Final Stage

It has been years since the journey got started and you wonder how to progress further. If your goal is to get fit, you need to have a well-balanced program so you use each body part efficiently, and prevent any unnecessary hardships stemming from inconsistent development of your strength and coordination.

Bodybuilding is a long-term commitment so rather do it smart or make sure you know what you do and build the right mindset (no hurry, no overdo). Training a lot is not just time-consuming but also dangerous if unadvised or lack of experience/knowledge. Knowing, exactly what and how to train is crucial yet the detrimental factor would be consistency and progression.

Once you build enough strength, mobility and conditioning, you either maintain or continue challenge your fitness. You can also decide to expand to other disciplines or do gym alongside with your other physical activity or sport. Other option would be staying solely with fitness. No matter which option you choose, you either stay progressive or make it diverse if maintaining, your motivation and form stumbles (always the same workout).

The answer here is always “progress and effective.” First, you have to realize how effective fitness works. Simply, invest in what is healthy for it positively affects your fitness level. If you fresh and feel strong, you can build on it. Then, understanding that, training twice a week requires certain strategies and techniques, you must adapt. The problem emerges, when you expect more, while doing less (new goals/activities/competitions).

It takes time but approaching your set objectives the right way, it must come out the right way. There are five exercises you need to keep in your workout routine for it creates the well-balanced physique and stimulates all big muscles groups to grow. What about the rest? depending on your goals/activities, you decide which other body parts to integrate in the process (add new exercises).

You can add more exercises (tailored to your needs/other activities) while decreasing the intensity or workload. The reason for that is, you got fit. You do not need more stress if you like your currently achieved fitness level. The other reason is, you have to save some energy for other exercises to prepare you for more complex tasks/activities. Although, the intensity should be up to 60s pauses or longer but then, super set in the end.

What has been proven so far is that, if the complementary exercises choice is well-planned, you improve on “big five exercises.” Whether you like it or not, this should always be the goal. These five exercises (bench press, seated row, shoulder press, squat and pull down – check the pic above) is the foundation of all this effective training to be possible. There is also a fact that, the more heavier and intense you can lift on these five, the more effective and fit you get.

Why is it relevant? whichever activity you dedicate to, if these 5 exercises go right, the better results you obtain in whatever activity you do. These five exercises are functional movements you perform everyday so you also get more productive for it gets easier to move and perform. The great book on this topic is definitely “Body by Science ( Dough Mcguff, 2014)” – there is also a German version 😉

To stay progressive, takes lot of knowledge and experiments while being consistent. Therefore, I decided to share with you some strategies and adjustments that has been made to keep improving on “these five.” It helped me a lot in calisthenics/streetworkout and football so if that is also your passion or next interest you are going to benefit a lot from it. Otherwise, you can still apply a big deal of it in your workout and daily routines.

This is called the final stage for now we know what to keep and build on while wisely supplementing it or building around it. It is pretty much detailed work to stay effective and enjoy all the benefits associated with fitness and beyond. When it comes to food it is always the veggies and nuts!

Let us start with the preworkout meal and speeding up the whole metabolism (fasting), thus generating more strength and energy. Also, as mentioned earlier, invest in health (fasting). Intermittent fasting is great for you – the metabolism needs 8h to clean up, give it some extra hours to rest and you will experience more energy, strength and more calories burnt out. Usually, doing 10 to 12h of not eating which works just fine for me.

Check a great book on the topic when bodybuilder HERE – also a meal plans included depending on your goals . Basically, you have eating windows and eating primarily good fats and proteins keep you saturated, thus surviving this fast and getting more quality nutrients faster in the system when it is well-rested for its utilization.

Everything has its pros and cons. You need to stay consistent (2 weeks minimum) and see what works for you. You start eating 4-5 meals a day, then it is easier to eat 2-3 meals a day when you grasp a better knowledge and get disciplined. When you eat and train less, you rather do it right.

Putting yourself in positions you have no other option is best for getting things done, trust me 🙂 Staying in kitchen 5-10 min. and eating around 1h a day gives me a lots of freedom and enjoying a lot more when eating out or cooking (even more likely to order or cook something healthier when used to do things routinely). The other great thing about it is how you feel about it – do not feel like cheating when you feel good most of the times and learning to reward yourself when hard days behind.

As some of you know, effective fitness relies mostly on fats and protein and this meal got lots of carbs (around 100g) – what you normally consume during a whole day (check the video below). It is only twice a week when training and muscles handle extra calories or carbs better plus when active or training, you do need cheat meal or fill up on some carbs. Otherwise, keep your peanut butter close and prepare some veggies in the afternoon when home to finish the day right.

The other way to speed up absorption (more strength and energy for longer period) and burn more calories (leaner, healthier) is having some light activity before consuming nutrients (also in the morning). This space could also be used for stretching. Better more stretching than training hard more often (optimized physique definition, more calories burnt, more strength, faster and safer progression at gym and many more).

We will touch more on it in next post where we also mention how to improve your focus to get in return greater results, plan your workout smarter and use advanced methods to make your workouts more bearable and progressive. What more, there are certain habits and life changes you have to consider to implement in order to carry on in most optimal way when it also requires more energy from you.

Basically, you make it more diverse and fun while keeping and enhancing your results in basics that made it all work in the first place. If you had not been progressive since you got started, it would not have been possible and it is your task to develop and keep that mindset for it is what it takes, so only expect progress and effective here. We are going to take it to next stage with some final touches to the concept. As a result, the end process of efficient bodybuilding will be a complete athlete to perform well in any physical task carried out.

Dough Mcguff (2014). Body by Science: A Research Based Program for Strength Training, Bodybuilding, and Complete Fitness in 12 Minutes a Week (NTC Sport/Fitness). McGraw-Hill Education, England.

Dr. Frank-Holger Acker (2018). Ernährung für (Kraft-Sportler). Printed in Germany by Amazon Distribution GmbH, Leipzig