| Adam's Fame Interview | |||
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 1. Tell us a little bit more about the competition you just did, and what category you were in.It was called FAME a natural bodybuilding competition and this was the UK heat held in Brighton, they have heats all over the US, Canada, South Africa and the UK, the winners get to go and compete in the FAME Worlds in Miami. I entered the Fitness Modelling category and also the Bodybuilding just for the experience . 2. As a fitness model you train hard anyway tell us how you had to change your training to get ready for this show. I followed a progressive 12 week program I put together myself, changing the weights/reps ratio every 4 weeks and adding more advanced intensive techniques in the last 4 weeks to help shed body fat. It was a very rigid ground hog day lifestyle for 3 months, training 2 days on 1 day off, on training days I would train my various split body parts in the morning before work then would do a cardio session in the evenings. 3. As well as changing your training you must have had to tweak your diet, tell us about that. As the weeks went by I tweaked my diet by dropping calories slowly and I cycled the carbs in my diet to help stop my metabolism from plateauing, in the final 4 weeks I dropped all protein shakes and I literally lived off oats, eggs whites, the odd slice of low fat cheese and chicken and or brocolli every meal without sauces ! 4. The last week before the competition did you change your routine. Yes my final 3 days of training were specifically designed to help deplete my muscles of all glycogen stores and to minimise muscle damage, which can affect the effectiveness of the carb loading before the competition. The workouts were basically all performed with light weights but pain stakingly slowly with a tempo of 3 seconds up and 2 seconds down for 15-20 reps. 5. What made you want to train for this competition and would you do it again. I've always been interested in Bodybuilding and wanted to take my training to another level and felt the best way to do this was for the purpose of competing, as I didn't feel comfortable trying to get into my best ever shape purely for vanity, although I guess the two still go hand in hand. 6. Body building some times gets a bad name through the use of steroids and other drugs what are your thoughts on that. In my mind it's all relative to whatever Bodybuilding federation and level you intend to compete in. People blame steroids all too easily when they see the well known faces of Bodybuilding but the fact is that with or without them you still need massive amounts of year round dedication, hardcore training upto 3 times a day, living your life around 8-10 meals a day and months of eating the blandest diets and still needing the genetic ability to pack on muscle to your frame, some people just aren't genetically built that way, they get my respect all the time. But I think the problem arises when some bodybuilders who have been on them at some point enter Natural competitions, you can't and shouldn't compare 2 people on stage in the same category, that's just unfair and those people are just kidding themselves. 7. Would you enter another show and if so when. I'm definitely going to enter at least 1 a year, i've got the bug, it was a great experience and I met lots of interesting and great people who had all been on their own personal journeys to achieve their goals, it also makes that first cold beer and slice of pizza in 3 months taste like nothing on this planet ! I'd like to enter one around May next year, it means I can diet from February to May when nothing socially is going on, I'd like to enter FAME again but if it is held in August next year it would mean dieting next summer again and I want to spend lots of time with friends and family next summer. 8. In this show you came 3rd, as this was your first show what do you think you learnt, and how could you improve. Doing a show really teaches you so much about your body and how it reacts or doesn't react to certain ways of dieting and training, it's only through this trial and error process that you can really develop a program specific to your own physical demands. I came in a little too dehydrated and therefore lost lots of size, your muscles and cells are made up of water so it stands to reason that when you are very dehydrated your muscles will loose some size, so I will taper down my water intake next time rather than cutting it out completely and will carb load for 2-3 days, I only carb loaded the day before the show and with little water in me my body had nothing to use to fill my muscles back up with the glycogen from the carbs, which is the whole point of the process. I will also have a few months over winter now to try and put on some mass before starting to lean down. 9. In your eyes what do the judges look for, its not just whose got the biggest guns is it ? In my eyes it's about bringing in a complete package you need a physical balance of muscle symetry and proportion, with very low levels of body fat enabling you to show off every muscle on stage and then trying to keep as much size as possible. Of course a big set of guns never goes unnoticed !! 10. So what is next in your fitness world, what is the next aim. My next aim is to get Cover Fitness up and running with my 3 colleagues, a personal training business where the Personal Trainers have all been Fitness Magazine Cover Models, using these qualities to help inspire clients. I'm also looking into doing some kind of Fitness TV presenting and would also like to write for a fitness publication in the future. On top of that trying not to let my 'off season' diet run away with me and hitting the weights hard, making some improvements in my physique for next year.
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Issue 4. Cover - Photographer - Moritz Stragholz
Model - Steve Smith
