Dave Draper’s Musclebuilding Q&A

I’d like to compete in bodybuilding or in a figure contest . I’m disciplined enough to follow a rigorous routine, but my concern is the timeline. I need to put some more muscle on and bring bodyfat down for sure.  What is a reasonable deadline?  How do you feel about bulking and cutting?  When is the time to cut?

I have little advice for competing bodybuilders. My efforts and persuasion has been towards building big, strong and shapely muscle. I’ve tended to compromise my health in the process — intensity, daring, overload. When competition, even thoughts of competition, come into the picture and on the plate of goals of a trainee, red lights go off… intensity, daring, overload.

Hold the bodyweight, stick to the basics, amp your pace, introduce supersets, train to build muscle, not to lose fat and bodyweight. The latter will happen as muscle grows in good old-fashioned time.

Timetables shouldn’t be a foremost issue for an intelligent and determined trainee. Who knows the answers, really, until one has put years into the musclebuilding process? Menu, recuperative powers, capacity to work and endure, muscle shape and size potentiality. Everyone is different from head to toe, metabolism to genes, structure to hormones, moods to attitudes.

I suggest one not distress the mind, body and life in the pursuit of muscular curves… Soon. Injuries are around the corner when we over-overload. Disappointment and discouragement lie waiting in the shadows as we scrutinize. They corrupt progress, stall the sails.

It is the journey along the way… they were right.

Determination and persistence before strong shapely bodies.

Smile and be happy: train smart, eat right, be strong, live, learn and grow in all manner and direction…

Godspeeds… Dave