Back in 2004, I took part in my first bodybuilding show. I was an ardent follower of Arnold and Larry Scott. And my contest preparation would reflect their way.
So a typical day was something like
6 am: Empty stomach cardio – 1 hour
8 am: Morning workout – 1.5 hours
4:30 pm: semi fasted cardio (I wouldn’t have eaten for a couple of hours) – 1 hour
6 pm: Evening Workout – 1.5 hour
I was literally spending more than 5-6 hours in the gym! Not to mention, the time going to and fro!
How did I look? I looked pretty decent on the D-day. I was huge and cut. However, I could only manage a bronze.The other two guys were relatively bigger!
I kept wondering, what could possibly they have done, that I didn’t do.
Then I went back and started looking my diet logs, workout logs & my pictures.
Then it hit me! Like a ton of bricks!! I lost muscle. A great amount of muscle!!
There was a time about 3 months before the show when I was in my peak condition with some visible fat. As I tried to peel it off I got smaller and leaner.
Why? Why me? I worked as hard as I could.
The extra amount of workouts that I was doing forced me to eat more carbs, which hampered fat loss. The excess cardio I did, burned fat but muscle as well.
My body was never recovering from workouts.
It was big mistake but, it changed the way I would train for the rest of my life. Now I train heavy and intense even for contest preparations. I just add small amount of cardio to cut.
Aditya