Chris Cooks BIG National Win (Diet Prep) - Anabolic Steroids

WannaBBIG · #1 (**permalink**) 04-18-2005, 10:51 AM

I found this very interesting as I was there for the Nationals in November, 04 up in Dallas. It's just hard for me to believe that I guy that big can function on 25 grms of carbs a day.....this is going to be tough.

Chris Cooks Big Nationals Win
by Chris Aceto

Jay Cutler knows bodybuilding. In fact, he’s got a knack for picking the next big thing. About two and a half years ago while visiting Bodybuilding’s very own Donald Trump (yes, Jay is a real estate mogul!) Jay and I were discussing bodybuilding stuff – diets, nutrition and training. In reviewing the haves and the have not’s, Cutler singled out Victor Martinez who was coming off a couple of rough years as a new pro. Said Iron Jay, “Victor Martinez hasn’t done anything as a pro, but it’s all there. He just needs to get it right.” Funny thing about that; at that point Victor’s name was nothing big. People didn’t expect much from him. Many figured he would end up like other pro’s, never really “making it.” I recall seeing Victor guest pose a few years ago in Boston. It was about two weeks away from his first try at the Night Of Champions and I thought he looked really good. When I told someone who writes for one of the magazines, “Wow I saw Victor Martinez, he looks unreal,” the writer’s reply was lackadaisical at best. “He’s no big deal” was the reply. I just figured the writer knew more then me and had seen Victor in competition against others who may have made him look not so impressive. Then Jay brought his name up a year later under the category we were discussing “Who could be really good.” To the best of my recollection, big Jay called out Victor as a top pick. The next week, Martinez called me and I thought it was way too crazy of a coincidence and I told him spot on, right there over the phone. “Vic, you can be the next big thing.” The rest, as they say, is history. Vic went on to win 2 straight pro shows and take 9th at this year’s Mr. Olympia. Should he have placed higher? Hell yes. Will he be back better than ever? Yes he will. A lot better? A hell of a lot better!

(Editor’s note: Victor Martinez did not palce in the top 5 of the recent Arnold Classic)

Fast forward to mid-2004. This time, Cutler’s making another one of his lists and telling me who the good guys of the sport are. Chris Cook heads his pick and he adds, “Plus, he’s got a good physique and can go far. He just needs to put it together.” Soon after, I got a call from Chris. Before he could finish his sentence, “Can you give me a little help for the Nationals to be held in four months?” I interrupted, “Chris Jay Cutler always talks good about you so I know you’re a good guy. He also says you have a good physique. And, really, I value what Jay says, so yes, I can give you my help.”

The Help
What do you teach someone who already has won the USA twice? under the expert guidance of top trainer Haney Rambod. First, don’t listen to anyone; clear your mind. That sounds arrogant or even ignorant. What I really mean is that in this sport, you have to do what is best for yourself, what you believe is best for you and block out what everyone else says. Because, frankly, everyone else – more than likely – will give you advice as to how to get ready for a show without the slightest understanding of how you are trying to come into a show. For example, “people” were already telling Chris, “You gotta come in ripped to the bone” which I felt to be a potential mistake. What I told him: “You have to come in as huge as you can with the right amount of definition to highlight your roundness. To fall for the be-all, end –all get ripped approach, chances are you might shrink and look paper thin without enough mass to be able to highlight the type of physique you have; round shoulders and popping triceps, big round quads and a nice V taper. Rip that up with no regard to trying to keep your calling card – roundness – and you might end up looking ripped, but flat or just simply not overwhelming in the line-up. So I told Chris, “Come in big. Come in round and come in cut, but never sacrifice your strengths: roundness and shape.”

If you have read my books, you know I’m not an angle guy. I don’t believe in carving a physique with detail exercises. I think the detail will be there when the body is devoid of fat and water. For contest prep, I think heavy is the way to go, with basic exercises. Therefore, I suggested to Chris he skip all the shaping crap and stay focused on compound motions. When he got started, he had taken a break from the diet that he has been on for the USA. In fact, he wasn’t even eating much. So I decided to slowly increase his food intake. We started with this.

Weeks 15-11

Meal 1
Shake: 50 grams protein
1 1/2 cup oatmeal (uncooked measure)
sometimes, he’d have 75 grams of carbs from fat free muffins

Meal 2
10 whites
grits: enough to make 50 grams of carbs

Meal 3 (pre-training meal)
Shake 50 gr prot
96 gr carb . This would come from a powder or he would eat any type of carbohydrate source with 96 grams of carbohydrates.

Meal 4 (after training)
7 oz chicken breast
96 grams carbs ....usually 2 1/4 cups or rice or 4 1/2 ounces of pasta

Meal 5
same as 4

Meal 6
50 grams protein from a shake or
10 oz chicken w/ veggies

The above menu gave him a lot of fuel and reserves to train like he was trying to add mass, without worrying about dieting. Within 3-4 weeks he looked pretty decent at 275, according to Chris, the biggest 275 he’d been to date. He was not cut mind you, but not fat either. Hard-ish. At the 10 week mark or so, he started doing cardio a couple times a day; two 20 minutes sessions with each session being really hard. The aim here was to try to kick the metabolism up and short, though really hard sessions, are effective at doing that. I also decreased his carbohydrates to about 250 a day and increased the protein to about 300 grams. His diet looked like this

Meal 1
Shake: 50 grams protein
1 cup oatmeal (uncooked measure)

Meal 2
10-12 whites
grits: enough to make 50 grams of carb

Meal 3 (pre-training meal)
Shake 50 grams protein
50 grams carbs . This would come from a powder or he would eat any type of carbohydrate source with 50 grams of carbohydrates.

Meal 4 (after training)
7-9 oz chicken breast
50 grams carbs ....rice: 2 1/4 cups or pasta: 4 1/2 ounces

Meal 5
same as 4

Meal 6
50-60 grams protein shake or
10 oz chicken w/ veggies

Over a 3 week period, he leaned down to the lower to mid 260’s. That’s a 10 pound drop in 3 weeks. I’d say most of it was fat with a little water along with it.
At about the eight week mark, I switched the diet up to include lower carb days. I’m not necessarily big on low carbs. It works for a lot of bodybuilders but for others a higher carb diet is the way to go. Chris would stay on low carbs for about 4 to as many as 7 days in a row; “low” being 150 grams a day. Then he’d switch and go to 500 grams or so. Chris’s body is really really water retentive. By the 4th to 7th day of low carbs, his weight would drop to as low as 257 and he’d look good. I’d say to myself “Ok he’s gonna win this show.” However, with only a single day of eating say 500 carbs, he’d explode and blow up to 270 and at 270, he certainly doesn’t look like he’s going to win the nationals in a few weeks. I’d just dismissed it as water – as it was. I mean, I’d see him at 257 just two days earlier and be impressed, so that gain of weight after a high carb day could only be water and nothing more. Still, I can’t say it never crossed my mind: “Shoot what happens when he carbs up the final 3 days before the show, is he going to water out and lose.”

From weeks 7 to around the Olympia time, Chris was alternating low carb days with a higher carb day here and there. I also switched him to 45 minute cardio sessions and on occasion put him on two daily cardio sessions. Usually, I hate cardio, but he was certainly holding size so I figured the added cardio wasn’t hurting him. At the Olympia, I finally got to see him in person. Up to this point, I had never even met him. I simply was going off digital pictures he was sending me. The Mr Olympia weekend is not a good time to meet someone getting ready for a top amateur show. I was in Vegas providing help to Jay and Victor and after seeing them, Chris – white as a ghost and holding water – looked like nothing compared to these two; tan, dieted all the way down, depleted and in the final day or so before the show. Still, he looked big and didn’t really appear to be holding that much fat. I think at the time he was in the low 260’s. Here’s the lucky part of the weekend – yes some luck always plays a role in winning. Chris couldn’t get to his cardio like he had hoped so he just chopped his 150 carbs all the way down to 25 grams a day while he was in Vegas. The result; dramatically less water retention, harder looking muscles and with not a smidgen drop in roundness. When he got back to California and I retuned to Maine, we sort of both decided to take a risk and limit his carbs to 25 grams a day. That’s not a typo; just 25 grams. It worked. He got leaner pretty darn quick – his back, glutes and hamstrings leaned down a lot. And, I know he hated this, I had him keep a 45 minute cardio session in there for good measure - nothing crazy intense, just moderate walking on a treadmill or biking to keep the metabolism up and to burn a few more calories. When he’d really crash as he’d tell me, his voice trailing off and hardly audible “Chris (Aceto) I don’t have drop of energy,” I’d say “Go ahead and eat. Pop your carbs back up to 400 or even 500 for a day.” After a day, he’d feel better, not completely better, but somewhat better, and I would have him drop back down to 25 grams of carbs. After just ten days of this, I could see he was starting to lose mass, and that’s when I decided to increase his protein intake. As many know, when calories decrease, you need to increase protein to prevent a loss in muscle mass. However, in some bodybuilders, this is not always true. For some many reasons, their bodies fight hard at retaining that muscle in absence of carbohydrates and calories and they can actually stay pretty darn full. It took Chris a full 2 1/2 weeks to start losing mass so we waited until we could see that happening before adding in more protein. At is toughest, here is a peak at his 25 grams of carb diet.

Meal 1
Shake: 50 grams protein
½ cup oatmeal

Meal 2
12-15 egg whites

Meal 3 (pre-training meal)
Shake 75 gr protein or a pound of chicken breast

Meal 4 (after training)
75 grams protein from a shake or 12-14 ounces lean beef

Meal 5
same as 4

Meal 6
60 grams protein shake or 60-70 grams protein from chicken breast
10 oz chicken w/ veggies

The Final Week
A lot has been said on what exactly to do the final week before a show and I don’t think there is a one size fits all method to getting there. Bodies are different. My rule of thumb; If a guy can’t or does not lose a lot of mass on low carbs, then deplete the hell out of him a week out from the show. That’s what Chris did. I went to California and we went to the gym on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday and just did set after set, rep after rep in order to make sure his muscles were depleted of glycogen. I don’t really recommend that for everyone but like I said, if the bodybuilder does not shrink on low carbs – and Chris wasn’t shrinking on low carbs – then you have to go to “no mans land” and drive those carbs out. By the time we were on the plane headed to Dallas on Tuesday night, Chris was beat up. And there was more to come.
On Wednesday, Chris started carbing up. He was eating about 70 grams of carbs per meal at each of his 6 meals and only 30-40 grams of protein from either whey protein, chicken or beef. The carbs he decided to use were potatoes, a salt free whole grain cereal he picked up at a health food store, and a salt free whole grain bread on which he would use a little bit of low sugar jam. He cut his sodium out the day before and went from drinking roughly a gallon of water or more up until and including Tuesday to about half that on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. I’m not a believer in sitting and carbing, even when you’re depleted to the max. I’ve just seen people lose it and water out by hoarding themselves up in a hotel room and chowing down on rice cakes, potatoes and yams for three days. A lot of times it works, but sometimes the body – not use to eating so many carbs while not training – only ends up holding water. So we headed off to the gym and trained on Wednesday and Thursday. We picked 1 to 2 exercises per body part and did 1 to 2 sets of 12 reps. Nothing heavy. Nothing serious, but enough to try to facilitate a pump. Since it was Chris’s first full three days off salt and first three consecutive three days of carbing in weeks, I knew he’d look a lot better then ever and it would be a good confidence builder. Every day- from Wednesday morning on, he looked better and I think that helped his confidence, which certainly was reflected in not having to do battle with the nerves demons back stage. Interestingly, that’s been a problem for Chris in the past. He has told me that he looks great going into the show, but gets really nervous the day of; and as a result, holds water.

The Coincidence
The Nationals where held in Dallas. Two interesting tidbits about Dallas. I only had been there once with Jay in 1996 where he won the Nationals. I thought that was some type of good omen. Here I was going back for the first time in 8 years. I thought the stars just may be lining up for another win. When Chris and I went to look for a gym, we got totally lost and could not find the one we were looking for, but ended up stumbling onto a gym- the gym – where Jay had gone through his last minute prep in 1996. That definitely seemed like some weird sign. The other crazy thing about Dallas; When jay was there in 1996, he insisted on going to visit MetroFlex gym. I distinctly remember going there like it was yesterday and I recall Jay talking about Ronnie Coleman – admiring his physique – like he could be the next big thing. Jay’s got a thing about picking winners.