Broderick Chavez on stage with Dean McKillop, Rawdon Dubois & Tom Hewett
00:18 What is your general approach to the 16 weeks of preparation leading into
a physique contest?
Tom: Okay, mate. Speaking of timelines …
Broderick: Yeah.
Tom: … if we talk about a contest prep, you alluded to, at the start of the day, 14 to 16
weeks …
Broderick: Mm-hmm.
Tom: … and then there’s a two-week block on the end.
Broderick: Yes.
Tom: So, should we start with the overview of how you approach a prep, where … you
know, starting position?
Broderick: Yeah. Yeah, going from the contest backward, there’s two weeks very
proximal to the bodybuilding event—the physique event—that I think dieting should be
done; you’re no longer dieting. Those two weeks are blocked off for specific
manipulations—carb loading, salt, water—that sort of stuff—proximal manipulations
within an already lean and prepared physique. Ninety-five per cent of a bodybuilding
presentation should be done 14 days before you walk on stage, as I think it should be.
Then … so, all of the body fat loss and, you know, accruement of muscle mass and
body fat loss is 16 weeks from the event for 14 weeks, then plus the two.
Why 16 weeks? Why 14 weeks? I’ll tell you why. What’s the speed—we covered this
actually somewhere—what’s the speed at which you can roughly consistently lose
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body fat? About a pound a week; about 500 grams a week. So, quick, do the math:
500 grams a week
[1:35] x 14 weeks. That’s how fat you should be. If you’re ever fatter than 15 pounds
above, you’re fatter—not necessarily body weight—but if you have more than 15
pounds of body fat coming in to an event, you’re too Goddamned fat; pick a new
contest, start again. That’s it. Literally, that’s about it.
There might be some … if you’re a really gigantic asshole, you might still be, you know,
10% or 12% body fat and there’s always a special occasion. Everybody could always,
“What if …, what if …, what if ...?” me into a corner, but, in general, most people are,
you know, 75-110 kilograms and, within that, if you do the math, if you’re a sensible
body fat percentage, you’re probably not losing much more than 15 pounds of body fat.
That comes out to about 500 grams a week over the course of those 14 weeks, and
there it is. That … you know, until the species moves on and gets exceptionally bigger
or something, that’s pretty much your math. And that 500 grams is a sliding scale;
early on, you could probably lose 600 or 700 grams, and toward the end, it might be as
low as 300, but, again, average over time, you’re able to lose about 500 grams a week,
and that’s that part.
Tom: Yeah. Deano and Rawdon, it might be good to get your thoughts on this. What
starting points and length of a comp prep that you like to work with?
Dean: I have a couple of reference points; I like total pinches of millimetres of fat over
nine sites to give a fairly rough indication as to how much skin-specific fat tissue they
need to lose. I know I can average, roughly, about 2 mil a week over nine sites, so if
you’re fatter than 60 mil over nine, you’ve got more than 30 to go; you’re gonna be in
trouble.
Broderick: Yep.
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Dean: And that, roughly … generally I’ll prep a person into that phase so that they’re
about that pinch rate at 20 weeks-ish out to allow time to also potentially have some
dietary breaks, some stress reductions …
Broderick: Yeah.
Dean: … and so on.
[3:30]
Broderick: Yeah, and if you do the math, you actually work the body fat formulae
against that, you know, 60 mils—I haven’t done it, but it probably comes out to pretty
similar to that, like, you know, like, 10-12% body fat.
Dean: Yeah, usually between half and 1% total body weight per week is about as max
as I’ll take off someone.
Broderick: Yep.
Dean: Just to try and minimise any potential loss of [inaudible]
Broderick: And there’s a really interesting take-home point here is Dean and I literally
do things pretty differently in terms of systematic methodology, but when you step back
and look at we’re measuring two different things or we’re focusing on two different
aspects—and Rawdon and I fit in this category, too, so really, all three of us focus on a
different aspect—I just pretty much do the 500 gram math, he works through
millimetres, Rawdon does some different things—but, nonetheless, when you look at
all of it in perspective, we’re all within the very narrow zone of “that is the right answer”;
we may be looking at it from a different point of view, but we’re still looking at exactly
the same thing and manipulating the same variables. There’s not a hell of a lot of
difference in the action; it’s the actions you take to get that action might be slightly
different.
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But the fundamentals of how you burn fat, where you burn fat from, how much fat you
can burn and how long that takes to happen, pretty Goddamned similar everywhere,
with the exception, over here, natural guy a little different for a number of reasons
including he’s already very much better than most of the people in this equation, and
by “better” I mean closer to the top of his genetic abilities. When you start adding
drugs or when you take a novice or something like that, the margins are so much
bigger, the timeframes are constrained; somebody like that might actually take 40
weeks to prepare for an event, but it’s because they have so fine a gradient and it
takes so much effort to elicit any change. It is a little bit different, but it’s different
almost for a good reason; it’s … there’s not a lot more to gain. You’re really working in
the fine bits.
[5:31] So there’s a difference, but, yeah, kind of not a difference, and that’s kind of
almost the, “Ooh, I wish I could expire to that.” Like, if I could have good genetics and
use drugs, and still need that long, that’s actually amazing and not really gonna
happen, but in my fantasy mind, I think about those people and I want to be the guy
that creates that guy. Rawdon, you got anything to chime in, like, cos I know you have
similar but different?
Rawdon: Yeah, I mean, I use what Dean refers to, as well; I use the sum of 10, so I’ll
be tracking that as I go—2 to 4 mil a week—anywhere between that’s pretty good—0.4
to 0.7 total body weight a week. Usually 16 weeks, I’ll cut. And, I suppose, the
exceptions will be for … depending on the division, as well, like, whether we do have to
get the hamstring, glutes, quads to be on show. Physique guys, they have it a little
easier, but … and females, of course, for the lower body, unless they’re genetically
gifted—Jane’s probably nodding about now—you know, maybe a longer duration of the
cutting phase …
Broderick: Hm-mmm.
Rawdon: …specifically for lower body [inaudible] but depends on the division, and
whether it’s male or female, for sure.
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Dean: Yeah. I was just gonna say, I think one of the greatest things that people fuck
up when it comes to a prep is that not understanding that you have a greater
propensity to lose lean muscle mass at the end of prep versus the beginning of prep.
Broderick: Absolutely.
Dean: You can afford to go harder earlier …
Broderick: Yep.
Dean: … and you should really be pulling back towards the end, cos that’s when you
have the greatest risk of muscle loss, whereas we generally find people are chasing
their tail, then have to do stupid shit at the end …
Broderick: Yep.
[7:08]
Dean: … and then that’s when they look like shit.
Broderick: And in that same vein, you’re doing that, I do exactly the same thing; the
way I would largely manipulate that, keep the effort relatively static and manipulate the
drug use to get greater and greater support of said muscle mass rather than doing it
the other way around, but it’s … again, it’s the same thing; we’re just focusing on
different aspects of how we’re teasing out that action, but, at the end of the day, it’s still
that action. Muscle mass is far more delicate and harder to preserve as you diet
harder and harder, and something in your strategy has to account for that, whether it’s
titrating effort, introducing cheat-meals or manipulating pharmacology, it’s still … you’re
doing the same thing. And that’s probably the big take-home on all of this is, there’s
only so many ways to do this shit; it’s really comes down to what are you focusing on
and what are you doing?
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08:00 Where do you start with an athlete who hasn't prepared for a prep properly
in the off season with food and training?
Attendee: My biggest problems with a coaching perspective, athletes aren’t putting
enough … some people that come to you aren’t putting enough effort before the prep
starts, in the off-season. They come to you all fucked up like a …
Broderick: Yep.
Attendee: … some guys, like, bodybuilders I find the most, like, they’re all … they want
to compete and all this stuff, and they think, as soon as the comp’s over, “Oh, it’s
fucking time to relax,” and not only do they not eat enough food, but they eat poor food
…
Broderick: Yep.
Attendee: … and then they start the prep, you’ve got nowhere to go cos they’re eating
shit food and nowhere near enough of it. Where do you start?
Broderick: I’ll tell you a funny thing.
Attendee: Pre-program yourself, I find the … I pre-prep before I start a prep, like …
Broderick: Of course you do.
[8:34]
Attendee: … I almost give as highest calories as possible …
Broderick: Absolutely.
Attendee: … [inaudible] I’ve got heaps of room to move.
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Broderick: Absolutely. Funny thing. I saw Tom Platz whenever the Olympia was in LA
—’86? ’84? ’86? Might have been ’84. I was a child. I think it was ’84. I think it was
’84, but I … somebody, again, somebody go I’m fucking up and fallible … Google that
shit, and make sure. It was either ‘84 or ’86, the Olympia was in LA. I was there. I
hung out a little bit with Tom Platz. He placed, like, 7th; it was not great, but he did
really well for him. But the part of the story that’s relevant to that is contest was on
Saturday. Sunday morning, I went to see him. He was eating rice on a life [??] cycle,
Sunday morning after the Olympia and literally he … and I was, kind of, like, “Dude,
like, you know, easy, you could take the day off,” he’s, like, “It’s only 364 days before
the Olympia.” Like, literally that was his response to me. Dude just competed in the
Olympia, dude was hammered shit, and his attitude was, “Holy fuck, the clock’s
running; I only have 364 days before I’m gonna be on stage again.” He was on the
bike eating the rice.
Dean: Alright, we’re at 16 weeks out, you and your soft drink and your coffee.
Broderick: Fuck.
09:40 What are the variables you measure and manipulate in week 1 of a contest
prep to engage fat loss?
Dean: What are some of the variables that you are specifically measuring or what are
you manipulating in week 1 to engage fat loss and start the process?
Broderick: It’s that whole signalling. Making a change is as big a signal as the
magnitude of change. That step 1 is elevate activity, reduce calories, not so much how
much, but that; engage the mechanisms, get them going, and then have a timeline in
play. We want to be about here, here, about a reduction here, here and so on, and
then have expectations, but not Draconian “thou shalt be consuming exactly X calories
here.” Some people respond good, some not. And, even within the same person, two
different preps, they can respond differently over two different times. As a matter of
fact, not only could they, but, if you’re [10:34] doing shit right, they should because
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bodybuilding is exactly that; building a body, every single prep. Even natural guy, over
time, they should have slightly more muscle and, therefore, a slightly different
metabolism, so the idea that they would respond identically is laughable because, if
they’re doing their job properly, they’re not fucking identical. So you should not … you
should have a built-in opportunity or expectation for being wrong and readjusting the
numbers, but week 1, change 1 is just engage—change—you know, drop, you know,
50 carbs and double the cardio load from almost none in the preparatory period to
some.
Dean: To achieve a given amount of caloric expenditure.
Broderick: Exactly.
Dean: [overspeaking] difference between intake and expenditure?
11:17 Do you prefer to create the caloric deficit via both a manipulation of
expenditure and input?
Broderick: Yes. And that’s the other thing, too, is I won’t say they’re completely
swappable, but, in general, eating less and doing more are metabolically—or, at least
… no, not even metabolically—that’s wrong—I didn’t say that—ledger sheet … at the
end of the day, what you’re doing is filling out a chequebook ledger, and you’re gonna
be left with a given amount, and your goal is to make that amount less over time, so
doing more or eating less influences that ledger sheet roughly equally. There are
differences in metabolic, like, waste products generated, burden on system storage
vectors—that sort of thing—but, in general, activity and/or not eating are roughly gonna
generate the same thing.
Over time, you will find one is more sustainable than the other. At some point, you
simply can’t eat less, and then, in the same breath, at some point, you simply can’t do
more or it’s so interferent with any weight training. You’re now a bodybuilder that does
nothing but cardio; that’s called a bikini model. So [laughter] and we have them, we
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really do, so, but whatever. But, yeah, that … pretty much what I would do is just
engage in that kind of low, slow expectational fashion.
12:32 What types of PEDs may be useful at the beginning of a contest prep?
Rawdon: What about if we were gonna delve into the murky world of supplementation
…
Broderick: Yeah.
[12:37]
Rawdon: … that actually works? What do … you want to rattle off a few that you
might utilise at the start of the 16 or 14 weeks out?
Broderick: Well, again, it’s not a matter of “this is perfect for this person,” or “this is
perfect for that person”; it’s a matter of the right tool for the right job. A certain amount
of … you know if you could tease out anabolism over those weeks, anabolism is both
great for bodybuilders—the bigger is better—and it is a highly energy-intensive
process; building muscle requires a lot of energy. So, now you have an additional
energy sink or energy well, much like cardio, is just the wasting of energy. Actually, if
you can dose … if you’re a—and not everybody can do this—but if things are arranged
in such a way that you could actually drive hypertrophy while dieting, yes, it will be far
diminished over what it would be in the off-season, but any anabolism is so energy-
intensive, it’s an additional sink of calories and generates leanness.
So, can you get bigger and leaner at the same time? The answer is, yes, with drugs,
and even if you don’t actually get bigger, the act of trying, and even, to some degree,
the act of maintaining muscle mass, is the same nett anabolism, so there is a loss of
energy there, so, anabolics definitely meets that goal.
Growth hormone—whole complicated subject of its own—but, short answer, is anabolic
and is very liberatory of fat—it liberates fat into the bloodstream, making fat available.
It’s an energy vector, so it’s also a very good thing to use—a usable thing, a very
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appropriate thing to use. “Good’s” not quite the word I want to use with that, but all
drugs are bad—bad, bad, bad—but good for building muscle and getting lean.
Secondarily, we’ve got things, you know, actual “thermogenics” or lipogenic
compounds like Clenbuterol[inaudible] of all kinds; they stimulate the release of fat,
much like lipase, and have a stimulatory effect which probably will make you more
energetic, more capable of doing work, more likely to do the work, and possibly some
actual individual enzymatic actions that make a slight predisposition toward burning fat
over carbohydrates, in general.
Hard … I don’t necessarily know if I would start with it, but it’s in this field, so we could
cover it, the act of dieting over time will cause your body—and we could talk about
why, if [14:59] it’s necessarily relevant—but the act of dieting hard over time will …
your body will tell your thyroid gland to try and pull back on the production of thyroid,
because your body wants a certain margin of body fat, and once that closes between a
certain point, that page 1, chapter 1, “don’t die” thing kicks into gear and the body sees
that closing reserve of … diminishing reserve of body fat as approaching death,
diminishes the release of T3—or T4 which then converts to T3—and, in a hope to
either slow the consumption of body fat or—and probably more specifically—slow your
activity, make you more lethargic, and therefore, less likely to consume that additional
energy. So this whole … like, we talked about Rawdon trying to, you know, instigate
steps to maintain NEAT; that’s in defence of your body’s desire to settle your ass down
and get you to have less NEAT.
15:58 How do you structure Clenbuterol use?
Attendee: How do you structure Clenbuterol intake? Like, every single person’s got a
different way of phasing it in and out, like, two days on, two days off, one week on, one
week off.
Broderick: Yep.
Attendee: And found [??] they are quite [inaudible]
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Broderick: Well, there’s a … Clenbuterol’s a really exciting multifaceted compound but,
unfortunately, most of the research that’s of any relevance to this conversation is
actually done in beef cattle. I don’t know about this country—I have no ability to be up
to you about the laws—but in the United States, there’s precious few hormones they
can use on beef cattle, and so they’ve gone in other directions. It’s just like athletes,
that you just start drug testing for one thing, they’re gonna use a different thing. Same
thing’s happened in beef cattle in the U.S.
Clenbuterol is the major pharmacological agent used to influence the slaughter weights
of beef cattle in the United States. Yes, boys and girls, that means that Clenbuterol is
anabolic—not enormously so, not like it’s as strong as Trenbolone or whatever—but it
is anabolic. But, unfortunately, all the studies are done on cattle—humans are not
cattle, there are differences—but it also makes them leaner and more muscular.
17:03 Is Clenbuterol more anti-catabolic than it is anabolic?
Attendee: Anti-catabolic?
[17:04]
Broderick: It does. Well, but that’s the thing is ... anti-catabolic is, in effect, the same
as anabolic. When you perform exercise, you’re damaging muscle. A certain amount
of protein is gonna be stripped away in order to make room for the new repairs. When
you buy a property, you knock down the building, take away the damaged shit, and
then build new. Well, if you were able to knock down less and start with more of the
original foundation, that’s less resources; that lack of destruction instigates quicker
completion of the project. So lack of catabolism, in the end, on that ledger sheet, looks
the same, at the end of the day, as anabolism, so anti-catabolic is really anabolic in the
big picture, even though the momentary effect is slightly different, so keep that in mind.
17:53 Clenbuterol application continued
But, to answer your question, why you’re using Clenbuterol really determines the
result. It is, in itself, slightly anabolic. However, those anabolic properties take a great
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deal of time to generate and they are low and slow, so you would have a consistent
dosing over a longest possible period of time you can tolerate; that would generate the
anabolic actions of that compound. The fat burning aspects are largely catecholamine-
driven and those are much more transient—the fight or flight type thing. Those are the
reasons why you would be using it a certain number of days, a certain number of days
off. It’s not really the drug itself; it’s the secondary hormones that it drives. It’s like
pushing the panic button. How many times in a row can you do that before it either
breaks or doesn’t work any more or something?
19:12 Does Clenbuterol lose efficacy after 20 days?
So, for fat loss, you’re … Dan Duchaine was the guy who brought Clenbuterol to the
market. I don’t want to say he was the original, but, interestingly, I also think he was
the most honest and accurate about it. He typically suggested that you had about a 20
day efficacy window and then, from there, people did all kinds of things to try and
expand that window by going three days on, two days off, whatever. It still winds up
being 20 effective days; it’s just different arrangements thereof.
Attendee: [inaudible] get used to it?
Broderick: Well, “used to it” is a bad word, but the systems that are responsible for
stimulating the effect on adipose tissue tend to lose efficacy after about 20 days.
19:23 Can you use antihistamines with Clenbuterol to enhance its effects?
[19:20]
Attendee: [inaudible] say [inaudible] a couple of guys there told me to take
antihistamine with it…
Broderick: That is definitely a method, too. Original first gen antihistamines like
diphenhydramine do seem to have an effect on the … concurrent effect and opposite
effect on the receptor that drives that allergic action, and antihistamine will prolong its
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use, but the problem there is antihistamines tend to drive hunger, independently and
through a separate mechanism, and tend to drive water retention and lethargy so,
yeah, it probably makes the Clenbuterol work a little better, but if you look at the whole
big picture, probably not better, in the big picture.
20:05 Clenbuterol & antihistamines continued
It is actually pharmacologically true, but, again, like I say, if you step back and look at
some of the other actions, and the other actions, the other actions, you’re probably not
getting a nett benefit. But the 20 day thing is probably pretty consistent. What I would
say with that is you’ve probably got reasonably and sensibly at the high doses we
bodybuilders tend to do things, probably 14 day runs—two weeks on, some period of
time off, two weeks on, some period of time off. That’s how I would handle that.
20:34 Clenbuterol doesn't come with a ‘free ride’ and does have
contraindications
Tom: Kind of comes down to the principle of no free ride, Brods, like …
Broderick: That’s it.
Tom: … everything works well until it doesn’t.
Broderick: Exactly, then that’s just the way that works, and that applies to everything;
there’s not one … name one biological system … and it keeps getting better until you
push it too far, and then it gets really bad, you know. Think about overtraining;
training’s great, and you train more and training’s great, and then, all of a sudden, you
round the bend, you’re overtrained, and then training sucks, and it’s just that simple.
And everything applies to that; there’s not one aspect, including being lean. Being
lean is typically good for your health, good for your blood sugar metabolism, good for
prevention of diabetes, on and on and on, until you get so lean that, you know, you’re
in that Rwanda scenario and you’re dying, and [21:13] then that’s really fucking bad, so
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everything’s, again, got a lifetime and a window of efficacy and it’s just a matter of
understanding that and working within the bounds.
[End of Transcript]
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