16 Week Body Transformation
Cam Bell: Case Study
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Cameron came to Enterprise Fitness wanting to work towards a photo shoot. Being a Personal Trainer himself, he wanted to put himself through a body transformation to understand the process. The aim was to use the experience he gained to apply to his own clients and get them great transformations too.
Starting at an already lean 13.3% body fat, Cam wasn’t in bad shape. However, being more of an Ectomorph naturally, we wanted to focus on putting some size on his frame and getting him as lean as we could. You can see by the images this was a great example of a body re-composition.
STATS;
- 13.3% –> 5.9% Body Fat (7.4% loss)
- 71.2kg –> 67.5kg Body Weight (3.7kg loss)
- 61.7kg –> 63.5kg Lean Body Mass (1.8kg gain)
- 107.6mm –> 65mm (42.6mm loss)
We had 16 weeks to get Cameron ready for his shoot. His nutrition and training were as follows:
TRAINING
12, 10, 8, 8, 8 (week 1-4)
We started with a higher volume program to push more of a hypertrophy response from the beginning. Coach James likes to use this descending method to allow more advanced lifters to get a good amount of load on the bar while also accumulating a good amount of volume.
8, 8, 6, 6, 4, 4 + Drop Sets (week 4-8)
The next progression was more of a Functional Hypertrophy phase. We wanted to build strength in Cams bigger lifts to lift heavier loads in the future stages, creating a better adaptation overall. We paired this with some drop sets because we still wanted to accumulate some volume for a hypertrophy response in this block.
Modified Tri-Sets + Pre Fatigue (week 8-12)
Now we wanted to focus on increasing the time under tension, therefore, impacting the aerobic effect of the program by introducing modified tri-sets to help with fat loss. Even though this would be a block where the loads lifted wouldn’t be as high due to the accumulative fatigue, we set up the phase to allow Cam to lift heavier loads on his compound movements while still getting the fat loss response from the increased aerobic nature of the program. There is also data out there that suggests you can still build lean tissue while in a deficit if you create the necessary adaptation for the tissue(s).
Straight Sets (week 12-16) plus 2 days of Steady State Cardio (30 mins running)
In our final block, I wanted to taper back the intensity but focus on increasing volume for specific muscle groups. Chest, shoulders & arms more specifically. This program would enable us to manage overall fatigue a lot better in the final four weeks as we tried to get the best result possible. It worked really well, especially when we brought calories down quite significantly towards the very end. I also added a small amount of Cardio in this block to increase overall energy expenditure in order to get Cameron as lean as possible, especially as we introduced nice high re-feed days on the weekends.
NUTRITION
Week 1 – 4 (2250-2600 calories)
Non-training day food was sitting at 2250 which was around a 7.5% deficit. This was only for the 2 rest days as total energy expenditure would be lower. Training Day food was sitting at 2600 calories. This was around a 10% surplus, enough food to build some lean muscle on 5 days training, but not to overshoot the total calories as we only had 16 weeks to prep.
Week 4-8 (1700-2350 calories)
In this block, we started to cycle calories between Leg Day, Upper Day and Rest Day. The reason for lower body and upper body days being different is that generally speaking; lower body day is performed at a much higher intensity using larger muscle groups, therefore demanding more energy intake.
Leg Day (2 days) was sitting at 2350 calories which was estimated to be baseline calories. Upper Day (3 days) we started to create a bit more of a deficit dropping Cam into a 15% deficit on this day. While Rest Day (2 days) became a 30% deficit.
The aim here was to get a jump on getting Cam leaner so that we had a few weeks in the bank towards the end of the prep where we could start using re-feeds as he got leaner as being an Ectomorph, I made an educated guess his body would respond really well to this. This would also allow us more calories towards the end of the prep.
Week 8 – 12 (1600-2250 calories)
This block was almost the same as the previous 4 weeks, however, we just tapered off 100 calories from each of the days. The program that ran alongside this nutrition block was the hardest, so I still needed enough food so that he was able to recover and perform to get the most out of it. By getting a jump on his body fat in the previous block it allowed us to keep his calories a little higher going into this block.
Week 12 – 16 (1600-3000 calories)
The last block was where the fun started. Cam had reached 8% BF at this stage and lost 3.5kg bodyweight. I didn’t want his body weight to drop any more than 67.5kg so this was the time to start introducing the re-feed meals. His Leg Day & Upper Body Day remained the same as the previous block. He had one Rest Day of 1600 calories during the week.
On Saturday’s we started to re-feed Cam quite substantially going for Grill’d Burger or Pizza, Chips as well as Gelato. Sunday we would taper back to a clean 2500 calories before getting back into a regular week of food.
As previously predicted Cam’s body loved these additional calories and his body weight maintained while his body fat continued to reduce.
Week 16
The last week before the photoshoot we went for an aggressive drop in calories taking out all Carbs for 4 days. The aim was to deplete him down as much as possible so then we could re-introduce Carbs to make him even leaner while making his muscles look a lot more full before his shoot. We gave Cameron a progressive increase in calories over a 3 days period gradually loading up his calories to 2750 calories, of which was predominantly Carbs.
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By Enterprise Diamond Coach – James Kelly
