For Dave, his ambition was to get into the best shape of his life before his trip to Barcelona.  The target – 8% body fat, visible abs and improved strength and health.  

His starting point

Dave started at over 15% body fat.  If you want a six pack, the vast majority of people need to get their body fat percentage below 10%.  We aimed for 8%.

We knew his target would be difficult, but possible.  As we do not allow our clients to go into unhealthy calorie cuts and overtraining, Dave would have to follow the plan we made for him to an absolute tee. 

The added complication, we trained Dave online! 

The six pack strategy

We set up an easy to follow, training and nutrition protocol.  Here’s what Dave did: 

Training: 

4 x per week upper lower split 2 days on 1 day off, 2 days on 2 days off.
2 x per week 30 mins of cardio rising to 1 hour at the end of his holiday prep.

Nutritional protocol
We had to get the nutrition strategy right for Dave.  The last four weeks of his transformation were particularly important.  Here’s what we did: 

• Carb cycling – High carbs on training days/ first carb meal after training. Moderate to low carbs on none training days.
• Two refeed days per week – first one on Wednesday of 300 extra calories and Sunday much higher of 600 calories.

We also used calorie cycling, lower calories on lighter training days and higher on heavy training days.

Calories averaged at 2300 per day.  There were no painful hard caloric deficits done here, no prolonged low carb restriction.  We are big advocates for healthy, sustainable transformations! 

The end result

The after photo’s speak for themselves!  Dave got down to 8.2% body fat and went from 72kg to 66kg (over a stone of body fat lost). 

Awesome job Dave!