Eric Helms on the Science of Preparing for a Natural Bodybuilding Show

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Hello, boys and girls. Welcome to another episode of the muscle for life podcast. This is your host, Michael P. Matthews, and all right, I’ll stop being weird. I have a great episode here for you, which is an interview with Eric Helms, who’s one of the premier natural bodybuilding coaches in the game.

He’s a member of the Think Tank. 3dmj coaching team and is himself a professional natural bodybuilder and strength athlete, which I actually believe, meaning that, a lot [00:03:00] of people say they’re natural and they’re either clearly not, or it’s very gray, very questionable in his case. I fully believe that he is.

Natural which counts for something if that were not the case, then I probably wouldn’t be doing the interview. And I actually referenced Eric’s scientific work quite frequently in my writing. So it was really a pleasure to get a chance to interview him. Now, as you’ve probably gathered from the title, This interview is on how to prep for a natural bodybuilding show.

And Eric really covers everything ranging from caloric intake and macro breakdowns to weightlifting and cardio strategies and supplementation and much more. It’s a very informative interview. I think you’re really going to like it. And especially so if you are getting ready to prep for a show or are considering doing a show, then yeah, you definitely need to listen to this interview because it can save you from all kinds of trials and tribulations that I have seen firsthand in my work many times from people that reach out to me [00:04:00] that are suffering through contest prep under the poor guidance of some coach they found on the interwebs.

And on the other hand, if you’re like me and you have no intention of competing, you’re just working on building your best body ever, then you two are going to get a lot out of this interview because the principles that Eric talks about apply to everyone looking to lose fat and not muscle, not just competitive bodybuilders.

So I hope I have sufficiently whetted your appetite and let’s get to the interview Eric. I’m excited to have you on the podcast I’ve actually this you’re one of the people that has been asked for the most By listeners and readers and stuff. So Wow. That’s an honor to hear 

Eric Helms: and I’m happy to be here.

Thanks for having me 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, sure. Okay. Obviously I already introduced in the beginning podcast who you are and why people should listen to you. But can you give a little bit more background specifically in the context of contest prep, which is what we’re gonna be talking about? And what are your [00:05:00] experiences personally and also as a coach?

And just so people can understand where you’re coming from. In that regard 

Eric Helms: for sure. So I’ve been competing in in natural bodybuilding myself since 2007. I’ve done about nine shows. And then since 2009, I’ve been a professional coach for natural bodybuilding. So I’ve coached people in. Both women and men in multiple divisions but mostly competitive bodybuilding.

And I’ve, I think I’ve figured it out. One time I’ve worked with something like 300 ish people. Not all of them are contest preppers but a large proportion would be. And I’ve also dedicated my academic career to studying this type of thing. So I did my master’s specifically looking at protein and macronutrient manipulation in dieting strength athletes.

And I wrote a review paper with Peter Fitchin and Alan Aragon. On the training side of things, looking at evidence based best practice for natural bodybuilders. And then I’ve referenced that quite a bit. Awesome. I appreciate that. Yeah. Spreading the good word. [00:06:00] Thank you. Thank you very much.

And then on the training side of it Sean filled a hopped on there and helped us out there too. So I guess to say I’ve coached it, I’ve experienced it and I’ve theorized about it. I’d say I’m. The end all be all, but this is my specialty. 

Mike Matthews: Absolutely. So with that in mind, what would you say, let’s just start with what are the three, four, five kind of biggest prep mistakes or myths that are out there that you have to consistently disabuse people of and correct?

Eric Helms: I’d say the most common one is just not dieting long enough and it’s almost cliched. Say that now, or at least it feels like it because I’m preaching it all the time, but it has multiple reasons why, one is that before I even say the early 2000s, the conditioning standard was lower, the rarity of striated glutes was was well, pretty rare, like you’d see the one show.

Or the one guy in the show with the striated glutes, and he typically is getting very close to winning in natural bodybuilding, where size isn’t as much of a dominating factor. [00:07:00] And then even if you looked at like the IFBB pro ranks, if you follow the other side of the sport, it wasn’t until probably the 90s where you started to see guys show up with striated glutes regularly, and it was pretty rare before that.

So one is the conditioning standards. So what that means is that people were dieting Under the constraints of a different system before so they didn’t need to get quite as lean And you know the harder the leaner you get the harder it gets so it adds a disproportionate amount of time that one should be dieting and then a natural bodybuilding holding on to holding onto your muscle in that phase is also the hardest So it extends it further So you’ve got the tradition going against the grain here of the idea that maybe we should be dieting longer and then you’ve also just got the unexperienced eye You of a novice competitor, these first time mistakes they’re based on your experience level.

And you, when you’ve never competed, you don’t quite know just how much body fat is really there that has to go. 

Mike Matthews: Cause it. 

Eric Helms: It all has to go, 

Mike Matthews: Especially when, with the lights and how harsh it is and what might look good under the right [00:08:00] lighting that you like, and then doesn’t look so good or doesn’t look right under competition.

A hundred percent. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. You spending 10 minutes to set up an Instagram photo and half nanny lighting is not the same as being on stage for 20 minutes. Exactly. That natural lighting, the perfect I think 

Mike Matthews: I see a little bit of ab masculinity, 

Eric Helms: right? Exactly. Exactly. Most of the time people need to lose sometimes as much as twice the amount they think they have to lose.

I’ll tell you a funny story cause I’m not immune to this either. In 2005, I think I did my first quote unquote cut and I was 220 pounds at the time. I’m six foot, so it wasn’t that huge or anything. And I thought if I dieted down to 200 pounds, I’d be pretty close to stage ready. So fast forward about twice as long later than I thought it would take.

I’m 198 and I’m probably. 14 percent body fat. So I just didn’t realize how fat I was to get there. So I basically died to the point where I’d want to start a prep. And so yeah, exactly. And then I was right. I could end up competing at about 178 in [00:09:00] 2007. So there you go. 

Mike Matthews: Cool. So that’s the, so that’s is that kind of like all one, you’d say that’s one kind of big mistake is not dieting enough.

Eric Helms: That’s a big one. There are others. Probably some of the most common ones are that the rules muscle for training essentially change that you have to do things to burn extra calories or get cut up. You want to train higher rep lighter load. And the reality is that the same.

Principles that guide training apply at all times, you probably can build a little bit of muscle in the beginning of prep, even though you’re starting to diet, unless you’re doing something crazy and even when at the stages in prep where that’s not happening and you’re probably losing small amounts of muscle it’s not that you’re just trying to retain muscle, it’s, you’re trying to create the same stimulus that you would to gain muscle.

It’s just, you don’t have the nutritional support necessarily. So sure. You have to pay attention to recovery. Okay. Potentially lower volume, do deloads more frequently, maybe use an RPE scale to auto regulate all that because you’re going to be less consistent in terms of your energy levels.

Can you explain real quick what [00:10:00] that is? Yeah, definitely. So basically auto regulation is just the idea that you need to systematically go by feel. And it’s very important what that word systematically is because auto regulation isn’t just, yeah, man, I’m gonna just go by feel today.

It’s it really is like I feel like 

Mike Matthews: biceps and chest again for the fourth time This week 

Eric Helms: right not auto regulation, right? Hashtag not auto reg but so auto regulation Has a systematic format and that’s what I’m doing for my PhD and probably the main thing I’m studying is what’s called An RPE scale, a rating of perceived exertion.

And I’m specifically looking at a a scale that’s based on how many repetitions remain at the end of a set. So if you did, eight reps with your 10 rep max, that would be an eight RPE, you had two repetitions in reserve, a nine would be one, 10 would be zero max, couldn’t have done more weight, more load.

And this becomes a very useful tool when your strength is less consistent. So like during contest prep and there are other methods there, flexible nonlinear periodization, [00:11:00] which just basically says hey You’ve got light medium and hard days and you should you know Rate yourself on a one to ten scale decide how you feel that day and then choose which one you want to do And we know that it produces at least as good of Progress as having a fixed exercise or a training day order, right?

In the end, you know If you get all the volume done within the week and you’re You know, getting in quality work when you’re doing it, you’re probably going to get the same results. Those kind of principles are very useful during contest prep. But anyway, I think the main take home point is that the same principles that guide gaining muscle should be used during contest prep even if you might only be retaining it.

You just have to be more mindful of your recovery. 

Mike Matthews: Yep, makes sense. And anything related to cardio? Sure. Yeah, I’m sure you see that. I’m sure you see that. I know I get a lot of emails about My coach wants me to do two hours of cardio a day seven days a week and eat a thousand calories a day, 

Eric Helms: right?

Yeah. Yeah, I think it’s almost not just cardio It’s more of I [00:12:00] think actually goes back to the first one most of the time when I run into someone who’s on a thousand Calories and doing two day two day cardio. It’s because You They didn’t give themselves enough time, there, there may come a time in a diet.

In fact, it probably will be where you have to do more cardio than you want. You have less calories than you want. And not just from a position of, I like pizza. That’s what I want. When I say want, You look at it objectively as someone who is a competitive athlete and think you know What’s the best for me to what’s the best, calorie intake or the lowest i’d want to go to Muscle and you might go well shit.

I have to go lower than that Yeah, I mean 

Mike Matthews: you also reach that point where i’ve I haven’t competed but i’ve Dieted down to pretty, pretty lean, like where there’s not much left to grab anywhere, ab veins or whatever for photo shoots. And you get to that point where it’s more, it’s a visceral type of feeling.

It’s not just a, yeah, I want pizza. It’s like my body is starved for energy. That’s the only thing I don’t feel. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. So yeah you may have to get to a point where you’ve got to do more cardio than you want, lower calories than you want, and you do what you have to do because you’re [00:13:00] a competitive athlete but yeah, most of the time when you run into people who are doing insane amounts of cardio or an inordinate, inordinately low calories, it’s because they don’t They didn’t set up the diet in the first place.

They either started too heavy or they didn’t have enough time to diet related to how heavy they started. Or they dug themselves into a hole very early on. You can actually take a faster pace, early on in a prep because obviously the more body fat you lose, the easier it is to lose it.

Yep. But it still, it shouldn’t be like biggest loser fast. We’re talking like losing 1 percent of your body weight per week instead of 0. 

Mike Matthews: 5%. And before last, before we just move on to how to do it right, is there anything relating to, cause I get asked about this a lot and again, as someone who hasn’t competed and I never have really done much in the way of manipulating sodium, potassium or water for photo shoots.

I just more took the approach you’re talking about where I just gave myself enough time to get really lean. And, I figure I, I see once I’ve lost enough body fat and I just carve up and do some pushups, all of a sudden I look pretty good. You know what I mean? [00:14:00] So is there, is that more kind of myth that you need to be playing a lot with your water and your salt and your potassium?

Or is that something that will actually go in the, when you talk about peak week? And 

Eric Helms: yeah there’s bits and pieces that are, that might make sense. And there’s other bits that are completely meth and even counter counterproductive, and you’re right. It, I think the biggest myth is just the amount of effect that has peaking is a lot more in my opinion, correcting.

The flatness that you see while dieting, then it is doing something that will make a big impact. That’s a lot of it. A lot of times people don’t understand why I, when I talk on podcasts about peaking, why I say if if you’re not shredded, it’s not going to do much, right? Why not?

I don’t get that. The reason why is if you’re not shredded, you’re not typically depleted. You’re, you don’t have highly depleted baggage in stores because you have body fat to pull from still, you’re not on super low calories, probably you’re not doing tons of cardio problem.

Maybe you’re playing catch up, but even then you just don’t typically have that flatness when you have, minimal levels of body [00:15:00] fat. That’s so glycogen is constantly getting pulled from, at least that’s my theory as to why it seems to work better. 

Mike Matthews: That makes sense. So it’s more about filling up as opposed to trying to manipulate, because really it comes down to what, when the people that write me, they’re trying to manipulate subcutaneous water levels and they think that’s going to make a big difference when, if you’re like you were saying, if you’re not lean enough, it just, it doesn’t really make that you’re going to look, I don’t know, 5 percent better for a day maybe or something 

Eric Helms: at best.

Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, so there are some other things that happen during a contest practice. Your blood pressure drops a lot lower. This is just true in anyone who’s been calorie reduced for a long period and it gets the low body fat levels. So it’s harder to get a pump.

So it might make sense to try to do things to raise your blood pressure. Can we talk about the hows we can get into that, but yeah, certainly someone just kept it relatively simple. Carved up and did a pump up, they’re getting the vast majority of the benefits 

Mike Matthews: from a a peak week.

Cool. So my uninformed simplistic approach was [00:16:00] more informed and a better than I thought. To 

Eric Helms: be honest, if you keep it simple and logical, you’re going to be right most of the time, 

Mike Matthews: As most things go in life. Okay. So let’s now get to how to do it right. So let’s start at the top here. So you’re going to be starting a prep.

And I’m just going to pass the mic to you again and. How does this roll out? Yeah. 

Eric Helms: So ideally what is happening is you’re looking at a show if you’re, say a competitive bodybuilder, so male or female, knowing that you’re going to have to get to the lowest levels of body fat that you can, you’re probably looking at a minimum of five to seven months out, especially if you’re a first time, because more time is if anything better, because it gives you more flexibility.

You don’t have to diet as fast. 

Mike Matthews: What would you say is a good starting point in terms of body fat percentage for guys and girls? 

Eric Helms: Yeah, good question. I would say probably 15 percent at max for men and then about 7 or 8 percent higher for women. That’s basically the rough scaling equivalent. 

Mike Matthews: Just understands why those numbers why not is it just a factor of time like what you [00:17:00] ran into Pretty much.

Okay. 

Eric Helms: It is just a factor of time. Some people will walk around 11 percent Some people will walk around at 17 percent but it does we’re talking man again Sure, but you know based on their kind of their natural setting settling point, but it is just a factor of time It takes time to lose that much body fat and having more time is almost always better, worst case scenario You’re one of those people who loses fat very easily You And you’re ready and four months.

Okay. So you’ve got another two months to die. Oh that’s eating up into the show. Fantastic. Yeah. Or you can find an early warmup show to do. It’s it’s fine. There’s shows all the time. Yeah. Depending on where you live. So yeah, that’s step one. And I would say even before that, because it’s very difficult to accurately gauge those two things, how much time do I need and how how, what level of body fat should I be as a first timer is probably contact someone who is.

Experience doesn’t necessarily need to be a coach, but to have someone who knows what they’re doing, get an objective, look at you like a year out and go, okay, let’s think about what position do we want to be once we’re at that six month ish mark. [00:18:00] Like when we coach people, that’s what we like to do is we encourage people to do a Skype consultation with us, which then comes off their price for coaching.

So it’s like we try to make it like, Definitely do this as possible because it makes our jobs easier, right? Talk to us like a year out so we can game plan Here’s where I want you to try to work your calories up to or towards Here’s the heaviest I want you to be before contest prep start. Let’s get you on a sensible weight training plan Let’s get you on an appropriate amount of cardio for the off season, which might be none you know depending on what they’re doing or it might be a little and Then we know that we’re in a position to be successful at the start of that prep because a lot of the times we’re inheriting You very bad situations, someone six months out and their diet their calories in the off season and what we would diet them on.

And, they’re probably having these cyclical binges. That’s a terrible place to start a concept prep. Your willpower is already depleted. Your calories are low, your total daily energy expenditure is probably as low as it can be at that body weight. It’s not a good place to be, or we have to sell you on a very different type of training.

We have to titrate in. To get your [00:19:00] emotional buy in and that’s not the best way to retain muscle or progress during prep and we’re giving up a little something there. There’s a lot of pre prep work that basically needs to be done so that the the bodybuilder is on the same page.

And, in our case, sometimes now that we have a reasonable presence within our community people don’t come to us. Yeah, and say, hey, 

Mike Matthews: I have four months left. What do I do? 

Eric Helms: Yeah, so it’s becoming, at least we’re having a dent on the people who apply to us for Concepts Prep. I don’t know how much we’re affecting the entire community.

I’d like to think it’s a positive effect. But yeah, that’s step one. Step two is then, all right, so you’re five to seven months out, you’re appropriately lean and you have a sound training plan. We’ll talk training first because it’s relatively easy. I would say cardio should probably only be about, 20 percent of It’s just to throw some random numbers out there of the deficit you get.

And, I would take a long time before you got past this, but a rough limit would be not doing more cardio than you’re doing in terms of weight training. If you’re to compare like hours. [00:20:00] So if you’re doing eight hours of weight training a week, try not to go over eight hours of cardio unless you absolutely have to.

And that’s almost always rule unless you have to, 

Mike Matthews: and would you normally start people with that? Would you start that at a one to one ratio? Nope. 

Eric Helms: Yeah, way less than that. Okay, so say wow, that’s a lot 

Mike Matthews: of that’s that’s like a 

Eric Helms: max like yeah Four or five months into the diet, And just so 

Mike Matthews: people understand when you’re talking about cardio that are you would you include something like walking like very low intensity or?

I do and okay. 

Eric Helms: Yeah, I typically I stray on the fringe ends of the cardio spectrum So either we’re doing a very small amount of low impact, which is important high intensity type of interval stuff. And that’s only maybe once or twice a week. And then on the other end of the spectrum, it’s just what I call calorie burning, low intensity, steady state not going on a jog but actually easier than that stuff that might get you breathing hard a little bit, but you can still talk while you’re doing it.

And that’s just basically because we don’t want a cardiovascular adaptation. We’re not looking to get you better at endurance we’re looking to lose [00:21:00] fat and burn extra calories and combat decreases in meat or your normal calorie burning outside of the gym. So there’s probably 

Mike Matthews: something to be said for recovery too.

If you’re trying to do too much stuff in the middle, like jogging would be a good example. It’s going to cut into your recovery to make your weight training harder. And it’s just gonna make the whole process harder. Probably. 

Eric Helms: Definitely, you know going on a walk if anything might help you, you know a little bit but going on a run 

Probably not, 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, maybe I come to the same recommendation.

Let’s either do As like me personally when i’m cutting I like to do maybe an hour to an hour and a half of hit on a bicycle per week and then actually work hard at it something that is That it, you could, it qualifies as actual as hit. Like I’m not going to be sitting there having a conversation while I’m doing it.

You know what I mean? So keep that on the, or, and then you do some walking as well. I just don’t like being in the middle because I found the exact things you’re talking about. 

Eric Helms: Yep. And I like that you pointed out the bicycle. Cool thing about a bike, zero impact, so you’re not [00:22:00] going to get your joints beat up.

And if you can think of what the difference between a concentric and an eccentric contraction are and most activities in life, we do concentric and eccentric where you’re running the eccentric is when your muscle is lengthening while it is producing force, right? So that is when you’re breaking, if you can think about it and that actually causes more micro tears in the muscle fiber which is fine.

In the context of regular training, but when you add more. Especially high speed or high impact, the center contractions on top of your training that can interfere with, recovery and a bike because you’re never actually hitting the ground and you’re constantly moving forward.

It’s just, it’s a circle. You’re basically all concentric. Yep. So the recovery component is even less and there’s even some data showing that a bicycling interferes, quote unquote, less with weight training. So it’s always a good choice. It doesn’t burn as many calories though. I personally am a fan of the elliptical if I’m going to do gym cardio and When I’m not just going on a walk with my wife or doing like very light barbell complexes or kettlebells, some kind of thing.

And you like that because you 

Mike Matthews: elliptical 

Eric Helms: burns more calories. It was the burns more calories. You’re standing up. [00:23:00] It’s full body. It’s the same principle. You’re pretty much always concentric and low impact, which is probably more important. And then, yeah the, like the bar cardio and the kettlebell stuff, I just enjoy it more.

So it’s more sustainable for me and I have to die at a while. That’s another thing is just, make sure you’re regardless of everything we said. The cardio needs to be semi enjoyable because you might end up doing a lot of it. Yeah. So it will go from being semi enjoyable to I semi hate this and that’s much better than starting with I semi hate this because by the end you’ll not want to do 

Mike Matthews: it at all.

That’s very true. I guess that’s also one of the reasons why I’ve just gravitated toward the bike is one, there’s the research that you’re talking about. I’ve read that research and I’ve referenced or whatever, but then also I just enjoy an upright bike and I don’t really watch TV.

So that’s my time. Where I would take my iPad and watch a TV show, so I just, I don’t know, that’s something I liked. 

Eric Helms: Yeah, I was even though I liked the elliptical, I remember during my last prep I was doing my first master’s where I had a lot of coursework, and I was just walking on a treadmill so I could study, so there’s, life always interacts with these recommendations and you find And what [00:24:00] fits the best bill for you.

So anyway, your cardio you more or less want to titrate in as needed, not jump out the gates. I think when I start someone, they do one, maybe two sessions, so we’re talking an hour total of cardio they might start with. And then, like I said, I try to keep it less than the amount of weight training they’re doing.

And then as far as weight training, it should look pretty damn similar to what you’re doing in the off season. A few things that I like to do to hit on that principle of allowing for more recovery is I start instituting mandatory deloads. So every fourth week is a pretty common one I do.

And you, yeah, sure. All the arguments against mandatory deloads. What if you’re not ready or, the whole reason I’m studying auto regulation. Yeah. But you’re, it’s also very difficult to gauge on your own and during contest prep, if anything, you want to err on the side of being more conservative with that type of thing.

So I think it’s a good way to self check your your inner masochist or inner yeah, I can’t do you a little during prep, I’m going to lose muscle. Like actually you, the opposite will happen because you’re going to sacrifice future training. Okay. 

Mike Matthews: It just helps [00:25:00] you prevent bigger mistakes, basically.

And the downside of doing it is pretty minimal. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. It’s a check and balance. This is a good way to think of it. So yeah that, that is very useful. And then, trying to maintain your volume and make steady, but very small progression in your weight. For say the first third of a perhaps maybe the first eight weeks, when your body fat isn’t too low, probably happen pretty successfully.

And then it’s not a bad idea once you get like the halfway mark to think about a slight reduction in volume, especially if you’re feeling it, this is the kind of thing that I, as a coach when I’m working with someone, I control tightly. So I can say, that you don’t necessarily need to just drop volume straight away, but when someone is self coach, that’s probably where you want to think about.

It’s very difficult to make that decision on your own unless you’re highly experienced. So it might be better to kind of institute a mandatory 10 percent reduction in volume at the halfway mark and prep. Another 10 percent when you’re in the final third, just in the form of reducing sets here and there from your order.

That’s that kind of thing. Yeah. Or even 10, 20, 25%, so that at the very [00:26:00] end of prep, you’re doing like 60 percent of 

Mike Matthews: what you might normally do. I don’t think. Do you take mainly from the bigger compounds for that, the deadlift squat pressing? 

Eric Helms: Yeah, definitely. And typically, when I’m doing it people start complaining about they’re not complaining.

They start letting me know as their coach when they’re feeling, man, those four sets of squats really beat me up. And I go, all right, let’s do two, and they’re like, what? Oh my God, I can’t do that. Talking to do it, I’m like, and it is very true that the amount of volume it takes to maintain muscle is substantially less than it takes to try to gain it.

Is that true in a deficit? We don’t have data on that. But from what I’ve seen The benefits are greater than the cost you trying to keep in the same kind of training volume That was at the peak of your off season when you’re six percent body fat and doing cardio. Yeah, it is not gonna go so so yeah, it’s a good idea to think and you know That’s actually one upside to that kind of old school approach of let’s just lower the weights not the reps Yeah, they’re probably maintaining volume, but the stress per unit of volume is a lot [00:27:00] less.

The only downside is they’re removing one of the core stimuli from avoid training, which is, progressive overload. Yeah. They’re just going for the pump and repping out the high stuff. 

Mike Matthews: And just to that point, so people get, so that it’s key to keep your heavy lifting.

Yes. And not, cause of course that is like what you were talking about in the beginning of the podcast. That’s one of the more common things that I also hear just from people asking it’s one of those bits of gym lore that if you want to get really shredded and have striated glutes and have striated anything, you need to do a bunch of high rep stuff and get a huge pump and.

Eric Helms: Yeah. Yeah. I mean that there are, there’s, there is value in training with a variety of rep ranges. Sure. And bodybuilders should be doing multiple angles and. Isolation work, but it should all be built on the back of a core basis of compound movements trained In a moderately heavy rep range at least, you know So that is that and also it encourages progressive overload like there was a period Where I saw more impressive physiques, of course with fat on them at local power teammates than I did at bodybuilding shows And this [00:28:00] is a long time ago.

We’re talking about like 10 years ago Yeah, and I think it was just because progressive overload was just something that was not commonly understood Yeah Even if the powerlifters weren’t training in the most appropriate way for maximal hypertrophy They were always trying to add weight to the bar and it was something they did obsessively on all movements you know you saw better physiques there, Yeah, and I saw a lot more kind of physiques missing body parts and bodybuilding shows, you know So so yeah, I think it’s very important that bodybuilders understand that principle Rain supreme all the time and you can’t always do it when you’re, it’s a try though.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. With also keeping in mind that, playing the recovery card is very important. Like the mandatory deloads, reducing volume at a certain point. 

Mike Matthews: And is there anything else recovery wise that you find 

Eric Helms: helps yeah, emphasizing sleep or yeah, sleep is so important. And there, there does become a point where, and then not, it doesn’t happen to everybody, but it almost seems like like a dieting adaptation where.

Sleep is messed up. This can sometimes [00:29:00] be affected by micronutrient intake, macronutrient intake. So you can, play with a nonlinear diet where you maybe you have, refeeds to try to, which we’ll talk about more to maybe at least get a few days of good rest. Or maybe a multivitamin or switching up your food sources to try to avoid deficiencies.

Mike Matthews: Do you find that even strategies or ways to relax and just lower cortisol levels can help? Cause I’ve worked with people that, Beyond, they’re not prepping for shows, dieting when you get lean, they’re a couple of months in and you add the stress of that on the stress of everyday life and they don’t have anything really worked out in terms of personal routine to chill out.

Eric Helms: Yeah. Structures huge for everything. And structure for stress management is huge as well. I’ve read, I’ve made the recommendations to people to start a gratitude journal. I’ve made the recommendation. Like the 

Mike Matthews: five minute journal? Have you seen that? Yeah. 

Eric Helms: Yeah, stuff like that. Like where you’re, you keep it next to your bed at night you open it up and you write three positive things about your life.

Not bullshit. Things that you actually have to, you might have to think about it if you’re a negative person. [00:30:00] But that’s a positive, that’s a good thing for you then especially. And it and there’s actually research on on gratitude in general and how that can have a positive effect on your mind state.

Other things that I’ve recommended are, Hey, no screen time after 9 PM, and if for example your iPhone has a, an auto thing you can put on it. If you’re like, I have an iPhone six, I don’t know when they start coming out where you can, it’ll like shade shift. So it’s not as much changes.

Yeah. The temperature of the light. Yeah. Exactly. And cause we’re nothing, if not animals, who have just created a technological society and we still body responds to the sun and has circadian rhythm. So if you’re, it’s 11 PM and all these lights are on that confuses things a little bit.

It’s not like you can’t go to sleep or the sleep quality shit, but if you’re already having trouble with sleep, it’s not a bad idea to try to maximize all those possibilities. Yeah. I have recommended meditation in a few cases. It’s not a regular thing I do because people often they’re like woo alarm goes off.

But for the right person who I think would benefit, be benefited from it [00:31:00] finding some quiet time of not thinking is not a bad thing. I’ve had some other more individualized, strange recommendations. I don’t want you to watch YouTube for a week, or I don’t want you to read any articles for a week, overanalyze the 

Mike Matthews: news.

Eric Helms: Yeah. And a lot of, some of it’s like the overanalyzing, like constantly finding there’s gotta be, I can always do more. I can always do more. And it’s actually what we need to work on is your mindset of thinking you can always do more. Cause we’re, everything’s perfect right now. You just need to chill the hell out.

Yeah. Or yeah, just staying away from things that, that, that are pretty negative. American media so yeah, it just totally depends on on the situation and the person, but definitely doing things to manage stress levels and make sure that your sleep is there, is very important for the people who just cannot sleep the night, like they wake up after four hours and they’re up when they start dieting.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with naps. You might be thinking it’s not as good as eight hours solid. You’re right, but look, you’re not going to get eight, eight hours solid. So find a day, find a time of the day where you can schedule a couple of half an hour naps, and that will actually make a [00:32:00] substantial difference.

I had this problem during one of my preps. And I remember just terrible. I’d feel. And then when I had the half an hour nap, it would just be like a bolt of energy. Hit me, 

Mike Matthews: rejuvenation. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. Yeah. And I don’t feel like that in the off season. I just feel. Oh, that was nice, but it’s so much different when you’re depleted So yeah, that’s basically the full extent of what I do in terms of other things helping with recovery That a little more intangible.

Mike Matthews: Okay, cool. So I you know diverted you there, but I think it was a good diversion. Okay, good. So then we can just get back to so you’re in the process now we’ve got we’ve gone over that you’re not the last thing was training. And so what is so So they’re rolling along.

Their cardio is low. They, at this point, probably they haven’t changed much in the way of training volume yet. And is there anything on the nutritional side that is worth highlighting? And 

Eric Helms: that’s the everything. Sure. That’s why I wanted to get training out of the way first. So let’s roll it back to the very, very start, so we’ve got an idea of what we’re going to do with our cardio and our training throughout prep, when you’re going to [00:33:00] start, how heavy you should be. Another thing that you want to start at least say probably a month Before your diet starts is actually tracking calories because if you during contest prep to make sure you keep losing fat, you’re going to want to be manipulating your calorie and macronutrient intake, and it’s a lot easier to do that and less of a kind of shock to your mental system.

If you have some time doing that if you go from just eating and not tracking at all Which is nothing wrong with in my opinion so long as you’re hitting certain amount of protein You got calories are there you’re getting some fruits and vegetables in and you know You’re having protein around your workouts and you’re ticking a few boxes of making Things as optimal as they can be in the off season.

For example, right now, I’m ensure I hit a minimum amount of protein. I ensure I have at least four protein dosings a day. I ensure that I’m gaining or losing weight at the rate I want. And I make sure that I get I’m a multivitamin, my fish oil and, taking my creatine or whatever.

Yeah. And or whatever. Yeah, definitely just creatine. And then like creatine or whatever, just the D ball. Yeah. No, but so [00:34:00] like I have the protons, right? I have the boxes I tick in the off season, but it’s a lot less. It’s the minimal amount I can get away with tracking and still being optimal, which is a different formula than during contest prep where you want to make sure almost all your bases are covered because things matter more.

So anyway, if I was to prep and what I recommend to people who are in that state in the off season, whether it be just tracking protein is to start tracking all three macronutrients and weighing all their foods eating out less. And getting very used to keeping like either my fitness pal or a fit day or my macros, whatever tracking going so that it’s not a huge pain in the ass and it’s something they’ve integrated into their life.

And that is not a stress when they start prep and the side effect of this is you end up knowing exactly what your maintenance calories or you’re gaining calories are so you have a good idea of where to go. So if you know you’re maintaining roughly 3000. Calories and you know that there’s roughly 3, 500 calories in a pound of fat.

And if you want to create an X amount of deficit, you can play with that knowledge. So for [00:35:00] example, I’ll use myself. I’m a 200 pound male and I want to try to lose, Oh, let’s say 1 percent of my body weight to start. It’s about the fastest you want to go. And then slower, but like 0. 5. So you’re always going to try to fall between 1 percent of your body weight loss per week.

That’s body weight, not body fat. Obviously you want to see yourself getting out. It’d be great. Yeah. And maybe that is happening. It’s just you can’t, there’s no good measure to check. Sure. So you really, am I maintaining performance? Am I looking better, and am I losing at the right weight with my body weight?

So anyway, let’s say I wanna lose 1% of my body weight per week. That’s two pounds, that’s roughly a 7,000 calorie deficit over the course of the week. So that means I need to make, create a 1000 calorie deficit on a day-to-day basis, mostly from my diet, right? So let’s say I’m doing some cardio, so I, let’s go to 2200 on low days.

That would be an example of someone with a 3000 calorie, and 

Mike Matthews: yeah, that’s me my, with my lifestyle and I mean in my BMR and in my, whatever, I’m about 3000 calories a day and like you also, I’ve, I’ll eat intuitively, but [00:36:00] I have my rules. I have getting enough protein. I maybe even eat a bit more fruits and vegetables than I do a bit more than the two to three servings just because I like them and it’s healthy and it’s a good idea, blah, blah, blah, same supplements and stuff.

But yeah, that’s me. When I start cutting, I usually will start 2, 400 ish. Cause I’ll do a little bit more cardio, but yeah. 

Eric Helms: So perfect. Those are two examples of what I do and what you do that fall within the guidelines would probably make sense for guys our size and what the, some of the lifestyle where we’re on the computer most of the time for a job, yeah, it’s, and that’s becoming more and more. More common. So it may, so play with the amount of cardio. So long as you’re not going over that amount of you’re doing the weight training and play with the amount of food and then just double check it. So you’re looking at a seven day average of your weigh in.

So I actually do recommend weighing in daily. First thing in the morning nude, right? When you wake up after you use the toilet. Before you eat or drink anything so you can get a consistent number and then those numbers On a day to day basis matter zero. You just want an average. Yep, and then you’re just comparing averages and just so 

Mike Matthews: people understand why it’s because [00:37:00] your daily numbers can fluctuate based on water and going to the bathroom more going to the bathroom less whatever so it’s so you don’t freak out over why did my?

Why did I gain one pound? What did I do wrong? Let me just go binge now. 

Eric Helms: Yeah, exactly. There’s a ton of biological noise, what you had a higher sodium day or do you had more of your carbs at night? When there was a refeed, which we’ll talk about which is To affect your way and all those things are gonna change how much sleep you got, what time you weighed in.

The more time you spend breathing and not drinking water or moisture losses . And more time not bringing water in, you’ll weigh less. So if you went to bed and slept in late and weighed in, you’d oh, I had a new lid, a new low. It’s Hey, kind. So yeah, all those things will get mostly eliminated by a seven day app.

I’d like to go with probably two weeks before making changes anyway. So if you can get two seven day averages compared to your last two seven day averages, then you can get a really good idea of whether or not you’re actually making progress before you just make arbitrary cuts. And then we’re talking 100, 200 calorie changes most of [00:38:00] the time that you would make on a regular basis if you were plateaued.

Just so you don’t end up digging yourself into a hole too quickly. . So that that’s basically the big picture calorie stuff. In terms of refe, which I mentioned, I like to have a few days at maintenance calories. I would love there to be more research on this, but what we have at the moment, as we know.

A fair number of studies show that an intermittent approach to dieting, so some days where you’re dieting, some days where you’re not, seems to be superior in, in not all studies, but some, compared to just a straight everyday deficit. And this makes sense for a lot of reasons. I think psychologically it’s a big part of it.

Yeah. Having that kind of reward or just having that day off is pretty important. And there’s some studies showing like mental acceptance, like being on say 1500 calories for six days in a row and obese people. And then one day where you’re in Maine, that’s was easier to accept than having all days at even lower calories than 1500.

So and I think that holds true with most people there’s also when you’re training, you It gets depleted from being [00:39:00] on, from training and having low calories. So even when you’re higher on body fat and a lot of the rationale that we would normally talk about as a reason to refeed isn’t there, replenishing glycogen and having a day off from dieting, I think can help with training muscle retention and sanity.

So I normally start people with one, one refeed a week when at the beginning, and then once they hit about a third of the diet, then I go to two, and then I might end up going to three. Just depending on the individual 

Mike Matthews: and how do those refeeds look mac nutritionally? 

Eric Helms: Yeah, they are a little more carb dominant But for the most part they are just at your maintenance levels And they pretty much mirror your fat and protein intake From your other days of the week where you’re dieting and then I bring the carbs up to reach maintenance levels And that’s because carbohydrate will Primarily replenish glycogen and also has an impact on some of the hormones associated with your total daily energy expenditure, right?

It’s tends to be one of your kind of regulators for for, am I starving or not? If you quote unquote will make, so leptin being [00:40:00] the main, the one, the main one, right? Yeah. Yeah. And I don’t want people to get too caught up on leptin because there’s a lot of downstream effects. There’s other things that matter.

So that’s why I was saying some of the hormones that I like to talk around it, but yeah, definitely fat and protein don’t have the same effect on leptin that carbohydrate does, but total calories do matter as well. So yeah. And the and. It’s important that you chase a slower rate of weight loss as the diet progresses.

As you get leaner, it’s harder to liberate more and your energy expenditure is going to go down anyway. So it probably makes sense to have a lower rate of weight loss. So maybe like 0. 7 percent of your body weight would be targeted after the first third of the diet and then towards the end, 0. 5%.

And this also works nicely with having more refeeds because obviously a day of maintenance is a day you can’t accumulate a deficit. But when you only have to lose half as much. The end of the diet for a week as you were at the beginning, then you can spread it out over fewer days, but it’s not as large of a deficit.

That’s about the same. Makes sense. Yeah. It doesn’t become problematic if you take that approach. [00:41:00] If you strictly adhere to a 1 percent rate of weight loss the whole time, A, that’s a problem in and of itself. And as you take away dieting days, those deficits get larger and Yeah. So that’s the overall structure of how you would have your deficits laid out over the course of say that quote unquote six month ish period.

But I also like to have what’s called diet breaks. So about every four to eight weeks, depending on the individual. I like to take a week at maintenance on all days. And this has been a game changer for our clients at 3DMJ that we’ve started implementing this in the last couple of years in terms of breaking plateaus getting leaner, maintaining muscle and maintaining a higher calorie level and just not feeling as crappy by the end of the day.

Mike Matthews: And questions. So on the, on, when you’re determining what is maintenance at that point, are you assuming that it’s the maintenance of when they started or are you assuming it’s a bit lower because of physiological adaptations and they weigh less and blah, blah, blah. 

Eric Helms: Second. Yeah, exactly. The latter.

Because if you were to take them back to work, when they were 10 pounds heavier and [00:42:00] hadn’t been dieting. That would probably be a slight surplus. So yeah, you have to look at what was the most recent amounts of weight loss. Don’t look at a plateaued week because that can be a water weight thing covering it up.

But a lot of the times it’s just increasing like 300 to 500 calories for where you’re at. Yeah. As a safe bet. Cause that’s probably the size. It might 

Mike Matthews: be a slight deficit still, but you’re, you’re never going to hit exactly seed. Rather you just don’t want to overshoot it too much. 

Eric Helms: The goal is to eat as much as you can without gaining fat.

And even a slight surplus while you’re. Dieting won’t do that because you’re going to be replenishing glycogen for a while your energy expenditure is going to rise Sure, and it will stop being a surplus shortly. So yeah, typically it’s an increase about 300 to 500 calories 300 if you’re a smaller person 500 if you’re a larger person from where you’re at and then you know cutting cardio in half And if you do that for a week, it’s going to have more positives than negatives in nine out of ten cases.

In that tenth case is typically when the person psychologically struggles with that. 

Mike Matthews: If you’re talking about dieting for five to seven months, I would think that would [00:43:00] actually Be very enjoyable. Oh 

Eric Helms: yeah. 

Mike Matthews: I know like my cuts, I don’t know if I’ve ever cut for more than 12 weeks just because I haven’t competed.

So I haven’t needed to get down to, strike glute status. And I tend to stay fairly lean just throughout the year. So when I do cut, we’re looking at maybe six weeks to where I need to be for. Photoshoots, so I know after 10 to 12 weeks, I’m feeling done with it. I, I do a few feed once a week, but I don’t do, I’m just I’m just going to blitz this and get it done, but 10 to 12 weeks.

So I could only imagine trying to, there’s no way I could do that for another three months. I guess I could, it probably would feel like I’m going through buds or something like that every 

Eric Helms: day. Yeah, exactly. There you can do it, but there’s a cost and that’s why you hear those horror stories and what happens after shows.

And having refeeds, having diet breaks, taking a slower approach does seem to reduce the severity of how far that pendulum swings back and the consequences post show people struggling with damn near bulimia in terms of their yo kind of calorie intake and just how much weight they gain in a [00:44:00] very quick period after the show.

Yeah. So yeah, refeeds are a critical piece to this kind of longer Term approach to dieting that’s required to meet the current conditioning standard and bodybuilding. So yeah that’s more or less What do we do with calories in terms of the macronutrients themselves? I think anything around or slightly higher than a gram per pound of body weight of protein is pretty reasonable I normally start right around there at the very start of the diet and then I don’t change it just so it stays high and it’s satiating at the very least.

It may help protect against lean body mass losses as you get deeper into prep and offset some of the basically the catabolic things that happen as you do more cardio and have less glycogen and less body fat. So the body pulls more from protein stores for energy. But yeah, even just from the mental side of it that satiating effect is important and it will support your training and your training is probably the most important anti catabolic thing you can do.

So yeah, protein at that point or higher percentage of fat. I normally between 20 to 30 percent [00:45:00] of calories with a minimum intake of about 0. 5 grams per kilogram or 0. 25 grams per pound. Somewhere in there is like the, don’t go lower than that level. Unless you have to for brief periods of time, it’s always caveat for getting on stage and then fill in the rest for carbohydrate.

And that’s the basic setup and that 20 to 30 percent range for fat allows a lot of individual variation. If you enjoy more fat, do better on a high fat diet, aren’t affected by lower carbs, and you can take it up to 30 percent and that would be totally fine. Sure. Even higher in some cases, 35, 40 percent 

Mike Matthews: if you’re happy to be one of those people.

Do you find that to people you’ve worked with that higher carb or higher fat tends to be the choice or preference? 

Eric Helms: It’s different courses for different courses, man. And people are all a little different. Unfortunately, sometimes people like to eat and enjoy and crave aren’t always.

What seems to be most effective for them, I’ve definitely had people who are like, no, I’d rather eat 25 grams of fat. And I’m like, I just don’t think that’s a good idea for six months, maybe for a four week push phase. Yeah. Yeah. [00:46:00] Yeah. They’re doing everything they can to preserve their carbohydrate intake.

And there are people who would do fine with that same setup, but there are others who. Negatively affected by it their sleep starts getting worse, they’re enjoying their meals more but they’re there are Negative effects to it, yeah, so but on the other side of it There are people who do better on a low fat high carb diet and maybe they want to eat more fat It’s not always those wires cross sometimes They line up or the person doesn’t really care, but yeah, it tends to there are not everyone has Significant differential effects in between carbohydrate and fat where the deficit comes from personal preference does matter, but some people do yeah, 

Mike Matthews: Respond differently.

Yeah, I’ve worked with a lot of people not for contest prep, but just you know everyday people that they want to get fit and going from, let’s say guys starting in the twenties and wanting to get it down to about 10 or whatever. And I’ve, I would say the preference probably is generally for more carbs just because of how they feel but fats are not super low.

If it’s around 20%, but that’s just in [00:47:00] working with people, it seems for a lot of women as well, mainly because I guess they they like how they feel in their workouts. They like their higher collection levels and higher energy levels. But. That’s also a different animal altogether when you’re talking about a guy spending a couple months to go from 20 percent to maybe 12 something like that versus what you’re talking about.

Eric Helms: Yeah, definitely. It is. Like I, we, I put out these quote unquote rules and then someone will see a client of ours who we have on 10 percent of their calories from fat. They don’t realize that is a four week period where we’re like, look, we have to push and you do better on higher carbs.

So we’re going to maintain carbohydrate intake and find a deficit there. Okay. And then they go, Oh my God, yeah, what is that? You’re going to ruin 

Mike Matthews: their endocrine system. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. You’re going to put them on TRT. But but yeah, like a month, it’s just like a really you’re not going to get a fat deficiency in a month.

You’re not going to have, so it is one of those calculated decisions, 

Mike Matthews: especially when I’m sure you’re being specific on where they’re getting those fats from too. Like you’re going to make sure they get their omega 

Eric Helms: threes. You’re ensuring that official oil intake you’re talking to them about their [00:48:00] dietary sources.

You make an agreement with them and we’ve also got an RD on staff. So it’s not like we’re just, pulling stuff out of our butt. Yeah. So yeah you, it is an extreme sport even on the natural side of it. And you have to do some things that are, you didn’t wish you had to do.

You have to rob Peter to pay Paul in almost every case. of doing contest prep. It’s never ideal, so it’s what’s the best worst choice to get the person to shred it. So yeah, that, that’s more or less macronutrient set up and that’s more or less the calorie spread over the course of a six month period.

And that’s 95 percent of it right there. 

Mike Matthews: And quick question on, so on reducing calories, how do you like to go about that? So you have, you had mentioned that you don’t know large reductions, one to 200 calorie reductions, but can you just quickly explain. How do you determine, okay, it’s time to to reduce calories versus first, just increase exercise, for example, 

Eric Helms: right?

So as a coach, I get a lot of the data I’m looking at pictures or video of the person so I can see the visual changes. I’m looking at multiple seven day averages going back. And, sometimes the seven averages don’t tell you [00:49:00] quite everything. If someone hits a new low two weeks in a row, but the, but there’s more variation in there.

They’re weigh ins and you’re going to, yeah, maybe you’re still progressing and they look better than that. And then maybe we just are having more and more water fluctuation, which can definitely happen if they’re getting more stressed throughout prep. So there are some of those kind of judgment calls you have to make.

But if I was to give advice to someone who’s self coached, I would say, give yourself a range of acceptable 0. 5 to 1 percent if you want to be broad with it. And then look at your seven day average and least wait two weeks. And if it doesn’t happen over two weeks. Then it might be time to make that 100 to 200 calorie cut.

And I would say cut from where you feel you’ll get the least stressed, right? So if it’s no, if it’s easy for you to cut 15 grams of fat and you wouldn’t even notice like, yeah, I just switched the low fat cheese, boom, do it. And if you get to a point where you like you feel a 10 gram carb cut or you feel a 10 gram fat cut, then go the other way or even go with adding cardio.

The thing with adding cardio though, is it’s something a lot of [00:50:00] people don’t get is if let’s say you go to the gym and you burn 300 calories. That’s not 300 calories of expenditure on top of whatever it is because you didn’t gain extra time Like if you did an hour of cardio the day doesn’t now last 25 hours sure at least Yeah, whatever you would have burned in that hour with that 300 So if you would have burned 100 calories just you know farting around your room Yeah, you actually only burn 200 additional calories Yeah, so you have to think about that calorie that time being replaced with cardio time.

Mike Matthews: It’s a good point 

Eric Helms: And so cardio is never quite as effective as calorie reductions at a certain point. People can also just reduce their expenditure at other times in the day. So you’ll get more fatigued from doing more cardio, you do less expenditure at other times in the day, you fidget less.

Sleep more or you just say you don’t want to take the stairs anymore up to the right So so I’ve seen strange things happen where you add a bunch of cardio and nothing happens And then you take it away and you do a 15 gram chop and fat or something like that And then they’re losing again [00:51:00] interesting because you can’t as easily outpace You know drops in energy, then you can’t energy expenditure 

Mike Matthews: So are you looking to increase exercise more systematically throughout the course of the entire prep, as opposed to, because again, where my, your, you have far more experience with all of this than I do, but my experience just working not with my own body, but working with people, again, it’s just a totally different set of circumstances, but it’s usually.

Let’s be as aggressive as we can on the outset because we’re looking at let’s say we’re looking at a two or three month cut not prepping for a show. It’s just to get into a nice body fat range. Let’s Get as aggressive as we can be on the exercise Which i’m very much have the same mindset as you where you don’t I would never recommend somebody’s doing hours of two hours of cardio a day ever but Let’s come out the gates Or with let’s say four or five hours of weightlifting a week and let’s do an hour or two of cardio in the and see where that, okay, once you’re stuck, let’s work that cardio or weightlifting up basically to the point where okay, we’re [00:52:00] just not going to be going beyond this for exercise, or we’re going to run into the problems you already talked about.

And then let’s stop. Let’s start reducing. Caloric intake. So what you’re talking about sounds different though, is that because it’s a longer process or is it just, you’ve just found that works better? 

Eric Helms: It’s a longer process and in the end because I’m dealing with physique athletes and maintaining as much muscle as possible, the huge priority I’m more minimalistic with my cardio.

And the weight training is relatively high volume to start with, if someone’s a bodybuilder, they’re already a high level intermediate or advanced lifter. So they’re going to be doing a lot of work to build a high work capacity and throwing an additional weight training is something that doesn’t make quite as much sense for them and throwing an additional cardio can interfere with that, 

Mike Matthews: so that’s why you would rather reduce caloric intake because it has a less of a systemic impact basically. 

Eric Helms: And it’s going to have to happen anyway. If you were to truly take a bodybuilder and go, alright, you’re going to cardio yourself to striatoglutes. Yeah. Oh my god, they’d be, they wouldn’t look like a bodybuilder at the end, let’s put it that way.[00:53:00] 

And they’d have a great 5k time and a great marathon. Yes, what’s that 

Mike Matthews: marathoner doing out there? 

Eric Helms: Yeah, exactly. So I guess also they even made it. Their knees wake up 

Mike Matthews: in the context of refeeds and diet breaks. Like we’ve talked about that also. I could, that makes sense. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. So it’s all about trying to set up and periodize a calorie deficits primarily from nutrition.

So I’m, I might start them with one to two cardio sessions and over a 24 week prep, I might make three adjustments to their cardio. Okay. However, I might make nutrition adjustments two times a month, on average, and a lot of it is, I do come out of the gates relatively aggressive just because they have a higher body fat level, they’re mentally ready, they’ve been chomping at the bit, they’re in the off season, they built their calories up nice and high what I’ll do is let’s try to get that 1 percent loss of body weight per week, and then as soon as they start to get beat up by the diet, There’s our first diet break, they’re starting to stall.

They’re not feeling too hot. The training loads are suffering. Boom. Let’s take a week off. And then we come back to it. We target a slower percentage, so it [00:54:00] might be diet break and then come back with two refeeds and only targeting 0. 7 percent of their body weight. So as soon as their body starts to push back, I don’t.

Push harder, actually ease off the gas pedal. And I found that’s a more successful strategy. Yeah, 

Mike Matthews: that makes sense. Anything with 

Eric Helms: supplementation? Yeah. The biggest thing during contest prep is. You’re obviously all the same rules apply. You still want to take like creatine You still want to ensure your protein intake is up there and if that means getting some powder and awesome But because you’re eating less total calories and your macronutrients are being reduced often your micronutrients are negatively affected So I’m a little more emphasizing the education around vitamin and mineral supplementation and what micronutrients are typically deficient in people who are or bodybuilding so that the client knows that and they can make the decision to I take a multivitamin.

There’s some good ones out there that are targeted, but yeah, so things like essential fatty acids and and multivitamin and like vitamin D those are pretty like staples for someone dieting, in my opinion. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah. [00:55:00] And really probably people in all, under, I think those are smart.

That’s why I take personally amongst a few other things, but it’s smart regardless of dieting. Cause even if you are, again I feel like I’m a pretty conscientious eater and getting micronutrient rich foods, but I figure it can’t hurt to have a good multivitamin to plug any little holes that there might be as much as I try to eat.

Leafy greens and a variety of other vegetables and colorful fruits and blah, blah, blah. And anything on the fat loss side of things obviously there’s caffeine. Caffeine can be useful, 

Eric Helms: Outside of caffeine. Not really. I don’t think there’s any true quote unquote fat burners on the market that are a legal and then be the ones that are do anything.

Caffeine is interesting. It has two effects. And they’re go hand in hand. One is, and they do go hand in hand, the stimulator, the nervous system, right? It’s a stimulant. You can take a high enough doses to where that can potentially improve performance. We’re talking like four to six milligrams per kg.

So that’s for a 200 pound male we’re talking three 50 to 500 milligrams. It’s pretty hefty dosage more than [00:56:00] is in most pre workouts. To actually improve performance and then just to suppress tiredness, anything from one to three milligrams per kg. So we’re talking like a hundred to a cup of coffee.

Yeah. A large Starbucks cup of coffee, right? Or your standard pre workout. Those are all pretty good dosages at suppressing tiredness. However, the that stimulating effect of the higher dosages of actually improving performance, you can get a tolerance to and it stops happening. However, it does continue to suppress tiredness, obviously to a point if you’re getting like five hours of sleep every night, there’s a certain point where you can’t caffeine yourself.

We’ve all tried. Yeah. 

Mike Matthews: It works for a couple of times and then doesn’t work anymore. 

Eric Helms: Exactly. So you have to think what is more valuable to me at this stage of prep. So maybe at the beginning of prep when you’re not feeling too run down, twice a week you’re taking a high caffeine dosage and I would, not just straight away use four milligrams or five or six milligrams per kg.

I would use the. The lowest effective dosage where you feel pretty damn jacked up Yeah and then [00:57:00] if it needs to go higher a little bit or if you can nudge it up you don’t want to take too much and definitely not more than six milligrams per kg hour period But once or twice per week on your hardest training days or heaviest training days to try to get a performance effect Awesome, and then once you start to get really beat down by prep, I would actually go down to a lower and that may have some kind of downstream effect on your energy expenditure.

So if you’re not dragging ass 24 seven, just cause you’re taking, yeah. A hundred milligrams per day. You’re walking faster 

Mike Matthews: and then you feel up to the stairs because you’re not falling asleep. 

Eric Helms: Exactly. Yeah. So yeah that that’s one of those ones where the way you take it might change based on the energy levels or stage prep off season, then season, et cetera.

Mike Matthews: Makes sense. Great. So I think then if you still have time the last thing would just be laying out peak week How does that look? 

Eric Helms: Sure. Yes a peak week Like you said a big piece of it is just getting a pump and carving up to assist that pump And I mentioned how blood pressure drops. You might have heard the recommendation from health organizations to reduce sodium intake Especially if you have a family history of heart [00:58:00] health and while I don’t 100 percent agree with that, and there are maybe some people genetically who that would make sense for for the vast majority of people, if you have a high sodium diet, your blood pressure comes up for a little while and then it goes back down.

And we go, oh, so it’s not a chronic effect. We don’t want a chronic effect as bodybuilders. It’d be great if our blood pressure could come up temporarily and that actually assists with getting a pump. And all that stuff. I actually do immediately prior to the pump up, I have my athletes take a high sodium quick acting meal or literally just put table salt, just drink some salt and down it.

Yeah. Which is not very tasty, but 

Mike Matthews: You don’t need that much cause it’s, what was it? 2. 3 grams of sodium per teaspoon of salt. Exactly. 

Eric Helms: So yeah, a lot of the times it’s right around there, putting a teaspoon of table salt into a glass of water, slamming it back. And then get in their pump up and that’s after they’ve been carving up that day.

Now yeah the peak week process is essentially just reversing flatness and reversing that, that blood pressure drop. I don’t manipulate water. I don’t manipulate sodium and I don’t even change the fat and and [00:59:00] protein intakes that have typically been in the diet. I might up the fat a little bit just cause I don’t want you to deficit.

Yeah. But typically it is having. Carb intake levels that are closer to your refeed days and either a front or a back load approach The neither or neither method is better than the other I might have said a different answer a year ago or two years ago But essentially probably the easiest for those listening way to do this Is on Friday and maybe even Thursday, just take yourself out of a deficit and then through a carbohydrate increase Friday potentially go to a slightly higher than a maintenance level.

And then the day of the show be at maybe 80%. Between like maybe the average of your low and your high days on the dice trying to maintain That kind of carved up look and if you really want to play a conservative and you don’t want to spill over Which is relatively rare Just have a refeed the day before the show, And then have the average of your refeed and your low day on the day of the show That’ll prevent you from being flat in most [01:00:00] cases that won’t get you fully peaked But if you’re writing solo It’s very difficult to self analyze this and you don’t want to be in a position where you’ve spilled over and you can’t pull back I used to recommend front loads to first timers, but they’re actually complex, having highs and then lows and highs against.

So I think that’s probably the easiest way to go for someone just listening. But but essentially what you’re looking to do is just get someone’s laggage and levels back up. 

Mike Matthews: Yep. And for what it’s worth just for the listeners, that’s what I’ve experienced myself when I’ve done it a few times, having you really lean for photo shoots is I just kept it simple like that as the day before started eating a bunch of carbs.

And the day of the shoot. Eating a bunch of carbs and getting pumped. And I don’t know, I thought, I think I looked pretty good at work. 

Eric Helms: Yeah, no, it definitely does. And keeping it simple is very effective. I like to do multiple shows with people on a season, especially if they have to diet for six months.

So typically they’ll find their peaks get better. As I find out what are the limits of carbs I can push. Sometimes I’ll find a limit. A little after the limit, and then the next one will be, will come [01:01:00] down and peak better. Yeah. So yes, it’s one of those. 

Mike Matthews: So it’s that point where it’s personal there.

This is where, and anyone that has read or listened to people compete have come across that where people say it’s peak week. You have to learn your body, which, 

Eric Helms: yeah, 

Mike Matthews: In other contexts, when people say you have to learn your body it can indicate like that they just don’t know what they’re talking about, but in this case, there’s actually some truth.

Eric Helms: And honestly, it’s one of those things where we’re not going to have effective research on it. I can’t think of a way to do that. Maybe we will one day, but So we have to go on what makes sense logically based on scientific principles and then experience. So yeah, like basically it is a conservative carb up.

Carb up if it’s your first time. If you’ve done it multiple times and you have quote unquote earned your body, then a more aggressive carb up. And then throwing back, one to three grams of sodium based on body size immediately prior to doing a pump up. And then Not doing a whole lot of the things you hear people do not doing extreme depletion not cutting your water not manipulating [01:02:00] potassium not drastically changing all your food sources and yeah, that, that’s pretty much it.

Obviously when you carb up, you probably want those to be carbs that will actually turn into glycogen. You wouldn’t want it to be all vegetables. Yeah, but starchy stuff or Yeah, so just, don’t have a high fiber intake While you’re carving up and then that’s pretty much it.

Mike Matthews: Awesome. That’s great. That this is this is really good. I really, I think you’ve touched on, on, on everything. So that’s super helpful. So tell everybody work and they find you and how can they. Check out everything else you, cause you also, you have eBooks which I’ve read, which are great.

Oh, thank you. Awesome. Yeah. So if you want to talk about, 

Eric Helms: Your professional side. For sure. Yeah. So I’m one fifth of the Hydra that is Hail Hydro. That is 3D Muscle Journey. So check out 3DMuscleJourney. com and you can see the content that we have there from all five of us coaches.

And then we’ve got our YouTube channel at slash Team3MJ where we have Since I want to say 2011, a library of informational videos on [01:03:00] Instagram, I am Helms3dmj. And I have, as as much informational content as you can have on Instagram, but also some fun stuff. Selfies. Selfies. Yeah, I’m a pretty silly guy.

Yeah, cats and stuff like that. And then, I feel like I’m 

Mike Matthews: too boring for social media. That’s the problem. My life is too boring. I Just do the same thing every day. 

Eric Helms: You just gotta embrace it and make fun of it and then you’re good to go. And then yeah, my eBooks, as you mentioned, I wrote two, two books called the muscle and strength pyramids, one for strength training and then one for nutrition.

So if it’s, they are for bodybuilders and power lifters, everything you could possibly need to know about setting up your diet for nutrition and training those are at muscle and strength pyramids. com. And we also have some blog articles there. Useful resources email courses you can sign up for and information about my co authors, Andrea Valdez and Andy Morgan, who are both awesome in their own right.

And I think that is pretty much it as far as finding me. Oh, and if you’re a total nerd and you want to see my research you can go to researchgate. net and search for Eric Collins and you’ll find my profile and you can read. [01:04:00] 

Mike Matthews: Cool. Awesome. Yeah, I highly recommend everybody listening to go check out Eric’s stuff, follow him.

You’re one of the few guys that I’ve consistently followed for, the last several years. And whenever you talk on, I always listen. So for what that’s worth for the listeners. I You know just throw that out there that if you want good information, good science based information. Also, obviously, evidence based is a trend right now, and it’s a good trend, I think, on the whole.

But, someone like me, I’m not a scientist. I don’t pretend to be a scientist. Eric is a scientist. I like to read science. The stuff of people like Eric and explain it. So everyone, so the layman can understand, but so you’re one of the guys that I say, Hey, here’s a source of really good information.

Like I’m an interpreter and I have a lot of experience in my own realm, but so I appreciate people like you and the work you’re doing. And I do my part to spread it around. 

Eric Helms: It’s an honor to hear that. I’m so glad. And I appreciate it. Thank you. 

Mike Matthews: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. Awesome. Just throwing it out there.

If in the sometime in the future, if you have [01:05:00] time, I would love to have you back on to talk about off season. Yeah, sure. For sure. Yeah, because everything you’ve discussed here, sure, it’s great for what it for specifically for contest prep, but this is also there’s a lot of great information here for people that, yeah, maybe they’re not wanting to prepare for a show, but just for knowing how to get really lean, essentially.

Cause I, again, I get a lot of people reaching out for just for photo shoots, for example, you don’t have to be necessarily as lean as you need, in a, for a photo shoot as you need to be for a bodybuilding show. But if you want, as our guy, if you want to look good, you want to be somewhere down around 7%, probably if you want to, that’s the aesthetic type of look, right?

Seven, eight, I 

Eric Helms: think even like a legitimate 10%. You look pretty damn good. I think 

Mike Matthews: it’s so hard when you look though, it name any method of determining body fat percentage. And there are big error rates, including deaths. It’s hard. Yeah, it’s hard. Yeah, exactly. I dissect my clients, so I only get to work on them once.

So you’re Dr. Frankenstein? Yeah, [01:06:00] pretty much. But anyways, that look where, you’re starting to see ab vascularity, you have pretty much just skin to pinch. So anybody just even looking to get that lean yeah, it’s not striate glutes, but it’s pretty lean. It helps on the off season side of things, then that, that would be for the average person more the, okay, so they’re done being really lean.

Now they want to focus on gaining some muscle and strength and gain and seeing how, how far they can push themselves until the next diet phase, basically. 

Eric Helms: That’s right. A hundred percent. Yeah. That, honestly, the because the diets are so intensive, the, a lot of winning shows happens in the off season so you can recover and then set yourself up for next time.

Mike Matthews: Makes sense. 

Eric Helms: Yeah. I’d love to come back. 

Mike Matthews: Cool. Awesome. All right. Again, thanks a lot for your time. Totally appreciate it. And you got it. My pleasure. Absolutely. I know that this is going to be received well, so I appreciate it. Awesome. Can’t wait. Hey, it’s Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast.

If you did go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two. Where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general [01:07:00] wellness. Also head over to my website at www. muscleforlife. com where you’ll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you’ll also find a bunch of different articles that I’ve written.

I release a new one almost every day. Actually I release four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I’m involved in over at muscleforlife. com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.