Relentless Pursuit By IFBB Pro Josh Wade What Is MuscleMaturity?

Written by IFBB Pro Josh Wade

10 February 2022

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Relentless Pursuit

By IFBB Pro Josh Wade

Presented by Allmax Nutrition

What Is MuscleMaturity?

Q: I hear people talking about muscle maturity, and I’m not really sure what it is.

A: As it sounds, muscle maturity is about maturing a muscle. Anything related to maturity comes with time and also experience. When you train a muscle hard and heavy you get micro-tears in the muscle tissue. The body has a natural healing process and when the muscle tissue heals it gets thicker and denser. When you keep training and beating up that muscle tissue again and again over years and years, that muscle has a density to it that gets described as “grainy” and usually that’s how you end up with deep cuts and striations, which really separates each muscle for maximum detail.

Genetics play a huge role in how your body develops and the amount of muscle tissue your body will grow, but hard work and training is what will get your body that hard look that you usually see in older competitors. For example, Big Ramy can’t be matched on size, but people always ask why his cuts aren’t as deep as some of the other guys. I believe it’s because he hasn’t reached his muscle maturity yet as he started training with weights late and doesn’t have as many years under his belt as people think. I believe that’s why the last couple of years his condition has been improving because now he’s getting that hard look to his muscles, which only comes with many years of hard training.

“Don’t give up because you don’t think you can build a lot of muscle or you don’t look like the pros; it takes years of hard work so learn to appreciate the small improvements instead of just the big picture.”

Like I said, genetics play a huge role in how people accumulate muscle tissue. Some people have great round muscle bellies and although they don’t look dense and detailed, they look really round and full. Other people like me only got any roundness to my muscle as I starting reaching muscle maturity from years of beating muscle tissue up, letting it heal and doing it again year after year. I feel the only way to get your muscles to look hard is through hard and heavy weight training, so your mass is built with dense, thick muscle fibers and not just tissue filled up like a water balloon. I can also say from experience that when muscle tissue is dense and mature it’s a lot easier to maintain that look even without beating it up anymore. Bottom line is don’t give up because you don’t think you can build a lot of muscle or you don’t look like the pros; it takes years of hard work so learn to appreciate the small improvements instead of just the big picture.

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Cheat Meals During Prep

Q: Should I have cheat meals during prep?

A: When it comes to cheat meals during prep, different coaches have a different approach. I personally never liked to incorporate cheat meals. I hear people saying it gives them a mental break while dieting. If you are trying to be the best, or your best ever, why would you take a break? In any sport, especially bodybuilding, you must keep your mind strong and not give in because you have a craving and want to satisfy it. I do understand and have seen the necessity to add calories into prep when your metabolism is revving so fast that you are losing too quickly and don’t want to peak so fast that you start losing muscle tissue. With most people when you really start to get lean and your metabolism is humming, if you don’t give your body enough calories your metabolism will slow down to adapt to your calorie intake and that’s where it will be incredibly hard to get that last little bit of fat off. You might need to give your body a calorie bump for a meal, for a day, or even a couple of days. At that point, as long as you’re not too close to a show, a clean cheat meal like sushi or a quality beef burger might be all right to get you out of that calorie deficit. Then when you go back to your current diet you might start losing the fat again. When I prepped, I always kept my calories clean. If I did have a cheat meal I would want more or even worse, I would get into the mind frame that I had a cheat meal and it didn’t hurt me, and I could get away with more and more. That would never be the case and then you just self-sabotage your physique because your mind got weak.

Usually if fat-loss progress slows or stops and appetite has become low when it was high, these are a couple of signs your metabolism has slowed down and it does need a quick boost to trick it into speeding up and burning faster. Then you pull calories down and it starts burning faster, not realizing you pulled calories back down. As you get leaner, that’s a process that you might have to cycle through to keep progressing and getting leaner.

In my opinion and what always worked for me is if I did start getting flat because carbs and calories were too low and metabolism started slowing down, I would just add clean carbs. When I would diet, my meat portions usually stayed around 6 ounces cooked weight per meal. The first thing I would cut when starting prep would be added dietary fat like avocado or olive oil so my body would start relying on stored body fat for fuel instead of the added dietary fat. That would only leave carbohydrates to manipulate during prep, which made it easy to adjust my diet. If my metabolism was slowing down, I would start with adding something like a +100 day. That would be adding 100 grams of carbs (400 calories) to my current diet, which would equal out to be about two extra cups of rice to my day and see how I felt and looked the next day. If it was needed, sometimes my weight would be lower the next day or the following day, but I would look fuller and more separated. By keeping the carbs and calories clean and eating what my body was used to, I could judge what worked and what carb content was needed to help with peak week and carb-loading instead of having a cheat meal, which I didn’t really have any idea of how my body would respond to. Then next time I might try a +150 day, adding three cups of rice and seeing how the look was.

My whole point is I like to see what makes my body look best when adding calories and not just having a cheat meal for a mental break that wouldn’t help me come show day. I hope that helps you understand both ways of getting out of a calorie deficit, and which one might benefit you in competition.

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Strengthening the Immune System

With the COVID-19 situation, I’ve been getting a lot of inquiries as to which supplements can strengthen the immune system and help prevent infection. These are the supplements that I take every day year-round for immune system function and antioxidants, but they are even more beneficial at times of stress or sickness.

Allmax Immune-Boosting stack

Glutamine: 10g 3x day, upon rising, post-workout and before bed.

R+ALA: 2 caps (300mg) with first and last meal.

CytoGreens: 1 scoop upon rising.

Vitastack: 1 multipack with first meal.

Omega 3: 2g with first and last meal.

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Website: www.teamwadefitness.com

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