salt strategy for competition....muscle mag artcle. Twisted steele, pharm animal!!

Zulak wrote in muscle mag to keep highly salting your food up into thursday night along with a lot of water. then starting thursday night cut out sodium and all water.
he says your body will lose the subq water first but the sodium and water will stay within the muscle for a saturday show.
how does this sound.
i plan on drinking 2-3 gallons of water 7 days out from the show date and using a healthy amount of salt. then thursday at 6pm stop salt and only sip water if needed up to show time at 10am on saturday. continue carb up on friday up until 5pm.

any thoughts for salt/management????

[This message was edited by pittsburgh on 04-17-2001 at 05:34 AM.]

[This message was edited by pittsburgh on 04-17-2001 at 07:28 AM.]

[retropump]

It's pretty close to what I have used in the past. Sodium load while carb-depleting and superhydrating, then flip it around for the last day or two. I don't completely cut my water, but I drop my sodium pretty low.

[Pharm Animal]

zulak is an idiot.

there is no possible way that from thursday till saturday morning is enough time for adequate sodium to be depleted from your system. and how is this extra sodium that you've consumed going to be flushed from the system if you're not drinking enough water?

instead of lengthy detailed explanations of why i did certain things, i'm just going to outline my general strategy...you can figure out why i have it outlined the way i do. results speak for themselves....go to the main discussion board to catch a pic of the show i used this strategy on.

day.......water........sodium....carbs
sunday....3 gallons....normal....medium/low
monday....3 gallons....normal....deplete
tuesday...3 gallons....normal....deplete
wednesday.3 gallons....zero......deplete
thursday..1 gallon.....zero......load
friday....1/4 gallon...zero......load/maintain
friday after 9 PM....zero...zero...maintain
saturday AM...sip......zero......maintain

take care,
PA

thanks PA..

[Pharm Animal]

by the way...i am from the school of thought that sodium loading is a waste of time. water loading is the key....i always keep my sodium level normal. i do, however, always eat lots of sodium on my chicken breasts all throughout my diet, so technically i may be sodium loading. i just don't take in any increased amounts as compared to the other weeks in my diet.

take care,
PA

[retropump]

I'll second Pharm Animal's advice. Though I continue sodium intake until Wednesday night, I keep drinking heaps of water until Friday morning. Unlike Pharm Animal, I have a very low sodium pre-comp diet most of the time, so I go for the extra sodium in that last week.

Either way, you get the picture. You need water to flush sodium (and it also helps with the carb-up).

This is just ONE of many methods used by competition bodybuilders to prepare for a comp. Some people actually sodium load the last day or two!

[archive_FitnessChick]

Heres what I did.....


Monday--2 gallons water,low carb(50-60 gms form broccoli only), sodium(normal, used chicken, tuna & eggwhites as protein sources, as these are the highest sodium protein sources, esp. the tuna---but I didn't add any extra salt to my food)
Tuesday--2 gallons water,low carb(50-60 gms broccoli),soduim same as monday
Wednesday--2 gallons water,low carb(50-60 gms broccoli),sodium same as monday
Thursday--2 gallons water(was recommended to use distilled to flush out the sodium and make the sodium depleting more effective,but decided against it because I was going to use a diuretic) ,high carb(yams, 250 gms), sodium deplete(protein only fom turkey), use diuretic(dyaczide)
Friday--8 oz water,(again, recommended my person to use distilled but didnt)high carb,(yams, 300+ gms) sodium deplete(turkey), hit sauna
Saturday(*SHOW*)--3 oz water, carbs & simple sugars....yams, applesauce, jeely, honey, etc.