stu, greatta delts;mass and details!
[quote]MAF14 wrote:
btw i cant believe you found DIET cream soda i swear i’ve been looking for years!![/quote]
A-Treat makes a damn tasty diet cream soda, not sure if you get that in NJ or not though.
177.8 yesterday. 177.4 today,… man my head is getting screwed up! -lol. Looking forward to Thursday, which will be a High day, and my last real leg workout (not counting a couple of sets of extensions and curls during next Monday’s glycogen depletion workout) until after the show.
Yesterday I got a DVD copy of the old 1998 Battle for the Olympia. These were pretty groundbreaking TAPES at the time they came out. The internet wasn’t so prominent as far as getting contest results immediately via play by plays, or even streaming video. Being able to see your favorite bodybuilders getting ready for the biggest show of the year was damn inspiring. Back then, I used to train at a Powerhouse Gym out on Long Island, and due to a lot of the more serious lifters (and the co-owner who was a totally meat-head), you could drop by to workout and usually find some BBing related video playing on the couple of overhead TVs around the place.
Anyway, with the usual ‘excitement’ of morning cardio, anything that either keeps you focused on your task, or completely mentally distracted from it is a very welcome thing. I figured that this would be an entertaining year to grab, as it was just after Yates shocked everyone and said he was taking a year off due to injury. Obviously reacting to the news, every top guy thought it was gonna be his year, so you’ve got guys like Levrone, Wheeler, Ray, Dillet,… all of the guys who really made the scene when I was first getting into the sport busting their asses (and Yes, Ronnie too, but I don’t think anyone expected him to come out of nowhere and just crush everyone the way he did! -lol). Certainly much more interesting than watching the same news stories and various infomercials when you’re awake to do mindless cardio at 4:30 am.
S
Stu - I’m sure you posted this somewhere, but how did you bang up your lower back/sacrum?
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Some days between 4-6, depending on how sick I get of filling myself up with vegetables. I actually just got back a little while ago from my usual Sunday food run (BJ’s, Trader Joes, and then a local supermarket). My freezer door barely closes with all the frozen chicken, tilapia, Ezekial Bread and frozen vegetables in there, but here’s a quick cel phone shot of my fridge:
As you can see, it’s ‘contest-complete’ with tupperware of pre-cooked chicken breasts, too many containers of liquid egg whites to count, tons of cottage cheese, several family size bags of chopped romaine lettuce, a few bags of raw broccoli and cauliflower, half sour pickles (my girlfriend loves these,… no comments! -lol), diet soda (which won’t make you fat for the record), just enough lactaid milk (lasts longer than regular milk) for small amounts in the several cups of coffee I down on my low carb days, various nut butters (Peanut butter, Power peanut butter, almond butter), and of course enough sugar free jello snack packs to make even the most hardcore dieters grin.
S[/quote]
That is EXACTLY how my fridge and freezer looked during my prep…seriously, almost identical. 
Success, leaves clues!!
Keep grinding big man…you’re gonna tear the house down!!!
Snapped this a couple of nights ago with my cel phone. Yes, it’s a bit fuzzy, and of course it’s my usual ‘crappy mirror next to the elevator in my crummy apartment building’ photo locale, but damn I’m starting to really come together here. Even my quads are getting tighter (well, tighter for ME anyway! -lol). Hopefully I’ll have some leg size left in 10 days to go with the size I killed myself adding this past year!
S
Looking good, Stu. Man, your rear delts are popping out as far as your triceps, lol.
So tomorrow will be my last high carb day, and damn am I looking forward to it. Twice this past week I’ve doubled up and done back to back low carb/double cardio session days, and even tough my scale weight may not reflect all the ‘work’ I’m doing, my skin is most definitely thinning out. Hopefully tomorrow will be that last little kick in the ass (while training legs), before 1 more low day (Friday), 1 medium day (chest), and then Peak Week time. It’s sick, but I’m actually looking forward to it. I’ve been dieting for the last 20 weeks now, and damn if I need an f-ing break! -lol
S
Looking really good and ready, man!
Your fridge looks exactly like mine. I mean: exactly! bodybuilding truly is a funny and unique subculture.
Okay, back at 176.0 this morning, Hoepfully all the lovely carbs I’m emjoying today will drop me down in the next day or so.
S
Last one before the show, right? Make it a fun one 
has the Indigo changed your approach at all for this prep or would you be going about it the same way without it? could you comment on its effects thus far?
Stu as always looking shredded as hell! Good luck with the upcoming hell week, and look forward to hearing how it all turns out!
[quote]-LL- wrote:
Stu - I’m sure you posted this somewhere, but how did you bang up your lower back/sacrum?
[/quote]
I had done a strongman contest back in the summer of 2007. Always training around powerlifters, I had just focused very much of my gym work on constantly getting stronger. At the time, I believed that continual strength gains will inevitably lead to mass gains. The ‘Performance Center’ where my brother works as a DPT/CSCS was sponsoring it, and he let me know 2 days before that he had signed me up.
Furthermore, he suggested that I come in under 200 lbs or else I’d end up lifting against guys weighing much closer to 3 bills than 2. I didn’t really know anywhere near as much about body comp and manipulating water as I do now, so I stupidly starved myself on ephedrine and BCAAs until the show.
Amazingly, I made weight but was depleted as all hell. I hadn’t actually ever tried any of the events, so someone gave me a verbal crash course just before the event started. After the first event, I was in 2nd place by 1 point (the leading competitor had log pressed 1 more rep than I did), and my brother was ecstatic. As he’s 8 years younger than I am, it was kinda cool seeing how much he was looking up to me and just beaming at my surprising performance.
Next event, I kept my position, despite being a bit unsteady turning around during laps of the Farmer’s Walk. Third event, fat bar deadlift. I hadn’t actually done full deads in years, but knew that I was good (when fresh) for at least 5 plates a side. I nailed the lift pretty easily, but I guess still being in ‘bodybuilder training mode’ brought the weight down under full control (time under tension you know! -lol), and felt s slight twinge somewhere in my back, just above my ass. I didn’t think much about it, instead focusing on the faces of my brother,a few friends, and the other competitors, who were pretty damn shocked that I was clean (I’d already been invited out to train with them and see ‘how far’ I could go with ‘this’).
It wasn’t until I took a couple of steps away from the platform that one of my legs just buckled under me. I limped away, lay down, and had my brother check things out. We knew something was off, and had a small window of time before the finals. At this point, I was told I was in 2nd place by a tiny margin. My brother, ever the meathead, advised that I would be in pain tomorrow anyway, so why not compete. My mind, on the other hand, kept thinking about what was more important, my lower back health (I had already spent years hunched over a desk drawing cartoons, and knew I was probably predisposed to ‘issues’ later in life if I wasn’t careful), or a little trophy of some bronze muscle guy lifting an inhuman amount of weight. Well, I’m sure you know what I decided to do.
After about a month of 3-4x a week PT treatments, I was back in the gym doing light deads, always very careful with my form. I never let my weights creep back up again, and instead started really focusing on building muscle, not just moving weight. I also started learning as much as I could about the actual science of muscle growth and nutrition (sooo underrated by most trainers).
Fast forward a year and a half and I weighed about the same, but actually started looking like a bodybuilder, not just some guy who ‘lifts’. Meeting Jim Cordova and being told I had potential made me serious buckle down, and just a few months later, I had won the Novice Overall and Masters 35+ at my first contest. In hindsight, I guess the injury turned out to be a bit of a blessing for my bodybuilding career.
Sometimes you just need someone, or something to smack you in the head and make you take a good, objective look at what you’re doing, and what you hope to get out of it. I’d probably be deadlifting a lot more weight now if I hadn’t hurt myself, but in all likelihood, I’d still be kidding myself that one day the size gains that were supposed to accompany the unhuman strength gains would magically show up.
(more of an answer than you wanted? -lol)
S
[quote]E99_Curt wrote:
has the Indigo changed your approach at all for this prep or would you be going about it the same way without it? could you comment on its effects thus far?[/quote]
The things I’ve noticed since including the Indigo this prep that differ from others:
-I never got to the point where I was cold all the time, which is very odd as I was starting from a very lean state after the America 5 weeks ago. Yes, I usually diet on a pretty considerable amount of carbs, but in a caloric deficit, your body has to be running down somewhat, no matter how careful you are.
-I always had a good amount of energy. Sure there are those days very close to shows when you space-out between sets, but it didn’t happen this time. The last few weeks of a prep, I know I’m running on mental energy, but this time it really wasn’t what I’ve come to expect.
-My weight stopped dropping but I continued to get tighter. I always say that the mirror trumps the scale any day, but considering that I had just come from competing before throwing the Indigo into the mix, I should have dropped weight, even if some of it was from muscle due to the circumstances. Me weight didn’t decrease, and even seemed to rise despite my having to lower my carb intake the last week and half!
The real thing that makes me consider this a worthwhile investment though is in comparing it to the Receptormax which I started toying with last Fall. This though, appears to have taken things up a notch. If I can be eating at a pretty sizable caloric deficit, with barely enough carbs to maintain LBM and get through my workouts and cardio sessions, and my weight is fighting to go up,… It’s plain to see that the body must be functioning optimally in regard to how it handles incoming nutrients.
I’m very curious to see how the couple of the other competitors onboard make use of this in their recomps/contest rebounds.
S
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
[quote]-LL- wrote:
Stu - I’m sure you posted this somewhere, but how did you bang up your lower back/sacrum?
[/quote]
I had done a strongman contest back in the summer of 2007. Always training around powerlifters, I had just focused very much of my gym work on constantly getting stronger. At the time, I believed that continual strength gains will inevitably lead to mass gains. The ‘Performance Center’ where my brother works as a DPT/CSCS was sponsoring it, and he let me know 2 days before that he had signed me up. Furthermore, he suggested that I come in under 200 lbs or else I’d end up lifting against guys weighing much closer to 3 bills than 2. I didn’t really know anywhere near as much about body comp and manipulating water as I do now, so I stupidly starved myself on ephedrine and BCAAs until the show.
Amazingly, I made weight but was depleted as all hell. I hadn’t actually ever tried any of the events, so someone gave me a verbal crash course just before the event started. After the first event, I was in 2nd place by 1 point (the leading competitor had log pressed 1 more rep than I did), and my brother was ecstatic. As he’s 8 years younger than I am, it was kinda cool seeing how much he was looking up to me and just beaming at my surprising performance. Next event, I kept my position, despite being a bit unsteady turning around during laps of the Farmer’s Walk. Third event, fat bar deadlift. I hadn’t actually done full deads in years, but knew that I was good (when fresh) for at least 5 plates a side. I nailed the lift pretty easily, but I guess still being in ‘bodybuilder training mode’ brought the weight down under full control (time under tension you know! -lol), and felt s slight twinge somewhere in my back, just above my ass. I didn’t think much about it, instead focusing on the faces of my brother,a few friends, and the other competitors, who were pretty damn shocked that I was clean (I’d already been invited out to train with them and see ‘how far’ I could go with ‘this’).
It wasn’t until I took a couple of steps away from the platform that one of my legs just buckled under me. I limped away, lay down, and had my brother check things out. We knew something was off, and had a small window of time before the finals. At this point, I was told I was in 2nd place by a tiny margin. My brother, ever the meathead, advised that I would be in pain tomorrow anyway, so why not compete. My mind, on the other hand, kept thinking about what was more important, my lower back health (I had already spent years hunched over a desk drawing cartoons, and knew I was probably predisposed to ‘issues’ later in life if I wasn’t careful), or a little trophy of some bronze muscle guy lifting an inhuman amount of weight. Well, I’m sure you know what I decided to do.
After about a month of 3-4x a week PT treatments, I was back in the gym doing light deads, always very careful with my form. I never let my weights creep back up again, and instead started really focusing on building muscle, not just moving weight. I also started learning as much as I could about the actual science of muscle growth and nutrition (sooo underrated by most trainers).
Fast forward a year and a half and I weighed about the same, but actually started looking like a bodybuilder, not just some guy who ‘lifts’. Meeting Jim Cordova and being told I had potential made me serious buckle down, and just a few months later, I had won the Novice Overall and Masters 35+ at my first contest. In hindsight, I guess the injury turned out to be a bit of a blessing for my bodybuilding career. Sometimes you just need someone, or something to smack you in the head and make you take a good, objective look at what you’re doing, and what you hope to get out of it. I’d probably be deadlifting a lot more weight now if I hadn’t hurt myself, but in all likelihood, I’d still be kidding myself that one day the size gains that were supposed to accompany the unhuman strength gains would magically show up.
(more of an answer than you wanted? -lol)
S[/quote]
i really enjoyed reading this story… save it for your book?
1 Week out, and woke up (a little late, which was very very welcome) weighing 175.4 lbs. The morning of the last contest I weighed 175.8, so if can can drop another 2-3 lbs this week (even if just water), I’m hoping the added conditioning will really show in my quads.
Before breakfast I found myself, as usual, plodding away on the treadmill, watching old videos of Yates, with the magazine contest coverage of last year’s show in front of me, and just thinking to myself how hard I’m digging in, trying to get my body to a place where it doesn’t seem to want to go. Additionally, whether it’s my own doing or not, I feel a huge deal of psychological stress going into this show. The few factors that are contributing to this: I’m already a respected Pro in another federation (been interviewed, filmed, hired as a prep coach etc), the general consensus is that I was 100% poorly judged at my last contest (same Federation) just a few weeks ago, I’m probably going to be the oldest guy in the class, last year’s 2nd place finisher is competing and is quite young so he’s probably made huge improvements, and lastly, this show is without a doubt one of the largest natural shows in the country (last year having something like 150-200 contestants!) with nothing less than true natty ‘monsters’ always winning the Middleweight class. My intention in voicing this is not to sound negative, simply to abide with my usual ‘This is what I’m thinking’ M.O.
As of now, the real work is all done, and I’m actually looking forward to getting this on next weekend.
S
As you already know Stu, you can’t control who shows up to these things… And bodybuilding is a competition against yourself. From the pics I’ve seen so far (your side Bi and that Leg shot) you are leaner than I’ve ever seen you in the past, at about the same weight which is impressive. Granted nobody goes to these things to lose, so I definitely understand the feelings you are having.
Any placing you get you can be proud of all the work you put in. We all cant wait to see the progress you’ve made. Are you getting professional shots taken?
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
As of now, the real work is all done, and I’m actually looking forward to getting this on next weekend.
S[/quote]
are you still doing morning cardio during your depletion week?
No, I don’t usually do any cardio the last week, which is definitely something I’ve been looking forward to -lol. Today was a nice little break, aside from a small bit of steady state cardio this morning (to the '95 Olympia DVD), today was a day to relax. No weights, no low carbs (no high carbs either, just enough to allow my body a bit of a break, even took in a movie.
I did run the usual pre-peak week errands which involve getting all my foods ready for this week, and the upcoming weekend, grabbing a haircut (I tend to put these off too much lately, so this is always important to balance my huge head onstage anyway I can), and pretty much tying down anything else I can. Last night, i had to take care of all the food-shopping and prep for my girlfriend who is also competing in the same show as I am this coming Weekend. She’s entering in the figure novice, which was a big issue because at the couple of posing seminars she attended, a couple of figure pros expressed their opinions that she should do the open due to her impressive condioning. She’s not exactly a very extroverted person though, and combined with the fact that this particular show has such a large number of contestants, we decided to just focus on the novice this time out (remember, she had her upper arm broken last spring, so we had to put her back together and deal with uneven atrophy going into this prep!)
Anyway, here’s a crummy little pic from my cel phone (lighting and glare courtesy of overcast Long Island weather) that I snapped yesterday afternoon. Her back is her real standout bodypart, so I’m hoping we get some great photos from the show. I will say that I think this was a huge learning experience for us as a couple. While she’s always been amazingly supportive of me (and I’ve always tried my best not to be obnoxiously self centered during my preps), I think the last few months have really allowed her to view what it’s like from the other side. To see what it’s like to want nothing more than it to all be over on some days, but to feel amazingly empowered, the master of your own destiny, on others.
She’s also amassed quite a little stash for a post show binge, as well as booked us a week long cruise the second week in July to actually relax a bit
To be honest, when she first expressed interest, I wasn’t sure she had it in her, but she turned out to be a hell of a lot tougher than I would have given her credit for!
S