The secret of a beautiful male body and sculpted muscles: dry up and smile!

How to properly dry muscles? Recommendations from Dmitry Yashankin - winner of the Arnold Classic 2012 in the classic bodybuilding category.

In the gym and beyond, drying the body is probably one of the most popular topics among athletes, and both boys and girls talk with equal fervor about how to properly dry muscles and how difficult it is. However, it is better to turn to competing bodybuilders for experience in this matter; their results are obvious and most pronounced.

Our expert Dmitry Yashankin talks about how to dry properly.

Where does body drying begin?

Let's be honest with each other. There is no need to indulge yourself with illusions: the average person is unlikely to be able to look like the sculpted and muscular guys on the covers of magazines. They are either young fashion models who have never had problems with dryness, or bodybuilders in competitive shape who use pharmacological special agents, without which it is impossible to achieve muscle stiffness and vascularity.

We are interested in getting rid of fat “naturally,” which means initially expect that the result will be, but not like the performing bodybuilders on the podium. For example, let's look at an example of a fat-burning workout.

Preparation for competitions, which is popularly called drying the body, can be divided into two successive stages: fat burning and “eyeliner”. “Eyeliner” is the final stage, during which the athlete begins to manipulate the water balance in the body, achieving a minimum amount of fluid under the skin.

However, “eyeliner” brings only a short-term effect, but we will borrow the experience of fat burning.

What can a 30-year-old man, prone to obesity and regularly training with iron, borrow from the arsenal of athletes? Unfortunately, nothing new. Everything has been known for a long time and works great.

Should you strive to lose weight?

If a person has a lot of excess fat, he thinks that he needs to lose weight. But it is not so.

You need to lose fat, but not muscle.

This makes a huge difference. If your goal is to lower the number on the scale, you can lose weight...you'll end up lean but with extra fat.

This happens because many people restrict themselves too much when dieting and exercise too much. As a result, both fat and muscle are burned. However, if you maintain (or increase) muscle mass and lose excess fat, you will get in much better shape.

Most people don't realize how much muscle mass they can lose if their diet isn't done right. You will lose strength and look soft and flat.

How to exercise while drying your body

Many visitors to fitness clubs and “atmospheric” gyms in the basement do things that make no sense. A typical picture: an overweight individual, hungry for relief, with a feverish gleam in his eyes, wraps himself in some kind of miracle belt and goes to the cardio zone.

He returns after 20-30 minutes, lathered, out of breath, and rushes to work out his abdominal muscles, and then, for example, his biceps. What is the logic in this?

First, remember: miraculous belts and shorts for ladies will not bring any practical benefit. And there is also no effect from a local increase in the temperature of problem areas of the abdominal area of ​​the press. On the contrary, you risk overloading your heart, overheating the internal organs located in the abdominal cavity and simply getting a rash.

And the inspiring streams of sweat that are caused by these insulation have nothing to do with fat burning and how to dry properly - especially not.

Bodymaster.ru recommends Fitness Trainers:

Secondly, running for people over 30 years old and weighing more than 100 kg is generally not recommended for reasons of the safety of the knee joints and spine.

However, we must remember that during the period of fat burning and drying the body, it is necessary to perform aerobic work and cardio exercises. This is exactly the level of load that allows us to remain in the zone of sufficient oxygen consumption. It is believed that the target heart rate (heart rate) for fat burning is 60-70% of max heart rate.

You can calculate max heart rate using the formula: 220 - age (for men) = max heart rate

For example, if you are 30 years old, then: 220 - 30 = 190. Your heart rate should be: 60% -70% of 190, that is, 114-133 heart rate.

If you are suffocating, it means that oxygen starvation occurs and the oxidation process is inhibited. Burning in the muscles means that the load is too great and the energy supply comes from anaerogic glycolysis of glucose and fat is again not oxidized.

Drying for men and women

Both girls and representatives of the stronger sex should adhere to the following rules when burning fat:

1. Diet, we think what we eat
2. We eat fractionally, that is, little by little, but often
3. Pumping
4. To maintain muscle mass, combine with strength training
5. Cardio, better slow and long than fast and short
6. The fewer carbs you eat, the more fat you lose
7. VSAAs during training will help you avoid losing muscle mass.

Abs workout

During the period of fat burning while drying the body, this is an almost useless exercise, since local lipolysis does not exist (unlike local lipogenesis).

But if the reason is not only subcutaneous fat, but also “sagging” abdominal skin, and you want a toned stomach, know: the transverse abdominal muscle is responsible for this - the deepest of the abdominal muscles and not involved in anatomical movements. You can pump it up using the so-called vacuum (drawing in the abdomen while exhaling).

Abdominal vacuum

In addition, the abdominal muscles are a very small muscle mass and often even a 30-40 minute abdominal workout does not cause significant energy consumption, and in a trained person it does not even bring the heart rate closer to the fat burning zone. The same applies to training the biceps and other relatively small muscle groups.

Therefore, listen to the recommendations of professional bodybuilders and adhere to the following rules if you want to properly dry your muscles:

• First of all, strength training for 40–60 minutes.
• Give preference to larger muscle groups, shortening the rest between sets (no more than 1 minute) and arranging auxiliary exercises in three-, giant-, or even circuit sets. It turns out to be a kind of interval aerobics.
• For best results, you can try special sports supplements.
• To develop strength, use methods of kettlebell lifting, weightlifting and wrestling.

Example of word training.

The truth about strength training and fat loss

Research shows that strength training is an effective way to lose weight. Then why do most people associate them with gaining muscle mass? Working out at the gym is not as popular for burning fat for a simple reason: it's a bad way to lose weight, but a great way to burn excess fat and maintain muscle.

A study conducted at Duke University confirms this. It was attended by 196 men and women aged from 18 to 70 years. They were divided into three groups:

• Exercising in the gym

These study participants completed three strength training sessions per week. At each workout, 24 approaches were performed. Each training session lasted an hour.

• Aerobic exercisers

These study participants jogged at a moderate intensity three times a week. Each training session lasted 45 minutes.

• Combining strength and aerobic training

These participants performed both strength training and aerobic exercise. There were about five training hours per week.

Useful article: “How many times a week should you exercise”

After 8 months, the second group lost the most weight... but most of it was muscle. The third group managed to burn fat and build muscle at the same time.

Many other studies confirm this: if you want to burn fat and maintain (or gain) muscle mass, you need to do both strength training and cardio.

Strength training for cutting

Superset
Standing Barbell Press

• 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Body part: Shoulders Equipment: Barbell

Snatch and push of a kettlebell with one hand

• 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Body part: Shoulders Equipment: Kettlebells

Single leg Smith machine squats

• 3 sets of 8-12 reps
• Body part: Quadriceps Equipment: Exercise

Smith Machine Bent Over Row

• 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Body part: Middle back Equipment: Exercise

Push-ups (with wide or narrow arms)

• 3 sets of 12-15 reps
• Body part: Chest Equipment: Body weight

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Next, perform cardio or aerobics in your target heart rate range for 30 to 60 minutes.

This can be any physical activity, from banal walking on a treadmill with a maximum incline to working on a bag or group strength training with pretty ladies.

If you want to make the fat burning process more intense and the result of body drying more obvious, you can add aerobics in the morning before breakfast.

Circuit training at home

• At home, it is best to use dumbbells
• Monday, Thursday, Saturday are days for circuit training
• Slow running, suitable for Wednesday and Friday
• Sunday and Tuesday can be left for recovery

The training consists of:

1. Bent-over row with dumbbells
2. Squat exercise with dumbbells
3. Push-ups from a chair or from the floor
4. You can do exercises on the horizontal bar
5. It’s very good to practice at home with a jump rope

The first rest can be about ninety seconds, with each workout the break is reduced to forty seconds. Everyone chooses the number of repetitions for themselves. Try to repeat the circle nine times. If the exercises become easy to perform, you can increase the repetitions from the starting level.

It takes about an hour to run. Don’t try to run fast, remember, you’re not running a marathon, you’re trying to burn weight. Running should be slow and measured. You can even practice brisk walking or long walks.

Nutrition for drying the body

If, having lived to 30 years old, you have never had the opportunity to count the cubes on your stomach, then you will have to count calories.

Common recommendations like “Eat less!” they won't help you. Advice not to eat after 6 pm, not to eat after training, or even worse - to starve, is applicable for girls who want to wear fashionable new clothes for the holiday, but not for serious adult men.

Our task during drying the body is to destroy fat as much as possible with minimal loss of muscle tissue. And since we do not use special means from the arsenal of hormones that help preserve muscles, we must be extremely precise and careful.

Your body cutting is worthless if, as a result of losing 20 kg, you do not change your body composition - muscle / fat ratio. Moreover, you will look even worse than before the execution began: before you were big and fat, but now you are small and fat.

To avoid this, gradually reduce your daily diet every week by no more than 500 kcal (or better by 200-300) until we reach 2000 kcal.

Nutrition

The second point is your nutrition. Banal calorie restriction does not work here - the body easily turns on protective mechanisms and continues to accumulate fats in roundabout ways. One of the worst enemies in the fight against fat storage is

lipoprotein lipase enzyme, which slows down metabolic processes and puts your fat cells last in line for energy sources. Muscle tissue comes first, so when you diet, you will lose weight, but not the weight you really want.

Muscle is 70% water, so when you weigh yourself you will think you have lost weight. However, in reality, you are losing water and muscle tissue. But remember that muscles are designed to burn excess calories, therefore, their loss greatly inhibits metabolic processes.

When you stop dieting, you will immediately gain back all the lost fats, and at the same time a few more “in reserve” in case it occurs to you to starve your body again. As a result, you will now eat less, but accumulate fat tissue even more successfully.

How and what to eat while drying

To calculate the required amount of nutrients in the daily diet during the period of drying the body, we take the ratio of proteins, fats, carbohydrates (BJU) for a low-carbohydrate diet as a percentage of calorie content.

Remember: you should never feel hungry. Meals should be fractional, eat a small portion every two hours.

For example, you started drying your muscles and planned to switch to 2500 kcal/day:

• B - 50% = 1250 kcal. 1250/4 = 312.5 grams
• F - 20% = 500 kcal. 500/9 = 55.5 grams
• U - 30% = 750 kcal. 750/4 = 187.5 grams.

It is clear that all these tenths of grams are very arbitrary. To be honest, personally, so many carbohydrates are too much for me. So, if your metabolism is similar to mine - clearly slow, then gradually reduce the amount of carbohydrates and add protein by the same amount.

There is also the option of a carbohydrate-free diet, but I do not recommend it for those who do not take hormonal medications, otherwise the catabolism of muscle tissue will be enormous.

Consume carbohydrates in the first half of the day, make sure they are slow or complex - with a low glycemic index. Proper sources of carbohydrates:

• oatmeal,
• buckwheat,
• Brown rice,
• pearl barley porridge.

It’s not without reason that they say about weak people: “I ate little porridge!”

As for fruits, you can eat green apples (or better yet, half an apple) and grapefruits. Green vegetables rich in fiber can be consumed without restrictions: greens, different types of cabbage, cucumbers, salad.

Try not to mix carbohydrates with fats, but limiting your fat intake as much as possible is a big mistake. Just divide them into “good” and “bad” for simplicity.

“Good” are fats of vegetable origin (except palm oil) and fish oil, that is, all those that are liquid at room temperature.

In a healthy diet, and even more so when cutting muscles, they should be up to 70% of the total fat, so you may have to additionally introduce them into the diet. For example, in the form of a couple of tablespoons of linseed oil.

We often get “bad” fats in excess during the day, so choose low-fat cottage cheese and chicken (or turkey) breasts. Without skin, of course.

Consume proteins mainly in the afternoon. Sources of protein during the period of drying the body will be: chicken breasts, low-fat sea fish, low-fat cottage cheese and egg whites.

We do not count protein obtained from plant foods. Taking into account that “protein” products contain about 20% protein, we calculate: 1.5 kg of products to obtain only the treasured 300 grams of protein.

So an athlete definitely won’t have to starve while cutting, and if you add the carbohydrates included in the diet, you may even have a problem with consuming such an amount of food. This is where sports nutrition comes to the aid of those who want to dry out their muscles.

Proper nutrition for girls

If you decide to seriously dry yourself out, you must be very strict and disciplined in planning your diet. Otherwise, all your efforts will go down the drain, so be patient and have an iron will, as below we will provide a list of products that you should avoid in order to get the maximum effect and not waste your time and efforts in vain.

1. We replace all sweets with various healthy fruits, you can eat honey.
2. We replace all baked goods with healthy and nutritious cereals.
3. We replace fatty dairy products with dietary products.
4. We replace non-dietary meat with fish.

• Buckwheat grain;
• Meat must be lean;
• Rice cereals;
• Bean products;
• Healthy vegetables;
• Curd;
• Healthy fruits;
• Milk.

This diet is used for 5 weeks, during the entire drying period.

First week

Probably the most difficult week, you need to give your body 2 g of carbohydrates for every kilogram of weight . Since the first week is the introductory week, you need to give up everything little by little so that the body does not start to “revolt.” A good solution would be to keep a kind of diary to count calories consumed; you can also use phone applications, there are a huge number of them now. It is best to place a fundamental emphasis on fiber , namely: reduce the consumption of salt, vegetable oil, and various spices to a minimum. From food, it is better to “lean” on grains (for example, porridge), egg whites, curd mass, you can boil chicken breast.

As a result, the first week should look like this.
No more than 50% protein, no more than 20% fat, and the remaining 30% will go into carbohydrates .
An approximate menu will look like this. For breakfast, it is recommended to eat no more than 100 g of oatmeal, boil yourself a hard-boiled egg and drink tea. You can snack on dried fruits, but not more than one handful. For lunch you will have 100 g of buckwheat and two egg whites, then you can snack on 40 g of nuts and eat 2 bananas, but only after training. For dinner there will be seafood, namely: no more than 100 g of boiled shrimp and a light salad with vegetables. In the evening, you can have a snack of 100-150 g of cottage cheese and eat about 50 g of blueberries.

Second week

The second week becomes more complicated, and for every gram of carbohydrate there is a kilogram of weight , and salt is completely removed from the diet . We increase protein intake to 80%, fat remains the same 20%, and you calculate carbohydrates yourself based on your weight. Recommended for consumption are cottage cheese (ideally low-fat), dairy products, some beef, kefir and various seafood; you can also boil your own chicken breast and don’t forget about vegetables. The most stubborn people can eat bran, but not more than one spoon per day.

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In the second week, the royal menu consists of four eggs and 125 g of milk, ideally making an omelette. For a snack, you can eat cheese and a few slices of grain bread; for lunch, no more than 100 g of turkey and vegetables baked in the oven. The snack will consist of 100 g of boiled chicken and several pieces of grain bread. For dinner - a salad of healthy vegetables and about 150 g of red fish, and for a snack you can eat 3 egg whites.

Third week

The third seven-day period reduces carbohydrate levels to 0.5 g per kilogram of weight . A side effect may appear, namely: your skin will start to smell like acetone, don’t be alarmed, just drink some sweet natural juice. We advise you to reduce your water intake to 1.5 liters per day , eat milk, increase the amount of bran to 3 tablespoons per day, and it is advisable to start taking a course of multivitamins.

Your breakfast may consist of 150 g of pancakes filled with red fish, for example, trout or salmon, for a snack - 2 bananas and 2 or 3 egg whites. For lunch, stock up on 150 g of beef and 50 g of pasta, but only from durum wheat. You can decorate this dish with fresh vegetables, and for a snack, ideally drink a protein shake and add 1 apple and 1 banana. For dinner - pumpkin and about 100 g of squid, which were stewed in advance, and finally - 150 g of curd mass, which can be replaced with kefir and about 50 g of blueberries.

Fourth week

During the fourth week, you will have a choice to eat as in the second week, or switch to the third week.
Make your choice depending on how you feel. In the fourth week, the menu can be changed: for breakfast 500 ml of milk, 100 g of oatmeal and candied fruits. For a snack - again, 3 chicken proteins, about 50 g of peas and 50 g of corn, canned of course. For lunch - 150 g turkey and vegetable salad, you can have a snack with yogurt, but not more than 300 g, for dinner - about 150 g chicken thigh and vegetables, stewed in advance, you can add cottage cheese to this.

Fifth week

In the final week, switch to the regime of the first week. Problems with cellulite may arise, but only for those who have had everything neglected. Unfortunately, this is a feature of the woman’s body.

Source

Sports nutrition and body drying

You must understand that supplements are only a small help and it is unwise to base your entire fat loss strategy around them. On the other hand, drying the body is precisely the period when the consumption of supplements is most justified.

I tried both with and without additives. With additives it tastes better and is psychologically easier. I can recommend: vitamins, glutamine, fat burners, pre-workout supplements.

Vitamins

While drying, you can take sports or pharmacy vitamins, or do injections. In any case, remember that the dosage should be increased and adequate to the load.

Fat burners

It is difficult to evaluate how good a fat burner is, because the most effective fat burner does not work without the right diet, but a diet without “burners” can be effective.

You can try consuming fat burners - or fat burners, as professional athletes call them - there will be no harm from this, but it is possible that there will also be benefit. Typically, fat burners have a dual effect: they enhance lipolysis processes and stimulate the nervous system.

It is convenient to use fat burners precisely because of this “vigor” effect, since a low-carbohydrate diet while drying the body can cause a loss of strength, and sometimes it is difficult to motivate yourself to workout without an additional incentive. Pre-workout complexes are also used for the same purpose.

Be careful when combining fat burners and pre-workouts to avoid overdosing on the caffeine that both products may contain. Carefully study the composition or consult a specialist. If in the total basket of dietary supplements that you consume, the total amount of BCAAs, glutamine, arginine and other amino acid components is 5-10 grams more than planned - this is only beneficial when you are drying out your muscles. However, if you get an overdose of caffeine, guarana, green tea extract and other stimulants, this can have negative consequences for your body and, first of all, for your heart.

Protein is necessary if, due to circumstances, you sometimes have to skip meals, or because you can no longer look at boiled chicken breasts and low-fat cottage cheese. In this case, consume concentrate during the day, drink isolated hydrolyzate after training, and before bed - casein-based protein, multi-component or prolonged action.

Glutamine

I was always skeptical about it and took it on strong recommendation. And it just so happened, or is it really the merit of glutamine, but during the last two cuts I didn’t get sick, despite the flu epidemic and the fact that usually after 3-4 weeks of diets and aerobics I’m guaranteed to catch a cold. So try it. Effective dosage is 20 grams per day

Then all you have to do is monitor and adjust the process of drying the body according to objective and subjective criteria. Make it a rule to weigh yourself once a week at the same time and take anthropometric measurements.

The most objective criterion is the percentage of body fat through bioimpedance analysis, however, unfortunately, such an accurate measurement method is not available to all amateurs.

Capiperometry (pinch fat folds) and scales using BES, available at home, show very approximate results, and the calculation of this indicator using formulas generally has little relation to real figures.

Therefore, to track your dynamics, weigh yourself regularly and monitor changes in the girth of your chest, waist, pelvis, shoulder, thigh and lower leg.

Fluid intake

Approximately 70% of muscle consists of water. For most nutrients, water is an indispensable transport system, and it plays an important role in all intracellular processes.

When the body receives little fluid, the transport of nutrients and active substances suffers, you lose strength and feel sluggish due to the accumulation of metabolic end products such as ammonia, urea and uric acid. Drinking a glass of water before and after meals will help you maintain adequate hydration throughout the day.

And be sure to drink water during training, especially in the warm season.