hate both just as much, It's just what we've been doing.

Training splits are as follows:

Monday - Chest
Tuesday - Back
Wednesday - Quads & Hamstrings
Thursday - Day Off
Friday - Shoulders & Calves
Saturday - Biceps & Triceps
Sunday - Day Off

We decided to get a little stage practice in at the BodyPower Expo this year! Our competition of choice being the World Fitness Championships on May 18th. Competing 6 weeks out from peak condition, expectations were most certainly low. However, Aaron managed 5th place, James unfortunately didn't make the finals. Nevertheless, we both gained what we wanted and that was the practice and on stage experience.

With 8 days left until the next competition, the UKBFF qualifier, peak week begins tomorrow and there's little left for us to do! If there were it's too late now anyway! We're either in competing condition by now or we're not. If you're wondering if we are, we've both had a couple of practice carb ups so that should give you an idea ;) Also so should the pics below.

James's 11 week transformation

Aaron's 11 week transformation

We promise to write more posts and keep you updated with progress! Also write up about any common reoccurring questions we're asked about our diet and training. If you do want to contact us with any questions, you'll find our social media links below. Until next time, eat peanut butter and stay shredded!

The Fortai Fitness Instagram page

Instagram.com/Fortai_fitness

Twitter pages

Twitter.com/JamesTreezy

Twitter.com/A_DaleyFitness

References

Clark, N. (2013). Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook. Human Kinetics