I am 54 years, old getting ready to start my second season of competitive bodybuilding. Last year I did pretty well but ended up dropping way too much weight and ended up down at a shredded but stringy 174. I am now up to 190 and am looking forward to competing heavier, hopefully eventually at around 200.
I would love suggestions from experienced older competitors about the best way to balance bulk with being lean. Currently I am three weeks out from the first contest of the year and am eating about 3000 calories daily, generally 10-15% fat, 30-35% carbs and 50% protein.
I lift 4-5 days weekly with a back/biceps, chest/triceps, legs and pump day split, with cardio most days after weight and on the off days.
I look forward to suggestions from all…
no pro here, but try to lift heavier weights in squats and dead lifts with low reps around 3-5 and reduce traing days and volume to help recovery, eg upperbody day (2 ex for chest/back/should/ and 1 each for bi’s/tris), lower body power cleans and back squat, alternate this day with deadlifts and front squats, throw in abit of calf work here and there. Train mon/wed/fri so 1 week will have to do 2 upper body workouts and 1 lowerbody workouts, the next week 2 lower body workouts and 1 upperbody workout.
As for food, just increase food intake, either carbs or protein, which ever helps keep u lean, maybe your current diet with enough protein shakes to increase calories to 4-5000, easier to drink calories then to eat calories.
Improving recovery is the key.sometimes very abbreviated programs can help with mass and strength. Might not sound like enough but my best body weight strength increases occurred when i was just doing 2 exercises, bench press and deadlift and slowly increased the weight as well as spread out my training days to improve recovery as i needed it, believe it or not i got to the stage of training once a week and eventually stopped when i couldnt increase weights anymore.
Obviously this isnt something you do coming into contest prep though.
good luck with contest season, i admire how lean you are in your pic, you obviously have your diet dialled in. At your age you are an inspiration to others, u dont look your age, you look years younger.
Cheers!!!
I think following a contest in two weeks i will go to heavier weights and lower reps for a while before the next couple of contests in April. You are definitely right, it is much easier to add extra calories with liquid than choking down endless chicken breasts. Have you tried the Metabolic Drive lo carb shake mixed with peanut butter. It is not too bad.
