Damn in that first pic with the 2 other guys, how the hell did they even enter the same competition as you lol. The guy in the middle must have been 20+ pounds lighter than you and the guy on the left wasn’t anywhere near as conditioned
Did the comp go by weight or experience or what?
Well, I entered in three classes, the Novice, the Open, and the Masters 35+. I think that pic you referenced was from the 35+ one. Except for the Open class, the other two had a very interesting assortment of conditionings. Some guys were pretty big, but no cuts at all. Other guys looked like they were just naturally skinny, and then cut up even more, which sadly drew attention to the lack of any real muscle. I think I had a good amount of both, which was cool. Actually, the judges said my conditioning was unreal (although I think I could have probably been a couple of lbs tighter in the hams), so combined with the fact that I was one of the larger middleweights, it was a pretty good package I was able to bring.
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Here are a few more lineup shots, these were snapped by Corey with my crappy little camera.
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This was the Open class… much better quality. The beast to the left of me took the Open and Overall show. Real nice guy. I found out later he’s already a WNBF pro and also won an NPC show the next week.
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Winning the Heavyweight Novice
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Relaxed my ass -lol
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I think this was the OPen Middleweight class…
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OPen
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THERE! Now I’m going to the gym! No more pics! -lol
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[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
This was the Open class… much better quality. The beast to the left of me took the Open and Overall show. Real nice guy. I found out later he’s already a WNBF pro and also won an NPC show the next week.
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Yea I was just about to say that guy definitely stands out as really impressive as well. I thought pro’s could only do pro shows once they got their pro card or something? I guess not
Well, I think it doesn’t matter from one federation to another, so he was able to enter the Open. I know the guy who took 2nd in the Open was pretty seasoned as well. Corey has been quick to point out that taking 3rd in the Open is probably more impressive than the 1st places I took in the other classes.
On another note,… Does anyone know if there’s a way to copy/paste a spreadsheet into the ‘reply to thread’ option here? If not, I guess I’ll find a place to upload the file and link it here so you guys can check it out (still wanna write up a “what I did wrong” file top accompany it though).
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Okay Guys, I figured out how to save an Exel Sheet as a Txt file, so here’s some of the breakdown. I think the formatting may be a bit screwy, I’ll try to make it as clear as I can on here (lotta editing the spacing). One thing that totally stood out to me is the fact that I really wasn’t too sure what I was doing at first.
I was bouncing back and forth between just following Brian Whitacre’s cycling approach, doing what the Berevly Nutrition Newsletter recommends (low carb with 2 spaced out refeeds), and just doing a caloric deficit. I think the Eating protocol “Gelled” by week 5, and the Cardio protocol “Gelled” by week 6.
Week AVG AVG Carbs Cal Cal Cardio
Carb Cal LOW/HIGH LOW HIGH
1 97 2382 61 / 189 2080 2890 15 min HIIT 2x
2 12 2475 92 / 154 2300 2560 15 min HIIT 1x
3 150 2475 144 / 161 2430 2500 15 min HIIT 2x
4 146 2477 137 / 158 2420 2610 “20 min HIIT 1x, 20-25 min SS 2x”
5 167 2602 126 / 182 2250 2716 “20 min SS 1x, 5-10 min warmups”
6 168 2653 102 / 260 2370 3185 20 min HIIT 1x
7 147 2589 69 / 251 2195 2995 20 min HIIT 2x
8 123 2470 36 / 263 2190 3015 20 min HIIT 3x
9 151 2567 50 / 256 2310 2950 “25 min HIIT 2x, 15 min warmups”
10 129 2486 42 / 228 2090 3157 “25 HIIT 3x, 15-20 min warmups”
11 104 2353 34 / 241 1890 3185 “25 min HIIT 3x, 20 min warmups, 30 min Fasted SS 2x”
12 88 2492 30 / 138 1825 4210 “25 min HIIT 1x, 30 min Fasted SS 2x”
13 78 2021 24 / 102 1865 2390 “30 min HIIT 1x, 25 - 35 min Fasted SS 2x, 20 min PWO SS 2x (no warmup cardio)”
14 (PEAK WEEK)
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And… here’s the exact day by day macro breakdowns. I’m going to try to write up what I ate on different high and low days, so you can see the progression from the earlier weeks to later on when I think I hit a stride.
Week Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
------ Carbs Cals Carbs Cals Carbs Cals Carbs Cals Carbs Cals Carbs Cals Carbs Cals
1 ----------------61 2080 61 2080 147 2470 57 2100 189 2890 71 2370
2 92 2300 sick ----- 154 2420 145 2460 108 2385 92 2560 144 2420
3 145 2430 152 2500 150 2480 144 2460 151 2490 147 2480 161 2490
4 137 2440 145 2470 158 2440 151 2420 153 2500 145 2460 137 2610
5 126 2250 159 2700 174 2716 178 2650 177 2712 182 2585 178 2605
6 123 2440 191 2625 142 2474 260 3185 172 2663 102 2370 189 2815
7 172 2700 92 2255 251 2995 153 2665 69 2195 157 2790 138 2525
8 58 2235 263 3015 160 2505 42 2190 153 2545 149 2545 36 2255
9 237 2755 153 2505 50 2310 159 2575 153 2550 50 2325 256 2950
10 161 2520 42 2090 151 2550 140 2510 42 2090 228 3157 145 2490
11 34 2020 121 2485 126 2480 40 2040 241 3185 133 2375 34 1890
12 134 4210 138 2330 30 1825 108 2425 88 2385 30 1850 89 2425
13 92 2390 27 1865 103 1895 78 1940 24 1925 91 1915 136 2220
14 162 2555 42 2455 42 2460 50 2090 49 2560 Carb Up
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That shit is all over the place!! haha
on average what was your ratio of low:high carb days?
and do you have a link to Brian Whitacre’s cycling approach?
I eventually settled into a 6 day rotation that would entail 2 low carb days (with lower cal intake) for when I would do cardio work, and 1 high carb and cal day (when I would train chest), and the other 3 were “baseline” days, which was a cal deficit, just enough carbs to keep full (usually around 150-175g) and functioning well.
Whitacre has a web site that has a ton of great info on it. My big mistake at the beginning of my own prep, was in trying to follow his exact numbers. For one thing, Whitacre does 20 min of fasted steady state every morning from 20 weeks out. I take the approach of using the diet to lose moreso than the cardio, at least until right at the end when you have to pull out all the stops.
I will try to incorporate sort of a middle ground approach next time, hopefully keeping my cals higher (2800 and then drop to 2600 for the majority of the prep, as opposed to 25/2600 then dropping to 2400 but will incorporate more frequent small bouts of cardio work). I should note though, that Brian does compete as a lightweight, and I didn’t even think I would get down to middleweight, so I’m sure I lost a good deal of muscle in the process (especially at the onset).
In his last email to me, Brian actually said that I have a ton of muscle, and should focus on getting tighter, which I totally agree with, especially in my legs. So we’ll have to see where things end up next time around.
In the meantime, I’m weighing 192 lbs in the morning, and can still flex my serratus, so we’re putting on some quality size here… maybe up a weight class next time? -lol
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Man looking back at it you really weren’t doing much cardio other than weeks 11 and 13. I’m doing an hour a day right now LISS and way lower calories/carbs (CKD)just trying to get under 13%! Might have to switch approaches soon…
Well, believe me, there’s the little voice that says “you can lose weight faster!” but you have to really understand that it’s a slow process if you intend to keep your lean body mass. I probably lost .5 to a .75 lbs a week, which doesn’t sound like much, but judging by the contest pics, I’m certain I held onto a lot of muscle in the process.
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[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Well, believe me, there’s the little voice that says “you can lose weight faster!” but you have to really understand that it’s a slow process if you intend to keep your lean body mass. I probably lost .5 to a .75 lbs a week, which doesn’t sound like much, but judging by the contest pics, I’m certain I held onto a lot of muscle in the process.
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Yea you definitely did well, I was just saying even with such low calories and high activity my cut is going painfully slow
It definitely seems theres 2 main diet methods used for pre-contest. One being what I’ve seen you, whitacre, Tom Venuto (another natural), and the troponin guys use which is some form of carb cycling (whether it be just low/high or low/med/high and different amount of different days) along with relatively low fat (15-25%). While the other method I see a lot with people at intensemuscle and some other places use where the guys are doing keto/very low carb during the week along with a very large refeed once a week.
and both have been shown to work a lot
Forgot to ask Stu, how was your hunger during the prep?
Although I’m on such low calories the low carb/high fat has kept me less hungry than when I was eating 3-400 more calories but with higher carbs last time.