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The post contest time period, often referred to as a rebound phase can be an extremely beneficial time to aid new lean tissue and grow. In my opinion the bodies environment following a contest prep is the best environment to grow more so than any other phase of the offseason. Nutrient partitioning is at an all time high in a positive manner i.e.: shuttling nutrients into the muscle cell due to low body fat levels and months of dieting in an environment where daily blood glucose levels were lower due to a diet lower in carbohydrates and the overall deficit created by the dieting phase. (This goes hand in hand with having positive insulin sensitivity, which you want to keep intact throughout your off season in order to continue to make consistent and steady progress.)

The body at this point is like a sponge so you need to keep that in mind, because just like it has the ability to shuttle nutrients in a positive manner, if you abuse it and eat a lot of junk food day in and day out you are going to quickly blunt the positive nutrient partitioning ability I touched on early and shift nutrient absorption to be stored in fat cells, thus adding body fat quickly. Not to mention other negative health risks associated with this approach like water balance issues, which can lead to high blood pressure and other compounding negative health risks. You have to remember your body has run like a machine for months and months on end getting into peak condition so you want to keep as many variables as consistent as possible to allow your body to respond positively without throwing homeostasis out of balance creating negative health issues.

Having a successful rebound comes down to more than just your diet, cardio vascular health and making sure that recovery is a priority is a huge factor in order to insure that you are continuing to make progress. Proper recovery includes several factors such as sleep quality, mobility, and joint integrity just to name a few.

Sleep quality goes far beyond just duration. We are doing several things to insure that Dallas is getting the best night sleep he can. Here are a few things I can recommend to you that we are putting into practice:

1. Shut off your phones at night and remove the temptation to get on it throughout the night if you happen to wake up.
2. Shut the TV Off!
3. Since becoming a part of the Redcon1 Team we both have been using Fade Out which is an excellent sleep aid. I would recommend you take this about 30-45 min prior to your bedtime meal assuming that you eat and then go to sleep shortly there after.

I also mentioned mobility and joint integrity / preventing joint issues. These are two that cannot be neglected. The weights in the gym are going to be quickly going up and if you are not carful your muscular structure can outgrow the joints that support it. Take the time to get regular massage work, stretch following cardio and training and do the little things daily to keep you progressing, Fortunately for Dallas he has two of the best kept secrets right there in Boca with Luke Lewis helping him whenever he needs with his stretching and mobility, and Deanna who is one of the most brutal (in a good way) and effective massage therapists we have come across.

Due to the many positive effects that can take place as well as Dallas and I wanting to avoid the negatives that are often associated with a rebound we got to work on his program right away. We actually trained legs within the first 15 hours after we landed from our 19 hour trip back home from Spain. Below is Phase 1 of Dallas’ Rebound Diet and his training split. We are not really programming his training yet in terms of exact movements each day. Right out the gates it is a great time to just slowly work back into heavy weights and focus more on blood voluminization as again we want to keep joints healthy and mobility intact as he is growing.

Diet

upon waking

Greens shake

Probiotic

Pre cardio 

22g – Breach

15g – BCAA

Meal 1 (pre workout meal)

2 whole eggs

6oz lean red meat

150 cream of rice

100g blueberries

150g strawberries

Pre workout / Intra – Aim to get half of this down prior to training 

50g Cluster Bomb

35g – Breach

18g – Big Noise

5g – Creatine

10g – Glutamine

Post workout Consumed at Gym 

75g Cluster Bomb

35g – Breach

5g – Creatine

Meal 2 (post workout meal )

150g – cream of rice (dry measure)

60g – Isotope

100g of any fruit

Meal 3 

224g – chicken

350g – jasmine rice

50g – avocado

Meal 4 

224g – lean red meat

350g -Russset potato

1 bagel

14g – grass fed butter

Meal 5 

2 whole egg

300g – egg whites

2 Thomas bagels

Meal 6 

60g – Isotope

80g – oats

100g – berries

1 banana

32g – almond butter

Cardio 

30 min – 4x weekly AM upon waking

Training Split 

*Off Days as needed 

Legs
Back
Chest
Arms
Shoulders
Repeat

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Aftermath – Post Cycle

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Faster Recovery

Improved Blood Panels

Decreased Time Off

More Energy Post Cycle

To complete my 3 part article that covers the balance between training volume, frequency, and intensity, I shall explain,

1 – What intensity is

2 – How we may need to adjust it

3 – The relationship between all 3 aspects to bring about maximal muscle gains.

Intensity is usually defined as the percentage of 1rm we are lifting at.

A typical hypertrophy percentage range is deemed to be 60-85percent 1rm, as here the loading is sufficient to stimulate high threshold motor units which have the greatest propensity for growth. This range also brings about the greatest levels of hormonal response, through elevated test,(1) gh and igf-1 levels.

However further research has shown us that working across a multitude of rep ranges is likely to illicit the greatest adaptations. So encompassing work in a higher percentage will help increase strength, and working in a lower percentage will increase the metabolic stress we place on a muscle.

From an optimal hypertrophy perspective , placing the largest amount of mechanical tension ( load ) is a sure way to bring about muscle growth, but increasing metabolic stress ,(essentially, getting a better pump) will also pose hypertrophy benefits. (2)

Both of these approaches will lend themselves to greater hypertrophy over a longer period of time vs not incorporating  them into our training.

The idea of sticking to just one set rep range to stimulate muscle fibers is also potentially flawed due to the fact that the body will recruit muscle fibers based on the scenario. By this I mean, if we use a lighter load, initially this will only recruit slow twitch muscle fibers. As we get closer to failure, and those slow twitch fibers cannot perform the work alone, our body will recruit more fast twitch fibers to perform the work. This is referred to as Hennemans size principle. Therefore we will still eventually tap into both fibre types by taking a lighter load to absolute failure.

With that idea in mind, that gives us  greater flexibility to the rep ranges we train in.

When training at higher frequencies, (which I strongly advocate!) it may be even more advantageous to move away from one strict rep parameter.

For example; when training legs 3 times a week, I feel it would be difficult to recover if the intensity at which we lifted was 85% of our 1rm for all sets in all 3 sessions, it would become apparent quickly that this set up would cause us to over reach and therefore fail to progress, counteracting the purpose of training more frequently.

Therefore in one of the sessions it maybe wise to dedicate work to 15-20 reps, and pick exercises that won’t crush us metabolically, so a deadlift here is usually a bad choice, but a leg press would be a great exercise here to ensure we can adequately recover.

Intensity can be looked at another way, and this is in its literal sense: how intense are you working/ how hard are you working ? So this could be measured via perceived rate of exertion. The RPE scale scores difficulty from a 1-10 level. And this is a good way to illustrate how sets in a typical high volume program may compare to that of a low volume program. If you have ever watched blood and guts , by Dorian Yates, you will know that to really make the most of a low volume program, it needs to be 9-10 on an RPE. Dorian was likely a number 11 so he would of had a new category just for him! But when it is simply one work set to get the job done, and it’s going to be an all time 8-12 rep personal best, beating your log book, you need to attack that set. This is my favored way of training as I feel it’s very easy to quantify. ‘Did I progress my lifts or not?’

However with a typical high volume program where set one may only be 7 out of 10 difficulty , and then set two gets a little harder and by set 3 it finally is hard, I believe that’s much more difficult to really know if you have placed a demand on your body that will force an adaptation.

So to summarize , when using a high frequency program, I feel we need to use weights across a wide rep range , some sessions lighter , some heavier, to ensure we recover optimally.

In a low volume high frequency program, I feel every set we do perform needs to taken all the way to failure, or at least very close. There is no room for feeder sets here, bring the intensity, every set, think ‘Dorian intense’ !

JP

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Aaron Singerman and Matt Meinrod are back with a new episode of Readiness Radio. On today’s show they discuss some of the imperative steps in starting a new business. Is everyone cut out to be an entrepreneur? And how to manage your income regardless of how much you earn per year. Download the latest episode of Readiness Radio presented by Redcon1 now!

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Dallas McCarver discusses his 8th Place finish at the Mr.Olympia Challenge.