Introduction & Background:
My name is Nick Ribaudo; I am a chemical and biological engineer, a sports science and nutrition fanatic, a functional athlete, bodybuilder, model, and a lover of all things fitness. This is me in a nutshell, but let me explain myself further…
Tracing back my love for activity, athleticism, and progression, it all started with karate when I was three years old. I was taught how to fight, how to push my body through intense activity, but most importantly, I was taught discipline. Karate was a fun, functional activity, and it gave my life structure as a child. I set goals, achieved milestones, and became a black belt by the age of twelve. This accomplishment is the first stalwart example of me setting my mind to something, and doing whatever it takes to get there. I have carried this mentality throughout all future endeavors in my life thus far.
Throughout high school, my primary sports were football and tennis. I grew up playing tennis with my family, so this came as no surprise. Football on the other hand took me a five-page paper to convince my father to let me play my sophomore year; what, it was my last resort to prove how important my desire was to him! I spoke with the head coach of the varsity team during my sophomore year, and he said I was way too small (currently 140lbs) to make the team, and that I would need to start on JV next year while building my base. I took this as a challenge. Throughout the next year, I trained nearly everyday, ate like a monster, learned my desired positions inside and out, and gained ~30lbs during the process. Guess who played on the varsity team that year and got plenty of playing time? I went on to start every game my senior year, and left high school with a place on Villanova University’s D1A football team.
I’ve mentioned these two short stories to give you a background on how I handle myself when motivated. This plays a strong role into my current fitness journey.
I studied abroad in Newcastle, England my sophomore year of college, and continued to play football overseas. During my time there, I broke my right thumb (in a cast for 6 weeks), and I broke my left wrist (resulting in reconstructive surgery and a cast for 10 weeks), so it’s safe to say my life became fairly sedentary for a while. In correlation with a poor diet, and the European drinking culture, these injuries caused my body to deteriorate from what it once was. Upon my final recovery, and return to America, I set out to gain everything I had lost and better myself as quickly and effectively as I could. I studied everything I could on training, nutrition, and fitness in general. I practiced what I learned, and I gave getting back in shape my all, just like everything else I have ever set my mind to. Fast forward nearly two years, and here I am.
I am currently a senior at Villanova University, finishing up my engineering degree and getting ready to compete as a natural physique competitor this spring. I pride myself on my ability to maintain my near 4.0 GPA (currently ranked #2 in my class) and still give fitness everything it deserves. Finding balance is key, and far too many people over complicate things, resulting in inefficiencies. I’ll go into my priorities with fitness and nutrition in a bit to give you an idea of how I approach this aspect of my life.
Training:
Being the athlete that I am, I have always focused my fitness journey around functional aesthetics. Obviously I want to look good and achieve all of my aesthetic goals, but I also want to be strong, powerful, fast, and agile. What’s the point in working towards an incredible physique if you can’t use it to do much more than move weights from A to B? I enjoy doing sprints, box jumps, tire flips, muscle-ups, back flips, handstand walks, and dabbling in parkour. I plan on maintaining my ability to perform these activities while growing and developing my physique.
Now, I could go into all the facets and details of my training that make it what it is, but there are really only a few principal concepts that I focus on. Regardless of how often you train, how long you train, your sets and reps, etc, these principals hold true.
· High volume (volume being the amount of work done on each muscle group)
· Utilizing both strength and hypertrophy training (low and higher rep ranges)
· Fully controlled reps (focusing on contracting the muscles of interest throughout the entire range of motion)
· Training until form failure (failure at which your form breaks down in order to continue)
And finally, the most important concept to understand, forced adaptation. The human body is a machine that craves efficiency and sustainability. Without a serious reason to change and adapt, the body will find a way to remain at a relative steady state. Therefore, forcing your body to endure challenges that it cannot handle will allow it to grow and adapt so that it can better handle the same stimulus next time around. This repeated process of forced adaptation are how both strength and size gains transpire.
Nutrition:
As far as my nutrition goes, I follow a flexible dieting lifestyle. I track my daily intake, count my macros, and never fret about having to change my food sources when I’m on the go and busy, or traveling away from home. I mentioned this earlier, but our bodies are machines that crave balance, and this goes for the balance of energy as well. There is a thermodynamic balance within our bodies as far as energy in and energy out. The energy (calories) in is that which we consume, and the energy out is that which is expended throughout daily activities (including sedentary bodily functions). Because our bodies crave a steady state environment, disrupting this balance by eating more than maintenance to gain weight or eating less to maintenance to lose weight forces our bodies to adapt.
I’m going to run you through a typical day to gain and understanding of what my “flexible” diet consists of. That being said, everyday is a little different: different schedules, different opportunities to prepare and pack food, different plans. Some days I eat more “less ideal” foods, and other days can be even cleaner than this. It all depends. In order to provide you guys with a typical day, I am simply looking at a random logged day in my food-tracking app “MyFitnessPal” from when I was at maintenance. My maintenance calories (based on my body and it’s activity level) are around 3,400, my macros ratios are generally 25% protein, 55% carbs, and 20% fat, and I tend to keep my diet ~80% clean and ~20% more flexible.
Meal 1:
5 servings egg beaters
¼ cup fat free shredded cheese
1.5 cups oatmeal (with 1 cup almond milk, 2-4tbsp sugar free maple syrup, & 1 tsp cinnamon)
1 Fiber One cinnamon coffee cake brownie
Snack 1:
1 Banana
1 protein bar (Usually Quest Nutrition or Oh Yeah One)
Meal 2:
6 oz lean chicken breast
1 cup brown rice
1 cup vegetables (usually green beans or broccoli)
Snack 2:
5-7 rice cakes (Usually white cheddar, caramel, or plain)
Pre-workout Meal 3 (1.5-2 hrs before the gym):
6 oz lean chicken breast
1 cup brown rice
1 cup vegetables (usually green beans or broccoli)
Pre-workout Snack 3:
2 small packages of welches fruit snacks or 1 banana
Post-workout Snack 4:
1 scoop whey protein powder (usually Labrada Nutrition or Cellucor)
1 scoop greens powder
1 banana
Meal 4:
1.5 cups oatmeal (with 1 cup almond milk, 2-4tbsp sugar free maple syrup, & 1 tsp cinnamon)
Snack 5:
2 servings pretzels
2 light string cheese sticks
Bedtime Snack 6:
2 containers fat free greek yogurt
Supplementation:
Please read the heading to this section again…
Supplements are exactly what the name portrays, they are there to supplement your diet, not substitute any portion of it. Whole foods are better than processed supplements, and your required vitamins and minerals should come primarily from whole food sources. It’s important to try your best to get what your body needs out of your diet, and simply use supplements as means of insurance. For example, I get many of my daily vitamins from my diet, but I take a daily multi-vitamin to ensure my body has everything it needs to function properly.
With that out of the way, let me briefly list what supplements I employ on a daily (for the most part) basis:
· Whey protein (to supplement my daily protein intake, usually post workout)
· Multi-vitamin (to supplement my daily vitamin & micronutrient intake)
· Greens powder (to supplement my daily vegetable & micronutrient intake)
· Creatine monohydrate (for optimization and insurance of cellular energy)
· Fish oils (to supplement my daily Omega 3’s and healthy fatty acid chains)
· Probiotic (to ensure proper digestion and intestinal health)
· BCAA’s (to ensure a steady supply of vital amino acids, primarily when cutting)
Final thoughts:
I want to briefly bring things back to my younger days again. The foundation I created for myself as a child has strongly influenced the dwelling I’ve built over the years growing up. When I graduated from the 8th grade, I was asked to give a graduation speech. I recently came across this printed speech while cleaning out my basement at home, and I wanted to share my closing statement.
“I have now made it to the end of my Middle School years, and one of the biggest things I think I can take from these years in the understanding that to reach your goals and be the best that you can be, you always have to understand your limits, and then push them and push them, as far as they can go; and that’s exactly what I intend to do going forward.”
This mentality is something that I hold true today, and it blows my mind that I thought this way back when I was 14 years old. Particularly in fitness, but applicable to almost anything in life, growth happens when you push your boundaries. At the simplest level, straying from your comfort zone and stretching your currently defined “limits” will elicit growth. Change is inevitable, but growth is intentional.
This leads into a statement that has been a huge aspect of my outlook and character in life. “Progress of Fail.” This statement is something I thought of when I was 17 years old, and it’s currently tattooed on my upper back. I truly believe that if you aren’t progressing and moving forward in facets of your life that you genuinely care about and deem important, you are in essence failing yourself. Stagnancy is overrated, and if you want to achieve physical, mental, and/or personal growth, you have to continually improve yourself.
In accordance with this “progress or fail” mentality, I believe in continually setting goals as they are worked towards and surpassed. Every goal you set for yourself, whether it be in the gym, with your physique, a relationship, school, work, etc, is like a “round” in your overall journey towards ultimate progression and growth. This is where my Instagram name (@NextRoundFitness) originates. Life is about making it to the next round, achieving and surpassing your current goal, and setting a new one. I preserve this outlook in any and all endeavors in my life. I set goals for myself, and I fight to make it to the next round. I strive for constant progression.
I implore and encourage you all to adopt a similar approach in your lives. Life for and work towards progression at all costs, make it to the next round time and time again, and strive for growth in all your significant endeavors!
Thank you for reading – Nick
Post Script:
It was an absolute pleasure working with John from BBPics.com. He was very professional, organized, and talented. He helped plan out the shoot, make sure I was prepared for it, and did everything he could to ensure it ran smoothly. He was particularly helpful when it came to posing and improving the presentation of my overall physique. I had never learned how to properly pose before our meeting, and although he said I was a natural, his help went a long way! Throughout the day, he was very upbeat, engaging, and helpful, which I genuinely appreciated as it made the shoot seem efficient and effortless. It was great being able to talk fitness, business, and life with John throughout the shoot and at lunch afterwards, we had some great conversations and I can honestly say I learned a lot from him. All in all, we got some awesome shots, and I look forward to future meetings together!
