Denis Gusev: people do not break down because of training, they break down because of food

This week our guest was Denis Gusev – the first Russian athlete who took part in the Mr. Olympia competition in the Men’s Physique category, TV presenter, bodybuilder, and recently also the co-founder of a nutrition delivery service.

– Denis, tell us how sport came into your life?
– Like many people, it appeared at school, when you are doing physical education and a coach for one of the sports comes to you. He looks at you and offers to enroll in his section.

– What sections did you come from?
– I came from different ones, but I stayed in track and field. I liked it because I developed physical qualities: endurance, strength to some extent. Plus there were trips, training camps, competitions. A young man from a large family, who stays at home, liked it. I was a champion of the region, I set records, it was all at the children’s level. But I always dreamed of becoming an athlete.

– What exactly did you do?
– Long jump. I was a candidate for master of sports at school. Then I entered the Academy of Physical Culture and Sport in Krasnodar, studied. It was the 90s, there was nothing to eat, my parents gave me $15 a month for food, clothes and the rest. The money was enough for five days. I tried to earn money from the first year, so I had to work at night.

– What did you do?
– Digging trenches, unloading railroad cars.

– You mean physical labor?
– Yeah, the lowest-paid and most physically demanding work. But I had enough to live on. Naturally, I had to stop playing sports, it was a competitive sport. Only the Academy of Physical Culture remained, I graduated with a red diploma, because it was not very hard to study and I liked the subjects. Then I thought that my life would never be connected with sports, 10 years passed, in 25 I moved to Moscow and soon learned about the existence of World Class. I thought that I would never be connected with sports. Then I talked to the coaches, found out how much they earn, and thought that I wanted to work here. I remembered that I have a red diploma, I came, I got a job, and I started working in 2007. I worked there for a while and learned that there was a sport called bodybuilding. But it was more brutal bodybuilding, open.

I realized that I would not compete in such a sport, because I would never become like the athletes there. But there is a bodybuilding federation and it includes several disciplines, while many people think that there is only one. It includes both men’s and women’s categories. Now there are about 6 men’s and 5 women’s categories. That is, each person can find a category that suits him or her. And when I turned 31, in 2012, I decided to try myself in the category “classic bodybuilding”. I got acquainted with coach Dmitry Myshalkin, and he agreed to train me. I started to perform little by little.

– How much time passed between the decision to perform and the first competition?
– There were no dreams about championships and Olympia. I realized that this is not my level at all. I mean, since I have always practiced sports in the gym, like most guys, I was in good shape. I had to gain 3-4 kilograms of muscle mass and bring it to a normal state. At the Russian Championship I took 8th place out of 16 people, which was not bad. I decided to continue training, and a year later I took the 3rd place at the Russian Cup and received a master of sports. At that moment I wanted to finish my career, because bodybuilding is not included in the Olympic program, nobody helps you, you spend a lot of money.

– Was it hard to gain mass after track and field athletics?
– Athletics athletes have a well-developed metabolism, and bodybuilders should have an even better metabolism. The metabolic rate is exactly what helps you gain mass at such a low fat percentage. And with a slow metabolism, more fat is stored.

– How did your career go from there?
– I wanted to end my career, but I learned about a new discipline called “men’s physique”. In Russia it is called beach bodybuilding, but it translates as “men’s physique”. There it is forbidden to have a large muscle mass, guys go on stage not in swimming trunks, but in shorts and it is forbidden to show classical poses – just stand, smile and that’s it. I liked this discipline because I didn’t have to “shrink” and gain a lot of muscle mass. The weight I had was enough. And since I was already a member of the Russian national team, I was qualified for the World Championships. I went to Kiev and became the world vice-champion. That was in 2014.

– What happened after these competitions?
– There is such a big international tournament – Arnold classic. Schwarznegger himself organizes it and comes there as a guest of honor. And out of 54 people in my category, I became the first and second in the overall standings and got the right to a professional card. I ended up having three starts in my first season: Los Angeles, Pittsburgh and Dallas. At the big tournament in Dallas, I finished third and became the first non-American to finish in the top-3 at a professional American event. I came home with a trophy and got some qualifying points for the Olympia. All professionals have a dream to compete at the Olympia. It’s like the Olympics for us. They don’t let you in by choice. You have to win a professional tournament.

Russian Championship, World Championship, Arnold classic – these are amateur tournaments, and by winning at major competitions, a participant has the right to get an American professional card. Only professionals compete at the “Mister Olympia” tournament in Las Vegas.

– Getting to the Olympia was your dream. Was it worth it?
– Everyone evaluates it for himself. But in 52 years of Russian bodybuilders’ performances, I became only the fourth of the guys who made it to the Olympia.

– Do you have any desire to perform again and show a higher result?
– There is a desire. A year ago another category appeared, which is placed just in the middle between “men’s physique” and big bodybuilding. It’s called classic physique. It’s like the classic bodybuilding I started with, only you need to have a little more muscle mass. That is, with my height of 186 cm, you need to have somewhere between 103-105 kg.

– What should you pay attention to when preparing for a bodybuilding competition? What is the ratio of training and nutrition?
– 70%/30% in favor of nutrition. Bodybuilding is not like other sports, if it can be called a sport at all. It is nutrition that comes before training. To achieve results, you have to eat eight times a day the same and not very tasty food. You have to get so twisted that during the day at least once in the diet there were different products: white fish, chicken, lean beef steak, not to go crazy with chicken breast with cucumbers. That’s why I had the idea to create my own meal delivery service.

It’s not the workouts that make people cringe. They go to them all the time with gusto. It’s the food.

– You say that you spend only 30% of your time training, but you work out from the very morning?
– Training is a high. You come to the gym, you start lifting something, endorphins are produced. It’s hard, but you work out and enjoy it. Especially when you look at your reflection in the mirror. But when you get home and start eating tasteless food, you think, “That’s it.” It’s not the workouts that make people lose it. They go to them all the time with pleasure. It’s the food. They open the refrigerator in the evening and see there are foods that are forbidden to eat. The same milk – you can’t drink it. Their hands shake and they drink it.

– Why can’t you drink milk?
– At the beginning of training, you can drink it. But before the competition – no. There are several reasons for this: firstly, milk sugar, lactose; secondly, casein protein, which, getting into the blood, begins to retain fluid. It is hard to lose weight on such a product.

– What kind of diet should a bodybuilder have?
– Everything is calculated by cycles. If we talk about the last phase, the diet, everything is individual. For example, there is a book “Preparation of a weightlifter”. You can open it and prepare according to it. There are no instructions like “Nutrition of a bodybuilder before competitions”. Everybody comes up with their own, completely different ways. Somebody can go carb-free for a few months. I know a guy who for about two months consumed only two foods: liquid egg white and cucumbers. I couldn’t go two days like that. You’d have to be such a fanatic! It’s crazy. And other people can eat at least 200 grams of carbohydrate a day and have an equally good figure. Every person has a different physiology.

– How do you find the right balance for yourself?
– You have to try. There are prerequisites by which you can understand what a person is prone to. If he gains weight quickly, you need a carbohydrate-free diet. I’m a thin person. When I started my freshman year of college, I was 6’2″, 61 pounds. Although I was a professional track and field athlete. Now I weigh 95 kilograms. It took me almost 20 years to gain 34 kg. An average of 1.5-2 kg a year. That’s the max. My muscles grow very slowly. However, dieting is very easy for me. In my training I tried many different schemes. In the end I came to carbohydrate alternation: one day I eat 50 g of carbohydrates, the next day 100 g, and then 150 g. And all this is transformed into a cycle.

– Is it possible to get in shape without protein?
– If you don’t consume sports nutrition, your health will be very bad. A lot of vitamins and minerals are consumed during training. If they are not restored, you can ruin your health. If you do not take fats, which are extremely important in our body, the hormonal balance will be disturbed. Supplements are also very important. Ordinary food does not have as many amino acids. Otherwise, you have to eat meat by kilograms, because of which a person will tear his stomach. It may be possible to get in shape without supplements, but it is dangerous for your health. It is clear that you do not need to consume them by the dozens, as bodybuilders do.

– Did you have any desire to create your own brand of sports nutrition?
– I had the idea, but I realized that my competitors would be every company in the world that deals with sports nutrition. You walk into a store and there are American, Dutch, Japanese products on the shelves – you have to compete with them. But when I opened Level Kitchen, I had only five or six competitors in Moscow. Now half of the brands are name brands: Jake Adler, Ronnie Coleman, Phil Heath, Kai Greene. Many have already gotten rid of sports nutrition production, as it is unprofitable.

– What is the advantage of Level Kitchen over its competitors?
– The main advantage is the price-quality ratio. The cost of one ration starts from 136 to 150 rubles. Even if you compare it to McDonald’s: a hamburger costs 250 roubles. It is cheaper, and at the same time you get a full diet: proteins, fats and carbohydrates in the right ratio. A day of delivery is about 700-800 rubles – that’s up to 6 meals. This is pennies at all. The cheapest per month – 22 thousand, including delivery 25 thousand rubles. Many companies do not include delivery in the price, so the client has to spend 200-300 rubles separately every day. With us, it is included in the price. That is, 150 rubles – this is including delivery.

– The most expensive ration costs 25 thousand rubles?
– Yes, 30 days. Together with delivery. You get 750-800 rubles a day for 6 meals. The second advantage is that we put great emphasis on quality. The partner with whom I opened this business already had experience of working with the service. He had been developing a premium segment service for a year and a half, and after that he decided to bring his knowledge to the masses. We made beautiful packaging, everything is sealed: spoons, forks, napkins, a big beautiful menu, where everything is calculated and described by grams and milligrams. There is a container and a bag in which the food is delivered. Everything is done at a high level. A lot of money has been invested in the project. It was not done on the knees. Many services, and there are about 30 of them in Moscow, are in basements, cooking porridge on their knees, pouring, printing on some cheap machines. You have to be careful what you choose. We have quality control. We also have a varied menu – about 150 meals. Everything is constantly changing, sometimes we remove not the most popular dishes and introduce something new.

– Who draws up the menu?
– We have a nutritionist and a brand chef. There are five diets: two programs for gaining, 1500 calories for girls – 2500 for men, two programs for losing weight 1000 calories for girls – 1500 for men. And there’s a simple 2000 calorie program for someone who just wants to eat. Each set has a breakdown of protein, fat and carbohydrates. It’s the job of the brand chef and nutritionist to design menus to fall within these programs. There is also a set of ingredients: chicken, white fish, squid, not so long ago rabbit, beef – these are protein. As carbohydrates we can use bulgur, quinoa, buckwheat, rice, pasta, vegetables, except potatoes. Vegetables in general are not very much, many are offended even, but with them a problem. Especially in winter. Half of them spoil. When, say, you cut a tomato and put it in, by the time they bring it to a person, all the water has drained out, it turns to mush. That’s why we removed some of the vegetables. A person can buy a pack of cucumbers or tomatoes at the store, enough for a week. It will cost 500 rubles, but it will be fresh. We focus more on proteins. We do not try to replace expensive protein with cheap carbohydrates, as others do, or soy. That’s why we have a huge number of dishes, from beef, for example, there can be 10 kinds.

– How to choose specifically for yourself, how much protein, fats and carbohydrates you need?
– When a person calls us, he communicates with a manager who will choose a program for him. Everything is calculated based on the person’s gender and weight. The first thing they tell us is “I want to lose weight” or “gain”. If to lose weight – 1000-1500 calories. If a person is obese with a weight of 130, of course, 1500 calories will not be enough for him, so he can take 2000-2500. It will be enough, he will start to lose weight, because there are few carbohydrates and a lot of proteins. Sometimes we recommend supplementing with something. The same sports nutrition. A person can buy protein, he will get 200-300 calories extra from it. This is how the program is selected.

– Which meal do you consider the most important?
– Perhaps someone will say that the first one, the morning meal, is like the good old saying: eat breakfast yourself, share lunch with a friend, and give dinner to your enemy. That’s right! I talk to people who don’t exercise. They practically do not eat breakfast, drink tea or eat a sandwich – this is wrong. Breakfast should be one of the most energy-consuming, because it gives you strength for the whole day. And it is important that it was right, not sweet to eat – insulin jumped, and an hour later you are already hungry – but on the contrary, long carbohydrates that are slowly digested. Cereal, protein – it should be enough for three or four hours. But still I would call the last meal the most important. It is the most difficult, it is the moment when people most often break down. Either they went to a bar after work, or they came home tired and grabbed everything they had. The last meal is the hardest to hold back. We usually offer a no-carb set. Light protein so that it doesn’t take long to digest: fish, eggs, seafood and fiber, greens, bran.

– How long before bedtime is recommended to eat?
– I believe that you can eat at any time. Even before you go to bed. But not carbs.

– Do you have a drinking regimen?
– I try to drink a lot. There are certain rules: 200-300 milliliters of water per 10 kilograms of weight. If you weigh 100 kilograms, you should drink two liters of pure water. Doctors say that water, tea or coffee are not the same thing. Water is a solvent in our body, immediately after ingestion begins to fulfill its function, and the other liquid – juice, tea or coffee – is broken down in parts into coffee and water, and only after that water will enter the body. I try to drink 1.5 liters of pure water when I dilute BCA during a workout. I also drink coffee in the morning to cheer myself up.