1st Contest... The Time Is Near

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
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to my Magnum brothers and sisters: after years of athletics, consistent lifting, applying this method and that method i’m tossing my hat in the bodybuilding ring. currently i am 2.5 weeks out from my first show (ever) and figured why not hear what the Testosterone Forum has to say about my progress and what i plan on bringing to stage.

I’m always looking to progress physically, personally, etc. so any suggestions are certainly welcome. Feedback is appreciated, flaming, well, i’m sure that will come as well. Any time someone throws themselves out like this there obviously is a certain level of vulnerability there.

My plan is to weigh in around 195-96.5 (estimated) (i’m 5’ 9")…currently this morning i was 206. The below pics are taken at 20 weeks and 3 weeks. Before anyone throws out the accusations or comments…"no, i’m not natural so let’s get that out of the way now and leave it at that. i will say i don’t use gh, insulin, any thyroid drugs or clen…any more than if you really want to know…pm me.

thanks in advance for the feedback both good and bad…let the games begin.

B. Sims

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another at 20 weeks

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from the back…

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@ 3 weeks with less lard

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front dub bi

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back lat…

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Well… Def. a big difference since the 20 week photo. IMO your looking pretty dam good. Nice back, good legs, maybe just some work on the chest but I dont think there will be much improvement this close to the contest. Nice work. Let us know how the contest goes.

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Awesome - I think you look excellent. Nice symmetry - good balance - quads look particularly sharp.

Excellent work - best of luck in your competition!

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Excellent progress. At 3 weeks, you look damn tight. Final ‘contest condition’ is usually insanely low BF levels though, so best of luck during the final laps.

What sort of dietary changes have you made so far, and what’s the plan for the remaining time line? I’m also 5’9, and just started my own summer diet this week, so I’m curious what sort of approach you’ve taken. I actually plan to take pics every week and hopefully have some real slow, but quality progress. Best of luck bro!

S

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[quote]lifter215 wrote:
Well… Def. a big difference since the 20 week photo. IMO your looking pretty dam good. Nice back, good legs, maybe just some work on the chest but I dont think there will be much improvement this close to the contest. Nice work. Let us know how the contest goes.[/quote]

thanks for the feedback. i think my chest suffered a bit since tweaking my left a-c joint around week 10-9…couldn’t do any presses or flyes, nothing heavy at all up until week 5-4. i personally feel my arms lack compared to back and chest and of course, calves don’t ever seem to be big enough

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[quote]SkyNett wrote:
Awesome - I think you look excellent. Nice symmetry - good balance - quads look particularly sharp.

Excellent work - best of luck in your competition! [/quote]

thanks for the words man, much appreciated. yeah, 2.5 week to go…getting excited

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[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Excellent progress. At 3 weeks, you look damn tight. Final ‘contest condition’ is usually insanely low BF levels though, so best of luck during the final laps.

What sort of dietary changes have you made so far, and what’s the plan for the remaining time line? I’m also 5’9, and just started my own summer diet this week, so I’m curious what sort of approach you’ve taken. I actually plan to take pics every week and hopefully have some real slow, but quality progress. Best of luck bro!

S
[/quote]

grazie, grazie…
i’d be lying if i said i wasn’t hungry. i keep thinking of hitting the cheesecake factory after the show…‘hold on man, hold on man’ lol

dietary changes:

i kept protein decently high the whole way through ~ 280-350/day
(whole eggs, egg whites, chicken, eye of round steak, bison, salmon, whey isolate, whey mix [fast and slow])

carbs have been the main thing to be tweaked. back in weeks 20-12 i kept them decently high (for me) 350-450
(oatmeal, blueberries, apples, yams, basmati rice-white, gatorade powder [used in during training and post training shake]

fats: this is where i really went with my gut and later on found some research that supported how i felt; i was pretty consistent with eating salmon and taking my efa’s but honestly i never felt great with a high intake of efa’s. my stomach doesn’t like the oil all that much either. i know some people seem to grow decently when they have high intake of fish oil but not me. i actually took them completely out, i feel better and i still feel like i am growing at 2-3 weeks out. i read the research on how fish oil affects the prostaglandins and cox2 enzymes which play a crucial role in the rebuilding of muscle tissue and it coincided with what i physically felt so i nixed them.

fast forward to now in these last weeks my diet is 338g protein/day and that is counting all protein from oatmeal, yams, everything…

carbs range from 250-325/day…maybe up to 350

and fat is like 40-50g/day (pretty much what is in the chicken, steak, and oatmeal. if i need extra fat i use a whole egg)

i cut out the peri-workout shakes and post training shakes at 5 weeks to avoid the simple sugar cos i had hit a plateau. however, i still consume some whey isolate before a.m. cardio ( don’t believe in morning cardio empty stomach)

i’m undecided as to what i will do the last week because personally i think it depends on how i look. i have my ideas of what to do but we shall see.

thanks again for the feedback.

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im just gunna call you quadzilla from now on. Good luck on the show man, cant wait to see how you look dry.

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Did you run any cutting supps and how long does your cardio typically last?

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What types of weights were you using (rep range, training splits, etc) through the cycle.

As for the photos, ditto to what everyone else has said.

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[quote]Waittz wrote:
im just gunna call you quadzilla from now on. Good luck on the show man, cant wait to see how you look dry. [/quote]

haha, that’s funny cos that is the reason i started training so many years ago…i hated how small my legs were and to this day they aren’t big enough. will they ever be? (probably not)

i’m looking forward to seeing how i will look dry to.

one thing i didn’t mention in my first post and only because you commented on my quads…in December of 06 i tore my left quad and then re-tore it again in January of 07. Not sure if you can actually tell in the pics…it’s at the insertion of the rectus femoris. I also tore my ACLa long with tweaking the pcl and mcl last july while attending the USA’s in vegas but was able to come back from that and still add some needed size to my wheels.

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[quote]GetSwole wrote:
Did you run any cutting supps and how long does your cardio typically last?[/quote]

i started with a fat burner at 12 weeks out. i don’t even remember the name. it had a good kick but oh fuck did it give me heart burn. i quit taking that and at 8 weeks i started taking Gaspari’s thermo thyro tabs…hey man, two thumbs on those. i took two per day. 1 in the morning and 1 midday. at 6 weeks i threw in CMI: Fire Caps in the mix; 2 morning; 2 midday and at 3.5 weeks i added 2 around 1700 hours.

i’ve found that the fat burners give me heart burn from time to time. however, when this happens i take the fat burners with 1000mg betaine HCL and then all is well.

Cardio: monday-wednesday-friday (intense intervals)

tabata style for 6-8 minutes typically seated bike or stairmaster, i’d prefer to do burpees but since tearing my ACL in july i don’t have the deep ROM needed in the bottom squat position

followed with another interval session typically something along the lines of 40" high and 40" recovery or 30"/30" for an additional 10-16 minutes. the farther into prep the longer the sessions become obviously.

so my interval cardio sessions are up to 20-24 minutes of intervals followed by steady state for 10-20 minutes after maxing out at a total of 45 minutes.

tuesday-thursday-saturday/sunday

steady state in the morning on tuesday-thursday starting at 30min and working up to 45 min now

after training in afternoon another steady state session but may do lesser intense intervals something like 60"/60" or longer 90"/90" totalling anywhere from 30 min up to 45 min.

my modes of cardio are either stepmill, stairmaster, seated bike or incline walking on treadmill (with x-vest 40lbs; treadmill only). that’s what works for me…i really don’t see how someone can do the bloody elliptical but that’s just me.

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[quote]Trenchant wrote:
What types of weights were you using (rep range, training splits, etc) through the cycle.

As for the photos, ditto to what everyone else has said.[/quote]

if you would like to see actual vids of me training then you can view some i have posted on youtube along thew way here:

http://www.youtube.com/user/Sub11

as for my splits; i used the following two in the process thus far

I:
Mon- hamstrings dominant (i would typically dead lift on this day), quad auxiliary, calves
Tue- rear delt, arms
Wed- calves
Thu- back, forearms
Fri- quad dominant, hamstring auxiliary, calves (sometimes skipped if too wiped)
Sat- chest, shoulder, extra triceps
Sun- off

II: about 10-9 weeks out
Mon- hamstrings, calves (did less of conventional deadlift cos my glutes are more developed than hams)
Tue- rear delts, arms
Wed- extra hamstring work typically bodyweight, calves
Thu- back and chest w/a deadlift ‘Dorian style’ that focuses on back mid-upper vs glutes/hams
Fri- quads, calves
Sat- shoulders, arms
Sun- off

typical rep ranges:

primary exercise: i’d focus on reps of 2-6 for a couple of weeks and then back to a 4-8 rep scheme. hardly ever would the main work sets go over 8 reps here. however, i do throw in back off sets a lot and this is where i will have the set of 8,10,12 reps after 4-6 heavy sets

secondary exercises: mainly 4-10 reps with me sometimes landing at 12 reps.

auxiliary exercises: 8-15 reps

typically a training session would look like this for me: work sets listed only

hamstrings dominant

dead lift 4-5x5-3

Glute ham raise 4-5x6-10

Romanian dead lift 3-4x4-8 (although with this exercise i dabbled a bit as i’ve been getting closer to show with high reps (10+) on hip extension and keeping knee flexion reps lower (:sunglasses:

single leg variation 2-3x6-12

Smith machine calf raise 6-8 sets 30-10 reps

donkey calf raise ??x20-50 reps

some weights i have used…

Dead lift 455x2-3

Squat 365-385x3-5

Bent Over Row: 275x6-8

DB Incline 125x9-10

Dips: 3 plates x 4-5

Supinated pull down 220x6-9

Bent Over lateral raise: 65x10

Barbell Curl: 135x6-8

Skull crusher: 135x5-7

close grip bench: 275x6-7

seated overhead press (before i tweaked my AC): 100x6-7

hope that answers your question

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pretty good, id try and make your traps bigger, maybe a bit more in the delts and arms

everything else seems pretty solid, great work

can we get some lifting stats?

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[quote]jtg987 wrote:
pretty good, id try and make your traps bigger, maybe a bit more in the delts and arms

everything else seems pretty solid, great work

can we get some lifting stats?[/quote]

not to discount your feedback…you are the first person to ever tell me to increase my trap size. i actually do about 2 sets of shrugs per month but have been feeling like they need more consistent work. i certainly agree with the delts and arms though. fuck it sucks getting injured and then being limited with movements.

lifting stats? other than what i listed in my previous post?

how does the traps look like in this shot?