Hey PA, looking lean and big man. You are still 12-14 weeks out, yes? Your abs are quite pronounced already, what is your general philosophy on ab training (in regards to what kind of weight you use, if any?)
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Hey PA, looking lean and big man. You are still 12-14 weeks out, yes? Your abs are quite pronounced already, what is your general philosophy on ab training (in regards to what kind of weight you use, if any?)[/quote]
Hey Lonnie
Thank you very much, bro. Yes, I still got plenty of time. The contest will be in the second week of October.
By the way: this week I will take it a little bit easier - NOT when it comes to training; Thibās routine is very demanding and I put everything into it - but in terms of eating. My girl has a week off from work and I promised to take her out for dinner on some evenings. After that, my prep will āreallyā start.
I love to train my abs in 2 different ways: firstly - and this I do only in a prep - I love to stagger in sets of many different abs exercises inbetween my main working sets. This is an approach Thib has weritten an entire article about once.
Secondly - this I do year round - I train abs on seperate days as part of my fun workoutsā¦
Here is what I do:
I do circuits with 4 different core exercises. The first circuit targets the rectus abdominalis (hanging leg raise, Swiss ball crunches, crunches, reverse crunches).
The second circuit focuses on rotation (I do exercises like Pallof presses, low-pulley trunk rotations, twisted planks, etc.). The third circuit consists of āstabilityā movements like Swiss ball roll-outs, Turkish stand-ups, walk-outs, dumbbell overhead side bends, etc.).
I do 2 of these circuits for 3 to 5 rounds each.
After every completed circuit, I do 200 rope jumps and take no rests for the entire workout.
I often add some mobility work to the workout. Thoses sessions are very much fun!
Cheers, PA
Wow, thats certainly a unique take on ab training, it seems to be working. You have very pronounced individual abs, has it always been that they or have you been able to make them grow a little bit by training them that way? Iād love to get a little more separation between each of mine and am trying to soak up all the info I can.
@Lonnie: I used to have very flat abs and little pronounced individual abs. Before I started bodybuilding, I was very skinny, had a sixpack, but just a very boy-ish one. My abs started to grow with doing squats, deadlifts and all of the Olympic lifts. I did very, very little direct ab work for tze first few years of my training carreer.
I believe that if you realky want to make them grow, doing a lot of tge basic lifts would be tge basis. On top of that, what has always worked best for me was high frequency, high volume training with high forces, i.e. rather low reps.
Doing Swiss ball crunches for weighted sets of 6-8 reps, without grindibg, but with a high total volume, would orobably work better than doing one amrap set to failure.
How are you currently training your abs?
Actually I have done almost no ab work for the majority of my short lifting career (6 years) for fear of them becoming bulky and lifting under the idea that if I didnāt train my abs my waist line would remain as tight and small as possible. I dont know if this is true or not, but it was the ideas I read and made sense to me at the time. I just uploaded some pics into my hub that were taken 4 days ago (on 6-24-11 for anyone reading this in the future), you can see where my abs are currently at and I would love to hear your thoughts.
Iāve only recently, in the last 8 weeks, started to incorporate ab training back in, in the form of 2 sets of an ab crunch machine (6-8 reps per set) and 2 sets on a leg raise machine (6-8 reps again) once per week. Its way too early to tell what effect these are having on my abs, but I really dig the powerful look of your mid section and realize now that I probably should have been doing this my entire lifting career. On this same day I do my forearms (something else I have neglected training for years nowā¦ No need to tell me, I already know Iām an idiot).
Also on this day, in between sets, I do 2 minute bursts of fairly high intensity cardio. It adds up to 20 minutes total and serves to keep my heart rate elevated for almost an hour.
I kind of stumbled upon this ātechniqueā by necessity as I have to train before I work on this day and I couldnt add the cardio on before/after my session because it was running too long, so I just squeezed it into the rest periods. It has the added benefit of not being mind-numbingly boring at only 2 minutes per āsession.ā I wouldnt do this on a chest or leg day obviously, but it works really well during forearm and ab training since they are such small muscles that arent impacted by the cardio.
[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Actually I have done almost no ab work for the majority of my short lifting career (6 years) for fear of them becoming bulky and lifting under the idea that if I didnāt train my abs my waist line would remain as tight and small as possible. I dont know if this is true or not, but it was the ideas I read and made sense to me at the time. I just uploaded some pics into my hub that were taken 4 days ago (on 6-24-11 for anyone reading this in the future), you can see where my abs are currently at and I would love to hear your thoughts.
Iāve only recently, in the last 8 weeks, started to incorporate ab training back in, in the form of 2 sets of an ab crunch machine (6-8 reps per set) and 2 sets on a leg raise machine (6-8 reps again) once per week. Its way too early to tell what effect these are having on my abs, but I really dig the powerful look of your mid section and realize now that I probably should have been doing this my entire lifting career. On this same day I do my forearms (something else I have neglected training for years nowā¦ No need to tell me, I already know Iām an idiot).
Also on this day, in between sets, I do 2 minute bursts of fairly high intensity cardio. It adds up to 20 minutes total and serves to keep my heart rate elevated for almost an hour.
I kind of stumbled upon this ātechniqueā by necessity as I have to train before I work on this day and I couldnt add the cardio on before/after my session because it was running too long, so I just squeezed it into the rest periods. It has the added benefit of not being mind-numbingly boring at only 2 minutes per āsession.ā I wouldnt do this on a chest or leg day obviously, but it works really well during forearm and ab training since they are such small muscles that arent impacted by the cardio.[/quote]
Just checked your Hub and the pics. Really Lonnie, you can be very, very proud. Your development from the early pics to the latest ones is tremendous! Congratulations, man!
Thanks Paragon, I think Iām in a great position right now to make this year the best year of my training career. After my latest diet Iām really primed to keep eating well and Iām finally starting to place importance on āfeeling the muscleā when I workout. Iām almost 27, and the current plan is to do a few more practice runs of dieting down and then potentially compete when I turn 30. Obviously I need to bring everything up so I do myself, and those who have come before me, justice when I step on stage.
In a week or so Iāll have a few more pictures that feature my legs more, when I have those up Iād love to hear your feedback on what I should be working on (which is probably just everything honestly)
LEG TRAINING HELL
Can you spell soreness?
I did my first CT-designed squat workout yesterday and it wasā¦ wellā¦ hell! It was a lot of fund and I really enjoy hard work in the gym. So donāt get me wrong, I am NOT complaining. Iām even very much looking forward to next weekās squatting.
I have written some pretty demanding leg routines myself in the past, and my legs are certainly a very strong bodypart of mine, but Thibās routine really tops everything. This guy is crazy, thatās why I like him so much 
I am still not sure whether I am allowed to write about the workout in detail. But let me summarize it shortly:
First I did a ramp of 9 sets of squats with 3 reps per set and then I hit another 6 singles with that weight with only 20 seconds inbetween sets. 15 sets as a gentle āwarm-upā.
After that I did a first circuit consisting of 4 different squats movements (iso-dynamic, speed stuff, maxinumforce stuffā¦).
I did 5 rounds of that (thatās another 20 sets).
After that a second squat circuit followed. 3 variations of the squat. Same weight each set. Again 5 round, another 15 sets.
A total of 50 sets of squats.
My other leg workout has me doing even more sets, but it contains a lot of structural work, which is easier than stepping under 600+ barsā¦
The funny thing I noticed during the workout (and during the other workouts as well), was, that the workout starts to feel easier after 30 minutes or so. The first 2, 3 rounds of the first circuit felt brutal, but by then my nervous system was so heavily ramped up that the following - bigger - part of the workout went very, very well without any loss in energy and a high work quality.
Cheers, PA
Everybody working with CT is saying that workouts seem easier as they go along. Good stuff.
First off, how long do these super-volume, 1,000 set workouts take you?!
Second, youāre a strong motha!
Also, I was thinking earlier after seeing your pics, and several other vets. Iāve noticed that bigger guys tend to be able to stay leaner during the offseason. I mean that Iāve seen a bunch of dudes with VISIBLE abs deep into their offseason, whereas if a newer trainee like me tried to keep my abs during the offseason I would make no gains.
I know you started off more into PLing, and you got a bit pudgier, but do you think that once youāre more advance it is easier to stay lean during the offseason, and why do you think that is? And Iām talking about natty lifters by the way. I donāt know much about assisted guys, but it SEEMS that they have an easier time staying lean (no criticism, just observation).
Hey buddy
Well, me workouts take me between 20 and 120 minutes. The short ones are structural work sessins or neural charge sessions. Sessions consisting of mainly capacity-oriented complexes with shorter rest intervals take me 60 minutes or so. The performance-oriented sessions where I rest longer in between sets and circuits take me up to 2 hours. But the overall programm feels very ābalancedā and since I only have 2 very long and hard sessions a week, I recover very well
I realized that many natural bodybuilders - like myself - stay pretty lean all year round. When I was youner I could get into decent contest shape within 4 weeks!
I donāt know exactely why this is. One reason might be that the years or even decades of healthy eating and smart training made processes like fat metabolism or insulin sensitivity very, very effective. Another explanation might just be discipline - many of my natty bodybuilder freinds belong to the most disciplined people in the worldā¦
Assisted bodybuilders often use high amount of steroids off-season that convert to estrogen to some part, which leads to increased fat storage, water retention and the well-konwn blaoted look. Iām not judging, I have absolutely NO beef with people using steroids. Itās a very personal desicion. I for my part have been a natural for life and believe itās the better, healthier way to go.
Cheers, PA
[quote]hlss09 wrote:
Everybody working with CT is saying that workouts seem easier as they go along. Good stuff.
First off, how long do these super-volume, 1,000 set workouts take you?!
Second, youāre a strong motha!
Also, I was thinking earlier after seeing your pics, and several other vets. Iāve noticed that bigger guys tend to be able to stay leaner during the offseason. I mean that Iāve seen a bunch of dudes with VISIBLE abs deep into their offseason, whereas if a newer trainee like me tried to keep my abs during the offseason I would make no gains.
I know you started off more into PLing, and you got a bit pudgier, but do you think that once youāre more advance it is easier to stay lean during the offseason, and why do you think that is? And Iām talking about natty lifters by the way. I donāt know much about assisted guys, but it SEEMS that they have an easier time staying lean (no criticism, just observation).
[/quote]
Just a short update: I am currently staying at my fatherās place and help him to prepare his move (heās 80 years old and my mother died a few month ago).
I have very limitted access to the internet right now (only iPhone), but will post detailled updates next week, incl. pics and I-3G upddatesā¦
Cheers, PA
Thanks bud! Youāre going to kill it.
I tried out my first CT style squat complex and the first couple rounds were hard but same as you it got a lot easier after that. Relatively speaking. My squat depth and explosiveness got better each round. CT is an amazing coach.
I really like your training style and general approach to bodybuilding. The way you train like an athlete is really something Iāve always tried to keep in my own training and I think after my first BBing show, which is in 16 weeks, I will definitely be giving the CT- training you do.
Thanks for all the info.
[quote]ebomb5522 wrote:
I really like your training style and general approach to bodybuilding. The way you train like an athlete is really something Iāve always tried to keep in my own training and I think after my first BBing show, which is in 16 weeks, I will definitely be giving the CT- training you do.
Thanks for all the info.[/quote]
Itās funny that I ābecameā a bodybuilder. My number one goal has always been to be healthy. As I child I was seriously obese, then went through sickness in my teenage years and started bodybuilding at age 15, seriously underweight. I just wanted to be and feel healthy.
My number two goal has always been to be functional, to have big muscles, of course, but to still be flexible, being able to run, walk, climb, carry around have stuff, etc.
Those priorities made me eat healthy for years and train not just for the show, but also for the go.
So cool, very much looking forward to reading some updates about your prep! Enjoy it, the first contest is something youāll never forget!
Cheers, PA
BANDS THAT ROCK
I just bought a very nice set of bands from elitefts.com. My gym does have some bands, but I donāt like them. They just are not strong enough and also the length is very strange.
The bands from Dave Tate really rock. Tried a few exercises with them today (resisted and assisted) and itās both fun and a very effective training tool.
Cheers, PA
MY Biotest ARSENAL
Just received my second batch of Indigo-3G and wanted to share this pic with you.
I am surrently using the following Biotest supps:
- Finibars (12 boxes in my cupboard)
- Creatine
- HOT-ROX Extreme
- Receptormax
- INDIGO-3G (see upper right side. new bottles - smile)
- Power Drive
- Spike
- Metabolic Drive Low Carb
- Metabolic Drive Muscle Grow
- Grow! Whey
- Surge Workout Fuel
- MAG-10
- Anaconda
- Z-12
Did I mention that I love Biotest?
Cheers, PA
^Lol, Love it. I have a shelfing unit in my kitchen that looks like itād be found in a supplement shop (that only carries one brand!)
S
^Leave it to the foreigner to notice wallpaper amidst such awesome supplements. Jk