First Bodybuilding Show. April 2012

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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I plan to do my first bodybuilding show in April 2012. It will be a small local show. The NANBF Natural Pittsburgh.

I plan on using this to post occasional updates and ask questions of more experienced bodybuilders.

If I want to do well, I have my work cut out for me based on previous winners. Previous winners of the show I plan to enter can be seen here:
http://www.deansfitness.com/Competitions.htm

Diet:
I am currently eating 5559 calories, 219 fat, 573 carbs, 331 protein on my double session days.

Finished last cut at under 2000 calories. So I have been gradually ramping up carbs and calories. I also increased activity, like the Berardi G-Flux model.

On Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday I utilize Intermittent Fasting. First nutrition comes in the form of a peri-workout drink. On Sunday, I use that as a control day in the sense that based on my goals (currently looking to add mass), I will eat depending on how I have been weighing in that week. If I am light, than I will eat big on Sunday. If I have been heavy all week, than I will fast longer and eat less and use that as a day to improve insulin sensitivity and possible have some fat loss. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I eat normal, meal 1 after session 1, meal 2 after session 2 and dinner later in the evening.

Split:
Monday: Back Hypertrophy - AM, Chest Hypertrophy - Lunch Break
Tuesday: Occluded Walk - AM, Squat - Lunch Break
Wednesday: Back/Chest Heavy - AM, Back/Chest Structural- Lunch Break
Thursday: Occluded Walk - AM, Deadlift - Lunch Break
Friday: Same as Wednesday, but heavier at both sessions
Saturday: Occluded Legs, Arm Hypertrophy

Occasionally I will do occluded calves on Sundays.

My exercise selection is extremely basic. 85% of my volume on Back/Chest is Chinups and Bench Press. Same with legs, 85% of my volume is Squats and Deadlifts, with leg extensions and suspended leg curls getting added in. I prefer keeping it basic as it makes it easy to utilize progression. I use a little more variety on what I refer to as my hypertrophy days. I refer to it that way because I tend to be more traditional on those days with higher rep ranges and more exercises used.

While not copied off of any one program, my training regime was inspired by CT’s methods. I attempt to explode all reps for chest and legs. For back and arms I attempt to keep more tension and maintain peak contraction. I like to do many sets of lower reps which is how training goes Tuesday through Friday.

Previous cut:
In order to test if I could adequately prepare for a contest, I ran a mock contest prep last summer and fall. Here are the results:
http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding_thibaudeau/thanks_ct_these_methods_work

Bodyweight:
Finished last cut at - 170
Unfortunately, I wasted November and December, just half-hearted, didn’t make progress.
Started bulk in earnest January 10th. 30 weeks into bulk, bodyweight up to - 192

I am shooting to get up to 210-ish. Then I envision cutting down to 185 or so. Contest diet will start on January 31, 2012.

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Some examples of where I am at right now:

Mondays

Chinups
BW+31 x 10, 10, 8, 8, 6, 6

T-Bar Row
180x10, 5 sets

Flat Bench Press
192.5x10, 5 sets

DB Bench
72x10, 4 sets

Tuesday

Squats
270x5, 5 sets

This was back in May, I ditched squats for 2 months because my hip was bothering me. I was using Snatch Grip DL as a substitute “quad” exercise. I worked squats back in recently lighter for more reps without too much hip pain.

Squats
220x10, 3 sets

Wednesday

Flat Bench
202.5x5, 8 sets

Chinups
BW+50x5, 8 sets

Thursday

Ramped up to
431x3 one week ago
441x2 most recently

Friday

Flat Bench
215x3, 8 sets

Chinup
BW+65x3, 8 sets

On Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, I typically use straight sets and rest 60-90 seconds between sets.

On Wednedsay and Friday, I superset the Flat Bench and Chinups to squeeze more volume in.

After watching the recent Training Labs, I am debating trying to work in some Active Rest exerises. Specifically ones that will help create the bodybuilding illusion. So lateral raises are definitely in order.

Eccentric-less Training:
I have a home made tire sled. I use it to add extra volume to my workouts either tacked on at the end or used in the evening. I believe it is great for stimulating growth and aiding recovery.

Weaknesses:
IMO, my weaknesses are arms, legs and abs. I chose chinups to simulaneously hit my biceps (while training back) since arms were/are a weakness. I bench with my arms tucked to hit triceps more. And of course, I have an arm days since they are a weakness. That said, I could probably stand to add in some more arms to get them proportional to my chest and back.

For legs, I try to make sure I drag the sled several times a week and in addition to presses and rows, add in forward and backward drags to bring my legs up. I also need to get my legs leaner next diet. I think the additionaly sled dragging has helped maintain a level of leanness that I didn’t have on previous bulks.

I have not been diligent with abs. I need to blitz them. They are not thick enough. I say this because even when I finished up my diet and was very lean, they still were not prominent, that tells me I need to hypertrophy them.

I would love to have feedback into my weak areas if anyone checks out my pictures in the thread I linked to.

Vacation:
I have an upcoming vacation in late August. Plan is to increase volume leading up to that and take my homemade suspension trainer, ab wheel and bands on the trip to get in some miscellaneous training. With limited time/resources, it will be a good time to focus on my weaknesses…as well as relax and enjoy myself of course.

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so whats your height? you must have a raging metabolism to go along with all that work. I am only 180 and change at 6ft and do two a days at eat 4000 and can gain a bit. You going to keep this as a contest prep thread and update? What do some of sample eating days look like?

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[quote]timmcbride00 wrote:
Bodyweight:
Finished last cut at - 170

Then I envision cutting down to 185 or so. [/quote]

That’s a hell of an expected gain in a year’s time. My contest weight in 09 was 170 lbs. In 2011 it’s 175 lbs. Of course I’ve also been training for 18 years, and am 38 years old, so quality gains from year to year are smaller at this point. Still, even newbie gains accounting for a solid 15 lbs is not usual. I just want you to realize that. For my first prep I ‘knew’ that I’d be ripped at 190 lbs. a few weeks later, I ‘concluded’ that I would be shredded at 185 lbs. Soon I realzed that 180 would be the magic weight… you see where this is going -lol.

Best advice I ever got about contest dieting was to not worry about what the scale says, and to just ‘diet until your cheeks suck in’ :slight_smile:

Now go kill it!

S

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I’ll mirror what Stu said about projecting your weight. My ripped 210 is looking more like 198lbs right now, and I won’t be surprised if I come in under that too.

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@ ryanbCXG

5 feet 10 inches

Yeah, I think my metabolism is raging. Last bulk I maxed out around 4300 calories. Granted, I am doing more work this bulk, but still, being 5500 plus surprised me.

Yes, I want to keep this updated every now and then.

Sample Eating Days:

Oat mixture: Each day I mix up 5 and 1/3 cups of oats, soaked overnight in lemon juice/warm water, with 3 tablespoons of raisins for sweetness and flavor. Drained and rinsed in the morning.

Shake: I also mix up 8 ounces of heavy cream with 3 scoops of whey, 5 raw eggs and about 1 cup of water. (This is delicious by the way!)

Double Session Day
6:00 Wakeup
6:20 to 7:05 Train - consume Peri-workout drink
7:30 Half of Oat mixture and half of shake, along with some apple cider vinegar
11:10 to 11:45 Train - consume Peri-workout drink
(Time is limited - I am on my lunch break)
12:00 Second half of Oat mixture and half of shake, along with some apple cider vinegar
5:00 Dinner
9:30 Handful of nuts

Single Session Day
6:25 Wakeup
6:30 12g BCAA
6:45 to 7:15 Occluded Walk
11:10 to 11:45 Train - consume Peri-workout drink
12:00 Half of Oat mixture and half of shake, along with some apple cider vinegar
2:00 Second Half of Oat mixture and half of shake, along with some apple cider vinegar
5:00 Dinner
9:30 Handful of nuts

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@ bushidobadboy

Thanks for the compliment.

Regarding your question, I wrap my upper thighs with knee wraps. Yes, it is based off of KAATSU. It makes the walk pretty intense.

@ The Mighty Stu

What can I say, I am optimistic!

The 185 is more of hopeful ideal than a definite target. More important to me is the goal of being shredded. If I hit 185 and still need to lose a few pounds I will do it.

When I started my last cut, I NEVER thought I would hit 170, prior to the cut, if you asked me, I would have told you that I would be emaciated at that weight. But as I got lean, I did not care what the scale said anymore, I just wanted to be leaner. And if you remember my pictures from the last thread, my cheeks definitely sucked in.

I will do my best to kill it. I am motivated.

@23278

Thanks. I definitely am more concerned with the mirror. However, I am a Microsoft Excel dork, so I have my entire bulk and cut mapped out with projected pounds gained/lost per week. That is where my 185 figure came from.

I need a MS Excel Anonymous group.

@ All

Thanks for checking in!

I was happy to hit 220x10 for 5 sets on squats today.

High rep squats are my nemesis. But recently, my hip has been bothering me and lighter with higher reps seems to be easier on it. I was breathing like a locomotive.

Threw in rope pressdowns active rest for triceps. I definitely liked the active rest idea. We’ll see how often I can implement it.

Finished off with tire drags and a leg extension drop set.

The foward tire drags really reminded me how sore my calves still were from occluded calve raises on Sunday.

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Wow u like u have put the time in on your research and planning. Will be interested to see how close you come to your projections. Best of luck. Will defiantly be checking in on your progress.

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[quote]timmcbride00 wrote:
Each day I mix up 5 and 1/3 cups of oats, soaked overnight in lemon juice/warm water[/quote] To remove the phytic acid ?

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@ Tankman441

I’ve tried. I am really motivated to do this. I hope to come pretty close (meaning, I hope I put on quality mass this year, but being lean is more important).

Thanks for checking in! It’s always nice to know people bigger and more advanced than me are checking in.

@ tolismann

Exactly.

Great upper body session yesterday.

I was coming off a midnight shift and then going straight to my regular job. Thus no time for my morning session. So I busted my tail, and almost doubled the volume in my lunch session. Then I was able to add some eccentric-less training in the afternoon with my tire sled. In addition to presses and rows, I threw in some tire drags for legs because I can ALWAYS use more leg volume.

I don’t know what my competition is doing, but if they are working hard, then I will work harder, by not skipping sessions even when I work a midnight shift.

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Squatted twice on Saturday, been weighing in heavy the last two days since. I think all the nutrients I eat are getting sucked into my legs! I need it though.

It is interesting what it takes to get sore when you are used to high volume and frequency. Triceps almost are never sore from a typical arm day, but I threw in tons of sets of active rest triceps during both squat sessions and they were nicely sore on Sunday.

Question:

How long would you guys take to shed 25 pounds?

I am planning on 17 weeks (and I realized that I miscounted, my diet will have to start December 5, 2011, not January 1, 2012) to be ready April 2, giving me some leeway for a mid-April show. Here’s the way I envisioned it, 3 pounds mostly water the first week. 2 pounds the next 4 (for 8), 1.5 pounds the next 4 (for 6), 1 for the final 8 weeks for 25 total.

Good? Bad?

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I will definitely be following this, great to see another guy competing. Do you have a log on here or are you gonna log your training/diet in here?

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@ ebomb5522

Thanks for following. I will not be keeping a full training log, but I will provide updates occasionally.

Tuesday morning is usually just a walk, but I was about to give the HFS workout a try this morning to see how I liked it, but my alarm got messed up. It was probably better off because my kids had a sleep over and were sleeping right above my weight room (this is not their normal sleeping area) and I would have likely woken them up by banging barbells!

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25 lbs in 17 weeks is easy, but the bottom line will be how thin your skin looks at the end. A Rushed weight drop will not give your skin time to ‘thin out’. However, hitting your target weight (and looking shredded at it) a couple of weeks early will allow your ultimate appearance to really take on a ‘hard’ look if you handle things correctly.
Is the ‘25 lbs’ the amount to get down to what you think you’ll weigh, or to get down to what you weighed last time you cut?

S

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[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
25 lbs in 17 weeks is easy, but the bottom line will be how thin your skin looks at the end. A Rushed weight drop will not give your skin time to ‘thin out’. However, hitting your target weight (and looking shredded at it) a couple of weeks early will allow your ultimate appearance to really take on a ‘hard’ look if you handle things correctly.
[/quote]

Makes sense. So would you say it is a good pace because my skin should thin out?

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Is the ‘25 lbs’ the amount to get down to what you think you’ll weigh, or to get down to what you weighed last time you cut?

S[/quote]

25 pounds would take me from a projected 207 down to 182 by April 2nd. Show would be two weeks later, so I might be more like 180 by then.

Last cut I was down to 170, so that is 10 additional pounds.

I remember reading (I think it was from CT) that for every pound of dry muscle tissue, you would likely gain on average 0.4 lb glycogen and 1.08 lb of water (0.4 x 2.7), thus 1 pound of dry tissue carries with it 1.5 extra pounds of glycogen and water, equaling 2.5 lbs.

So a 10 pound net gain over the course of the year seemed achievable. It would come out to 4 pounds of dry tissue, or 0.33 gain per month.

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35 minutes to workout…

I workout over my lunch break. 11:00am rush home, change clothes, slug down part of my peri-workout shake and being working out at 11:10. By 11:45 I have to shower, put work clothes back on and head back.

I have 35 minutes to workout, thus my workouts have been stripped to the basics.

Typically, deadlift day would be ramping sets of 3. Usually 8 sets, than back off by 15% and do 2 sets of 6. Some shrugs and leg extensions followed in the last few minutes.

Well, deadlift has sort of stalled out the last few weeks after progressing very well for months. Ramped to 431x3 and the following week ramped to 441x2.

So when I saw today’s deadlift article, I had to try to the superset with sprints. Except I did mine with a tire. I deadlift shoeless so that was a little tricky, had to keep taking my shoes off and putting them back on to sprint.

Kept weight lower due to intensity of supersetting with sprints.

Used 356 alternating between 3 to 5 reps. What was neat was that even though my poundage was lower (and thus my form was even better), I was able to get the same volume because of the 4 and 5 reps sets.

My highest deadlift volume was a tad under 14000 pounds, and this sprint workout was a tad under 13000, so once you factor in the sprints the volume would be equal or greater.

I enjoyed it, not saying I won’t lift heavy again, but lifting slightly lighter probably saves my lower back some stress and allows me to produce more force which compensates for the lighter weight.

I think my glutes and hammies are going to be screaming at me tomorrow from sprinting and deadlifting. But that is what I want, heading into vacation, I want to tax my body to the fullest so I can supercompensate while I am away.

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Pre-vacation volume:

I am typically on a three week rotation with increased volume via increased sets in week 2 and 3. Well I just came off of a week 3, but I am increasing weights and running another week 3 to keep volume higher before vacation.

Also, my legs days are typically just one session and maybe tire dragging. Last night I was able to add in a second session. It was an experiment with HFS.

I did (all 3x8):
Bench 200 - just right
Squat 231 - maybe a little light
OH Press 100 - too easy
Deadlift 306 - normally this would be light, but hammies and glutes were tired from the deadlift/sprint session a few hours earlier, it felt just right

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It usually seems to take a few weeks for skin to ‘thin’. This is all based on anecdotal evidence though, I don’t think you’re going to find anything in any bio text books on this -lol. What I was originally told was that reaching your leanest weight, and then attempting to hold it (not holding a ‘peak’ or anything, but just an insanely lean condition) is how you really dial in that paper thin appearance.

S

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[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
It usually seems to take a few weeks for skin to ‘thin’. This is all based on anecdotal evidence though, I don’t think you’re going to find anything in any bio text books on this -lol. What I was originally told was that reaching your leanest weight, and then attempting to hold it (not holding a ‘peak’ or anything, but just an insanely lean condition) is how you really dial in that paper thin appearance.

S[/quote]

Cool, plan was to reach my goal by April 2nd, about two weeks early.

Should I be aiming for more than a 25 lb loss? Or would that be a better question to ask based on how my conditioning looks when I get to 200 plus pounds.