WEEK 14 START
Weight: 160.2 (down .5lbs from last low two weeks ago)
Well, looks like my body has finally found the maintenance of my current weight and conditioning, as the past two weeks we haven’t lost any, but haven’t gained either. Things still seem to be tightening up a little bit, but seems like we found maintenance at about 2,550 cals, 270c, 225p, and 64f. It’s higher than I thought it would be which is pretty awesome! We’ve been adding food for the past 4 weeks which has been awesome.
That being said, I know we’re going to start cutting again this week because we’re 10-11 weeks out of my first show, so we’re gonna start cutting and take breaks as we need to if we start getting ahead of pace. I say 10-11 weeks out because recently I’m thinking I’m not sure if I’m going to compete in all 4. Here’s the tentative schedule:
June 14 - Phil Heath Super Show - Arlington, TX - national qualifier
June 21 - Branch Warren Classic - Houston, TX - national qualifier
July 12 - Republic of Texas Championship - Austin, TX - national qualifier
July 25-26 - USA Championships - Las Vegas, NV - pro qualifier
Looking at the first two, June 14 and June 21, as they’re approaching I’m thinking I may want to choose one, rather than both. I think it will be challenging to do both and keep the business stuff moving along at the level it needs to. With back to back weekends it would be a lot of travel and prep. I’ll need to make this decision soon, right now I’m leaning towards picking one.
The ultimate goal this year is to get my IFBB pro card. In order to do that, I first need to qualify for the nationals show on July 25-26. To qualify, I need to attend a “national qualifier,” which the first three are. You can’t win a pro card at a national qualifier but you can qualify to go to nationals and try to win a pro card there. To qualify, you need to place in the top 2 in your “open” division weight class. So at any of the first three shows, if I place top 2 in open bodybuilding in my weight class, I will qualify to go to nationals. I’m assuming I’ll be in the lightweight division, which usually goes up to 154.25 pounds, if there are enough classes to split up that many divisions. Otherwise, I may be lumped in with middle weights which would go to up 164.25 lbs.
Either way, based on looking at previous contest pics of lightweight/middleweight classes, I think I’ve got a good shot at qualifying if I can come with amazing conditioning, which I know with Cliff’s coaching, we’re gonna do it.
Then, to get a pro card at nationals, I need to win at least my weight class. I’m not sure how realistic it is to think I can win an overall national contest as a lightweight regardless of conditioning, going up against guys with potentially 40-80 pounds more muscle, but I do think it’s definitely feasible to win my weight class, and at nationals there will for sure be a lightweight division.
Last week was solid, I’m really enjoying the new training plan. Way more fun than the last one which had so much high volume work. This plan has all body parts split up over 3 days, then off day, then the next two days are upper and lower strength days. There are also some techniques throughout like super slow eccentric, forced reps, etc. Here are my training logs from last week’s sessions.
The last day, lower body strength day, was really tough, I couldn’t go as heavy as I wanted to because my legs were still sore from the leg workout earlier in the week. There was a lot of leg pressing, leg ext., etc., in my last training plan, also hack squat, but no barbell squat. Now there’s barbell squat and the first leg workout last week was my first squat session in a little over 3 months. I was able to get good form and weight at 315 for reps, but man I was pretty sore afterwards. I know next time it won’t be nearly as bad since my body will be adapting, but even by Saturday I had to adjust an exercise and limit my weight because my hamstrings specifically were really sore and I was worried about getting injured. And I will NOT risk an injury! I was supposed to do heavy lunges, I tried one rep and was like, “NOPE”, and opted out for hip thrusts instead since it was glute focus.
Energy wise pretty good M-F, then man the weekend hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m not sure if it was because of the re-feed day on Friday or what, but it was the toughest two days of prep so far. Generally weekends feel harder than weekdays, not sure if it’s because my re-feed day knocks me out a bit, or, maybe there’s not work stuff keeping me busy and to focus on, but weekends are harder than weekdays overall. Sleep has still been declining a bit, I started taking a natural sleep supplement by Garden of Life which helps a little. It doesn’t help me get tired faster but does seem to lessen the amount of times I wake up.
