PART 1: THE LORI BRAUN – TOM VENUTO
…NO HOLDS BARRED
…NOTHING HELD BACK
…ALL SECRETS REVEALED INTERVIEW
LB: Tom, what is your daily aerobic program, and how important is aerobics for the bodybuilder?
TV: Aerobics is extremely important and too many bodybuilders and fitness competitors are “cardio-phobic.” It’s a common belief that aerobics makes you to lose muscle, but I’ve never found this to be true. Inadequate nutrition is the main cause of muscle loss, not aerobics. The problem is that many people decrease their calories a lot and also increase their cardio at the same time. They fail to realize that simply by increasing their cardio, they are creating a calorie deficit and this alone is sufficient to initiate fat loss.
It’s always better to burn the fat than to starve the fat. Think about it: Decreasing calories always causes a reduction in metabolic rate. Cardio always causes an increase in metabolic rate. Eating more also causes an increase in metabolic rate. So why not eat more and do more cardio for a two fold increase in metabolic rate? I suppose it’s because people think the two will cancel each other out – they don’t.
Every session of cardio burns off fat, while at the same time increasing your metabolism for a short period after the workout. The higher the intensity of the cardio, the higher the metabolic boost. If you do intense cardio twice a day prior to a contest, your metabolism starts racing. Once your metabolism is primed, you can actually see the fat disappearing and the skin getting tighter on a day to day basis.
My cardio program involves doing aerobics all year round, but gradually building it to a peak in intensity, duration and frequency prior to competition. Then I cycle back to a maintenance level. If you try to keep up the same volume and intensity of cardio all year round, your body will adapt and your progress will level off. That’s why you sometimes see aerobics instructors who carry excess weight and can’t lose it even though they do two hours of aerobics a day or more; their class schedule doesn’t vary enough and this leads to aerobic adaptation. The more fit you become, the less effective your old routine becomes.
You have to keep stepping it up until you hit your peak, then back off and rest for a while before going after the next peak. When you back off, there will be a slight de-conditioning effect and you will regain some body fat, but that’s ok. It’s not like you’re getting fat – you’re just going from “ripped” back to normal. For every peak there must be a valley. Any condition you can maintain all year round is NOT a peak condition. If you cycle your training properly, each time you peak, you’ll be able to reach a new personal best in physical condition.
In the off season, I do cardio 3-4 times per week for 20-30 minutes. The intensity is moderate – my heart rate is probably around 135-140. I begin 30 minutes of daily cardio at 12-16 weeks out from a competition, depending on what my body fat level is. At about 8-10 weeks out I increase to 45 minutes a day. At six weeks out, I do cardio twice a day for 30-45 minutes per session. The intensity at every session is gradually increased as I get closer to the show, but all the adjustments I make are dependent on what kind of results I’m getting. If I start losing too much weight or if I’m too lean too soon, I might back off the cardio and eat more. My precontest cardio workouts are intense – my heart rate is usually over 145 and can peak as high as 165 on intervals. Believe me, I’m not reading magazines while I’m on that bike or stairmaster. I’m breathing heavy and sweating my butt off. It’s hard work, just like the lifting. My goal is to burn more and more calories every week. Sometimes I do a steady session for the entire duration, other times I increase the intensity during the session and build to a sprint in the final minutes, or I might do high intensity interval training with one to two minute intervals.
The type of exercise I use varies – usually it’s Stairmaster, Stairmaster stepmill or Lifecycle. Occasionally I walk fast on an inclined treadmill although I can’t seem to get my heart rate over 140 without breaking into a jog – and I don’t like to run a lot because it makes me lose leg size.
Cardio for fat loss is a highly individual matter. Ultimately, the correct amount of cardio for you is the amount of cardio it takes to get the fat off: Not the amount it takes for your best friend; Not the amount it takes for your trainer; Not the amount it takes for your training partner – the correct amount is the amount it takes for you. If you are one of the lucky ones who can get ripped with 20 minutes of cardio three times a week, great – that’s all you should do. However, if you’re like most people, it takes daily cardio 30-45 minutes a day. Some people need even more.
Even though I’ve been reading about a lot of bodybuilders who say they are against cardio, almost every natural bodybuilder I know does cardio for at least an hour a day for 8-12 weeks before a show. Skip Lacour, who won the overall Team Universe contest in 1998 wrote that he was doing up to 3 sessions of cardio a day for the 1999 contest season and it didn’t seem to hurt his mass – he weighed about 225 pounds! He’s one of the biggest natural bodybuilders on the planet.
LB: Tom, do you count calories at every meal or daily and what is the most important element for you in balancing your body weight with the physical demands of bodybuilding?
TV: I count calories pretty meticulously before competitions, including weighing and measuring my food. However, since I eat the same thing every day, I get to know by heart what eight ounces of chicken breast or ten ounces of yams looks like, so I don’t necessarily weigh it every day. On any given day, I do know how many calories I am taking in and I know exactly how many grams of carbs I am taking in. I then manipulate these amounts in conjunction with my cardio, depending on the results I produce each week.
My goal for balancing bodyweight is very simple: Stay relatively lean all year round and lose weight and body fat very slowly. My goal is one pound per week or even less. The more slowly you lose body fat, the less likely you are to lose muscle in the process. Believe it or not, if I lose more than one pound per week, I immediately bump up my carbohydrates and or calories until I gain the weight back!
Trying to lose weight too fast is a very common mistake made by bodybuilders and those seeking weight loss. Among bodybuilders it’s the number one cause of looking small and “flat” on contest day. On the day of the contest you want to look full and hard and vascular, not skinny and depleted. You can only achieve this with slow fat loss. Patience during the process is very important. This also means that you have to stay fairly lean all year round and you have to start dieting early.
LB: Are you always seeking to increase muscle mass when you train, or has your body reached a point of equilibrium?
TV: I am ALWAYS seeking to increase muscle mass and strength when I train. In the off-season, that is the primary goal. However, during pre-contest periods, large increases in lean body mass are not likely. At that time, the primary goal is maintaining the muscle I have already built and stripping it of every trace of body fat. Regardless of whether it is pre contest or off-season, the goal is always improvement.
Equilibrium is a place I do not ever want to be. I NEVER train to stay the same. At every workout, my goal is to move ahead – to make progress. I don’t believe in “maintenance workouts.” I don’t believe in going to the gym to “stay in shape.” Let other people go to the gym just to maintain, but not me.
Even though I don’t expect large gains in muscle mass pre-contest, my goal is to improve in some way each and every time I set foot in the gym. I expect to continue getting stronger and to continue getting leaner and more defined. At the very minimum I have to do one more rep on one set of one exercise. I have to move forward in some way – it’s a must. Constant and never-ending improvement is the name of the game. A little bit every day. Get a little bit better every day and you’ll be a lot better over time.
LB: There are many diets out there which advocate drastic reductions in carbohydrate intake, tell us about your daily consumption of carbs and what you recommend to all of us.
TV: Low carbohydrate, high protein diets definitely help to speed up fat loss. The problem is, if you deplete your carbs too much, there’s a lot of negative side effects. You have no energy, you lose muscle and you look flat – not to mention you get really grouchy, irritable and light headed. So the answer is to use a moderate reduction in carbs combined with carb cycling.
When I’m getting ready for a contest, I restrict my carbohydrates and increase the protein, but I never go to zero or extremely low carbs. I reduce my carbs moderately – usually somewhere between 150 and 250 grams per day. Then I carb up every 4th day and have 350-400 grams of carbs. Before competitions I eat more fibrous carbs than starchy carbs and I eat no processed carbs whatsoever – and that includes no pasta, bread, bagels, crackers, boxed cereals or anything else that is man-made.
In the off season when I’m focusing on gaining lean body mass, about 50% of my calories come from complex carbohydrates: mostly from unprocessed, natural sources like oatmeal, potatoes, yams, brown rice, and vegetables, although there’s a lot more variety in my off season diet: I eat whole grain breads and cereals, fruit and some non fat dairy products – occasionally some pasta, bread or bagels.
I have several carbohydrate recommendations for everyone.
1.Always avoid refined carbohydrates as much as possible. That includes white sugar and white flour products. Choose natural carbs instead of refined and processed carbs.
2.Choose more complex carbs than simple sugars.
3.To lose body fat more quickly, eat less starchy carbs and replace them with fibrous carbs such as asparagus, green beans, salads, broccoli and other green vegetables. You can’t get fat on fibrous vegetables.
4.Reducing your carbohydrates helps speed up fat loss, especially if you are carb-sensitive, but never cut them out completely –simply eat them in moderation and eat the right kinds.
5.If you cut carbs substantially, you need to periodically carb up. This restores your glycogen levels so you can train hard, it helps prevent your metabolism from slowing down and it makes it easier to stick to your diet.
