HOW TO BUILD A KILLER PHYSIQUE IN 12 WEEKS

Despite the still-melting snow piles, pool season is right around the corner: once again, women across the country will start riffling through their closets, breaking out bikinis, and bemoaning the fact that they didn’t put in a few more hours on the treadmill over the cold winter months. With June a mere three months away, many are starting to go into a minor panic mode. Three months is hardly enough to make a serious dent in one’s bad eating habits, or physique flaws, right?

Wrong.

If you know anything about physique competition– all those crazy bodybuilders and figure girls– then you should know that 12 weeks is the average amount of time spent prepping, or “dieting”, for show. Some with tremendous metabolisms get ready in less time (sometimes as little as 6-8 weeks), while for some with slower metabolisms it takes a little longer (16 weeks usually being the upper end). But 12 weeks is a boatload of time to make tremendous changes to one’s physique, provided one is willing to do what it takes: be consistent with diet and exercise, and train hard on a daily basis.

THE TONING FACTOR

Realistically, when one begins prepping for a figure competition, the primary focus is on simply stripping away body fat and reducing fat mass to the point where one can see the lean muscle tone underneath. Not as much attention is paid to actually building muscle mass during this stage. Building muscle is typically a slower process that takes months, and sometimes years, to accomplish.

That said, it’s important to strength train vigorously while trying to lose fat and get ready for the summer months. First of all, if you don’t strength train while dieting and doing cardio, you can plan on positively LOSING what muscle tone you already have. And a skinny-fat, tone-less body is hardly what you want to display at the beach after 12 weeks of hard work. Make sure you continue to weight train just as heavy and hard as ever. As a woman, my simple advice is to train like a guy trying to build huge muscles: realistically, if you are lucky, you will end up netting a small amount of muscle tone, while simultaneously using the intense exercise to boost metabolism, calorie burn, and the body’s natural hormone levels. Try to strength train at least twice a week, hitting each of the major skeletal muscles (pecs, lats, delts, biceps, triceps, quads, hamstrings, glutes, abs) once each week. You can split the body into halves (upper and lower) to devote more attention to each section, or do total-body two separate times. Focus on making small and consistent strength gains on basic exercises that work multiple muscle groups at once (squats, dead-lifts, lunges, bench press, pull-downs, rows, shoulder presses). Don’t bother circuit training unless you are using weight training more for conditioning work, or for cardio. Muscle is muscle, the same on women as on men, and building lean, toned muscle in the months leading up to summer will make you look that much slimmer and tighter in your bikini.

CARDIO

All things considered, the weight training component of your fitness routine is actually probably more important for getting lean and toned than the cardio component. However, the benefits of weight training add up over time, whereas cardio is more a “quick fix” for stripping body fat in the shorter-term. Cardio is also important for overall health, and thus should be included in any properly-balanced fitness routine.

You have two basic options when it comes to performing cardio for fat loss: long and moderate-intensity, or short high-intensity intervals. If trying to get as toned as possible in 12 weeks, I would start with daily cardio, 6 days per week (allow yourself one day of rest), 45 minutes per session to start. On weight-training days (2-3 times/week), perform your strength training first and your cardio second to maximize fat-burning and toning. After approximately 45 minutes of weights, you can do a bout of moderate-intensity cardio: either walking on the treadmill on an incline, or elliptical or stairs set at a fairly easy level. Since this cardio is performed after weight training, you don’t want it to be super intense– otherwise, you run the risk of starting to burn muscle tissue.

On non-weight-training days, you can do high-intensity intervals instead. There are numerous ways to interval train. I personally have most of my figure competitors alternate between sprinting and walking: perform an all-out sprint, top speed, for 1 minute, followed by 3 minutes of walking, and repeat the pattern for 45 minutes. As you become more conditioned and acclimated to the workload, you can decrease the walk time to 2 minutes, and ultimately 1 minute.

DIET

The most important part in seeing changes in the next 12 weeks will be following a regimented diet. In physique-competition circles, this is typically referred to as a “blueprint diet”, where you have written down EXACTLY what you are going to eat EVERY SINGLE DAY! There are no cheats, no exceptions, just the cold, hard plan. This is assuredly the most guaranteed way to getting ripped and toned in the next 12 weeks, which is precisely why all physique athletes use this method.

Your diet should consist of 4-6 small, evenly-spaced meals throughout the day. Each meal should revolve around a quality protein source, like chicken breast, fish, ground turkey, egg whites, or whey protein powder. In the first phase of the diet (first 4-6 weeks), you can allow yourself more carbohydrates, but they should all come from quality sources: complex carbs from brown rice, oatmeal, and sweet potatoes are best, and maybe a small amount of fruit here and there. I would do carbs at the first 3 meals of the day, and cut them out for the final 3 meals of the day. Add in 1-2 healthy fat servings throughout the day, in the form of either almonds or a small amount of natural peanut butter. Green veggies are free, and you can eat as many as you want to help keep full; try to do at least 2-3 servings a day.

As the weeks go on, you will want to keep protein steady, and gradually drop back on the carbohydrate intake. To compensate for increased hunger and fatigue, you might want to increase either your fibrous vegetables, or your healthy fats (but only SLIGHTLY, as we don’t want calorie levels increasing too much as June approaches!).

Keep water intake high, and avoid any and all simple sugar sources.

CONCLUSION

If you want to see rapid results, then follow the same pattern that is followed by others who see rapid results: physique athletes. The guys and girls on the cover of fitness magazines like Oxygen and Men’s Fitness don’t simply “eat healthy”, then eat REGIMENTED, at least when prepping for a photo shoot. They don’t just “go to the gym”, they have a concrete plan that they commit to, that pushes them progressively harder from week to week. Twelve week is plenty of time to dramatically change your physique and fitness levels, if you are willing to be dramatic in your approach.

-David A. Johnston