Wie Bodybuilder wirklich hart und definiert werden

May 3, 2017

How bodybuilders get really hard and defined

An insider's look at a professional definition cycle

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/pharma/how-bodybuilders-really-get-ripped

Note: T-Nation was approached by an IFBB pro bodybuilder who said he needed to get a few things offhis chest. He wanted to write articles for us anonymously and answer questions honestly in the steroid forum. After verifying his identity, we decided to give him a platform. "Shadow Pro" was born.

Impossibly hard and defined

Professional bodybuilding isn't about getting lean for the beach or building a body that looks pretty good in the gym when you're wearing a tank top. It's about becoming inhumanly muscular and insanely hard and defined at the same time. This process requires a large amount of bodybuilding drugs to maintain a high level of muscle mass while simultaneously reducing body fat to a ridiculously low percentage.

Of course, none of these drugs will help if your diet, training and regular supplement program are less than perfect. If you get any of these parts wrong, it doesn't matter how many drugs you use because they won't help.

Getting hard and defined for a real competition look like a pro involves a lot of suffering. You will be tired, hungry, feel generally miserable and wonder to yourself why the hell you are doing all this to yourself.

Maintaining a large calorie deficit, doing a lot of cardio, and dealing with some negative mental side effects of medication is anything but fun. It's certainly not glamorous and can be painful and boring from time to time. Not everyone can handle eating the same foods meal after meal after meal, increasing their cardio workouts when energy levels are already at an all-time low, or getting weaker in the weight room as they get deeper and deeper into their diet.

On the other hand, as the day of the competition approaches, your body will change on a daily basis. There is a strong addictive factor to waking up in the morning and seeing more striations and lines than the night before. As you approach the end of the week, feeling grumpy and hungry, you know you only have one more week of dieting and training to get through. You begin to feel almost invincible as you see the progress each week.

Think about it. You're fighting some of the most basic human needs - food and rest - and you're actually winning this battle. You're battling hunger pangs, fatigue, physical pain and mental stress and overcoming them all during the months of hard work.

When you reach the final phase of the diet, something very special happens both mentally and physically. You learn to accept the pain and if you are lucky, you almost begin to enjoy the process. When you triumph over the suffering you have imposed on yourself with this diet, then you can also overcome everything else that life throws your way.

Suffer and win

Unfortunately, the adage "the more you suffer, the better you'll look" is quite accurate, which is especially true when it comes to getting into suitable competition shape.

I've competed in dozens of races, but I can't say that any of them have felt easy. Some were harder than others, but every single race preparation involved a fair amount of suffering. Whether it's feeling lethargic, sluggish, cranky, tired, hungry, or any of the other "fun" things that come with a heavy steroid cycle and a calorie deficit, there's no such thing as an easy contest prep.

A bodybuilding drug cycle from the 21st century

In today's world of bodybuilding, being hard, defined and dry is paramount. The measures that must be taken to achieve this state are becoming more and more extreme, while the judges continue to favor insane conditioning.

Back when I first started competing, we only used an anti-estrogen in our drug cycle. Today, it's not uncommon to use two or three and sometimes more during a definition cycle to get as hard and dry as possible. Sleeping pills and muscle relaxants are often used to alleviate stress levels during the diet. Some lazier bodybuilders will use DNP to try and shortcut the fat loss process. I do not recommend this, but it is done.

Here is an example of a common definition cycle in contest prep:

Trenbolone Acetate - 100 mg per day
Testosterone Propionate - 100 mg per day
Masteron Propionate - 100 mg per day
Growth Hormone - 4 IU, first thing in the morning, 45 minutes before eating
T3 - 20 mcg, with gradual increases based on individual needs
HCG - 250 IU, twice a week

The diet/cardio/meds dance

I will always try to adjust things in order of importance during a definition phase:

Diet: macronutrients can be adjusted while calories remain the same. If that doesn't work, I will reduce the total calorie intake - often by reducing carbohydrates.
Cardio: Increase or decrease the duration depending on the goal and how fat loss is progressing.
Medication cycle: I change medication according to the timeline to the competition. 8 weeks before the competition I will switch everything to short esters and increase fat burners like T3 depending on where I am with my progress. 4 to 6 weeks before the competition I will increase anti-estrogens if I want a harder appearance. And somewhere in the range of 4 to 10 days before the competition, I will eliminate all injectable steroids and any medications that can cause water retention.

All of these factors influence each other and sometimes I change one or more of these factors at the same time, although the above represents the general order. Let's say that a certain amount of cardio causes you to lose muscle, but you still have quite a bit of fat to lose. In this case, you would reduce the cardio but increase the fat burners.

It simply depends on the timing and the goal you want to achieve. More than anything, it is the timeline to the competition that will determine when you will change things in this cycle. The rest of the variables are more open to being changed throughout the duration of your preparation depending on how you look.

When the final week comes, everything changes depending on your strategy. If you need to deplete glycogen stores and then carb load, then the final week will include a few workouts to deplete glycogen stores before you start carb loading. However, if you are done and not running a unloading/loading protocol, then you will leave things at what you were doing before. As far as meds go, you're going to take all injectable steroids out of your cycle 4-7 days before the race, add diuretics depending on your needs, and also increase anti-estrogens during the last week.

We do some pretty dumb shit

The template I've given you represents something I've used myself. I don't want to give you more intensive prep protocols for safety reasons. I don't think people who don't compete at a pro level should try them or even know anything about them. We do some crazy shit as professionals and I don't want to see an 18 year old who thinks he's the next Phil Heath trying something like this. Some things are better kept under wraps because I know some people, if they read about it, would try it immediately.

Professional bodybuilding is all about who can be the biggest freak. I don't blame the competitors who do whatever it takes to reach that state, because that's what gets them the attention on stage. They are trying to win prize money or represent a sponsor to make a living. It's all a business and people are trying to do what it takes to be the best.

I don't want to judge this, I just want to give you an insight into how things really work.