Water Retention

Sometimes a guy wants to look as super-shredded and lean as possible. It might be for a competition, photo shoot or maybe just a hot date. Whatever the reason, besides muscle definition, there are two factors that impact just how lean and defined you look--body fat and water retention. Obviously, you can't look shredded if you've got a layer of fat covering the muscles. But even if your body fat is in the single digits, excess water can make you look less defined and sometimes, even bloated. Minimizing excess water weight is what we're going to explore here today.

Aldosterone is one of the hormones that manages the volume of fluids held in the body--water in particular. And while for most guys water retention isn't going to be an everyday issue, if you are a competitive bodybuilder or you need to look extra-ripped for a photo shoot or special event, retaining even small amounts of excess water can make all the difference in the world.

First, a little background on Aldosterone, which is released by the adrenal glands. Aldosterone is one of the hormones that helps regulate the body's sodium and potassium levels. This in turn helps control blood pressure and the balance of fluids and electrolytes in the bloodstream. The adrenal glands produce more Aldosterone when the body is trying to conserve fluid and salts. This means that high levels of Aldosterone equate to more fluids being retained in the body. When Aldosterone levels are low, the body retains less water.

The entire process is actually managed by the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS). If you're looking to get super shredded and hard with that contest-ready, 'paper-thin' skin, then how to manipulate the RAAS is definitely something you want to understand. By learning to manipulate the RAAS you can influence Aldosterone levels and affect how much water your body retains.

A typical strategy that many guys use to reduce the amount of water they retain is to decrease their salt intake and cut back on the amount of water they drink. Decreasing salt intake is good, but it only helps so much. And unfortunately, because the body is always striving to maintain a state of homeostasis (aka the status quo), drinking less water causes the body's metabolic systems to conserve water. This actually causes Aldosterone levels to spike, so drinking less water doesn't have the effect that you want and actually causes the body to retain more water.

So with this in mind, we know that we have to look at another strategy. Strangely enough, one of the ways you can manipulate the RAAS, lower Aldosterone levels and reduce the amount of water retained, is to actually drink more water, not less. This seems to contrary to what you want to achieve but it's not the way the body works. But it's a little more complicated than just drinking gallons of water before a competition or event.

Successful manipulation of the RAAS to reduce water retention requires timing and strategy. Finding the right 'window of opportunity' is essential to success. Before you start trying to reduce water retention, you'll need to first make sure that you've already shed any unnecessary body fat. There's no point in going through the trouble of shedding water when there's a layer of fat underneath. So step one is to get your body fat percentage into the low teens or even single digits. Once you get to that you point, you'll be in a position to be able to get shredded by reducing how much water your body retains.

The next step is to follow a specific protocol that incorporates the manipulation of protein and carbohydrate ratios combined with a period of high water intake (hyper hydration) followed by a rapid, timed period of limited water intake (dehydration). You will begin the hyper hydration and dehydration phases several days before the competition or other event for which you want to appear super shredded.

This strategy works because the hyper hydration phase will cause Adosterone levels to drop, meaning that your kidneys are flushing out most of the water you're drinking--also causing you to piss a lot. The targeted period of dehydration will allow you to rapidly shed water weight, leaving you super shredded and ultra-lean. But because you're doing it for such a short period of time, the inevitable spike in Aldosterone levels and the accompanying increase in water retention, won't happen until after the competition or big event.

Unfortunately, shedding unwanted fat is a lot more complicated than just cutting back on calories and adding in a few extra cardio sessions each week. The problem is that our genetic programming gets in the way, making getting rid of fat a lot more complicated than we'd like. When we start to cut calories and burn more energy our bodies think that we're facing a food shortage. In response, it releases a flood of hormonal responses that are designed to conserve energy and make sure we've got fat reserves to draw on for the upcoming 'famine.'

These hormonal responses are what stand in the way of our fat loss goals. There are three in particular that inhibit fat loss--estrogen, insulin and cortisol. When we do the things we do to shed unwanted fat, it triggers the release of these hormones. And when released, each of these tells the body to increase residual fat storage, especially around the waist area. The good news though is that we can 'fight hormones with hormones' and manipulate our metabolic systems to overcome these fat loss roadblocks.

The secret to this strategy is identifying the nemesis for each 'bad' hormone--or in other words, the 'good' hormone that does the opposite of what the 'bad' hormone does. For example, testosterone is the 'opposite' of estrogen. Testosterone is the male sex hormone and estrogen is the female sex hormone. To combat the fat storage effects of estrogen, we want to increase the amount of testosterone our bodies release.

There are several ways you can naturally increase the amount of testosterone the body releases. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by lifting weights. In particular, increasing training density has proven to be an excellent technique to stimulate testosterone production. Training density refers to the amount of work you perform within a given timeframe. You can increase training density by lifting more weights, performing more repetitions or by reducing the rest periods between sets.

To fight the stubborn fat around the mid-section of the body, you can really increase training density through a modified circuit training technique. A key difference between this and other types of circuit training is that here, instead of focusing on doing a certain number of reps, you perform as many reps as you can within a certain time period for the first set. Then, you increase both the weight and the number of reps you perform for the second set.

Similarly, there are training techniques you can employ to combat insulin and its impact on body fat storage. Here, training techniques focus on increasing insulin sensitivity and boosting Insulin-Like Growth Factor 1 (IGF-1), which counters the effects of insulin. Dynamic training--which is based on combination movements--is particularly effective at boosting the amount of IGF-1 in the bloodstream. Higher amounts of IGF-1 negates insulin resistance and increases the body's fat-burning capacity.

We can also combat the fat gaining effects of cortisol by increasing the amount of Growth Hormone (GH) our bodies produce. GH is the single most effective compound your body produces to affect both fat loss and muscle gain. The more GH the body produces, the more fat you burn and the more lean muscle mass you add.

Like the other two fat-fighting hormones, certain training techniques stimulate the production of GH. Lactic acid training is one technique that is especially effective. Lactic acid is what causes the 'burn' you feel when you train your muscles really hard. As annoying as that feeling may be, it does trigger the release of cortisol- and fat-fighting GH. You can boost the release of lactic acid by lifting very slowly and then quickly (but carefully) returning to the starting position. Another way to increase GH production and diminish cortisol production is by sleeping. Yes, a good night's rest triggers the production of GH while simultaneously diminishing the production of cortisol.

So there you have it--three fat-fighting training techniques at your disposal. Include these in your training arsenal and you'll be able to fight hormones and with hormones and win the battle against stubborn fat, once and for all.

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Mike Westerdal is the founder of Critical Bench, Inc. A free online weight training magazine