Mike XXL... what about this article?

It is about sodium loading and depleting and stuff like that. Before you immediatly disagree, read the article. Im thinkin theres a possibility you didnt do it right when u did it. What do you think of this?

There is no argument that excess subcutaneous water detracts from definition, but muscle is more than 75% water. Each gram of Glycogen, or Carbohydrate energy that your body stores as energy for muscle contraction binds with 2.7 grams of water. the more water you have in your body the bigger and harder you will look if you are able to force water into the muscle. The water balance across the cell membrance is regulated by the balance of potassium inside the cell to the sodium outside. When there is an excess of potassium, water is drawn into the cell. By reducing your sodium intake and taking potassium supplements you increase intracellular water. Because the body tries to maintain the potassium/sodium balance, when you restrict your sodium intake too long the body begins to excrete potassium to restore the balance. There fore you should only restrict your sodium for about three days before the contest.

Because of the extra carbohydrates, you should be drinking approximately three times as much water by "weight" as you are taking in carbohydrates. Use distilled water along with potassium tablets for the 3 days before the contest, and any excess water taken in will just be eliminated.

When high levels of sodium are consumed the body conserves potassium in order to maintain a balance. Therefore, if you eat reasonably high levels of sodium a week before going on a low sodium diet you will naturally have high balance more pronounced. The movement of the water into the cells will be more pronounced. Sodium loading does not have to be excessive to work, and is not recommended for more than one week due to its association with disease like hypertension. Soy sauce is a natural source of sodium.

im gonna do something like that in 3 weeks ill keep u all posted plus some pics , nice post mike

Hey Bro, if you want to you can try this, i know the role that sodium plays in proper Carb up, with out it it is very difficult to carb up properly because it's needed in order to properly absorb all of the cabrs. I will not try this no matter what, i take my sodium in as ussual all the way up to the show, i don't increase it and i don't cut it, I eliminate exess sodium through the use of diuretics and and that's my secret...as i said before no sodium loading for me, but if you can make it work for you then good luck to you Bro...but it's not for me...XXL

Not tryin to contradict u, because ur the man. From the looks of your compitition pics, u get in shape very very well. I have 2 shows, 2 weeks apart, so im doin it UR way the first show. If i turn out good, il stick with it. If not, il try the sodium loading. THANX again for the reply, and for the thing you wrote for carb loading. I dont care what anyone says, i wanna try to get this right THE FIRST TIME lol.

i have to agree with mike on this one. last time, i tried to sodium load and it sucked for me. If it works for you thats great, but i tried it, and will NEVER try it again.

good luck

I was gonna coment but.... Oh shit I guess I will. OK this is what I learn, scientifically speaking it takes two Potassium molecules to combine with a sodium molecule before it enters the cell. Now if you were to sodium load you would have to potassium load. Or else your going to have bunch of little sodium molecules sitting outside your muscle cells attracting H20. Which is exactly what you dont want to do. If this happens you will look like the bottom of my 3 year old sons ass, very smooth.

I have tried to sodium load in the past, I could not correctly nail it down, and I did about the same thing that the article said. I think it is better to let you body maintain that equalibrium between potassium and sodium all throughout the diet phase and at the very end rid your sub Q water through diuretic use. Now its probably not the safest way but if we wanted to be safe we could all stay home and sit in the easy chair and watch law and order.

IMO opinion it is one of those things that looks great on paper and according to the text books should work, but just dosen't. I think its because there are just to many variables

What exactly is sub-q water? What diuretic would i use to get rid of the sub-q water at the end?

Would i also need to use another diuretic before compitition? Potassium or anything?

Sub-Q water refers to water underneath the surface of the skin, the water you want to get rid off. As for what kind of diuretics, well that would depend is it a tested show? If you use Aldectone i would stay away from any potassium supplementation as you can get into some real seriouse trouble taking potassium with potassium sparing diuretic such as Aldecton. (Cardiac Arrest).
Now if you use Lasix (WHICH I WOULD NOT RECOMED) you would supplement with potassium, but as i said i would not use it.
Now my favorite option here is Dyiazide, the first time i used it was for my last show and i liked it the most, it still left me pretty full but dried me out nicely. In any case for my next show i will be doing just Aldecton (for the first show) mon-50mg, tues-50mg, wed-75mg, thurs-75mg, frid-100mg, sat-75mg, sun-50mg, mon-25mg, tues-25mg (the sun-tues doses are just to slowly come off the diuretics not to cause to much water retention as i have another show 2 weeks later. For the second show i will do the same but i will also use Dyiazide on Friday before the show, probably 50mg every 12 hours starting at 12:00pm or so, on saturday hopefully i will be all dry and will not need more diuretics.

Good Luck...XXL

I ran aldifferent combinations of diuretics in the past, the best that work for me without flatening me out to bad are aldactone and dyazide. Run a search in this forum and you will see past posts.

Good luck