Cool Cool. I’m going to be throwing the Indigo in with my Receptormax as well, but obviously I won’t have as much time before my 2nd Spring show as you will. Really looking forward to your thoughts and results. I’m actually more itching to see how everything works in my semi-off-season (kicking around the idea of a November show as well), after my June contest.
Waiting and Watching Big man.
S
Very informative thread, lots of detail about the prep too will stay tuned
@ashylarryku: I am probably not going to post daily. My work and daily schedule just doesnt allow me to. I have no access to T-Nation from my office and writing long posts from an iPhone is not for man with big hands and thick fingers. I will, however, try really hard to give at least a weekly update. At least.
I will post as much and as detailed as I only can! I will for sure post some workouts with weights used etc. from time to time. I will also keep you posted on how my supplement plan (including I-3G) works, on all the adjustments I will make to my diet over time and on how I progress. I fear my thread will never be as valuable as the ones of Synergy and Stu.
Those two guys, to me, are the most inspiring bodybuilders and most valuable forum contributors here on T-Nation. But I will try to share as much as possible and I will, of course, answer every question you guys are going to ask.
@Lonnie123: I somehow hate-love cardio. I do not do a lot of it in the off-season, if there is such a thing as an off-season, and when I start to add it to my weekly workout schedule, I first really dislike it. But after a couple of weeks I start to enjoy it and towards the end of a prep, when energy gets lower, I often find myself looking forward to my cardio sessions and not so much to my weight lifting sessions (because the hurt so much smile).
I like your virtual contest. Cool idea and certainly a good idea to try go get in top shape from time to time. Are you going to post some pictures by the end of June?
@hiss09: I plan to take some pictures, of course. I also plan to throw in some snapshots from my workouts here and there. I really do not like showing my face (or body, for that matter) too often, I’m rather introverted. But I will add some pics to the thread for sure:-)
@Doyle: I like to have a big variety of foods in my diet as well. I love cooking and I prefer tasty foods over boring plain rice and chicken breasts. I keep adding herbs and different spices to my food in a prep until something like 5 to 6 weeks out. I then switch to plain and clean foods only. I just found that it can be a bit dangerous to make things more tasty.
You add a little bit of honey here and some additional oil there and all of this amounts to just too many additional calories or salt or fat or sugar that it will be difficult to really lose that last bit of fat and get in perfect contest shape. But as I said, the only time I eat plain rice and boiled fish and chicken breasts is in the very last stage of a prep.
In the off-season I love to marinate chicken breasts in soy sauce, honey and chillies, I add all sorts of herbs to my stir fried veggies or carb sources. I like herb risotto much better than just plain rice.
One of my absolute favourites is to cook my basmati rice in half coconut milk / half water with some curcuma added. Best tasting rice there is 
But I digress.
I don’t plan all my meals for the week. I just have my template as outlined in the last post and pre-cook my meals on Monday and Thursday evenings. On those days, I head to a local deli on my way home after work and buy some meat, fresh veggies, herbs, fish, or whatever looks good and fits into the template.
If, e.g., I buy some thyme and basil, I will use it over the next couple of days. If I have to buy batches too big to use in a couple of days, I use them to cook something I can freeze and keep. With leftover thyme, basil and rosemary I would cook tomato sauce with fresh tomatoes, some onions and garlic and a bit of olive oil. I would freeze it in small portions and use it over the next 2 or 3 month. With coriander I would make a marinade with soy sauce, chillies, lime, garlic and ginger, use it to marinade 10 or 12 chicken breasts, cook them and freeze them.
I come from a rather poor family of metal workers and you will not catch me throwing eatables away for sure…
@Stu: Heya bro! It will be very interesting and highly valuable for me to follow your thread. Very interested in how I-3G will work for you and what it will do in either the last stage of a contest prep or in what you call semi-off-season. I could imagine that there will be some sort of “synergistic” effects when several competitive bodybuilders write about their experiences with I-3G in different stages of their training years, i.e. in the off-season, early stage of prep, close to contest, the last week before the contest, the last day before the contest, etc.
Very exciting. Having people like you and Synergy here on T-Nation is so awesome, it is beyond words. Thank you for sharing so much of your knowledge!
Don’t be so humble, this thread is just as good as Stu’s and Synergy’s
And I completely understand about not having free time to post. I’m not saying I’m as busy as you, because I know that is far from the truth, but I’m majoring in civil engineering right now and I feel like I’m either in class, lifting, cooking/eating, studying, or doing homework/lab reports.
I do enjoy typing my workouts in my jornal and the BOI, though, but sometimes I don’t because I just feel too pooped lol. I really do appreciate all of the information you share with us in here about training/nutrition/life in general. It REALLY is a great thread.
Good luck with your contest prep! I’ll definitely be following and will be interested in seeing how I-3G goes with you. I’ll be recieving my batch on Tuesday but I’ll be going on 2 trips over the next three weeks so I’d rather not risk the trips messing up my dosing or anything so I’ll be waiting until I’m back home to my scheduled training/diet to start the dosing.
You are too modest, you are definitely up there with Synergy and Stu. Always love reading your posts. Extremely informative and inspirational.
@ashylarryku: Thank you very much, bro! Wow, your days seem to be pretty full. But isn’t that the way it is supposed to be, the way we want it to be? Of course, I love to spend some time relaxing at the beach with my fiancee, I love to sometimes just sleep in. But I love doing a lot of stuff ven better!
Of course, you should love the things you are doing. Doing a lot of stupid and boring and annoying stuff will just wear you out and make you sick and sad. But doing a lot of fun stuff, a lot of life-enriching, fulfilling, joy-bringing, satisfying, and sometimes crazy stuff is what life is all about.
As I see it, we are probably only around once and we should really live our lives to the fullest.
Cooking, lifing, studying: all great things! Make sure you make some time for friends and the ones you love, too
Very much looking forward to reading about your experience with I-3G when you are back from your trips!
[quote]AquaCruzer wrote:
You are too modest, you are definitely up there with Synergy and Stu. Always love reading your posts. Extremely informative and inspirational.[/quote]
Thank you very much. One can never be too modest, I suppose.
I am with everyone else, this thread is awesome. I follow your thread, stu’s and synergy’s. I make sure to look for new posts in each of them every time I log on. Its awesome that you guys take time out of your lives to advise everyone and give a peak into your training and life.
Thanks for your reply synergy and good luck with your contest preperations!
CONTEST PREP TRAINING
First of all: my Indigo-3G has arrived yesterday and I am very excited. I will start using it tomorrow and actually plan to take it for the entire 20 weeks of contest preparation. Just hope that supply will be big enough and I can get my hands on some more bottles when the second batch arrives.
Just wanted to let you know what I plan to do training-wise. The following is how I started the prep this week. I will probably make adjustments along the way.
Some remarks: I do several workouts a day very often. I do my heavy weightlifting stuff in the morning and then do some neural charge, mobility, conditioning, or flexibility work later the day. Currently, I work long hours every day and can not hit the gym twice every day. It usually works, but sometimes it does not and I will not plan a schedule I will not be able to stick to and become desperate about it. So I tried to distinguish between mandatory and optional session. As a rule of thumb, I manage to do the optional workouts 80 percent of the time. Here you go:
MANDATORY SESSIONS
Monday morning: calves and upper legs
During the prep I will start of with calves. My upper legs are my strongest bodypart, my calves are rather weak.
A. Calf Presses at the leg press station for 5-8 sets x 20-10 reps
B. Seated Calf Raise for one drop set of 3x10 reps
C. Lying Leg Curls
Working up to a set of 8 reps. Then 4x8
D. Leg Press
Ramping up to a heavy set of 10 reps; usually 4-5 sets
Sometimes I use bands.
E. Front Squats
Ramping sets of 5 until I lose speed, continue to ramp sets of 2 until I am out of fuel
F. Walking Lunges, 2 sets of 15 steps with each leg
PLUS: In this workout I work my abs as well and stagger in sets whenever I have the energy (does not work in-between heavy sets of squats)
Tuesday morning: chest and shoulders
A. Hammer Bench Press, 2x20, 4x8-10
B. Incline Dumbbell Bench Press, 4x6-9, last set is a triple drop set
C. 2-way Cable Crossovers
I start with 10 reps where I pull the weight from low position to eye-level, than I do 10 reps high-to-low crossovers.
Repeat twice.
D. Barbell Bench Press
One of my favourite exercises, but I will put it in forth position during my prep. I made the experience that, especially towards the end of a prep, my shoulders start to lose stability and easily get hurt when I do bench presses as my first and heaviest workout.
I often do bench presses banded, as contrast training or from pins at chest level or for the top-half of the movement only.
Ramping up sets of 3 (usually 7-9 sets).
E. Banded Unilateral Dumbbell Lateral Raise
Cool, cool, cool exercise. I do 3-4x10-12 plus partials
F1. Seated Dumbbell Lateral Raise, 3x8-12
supersetted with
F2. Side Raises with Plates (10 pounds only), 3x30 reps
PLUS: In this workout I do a lot of additional blast strap work for rear delts, rhomboids and rotator cuffs.
Wednesday morning:
Cardio (usually stationary bicycle) for 30 minutes
Wednesday over lunch break:
Core-work (wrote about this in an earlier post in this thread). Usually combine it with sets of rope jumping in-between sets of core work.
In and out the gym in 45-50 minutes
Thursday morning: Calves and Back and some Leg work
A. Standing Calf Raise, 6 sets of 30, 25, 20, 20, 15, 15 reps
B. Wide-Grip Lat Pulldown, 4-5 x 12 with a full one-second squeeze at top contraction
C. T-Bar Row, 4-5 x 8-10
D. Cable Row with shoulder-wide overhand grip, 3-4 x 10
E. Sumo-Deadlift
Ramping up sets of 5 reps until I lose speed, then continue the ramp with sets of 3 (last week up to 640lbs)
Reduce weight and do 2-3x8-10
F. Walking Lunges, 3 sets of 15 steps each leg
G. Dumbbell Shrugs, 4-5 x 8-10 with 3 seconds squeeze at top contraction
No added work. No evening workout. Two words: deadlift. Brutal.
Friday morning: Push Presses
You read this correctly. In this session I do push presses and nothing else. The push press is by far my favourite performance exercise.
Ramping up sets of 3, sometimes continue with doubles and/or singles
Reduce the weight and do 5x5
Reduce the weight and do 1x10-12
PLUS: In-between sets I do lots of blast strap work for rhomboids, rotator cuffs and rear delts.
Friday over lunch break: arms
A1. Triceps pushdowns, 3-4 x 10-12
A2. Hammer Curls, 3-4 x 8-10 with a 2 second stop at middle position
B1. Dips, either I do 3 x AMRAP with bodyweight only, 3-4 x 10 weighted dips or I ramp sets of 5 or even 4 reps until I lose speed (8-9 sets)
B2. Barbell Curls, usually 5x5, then 1-2x10
C. Machine Preacher Curls, 3x15 bottom partials, 8-10 full reps, and AMRAP top-partials.
D1. Wrist Curls, 3-4x15-20
D2. Reverse Barbell Curls, 3-4x15-20
Saturday morning:
High Intensity Interval Training for 20-25 minutes
Roll-outs for abs
OPTIONAL SESSIONS
Monday evening:
Eccentric-less training for legs and biceps, blast strap work for biceps, mobility work, stretching.
Tuesday evening:
Some sort of steady state cardio and/or neural charge work
Friday evening:
Mobility, flexibility, technique training, neural charge
Saturday afternoon:
Eccentric-less back work
Sunday afternoon:
Neural charge work
FOAM ROLLING:
Just wanted to mention this: I foam roll 4-5 times a week before I go to bed.
NEURAL CHARGE:
I might do more neural charge work or do it in lieu of another optional session as needed.
NEPA:
Rules. I always prefer taking the stairs over taking the elevator. I walk to the gym and go not take a cap or so. I walk to the local stores to buy my food and leave my car at home. Hey, this is surely better for our planet, too!
That is it. Pretty simple and straight forward. Nothing magic. Just good old hard work.
Cheers, PA
FIRST DAY ON INDIGO-3G
Just came home from my second workout of the day, took my 3rd serving of I-3G, took a shower and ate dinner.
Today was my first day on I-3G. I took my first dose at 5am, started my peri-workout nutrition at 6am and my workout at 6:30am.
During the workout, I didn’t really feel a difference. Well, I really didn’t expect to! No exceptionally great pump and my performance was good, but not enormous.
BUT I swear my muscles were very much fuller and felt much tighter for the entire day! You know that feeling of pumped, tight muscles right after the workout when you love looking at yourself in the mirror? It just didn’t disappear like it usually would after a couple of hours.
Very cool experience. Very much looking forward to tomorrow’s workout!
Haha they actually ship in in that yellow briefcase thing. It kinda looks like a bio hazard container, cool.
FIRST 3 DAYS ON INDIGO-3G: OBSERVATIONS
Ok, it is only 3 days since my first dose of I-3G, so I can not exactly say what the new supplement does. But I can say that it does something in/with my body I believe I never experienced before with any other supplement.
A short summary of my first observations:
I think this has been reported by others, too. Tim and Chris also gave explanations why this could by happening.
I hope that this effect will diminish over time. Firstly, I do not like to feel like an old man with a large prostate and secondly I prefer to sleep the night through, because I get only little sleep anyway and need to recover hard at night J
I will not change anything. Just wait and see if the weight stabilizes or even goes up again (what was experienced by Thib, e.g.).
3a) No increased pump in the first workout
Nothing special during the first workout on I-3G. Good pump, good energy, good stamina, but nothing extraordinary.
3b) Much fuller, tenser muscles after the workout for the rest of the day
Very strange. That feeling of well pumped and tense muscles lasted for the entire day. Normally it disappears after a couple of hours after a workout.
Great feeling. I hope this effect will sustain.
Very strange, but great feeling. Looking forward to my next workouts. Let’s see if this is reproducible.
Cheers, PA
Good write up so far, looking forward to hearing what you have to say as the next 40 days pass.
[quote]ParagonA wrote:
Cheers, PA [/quote]
A quick tip for stopping that:
When using the shower, turn the heat down a few notches gradually for around 5 minutes (so that the temperature drop isn’t too uncomfortable) until it’s basically only cold/lukewarm water, stay under the shower for another 5 mins.
Normally stops the shower-sweats for me since it lowers your surface temperature.
PA,
If you had to lift weights PM, with no athletic activities whatsoever in the AM,
how would you place your carbs throughout the day at the start of your prep?
Thx in advance.
[quote]tolismann wrote:
PA,
If you had to lift weights PM, with no athletic activities whatsoever in the AM,
how would you place your carbs throughout the day at the start of your prep?
Thx in advance.[/quote]
I used to lift weight PM and switched to AM training because the evening workouts activated my nervous system too much and I had a hard time falling asleep at night.
What I would do is to have all my carbs peri-workout and basically none for the rest of the day. So all my normal meals would be veggies and a protein source along with some good fats.
If I were to carb cycle, I would have another carb containing meal in the moring. Like oatmeal or potatoes and eggs for breakfast. My current peri-workout proocol provides me with 160-170g of carbs, which is enough for an entire day and still low enough for me to get in shape.
I found that the approach of having carbs only peri-workout and none for the rest of the works very well for most people.
Cheers, PA
YOUR PAST IS GRAVITY
Most people complain about their past. Or they get desperate over things that happened to them or that they did or did not in their past.
I hear people being frustrated because they decided not to educate themselves well; they did not go to college or university and are now frustrated because they earn so little.
Some might have had a hard childhood. Believe me, I know what that means, too.
Some are frustrated because they messed up like 100 diets in the pasts and even though they desperately wished to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, they still look more like Danny DeVito.
It is very easy to put a non-satisfying status quo on something in the past.
What I advise you to: don?t do it.
Look, your past is gravity. It is there and always will be there and there is no way on earth you will ever be able to change it.
If you messed up your diet last week and heavily overindulged on pizza and ice cream, it is past. You cannot change it anymore. Just do it better todya and the days to come.
If you had a not-so-nice Daddy who beat you as a child, get over it. I know it is hard, but why in the world should you miss your entire life because of something that happened to you way back in the past. Live. A. Bit. Decide what you want to do with that precious time given to you.
If you are unhappy with your place in the world, your salary, your education, or even your social environment, do not blame it on your past. Change it! Take a conscious decision to change and DO something positive, creative, life-embracing to change it.
Set up a new workout and diet plan and stick to it. Take evening classes and continue your education, write applications for a new job, move to another place, find other hobbies, find new friends, you name it. Just change what you are not happy with and do it an a positive, optimistic manner. It is important to BUILD that new you and to BUILD your new world. Do not confuse changing something with destroying something. It is easy to destroy things that bother you. It is far more difficult, yet the ONLY way for sustained satisfaction and happiness, to BUILD and CREATE new things.
I know, from experience, that it is hard to let go. Look, we T-men are strong animals. The thing is that holding on to things with a steel grip requires much less strength than letting things go.
I also do know that sometimes we just find ourselves in unwinnable situations and everything just feels hopeless. But then again: do something. Fight. Stand up, stand tall, refuse to give in.
And sometimes we have to fight even though we know that the only way out of it is to eventually lose.
And as I said: your past is gravity. No way to make it go away or change. Who would want to complain about gravity?
Cheers, PA
