บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ Peak Week As A Natural Bodybuilder | Brandon & Jacob EP.4

a medal to take a big photograph together and then everyone goes stateside and gets judged again. It just was a little bit nonsensical, but it was I understand it was a media piece, but the Yorton, I know how that runs. It's usually a bit more smooth without that particular f sort of extra piece there. And I expect the Yorton is going to be mind-blowingly awesome as it generally is. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yeah, it's definitely something that, you know, you potentially might put on one's body bodybuilding show bucket list if that's if you wanted to explore the world of of shows. BK: Truly believe OCB Yorton Cup, maybe the IMBA Olympia, maybe the IMBA Universe, and WMBF Worlds are kind of your top shows. I will say, just this is just a personal thing. The shows in the States, from what I've seen generally, this the the international shows of okay. The Yorton, etc., the quality is amazing. It's just the production that is Okay. I I just think Europe and Australasia seem to be leading the way with just light to sound, this kind of thing. It's mind-blowing. But those are definitely some shows worthy of consideration on the calendar, definitely. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I mean, here's a question for you, B, 'cause I think about this sometimes. You you see some fantastic athletes at the OCB Yorton or just OCB in general. However, they never really go outside of the O C B to match up with maybe someone from the WMBF and that could be said about some of the WNBF competitors as well. But is is there some sort of turmoil amongst the bodybuilding federations and the individuals within them? BK: I really don't know. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Because I just want to see the best guys on stage. Like I don't care what Fed they've come from. Like let's just get Babacar, Oscar, I can't remember one of the the the classic physique O. C. B. gentlemen from the States. He's phenomenal too. Like just get them all on one stage. BK: The thing is, look I can't speak for the United States, I haven't spent enough time there. But I know in Australia we have an amazing Australasia in general, Oceania also, we have a great community. Whether you're W you compete in WNBF or another organization, everyone comes together. I mean, even Martin, credit to him as the WNBF present president, will happily invite presidents from other organizations to the events that he hosts. Because he is for natural bodybuilding. That speaks volumes to the character that he is. But it doesn't seem to be the same in the United States. When I go to the States, what I and I go to these events, it it cracks me up because I get a whole lot of excuse my language, big dick energy. I go to these events and all I hear is on the microphone, this is the best organization ever. You will never find another organization. We do things better here. And to me, it makes me cringe. Maybe it's the Australian in me. Where I'm like, we don't need a big note. Like, what we do is we leave the ego at the door, we let the physique speak, or if it's if was hosting an organization, if I was promoting, I'm like, you let the promotion do its thing, and then people make their decision. So I know in the States things work a bit differently. They really bring that quote-unquote big dick energy. And there doesn't seem to be a lot of love between organizations. I couldn't, I could never imagine. An event like JPS does an event and Martin invites like the IFBB to come along and the NBA. I can never imagine something like that in the United States. I feel like there'd be a a punch up or a middle finger. But maybe I'm wrong. I'm hoping that's not I don't know. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yeah. 'Cause even from an athlete, you just wanna go up against good competitors and you know, I don't I don't know BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: if if the pros have a an Instagram group chat and they all send out each, you know, send each other a message, Hey, I'm competing this year, like come and do this show with me. I hope and that's probably you know, anyone that I know that is gonna do a season around the same time as me is probably something I'd do because like, hey, let's let's elevate the quality and standard of this show and have a really good time and see who can Come out on top. BK: Yeah. Yeah, there seems to be a lot of camaraderie here and a lot of respect for for others. You know, when you see someone who brings great physique, it's like wow. Man, amazing work. Yeah. And there's there seems to be here a lot of pros that reach out, Hey Nate, are you competing this year? As well. Yes, awesome man. Like what a blessing to step on stage with you. I'm I'm keen for this. Whereas it's not to say we're not competitive around here like we are, but We love the game and I think a lot of people are like that. And hopefully it's the same in a lot of other areas. But yeah. So for today, I've got Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Well, going into today, I know you wanted to talk about equip BK: Yeah, well we're right in the thick of it at the moment with athletes. So for you to be a great follow-on sort of piece. And Peak Week happens to be one of those things which I believe is very misunderstood. There seems to be all sorts of belief systems around it that it is to be the thing which transforms a mediocre physique into something amazing. and unfortunately, such a perspective often has an athlete putting in place modifications of which are inappropriate and all too frequently we see individuals of whom achieve the exact opposite look worse on show day than they did a week out or two weeks out from their show, which is very unfortunate. So we thought today we'll take a moment and sort of put forth some of the general objectives, some of the challenges that one faces within Peak Week and hopefully you guys can Come away with something that's of of use. So I mean starting with the sort of objectives, I'd say go to you, J, in terms of the general objectives of a peak week. And I should put forth the notion that a week

is an arbitrary volume of time, often it's a little less than that. But peaking in general. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Okay, so there's a whole different bunch of different ways I could go at this, but ideally we're looking to increase muscle glycogen saturation, wash off any fatigue. This will freshen up the physique and maintain the same tightness and conditioning that we were presenting ahead of peak week. It can look different for people. some people Have a lot of time. They might might only be doing one show. And I know we always put forth the notion that if we're doing one show, we're probably going to be ready before peak week. So we can truly BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: prepare and position the physique in the best possible position. And other than that, we want to ensure that we don't do any harm. That should be essentially one of the core components that we don't do anything silly or Really left and field. It's like hey, from yeah. BK: And just to build on that, and I'll say just to build on that for the for the audience, when we talk about doing no harm, we're looking at it from two perspectives. One, in its conventional definition, do not harm the health of the individual. And I feel really the need to put that forth because some of the things that I've seen in Peak Week have the potential to in some cases kill an individual, and I'm not joking. And also, I the from the perspective of not doing the physiques look, not being of detriment to the look of the the athlete. But again, I want to put that forth that some of the things we have seen with electrolyte and fluid manipulation can prove fatal. And I recall going to shows when I was a child at 11 years old and they'd be about to announce the winners of the show. This was enhanced bodybuilding at the time, right? And I'm watching this guy wave back and forth. And the entity's like, hold on hold on guys, like, hey do you need a drink of water? And he goes, yes, just take it in some water, you know. And I actually recall there was one fatality, underlying condition plus peak week, I think back in twenty fifteen or so. So we can talk about some of the challenges on that front, but just put that forth. Continue taking. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yeah, and I I think that could even be a good segue into eventually maybe talking a little bit about fluid dynamics BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: and you know, does drinking more water make you look watery? Like that's a good one to dive into. But we can we can dot that down as a BK: Definitely. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: little question for the back end of the pod here. But other than that, again, yeah, we're washing off fatigue, increasing muscle glycogen saturation, and we're keeping things standardized. So We will often try to standardize salt intake, which as a byproduct standardizes sodium intake. Potassium is relatively stable as well. We're not looking to manipulate anything drastically and we run that through all the way into the back end of peak week and making some minor adjustments to things like fluid intake and maybe a little bit of extra sodium as well. BK: Yeah. And I should define it. The the intention is to basically capitalize on already successful contest preparation. If the prep was trash, the peak's not gonna save you. And the goal here is to be full and tight. And I should define those definitions because we hear about full, flat, tight, soft all the time. But what does that mean? So we're looking at muscle fullness, we're referring to the volume within the muscle. Right? Because sometimes it's important to ke to define this because you'll hear people say, he just needed more fullness. Oftentimes someone says that guy needs more fullness on stage, sometimes they need more muscle fullness definitionally. But oftentimes they're referring to that they're just a politely saying he's under muscled. When we talk about muscle fullness, we're referring to how much volume is inside the available muscle, of which is largely determined by fluid availability, electrolyte availability, and carbohydrate availability. Because obviously we're going to consume carbohydrate, store it as lival in the liver as liver glycogen, which is important but doesn't affect our look. And of course there's muscle glycogen at which we're going to sh in which part of me we're to shift the osmolarity in the tissue, pull fluid into the muscle. And as we often say we get flat to get lean, because no matter How we manage our macronutrient intake. We're going to deplete muscle glycogen to a point when we're dieting. We get flat to get lean and we fill out to look lean. So fullness is how much volume is in the muscle. Flatness refers to obviously a lack of volume in the muscle. Tightness refers to the skin appearing tight. Of which is very hard to evaluate if there is too much body fat on the physique. And soft refers to exactly that. The individual has, as I would describe, a hazy look about them. There's a few things that can bring on this quote-unquote spilled look. But our goal here is to be, as I define, crisp, which is full and tight. And I also put forth the notion that you will get more. More benefit from peaking the leaner you are. If you are very lean, you can easily spot they're flat, they're full, they're tight, they're soft. If you are quite away from ideal stage conditioning, it is very challenging to identify and actually module protocol accordingly to accommodate that that look. Beyond that. I s we suppose we should chat about the general variables in in the peak week, of which when it comes to our nutrition, our our primary piece there is carbohydrate intake. Obviously determines how much it influences muscle fullness. Our calorie intake determines the fate of the incoming macronutrients. If we are in a massive deficit and we have th Five grams of carbohydrate per kilo, you're not really gonna partition that towards muscle glycogen, are you? You're going to use that for metabolic process in real

time. Obviously, we can mod our other macronutrients, protein sufficiency is important. If carbohydrate availability is limited, increasing protein could actually increase the fate of carbohydrate being partitioned towards muscle glycogen. And fats, ooh, interesting piece here. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: It's interesting, hi. BK: Incredibly so. fats. And we store fats in really three primary compartments. Small amounts in the blood, usually bound to transport proteins in intramuscular triglycerides, and obviously in large quantities, hopefully not so at the back of an econus prep and adipose tissues. Where things get interesting is that as I view it, carbohydrate should be the main lever that we pull. But fats is a consideration because we store fats as intramuscular triglycerides, of which could in theory increase muscle volume and possibly contribute to the look of the athlete. Here's where things get really hazy. An increase in intramuscular triglyceride, the ability to basically Holding having the ability to hold significant volumes of fats as intramuscular triglycerides is a hallmark adaptation to endurance-based training, not resistance training. So if you're an endurance athlete, probably can hold more in there versus a resistance-based athlete. Second of that is I have a bunch of questions here. One is how meaningful is it for muscle volume? Second of that is what type of fats would be most beneficial? For preferential deposition in the intramuscular triglyceride pool versus adipose tissue. Second of that is how does the dieting condition affect nutrient partitioning in reference to fats, broadly speaking? So perhaps there is, in general, more preferential deposition in the adipose structure, in adipose tissue versus intramuscular triglycerides. Long story short, for us in BK condition, we don't pull that lever hard. We focus on carbohydrate. do you have any thoughts on that, Jacob? Jacob - HomeBrand BK: They're very interesting questions, firstly. I BK: yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: like to it obviously include some fats. BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: if the carbohydrates get scaled up significantly, I might push BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: fats up a little bit more. just to help any potential increase in we we get a shift of metabolism when that food does go in, like quite acutely, but it's not it's not massive, but it's It's potentially meaningful. as you do see BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: sometimes people when you put in a refeed, they might actually drop some weight. so I I sort of play around with a little bit of a ratio, but it's nothing really too crazy of carbohydrates and fats. But again, I do think that you bring up a good point around the dieting condition where we're potentially going to preference storing fats or BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: you know any excess fats that aren't needed for metabolic processes will likely be uses energy or stored. But then if extra carbohydrates are going in, what does that mean the body's gonna do with any of extra available energy that comes in the form of fat? BK: I mean, for most people, they're gonna put in place a fat load, the general protocol would be you essentially bring carbohydrate down, increase fats, and you you load it in a sectionalized fashion. So low carbohydrate, high fats, and then low low fats, high carbohydrate. But I don't love this whole concept. And another coup couple things to consider here is that if you're an evidence-informed individual likely dieting on low fats and high carbohydrates within the constraints of your calorie aliquate, right? In which case your gallbladder hasn't had to spit out much in the way of buls to emulsify fats for a very long time. And you want to come in here and run a bona fide fat load of which is generally around that 1.8 to 2 grams per kilo over a 24 hour period as per the 2006 Decombus paper, which everyone loves to reference. That decombus paper was endurance athletes. Basically it showed that two grams per kilo of fat you can replete intramuscular triglycerides. You wanna run that? I mean, I don't know about you. I think I'm gonna be feeling pretty unwell. Now, is Peak Week the time to be doing something like this? Personally, I I wouldn't be leaning towards it. Now, put put this, I will say this. I'm not dogmatic. Perhaps there is a context in which we do something like this, and we may have inadvertently quote unquote fat loaded with an athlete who needs to make weight, because I have We have done this in the past where we have to deplete muscle glyction purposely, but we don't want to reduce energy intake unnecessarily for fear of protein degradation, so fats come up. You could say that's a fat load. But I mean, I wouldn't do this unless it was necessary to make weight. So yeah, it's a fascinating area. but I mean I'm not opposed to bumping up fats if they were running it very, very low at one point, and then we go from say 30 and we bring fats to 40 grams for a A 75 kilo gel and I'm like, yeah, it's still low fats. I'm more talking about Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yeah. Yeah, very much so. BK: let's go to one forty grams of fat. my gosh, that's a lot. It's a bit a bit wild. But beyond sorry. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Well I think also just like we do a refeed, maybe BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: if you're going to run something like that, it would be evidence informed to utilise that beforehand because then you're actually getting some testing in. Aside from the fact that we're probably not going to do that anyway. BK: Yeah. So then I'm looking at like if you tested it, what is the cost to your performance? Because I don't want to waste time, you know, r repleting intramuscular triglycerides of which have minimal crossover to glycolytic specific training and running the risk of not having the athlete acquire the seamless they need. Not to mention the potential mechanistic benefits of frequently topping up muscle glycine when it comes to maintaining peripheral nutrient

partitioning capacity. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yeah. BK: So it's a bit big question mark there. Big question mark. But above above and beyond. Yeah, yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: And and would you say that there's a an impact on you know, your peripheral fat petitioning as well with within intramuscular triglyceride stores? Because man, there ain't that much fat going around if you're on a low fat diet already. And the at the cell level, why does it need to have fat transporters? Like it it's just not needed, right? Because there's not gonna be much there. BK: Y yeah. And this is again a big question mark, because we know that if we diet on a ketogenic diet for long enough, we're going to downregulate some of the enzymes associated with glycolytic metabolism. You become essentially carbohydrate maladapted. and I'm we're fairly sure the reversal is somewhat true. We haven't exhibit examined this in physique athletes, but in endurance athletes we do. It's part of the whole concept of trying to periodize nutrition for metabolic flexibility in endurance athletes where you, you know, compete high train low so that you can easily switch over from fats to carbohydrate with endurance athletes, right? Not physique athletes. So you could make the argument that maybe don't know, but maybe you become fat maladapted in the dieting condition. And then what will you try and fat load? Well then you're probably then you might may indeed have preferential storage in the adipose compartment, in which case Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yeah. BK: There's not much benefit there. So again, big question mark on that. But I mean above beyond that, w we have other variables at play. Obviously you got, yes, calories, macronutrients, particular emphasis on carbohydrate. We do obviously tend to mod fibre, which in theory is a distinct type of carbohydrate with low digestibility. we generally tend to taper that coming into a show to mod GI volume. We can discuss that in more detail. Electrolytes obviously goes beyond simply sodium and potassium, but these are two big rocks and given that we are operating with a body of which is under homostatic control, at least within the constraints of natural athletes. There's usually a consideration for this. It's just that most people get very extreme with modding these components, which is very dangerous in some c contexts. Whereas as Jacob put forth, you know, usually we would stabilize that. and also there's fluid also, which you did allude to moments ago, Jacob. And fluid, Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Mm-hmm. BK: Yeah. It it's Our industry tends to swing to extremes. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Well, I think I think commonly people will say, I'm I look watery or I I look soft and a lot of times this is a body fat related issue. Yes, there are circumstances where, you know, you can spill aside from just body fat with carbohydrates or even sodium, which, you know, I have seen before with a lot of sodium. But when it comes to fluid dynamics, there are only a few scenarios where fluid is moved, say outside the muscle or outside the capillary or the you know the blood vessels. And these are more clinical type of conditions where maybe you've got an injury, you've got liver sclerosis, you've got a heart condition, like you've got these other things that are going to draw fluid out of the vascular system. But very rarely is it a more peaking related thing, especially when you keep everything standardized, especially with consistent BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: fluid intake, the body is going to regulate things in a very consistent and predictable manner. BK: Yeah, absolutely. And this is where fluid I find myself scratching my head a you know. 'Cause the concept on paper of depleting fluid and it presenting allowing you to present a more tight look works if you don't think about it or if you don't understand the underlying physiology. You know, the whole concept is okay, we have intracellular fluid, extracellular fluid. We want as much intracellular fluid as possible, we want to minimize extracellular fluid. Which sounds good on paper, but the extracellular compartment is not one singular compartment. There's interstitial fluid, fluid Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Mm-hmm. BK: around the cells, there's cell fluid in the vascular tissues. Well actually I do want vascularity on show day. So now what you're asking is I want a fair bit of fluid, a lot of fluid in fact, in the muscle cell. I want no or very limited fluid in the interstitial space and I want a lot of fluid in blood plasma volume. Okay, this is this is where you know we're trying to operate with a system that seeks to create homeostasis. and understanding that You would know that if you deplete fluid, you're going to deplete across all three compartments. And generally speaking, it presents a flat look, even if carbohydrate availability is in check. With that said, I don't think we should take it to the extremes and say, let's take in two liters of fluid five minutes before we get on stage. Couple reasons for that. One is you're gonna have a water baby. That's not gonna be ideal for abdominal control. You're also going to s throw out your electrolyte balance temporarily. You're obviously going to dilute blood plasma osmolality. in which case you're gonna stimulate di ra you know rapid diuresis. So I don't think we should take it to the extremes where we should deplete fluid or hyperload fluid minutes before we get on stage. The goal on show day should be Uhydration. And if you are promoting that, you're going to have a high degree of replicatability slash predictability. And that's our general recommendation. there might be times where maybe we in the couple of days leading to the show, let's push up fluids a little bit more. just to make sure that we have certitude of Of fluid availability, and oftentimes that coincides maybe with a small bump of sodium. We're talking add an extra gram of salt here because you're gonna have more obligatory excretion

through diuresis. And then on show day, we usually put in place a general recommendation to make sure the athlete's consuming some fluid. And I mean, have you observed in let's say like we we run in the same circles here, Jacob, but do you know of many people who have reduce I say natural athletes because enhanced athletes a little bit different. Okay, it's not a homostatic control body. There's pharmacology at play here. And I'm not gonna pretend that I'm an expert in that area. Maybe there's context where it's appropriate. But in the natural realm, have you heard of many individuals who have successfully depleted fluid, you tell me. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Successfully, no. and I will be honest, there a lot of times BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: individuals that are depleting food are not in the best of condition anyway. but it's often something they will get off bodybuilding.com or some other forum in which they've used to help direct them through a self coached BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: bodybuilding contest prep. have I heard of people restrict fluid because they look watery? Yes. is that what you should do? No, you should probably do the opposite, because there's potentially something BK: In some contexts, yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: else going on there if it is a electrolyte related issue. but it is interesting you talk back to guys like Nathan Wallace and he was almost looked at as a charlatan. No, maybe not a charlatan, but you know, this BK: Almost. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Otherworldly creature that's drinking fluid on show day back in the late late two thousands. yeah. BK: It was actually hilarious. We'd we'd go backstage and it's just it's almost like you're gonna play mind games with people because they're parched as can be, and you're sitting backstage with a shaker on your knee, and they're looking at like, you're crazy, man, I can't believe you're drinking fluid, and you're like, hey, relax, mate. Like I'm hydrated, I actually feel great today. No, for these guys they've done these gnarly depletions, they're telling you how like the peak weeks the ho most horrible thing. You're like, guys, you got it really wrong. But it was exactly like that. People would say, You are crazy drinking fluid on show day. very gratefully it's has the general consensus has changed. But I think in recent times, since the was a couple years back, it was about 2019, the evidence-informed recommendations for Peking came out. Now, all credit to the researchers there. They did a great job in summarizing the available research. It's just the available research is not context-specific to physique athletes. And what you're really doing here is you're going out on a limb, on a limb, on a limb, and you're using a lot of sort of the mechanistic basis to put in place these recommendations. And there is recommendations within that document to fat load to taper fluid. And what I see with people taper fluid is essentially as follows. If they're hydrated enough coming into the period at which they taper, then they look okay the morning of the show, maybe for the first category. They don't look good, in my opinion, because of the tape reduction in fluid. It's more so the other variables they're playing with: carbohydrate, sodium, etc. It's more that they look good in spite of being subparhydrated. The issue is as they move through the day. They get flatter and softer and flatter because of the lack of hydration. That's how I've seen things play out in most scenarios. And to be fair, to be totally honest with the listener here, if I have a bikini athlete who is too hard, Rachel is too hard but on stage, but that's another conversation. But a bikini athlete is too hard on stage. Let's say ICN, and I need to make them look, unfortunately, less hard, less full. The quickest lever I'm gonna pull is fluid. I'm gonna just deplete them two or three percent. They're gonna look usually like a little bit flatter, maybe even a bit of a softer look about the great. But is that what bodybuilders want? Nine times out of ten. Quite to the contrary. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Mm-hmm. BK: So we've covered some of the variables here at play, right? We should probably talk about some of the peaking. styles, right? So we we know what our objectives are. Manage fatigue, top muscle glycogen, look full and tight. Great. Some of the variables we know, but how do we allocate these variables? And this is where we have multiple peaking sh styles. In which case you've got f rapid peaking and slow peaking. I might define rapid sorry, the the slow peaking and then give and then Jacob will jump over and give us a bit of an overview of the sort of More rapid peaking. But I as I describe a slow peak would be you are ready early, or you're between shows, and we close the energy gap, increase nutrition. To the point of which you're walking around essentially peaked. Muscle glycogen saturation is high. you're managing your electrolyceted day, you're hydrated. In which case, all we need to do coming into the show is mod fiber, maybe acutely mod on the show day. electrolytes in reference to sodium specifically and you walk on stage good to go. This is the ideal position to be in. It is exceptionally low stress. And I and I don't think you will meet an individual who doesn't respond favorably to this if you are ready ahead of time. Unfortunately in most cases there's a little more conditioning we tend to sort of peel off in between. But if you run a long season, like Henry for example, a couple years back, eight weeks, nine weeks it was to Wells. By the time we got to Wells he was perma peaked. He was walking around energy maintenance. Very simple. And then you get your rapid start peaks, of which you've been dieting all the way to the show and then you're gonna load into the show. Jacob, give me a bit of insight. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I think the the context that you put forth there is very important in distinguishing between the two and when you

might use one over the other. If you're having to unfortunately chase conditioning well every day that you're in a deficit, losing fat is important because it's going to yield to BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: the better look on stage. Despite you mightn't be as full if you do not meet the conditioning standards for that category, unfortunately. you're going to be put to the side in most cases. In most BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: cases. and and maybe we could put forth that hey a more rapid load is maybe forty eight to seventy two hours prior to show day, or could maybe even bring it down to that forty eight hour window and In most cases, like BK was saying, there's a bit more predictability, and generally most people will respond well to a nice and slow load where the energy gap is closed. a lot of times the the more rapid load is coined the rapid back load. BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: And whilst this may work for some people, it's potentially quite unpredictable. Have you had time to test such a strategy? It could be very high stress too, but it might be something you need to employ for other reasons like making weight as well for some BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: divisions within certain categories in different federations. BK: Yeah, definitely. There's there's here's the thing, the way you peak an individual is specific to that individual based on prior response from refeeds and based on their circumstances surrounding making weight and where their conditioning is presently within their current season. That mi that slow peaking strategy is amazing if you're ready two weeks out and you're just gonna slowly increase your carbohydrate. But in most scenarios you'll put in place something that's a little bit more proximal to the show, whether it's you the mid load. of which would which conventionally might be two up, one down, two carbon loading days, one taper a day, versus a backload forty-eight to twenty-four hours beforehand. I will say that I seldom incorporate a rapid backload twenty four hours, but we have on occasion, with individuals of whom need to make weight, and there are certain individuals of whom I've observed that you can load them very, very quickly. I happen to be one of those individuals, if I Wanted to, I could run a a one-day load, I will very predictably respond. Nathan Wallace, for example, you run a back load in one day, he has a bit of a loading look, gets a bit hazy, and as the carbs kind of find their home, in which case a mid load, two up, one tapery day to a cleanup day represents a more appropriate strategy for him. So you you gotta sort of work with the individual that's before you. I suppose one of the questions that often comes up is sort of what the parameters? How how much do you load? Well, I mean, how much you load is largely Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Mm, it's good question. BK: dependent on how depleted the individual is and how well how depleted the individual is and how many days you are loading them

for. I kind of like to analogise it like if you're dieting very aggressively, I mean I'm pushing all the way to the show, hopefully you're not, then the metaphoric a cup that represents muscle glycogen is very low. And for those who are listening here, I'm holding a cup in my hand here as a prop. In which case I've got all this space to fill up, so I need more carbohydrate. But if I have closed the energy gap move to the show, And I'm dieting at a much slower rate, which represents the ideal for muscle retainment slash performance retainment, which are closely linked. Well then the cup is not as empty. So then I don't need as much carbohydrate. And of course, you consider if you're wrap if you're loading in one day, eat more carbohydrate. If you're loading in two days, it can be a little bit more moderate. You also gotta consider your protein and fat intake because your total calories, essentially energy balance primarily will determine the fate of the excess nutrient. You're going deposit as muscle glycerin or not. But I mean, broadly speaking, general parameters, if protein's running up at around three grams per kilo, which for many of our guys can't speak for anything anyone else, it often is, you'd probably pull this down a little bit lower to point 2.6 or so. And for a two-day load, we seem to be somewhere between four and seven grams per kilo on the most behalf, with fats running around that sort of 0.5 to 0.7. And of course. You need to be open to adjusting your protocol based on on look. And on that topic, it's actually as a coach, you need to have your finger on the pulse in reference to the athlete's movements and changes in their environment. This is an important piece as well. If you've back-tested a given protocol, you're like, I have confidence we're gonna have predictability here, and they're a tradeie and they decide I'm gonna have the last two days off work coming into the show, because this is really, really important. And you completely overcook them because their energy expenditure declines by 30-40%. This is where you need to understand the individuals before you, or vice versa. Myself in Taiwan last season, I'm walking around with a backpack going on registrations. I'm burning through much more than usual. Well, then you need to adjust the protocol. So you're looking how full, flat, tight, soft they're looking in reference to where they're at in their their peaking protocol. Okay, the logical Update is nothing, everything's in check, or let's load a little bit more. And it's obvious obviously easier to add than it is to take away. So point to consider there. as for show day, Jacob, what are the general considerations on that front? Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Absolutely. Well, we're gonna be quite specific with the timing of certain variables like carbohydrate, sodium, and potentially potassium depending on what's going on in the day. As we may need to push diuresis if someone's competing maybe twice across a day with a big gap in

between. And as a result of acutely pushing in sodium, we then need to reset or at least encourage fluid balance to come back to homeostasis and and auto-regulate again. And that's where potassium can become helpful in a situation like that. But primarily where I would say potentially the most important meals or intake points would be the two-hour out meal. BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: And then we normally then look at a 60 minute out, not so much a meal, but another point in which we will push in some form of fluid, carbohydrate, maybe a supplement, which we would typically use in the form of glycerol. BK: Mm-hmm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: and then we might look at adding in or topping up some carbohydrates between the 30 to 45 minute out point with some additional sodium and fluid. to facilitate some some transportation of those nutrients across the the gut lumen as well. BK: Perfect. 'Cause yeah, I mean the show day ideally you know, ideally we're waking up feeling ideally we're waking up ninety eight percent there. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Hopefully, hopefully with a a morning trip to the bathroom as well. BK: It's just a nice a nice a nice pit stop there is always a welcome piece. But ideally we're Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yeah. BK: rising on the show day at 98% there. And the show day nutrition is the final sort of paint stroke, if you will. And the timing, as you mentioned, is really quite important. And especially when it comes to doing a a sodium push. So I mean broadly speaking, we're using carbohydrate that's low residue, low volume, keeping protein quite low, keeping fats quite moderate is likely a good idea. one of the benefits of keeping your carbohydrate sources low volume is that they're generally high GI. and promoting a hyperinsulinemic response has implications for the rate at which you assimilate glycogen. And that two-hour outmark is a great vantage point for meaningfully influencing the look of the physique. It's usually around that time we'll make a sodium push. And the intention there is basically to to influence blood plasma blood plasma osmolality in a way in which you pull more fluid into the vascular space and therefore have an easier time pumping up and present a more vascular look. And assuming you've got enough potassium on board, you're unlikely to have a potassium, sorry, a sodium spill. And we usually base the amount of sodium we have on what the sodium intake is coming into the show. We'll kind of build upon that. Everyone loves to ask what's the best sodium potassium ratio. And I I couldn't give you that. I'm not sure. But generally speaking, we're having a lot more sodium than potassium on the show day itself, somewhere to a magnitude of two to five times the volume, with a majority of that in temporal proximity to the stage time, which is sort of two hours and thereafter. But again, this is where you gotta know the individual. And when we're working with athletes online, by the way, we have a specific plan. This is when we eat, this is when we send check-ins, and then we do our best to teach the athlete the sensations they can. or sorry should experience so they can titrate the last little bit when it comes to sodium and and carbohydrate in the sort of hour coming into the show. But obviously we're talking on the phone as well, we're looking in on on in photograph form, etc. And before you move on, I the one thing I want to quickly throw in here is I hear this I see this quite frequently on social media these days. It seems to be look, one person starts talking something And then 50 other people jump on the bandwagon because that's just social media and no one actually thinks with the brain cells between their eyes. But the general thing I see I'm seeing recently is these guys jumping online saying, What are you doing eating lollysnakes five minutes before you go to stage? You're an idiot, you know, it's not gonna you're not actually gonna digest and assimilate that till later, like it's useless. Now, to be fair, there is a logical basis for that. But I'm like, guys, you're just thinking short sighted. So hear me out. Sodium, as we know, acts really quick. Six minutes it's in the system, you're gonna see it. Assimilating carbohydrate and and synthesized muscle glyction. Bit more timely, sixty minutes and beyond, even with simple carbohydrate. But you'll see us topping up an individual with salt tablets minutes before you're on stage. Why? Because they have multiple categories, guys. I need to it's not about I'm gonna meaningfully top up muscle glycogen with these this sugar right now in for two minutes time. Like, no, I'm gonna stabilize black glucose levels so they can perform well for three categories. Back to back 40 minutes of ch of posing. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: those glycogen levels, not dip into them as much. BK: Yes Exactly right. So I find this so interesting because I'm seeing this a lot online, like guys are all idiots eating directly beforehand. And I maybe if you got the one category and it's two minutes, but for us naturals, I mean it's really quite common to have even if it's you're pot you're getting judged and then you have routines. It could be a forty, fifty minute competitive bout between on stage and stage side. So I just thought I'd put that forth. It was an interesting piece. So I'll throw this to Jacob here for the sort of psychology of Peak Week. 'Cause this is another component that we need to to consider here is that Peak Week's pretty stressful. what are some of the challenges that you see with athletes as they move into Peak Week in terms of just managing them mentally? Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Well, I I particularly love the actual show day psychology as well. Especially when you're there in person. That's a pretty cool point in time which you can still have a really meaningful impact. But generally speaking, for the week, we can implement a protocol that's gonna be individualized to the athlete, potentially BK: Mm-hmm. Jacob -

HomeBrand BK: like a location could be Something to consider and how easily food is available. I know if you're b you know tr traveling internationally, sometimes oats are so expensive. And that might mean you need to make a quick and easy adaptation to BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: the plan, depending on where they are. But other than that, we mentioned the rapid backflow. Anecdotally, I've heard a lot of times that this is quite stressful because you don't know how much BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: food you're gonna put in. You might need to go through various different types of food options to assist in keeping the waste small. BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: and that is not something that's easy, especially if you're not at your home, if you're traveling and you're elsewhere staying at a hotel. So just like we're standardizing a lot of nutritional variables, you know, fluid. And we're even looking at steps and and training. We we want to keep things quite consistent BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: and not make the day any more burdensome than it needs to be. It's already a stressful situation, especially if it's the first show of the season BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: or you're a first timer. So keeping things very simple, maybe looking at things like rice cakes. I'm I'm sure that would digest well for most people. As there's been BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: some rice in the diet at some point. and just finding a nice happy medium of facilitating the result but at the same time considering the athlete and making sure that they're not any more stressed than they need to be. BK: And this is the B thing, this stress kills the look, right? And you gotta know your athlete, like how how they operate. And you always do your best to keep them cool, calm, and collected, have them understand why we're doing what we're doing, the response we're expecting to see based on prior data, so they can go, okay, cool, you've confirmed, like we have confirmation that this is well informed, etc. But I have some individuals who are very highly strong, in which case I'll purposely simplify for them. To the contrary, I might have someone like Zee, of whom is exceptionally calm. And that works to his to his benefit. You know, we had to make weight for an IFB show. That is an uber iterative process which I would never put forth to a first time competitor. He's an advanced competitor, we're gonna make weight. So we're gonna pull off. Basically two and a half kilos to make weight. I'm gonna add them two and a half kilos over the weight cap tomorrow morning. Okay, so that involves a combination of modding GI volume, modding glycogen availability, and a slight modding fluid, and then a rapid repletion phase across all those components thereafter, with the exception of food volume course. Now in his scenario it's we're playing it by the hour. Alright, cool. weighs off an hour, where are we sitting? Yep, cool. Alright. We've we got we've got a bit of space here to

eat this. Does that. I can do that with him. He's very, very cool, calm, collected. I got some people in mind that I won't mention who are phenomenal athletes, so I would never do this. They would they would be off their their rocker and the the effect of their look would be profound. So just managing people's expectations and their anxiety surrounding changes. And I think for most people, because the way we do things, it's methodic, it's simplistic. It's quite soothing for most people to say, Hey, we're only changing these things. And they're within parameters that we have tested before. Okay, cool. But gotta stay relaxed, gotta stay relaxed. And Moving on to sort of the the back end stuff here, I'm really curious to get your take on this, Jacob, because you have some significant experience on the judging table. When we talk about peaking, the way in which we peak is in some ways informed by the category. Right? Bodybuilding, classic. We want very similar things. Give me a crisp look. Get me full. Get me tight. We'll exploit the conditioning you have, we'll exploit the muscularity you have. That's great. But other categories you can actually overcapitalize. So speak to us on that. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yes. Maybe I'm not the biggest fan of this, but it is in fact the the criteria. I'd rather just everyone up there just shredded and just full to BK: Go. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: the gills, vascular, but unfortunately that's not the case. with a b division like bikini, I've got a bit more contextual knowledge within WMBF. You want a full hourglass shape and not overly hard or or muscular or vascular as well. So for some individuals it can be quite challenging to find a nice happy medium. They might be really shapely, but to BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: get, say, the glute the hint of glute ham tie-ins from the rear that might come at a detriment to too much vascularity in other areas. it might be for some individuals to in the bodybuilding category to get Traded glutes, they might need a really long time frame because they could run the risk of starving out, say, their quads or the BK: Mm-hmm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: lateral delts, which you need to weigh up. Is that going to be the best case scenario or align with the criteria in the best way possible? So a lot of these things can not only influence the contest prep, but the peak week too. Do you push sodium to get more vascularity or do you hold back like you put forth to get a more rapid change and a softer look to align with what the judges are looking for? BK: Yeah, and this is really important, you've got to please the category. You know. So for example, I just like Jacob, I like creating freaks. I d I just I think it's the coolest thing ever. And a great example of this is, you know, Rachel and her recent WMBF show the way in which sh her body fat distribution patterns operate. She needs to get pretty lean up top to to bring in her glutes. And then we have to actually manage how vascular she gets. Because coming into the last show, this will fit nicely for IFBV, but within the constraints of WMBF. we're pumping her up in the delts, and then I watched her on stage just get harder and harder. So the veins start popping out through the delts. The child in me is going, This is cool. But then I know this is not what the category wants. The the veins through her midsection up to her chest start ripping out of the midsection. I'm going, This is cool, but this is not what the category wants. So this is where we have to be Strategic with how we pump up, how we carbohydrate load the individual, how we go about managing our posing, and how we go about managing our electrolytes. So I mean the critique for the last weekend would have been we go a little bit lower on sodium there, we might manage her pump up a little bit more conservatively for that division. So this again you you personalise your peak depending on the division. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I think also understanding maybe how not only just the criteria, but the actual judging and scoring as well. So for something like bikini, one of the scores is split up. So there's like a there's a presentation element, there's a a shape element, and there's different percentages distributed to these components. So maybe there's 25% of the score that luckily the package that you'll bring, you can sacrifice to achieve the best result. But if you don't appease that 25%, you might lose out on another section within BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: that that scoring. So that that needs to be considered as well. I mean for classic physique is a good example within the WMBF. You want to be for the most part as lean as a bodybuilder. But not at the sacrifice of muscle fullness. BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: and and shape because fifty percent of that score is based on your X frame, your silhouette. No conditioning considerations at all is within half of that score, which is a massive portion of your total mark. And then again, there's presentation, but not something we can necessarily do within peak week. and the you know last component in there is of course conditioning. So You need to weigh off what is going to be the best of both worlds to get the best result on the day. BK: Definitely, definitely. And I I dare say the bikini division specifically is a game of chess at the level of IBB, especially so where you know, let's we want you to have the outline of abdominals but not not a vascular midsection. Hamstring tie-ins but no no quad separation, please. This is where Jacob - HomeBrand BK: No no feathering. BK: no feathering, exactly right. So to me, the bikini category got fun in the past few years because there's more thought that goes into it. ICN, I say like a rip on ICN bikini all the time because it's just very soft. But to me it's it's please, please do not take this disrespectful respectfully, my intention is not so it's boring. whereas we go to like the WMBF, we go to the I think MBA also runs a bit harder. We go to IFBB, I'm like, ooh. This is a game of chess now, and you're really personalizing all those aforementioned variables. So hopefully this gives a bit of insights to the general piece here. We could legitimately talk for hours when it comes to peaking. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: There's too much to talk about, B. BK: There is, right? And we're trying to keep this at pretty much an hour here. But we've overviewed the objectives. We've defined what full flat title soft is. It's very important. We discussed some of the peaking styles. whilst I do admit we could offer some more details to which is more contextually specific, but we've given you some insight there. Show day nutrition, some general considerations and also some of the other side piece challenges that come along with the peaking process, right? Jacob - HomeBrand BK: And I think this leads us nicely BK: So Jacob - HomeBrand BK: into a post show episode coming up. BK: I believe that is in check. So with that in mind, guys, want to say a big thank you for tuning in today. If you enjoyed today's show, please do the like, subscribe, share us on social media. We greatly appreciate it. And stay jacked, stay natural, and keep crushing it. Talk soon.