Mighty's Contest Updates & Q&A Thread

Training
741

Stu, you should look into some of John Meadows ideas for shoulder training.

I was dealing with some shoulder and elbow pain about 6-8 weeks ago and my usual training was making it worse, so I looked around for some alternatives. John’s ideas, while not “revolutionary” or anything, are unique and provide a great stimulus, and have basically eliminated the pains I was getting previously.

In particular, I am really digging his “heavy weight for high reps” ideas with things like DB Swings and Rear Delt Flyes.

He pairs his Chest and Shoulder training in his layouts, but I dont see any reason you couldn’t put his principles into your training.

742

Lonnie- Yeah, I gotta see what John’s thoughts might be on my situation, he’s a pretty bright guy. Obviously though, I’ve been able to work around it. Heck, by this point in my competitive career, I’ve become an expert at the ‘work around’! The funny thing is that the elbow issue will be a problem one day, then a few days later, I’ll be doing heavy chest presses no problem. I just have to keep all my ducks in order, and not start thinking I’m 25 and indestructible again.

So I’m definitely back mentally into dieting mode. I realize this because I’ve have to remind myself to eat sometimes so that I don’t accidentally come in with lower daily #s than I want at the moment. I spent the weekend out on Long Island, and had to stock my parents’ kitchen with a few food items I need, and by the time I had gotten back to my own Apt Sunday afternoon, I realized how behind schedule I was with my eating!

It was kind of nice because I got to really cram in a whole buncha cals in a shorter window than I usually do, but it did skew my weekly weigh-in this morning. I know for a fact that I’m a tad leaner than last week, yet the scale certainly didn’t reflect it due to last night’s heavy feeding (I’m sure everything will equalize in a day or so -lol)

S

743

…and like I expected, elbow was fine last night -lol. Doing seated DB presses last (after various seated and bent laterals), and throwing up the 100’s like they were nothing. Exposive out of the hole, slow decent, non-lockout… the usual. Eh, whatever, I’ll deal on days that I have to, and push on days that I can.

Weight was 194.6 this morning, down from 197.2 two weeks ago… Nice and slow is the plan, plenty of time. Low days are pretty easy at about 2400 cals, with carbs between 175-200g, and Medium days are about 2700 cals, with ~250g-275g carbs. Very small amounts of intervals, no steady state… definitely in a good place.

S

744

Stu saw a comment in the nutrition thread about your thoughts on fat and nutrition in general and i swear that is the most i have seen from you. But for someoen who is looking to gain and need 3500-4000 cals how woudl you approach that. Lock protein at a certain value while adding in the essential fats but no added ones and the rest carbs?

Prep seems to be starting off well. Any prediciton as to your contest weight?

745

100 pound seated DB Press? Nice work.

I’m weak.

746

[quote]timmcbride00 wrote:
100 pound seated DB Press? Nice work.

I’m weak.[/quote]

That’s exactly what I was thinking when I read that. Damn.

747

[quote]ryanbCXG wrote:
Stu saw a comment in the nutrition thread about your thoughts on fat and nutrition in general and i swear that is the most i have seen from you. But for someoen who is looking to gain and need 3500-4000 cals how woudl you approach that. Lock protein at a certain value while adding in the essential fats but no added ones and the rest carbs?

Prep seems to be starting off well. Any prediciton as to your contest weight?[/quote]

RYAN- Some people will be able to lock down their essentials (protein and healthy fats), and then add ‘unlimited’ carbs until they reach their numbers. Other people won’t. It will really come down to how quickly your body begins to put on adipose, and how comfortable you are with those levels. If you’re willing to get 15-20%, then you may not care if your insulin sensitivity is a little off and you soften up quicker than someone else might.

I know people get sick of the “it’s an individualized thing” answer, but often, even we we do understand the basic processes that we’re addressing (juggling), that’s going to be the ultimate test of whether our approach works or not. Cordova described his approach to diet in an old article similar to what I mentioned in the thread you referred to. He talked about “filling in the rest” with carbs. Obviously Jim has one hell of a metabolism, and as great and humble of a guy as he is, people do joke about how he could get away dieting on burritos and still look amazing.

Juggling macros when dieting though, is a different story. You still want to maintain as high a carb intake as you realistically can in order to preserve the maximum amount of muscle mass. BUT you also need to provide periods where your body can settle into utilizing more fatty acids for energy, and as such not always have an abundance of carbs present with every meal. This is where we really need to address an individual’s met rate, sensitivity levels, ability to retain LBM, as well as contest dates and how much time we’re dealing with here.

As far as my projected contest weight,… I couldn’t tell ya. While I always have my previous year’s weight in the back of my mind, I’ve been able to increase that # every year that I’ve competed so far. Of course conditioning is key for any stage ready bodybuilder, so if I can bring the same degree of size that I did in '11, with better conditioning (hams n glutes), I’ll be content no matter what I weigh. Of course if I can come in even a few lbs larger, with the same level of conditioning, that would be a step up as well.

What I have to worry about though, is that unlike in amateur shows, Pro shows are usually only split into Lightweight and Heavyweight. Depending on who shows up, the promoters will usually line everyone up by weight and split it down the middle. This would essentially mean that I could end up as one of the heaviest lightweights, or one of the lightest heavyweights.

As the usual lightweight competitors are always shredded to death, I’d really have to be on my game to not get brushed aside. Of course being in the Heavyweights could also pose problems, as I still worry about my legs being undersized for my own physique, so they would most certainly pale in comparison to some of the really large builds on stage.

Gonna be an interesting experience no doubt!

S

748

[quote]Serge A. Storms wrote:

[quote]timmcbride00 wrote:
100 pound seated DB Press? Nice work.

I’m weak.[/quote]

That’s exactly what I was thinking when I read that. Damn.[/quote]

Yeah, I know… I’ve always been a little weirded out by the weights I throw around as well. There’s a video of one of my shoulder sessions online, where I was a month out of a contest and was still repping the 95’s (after pre-exhausting with laterals and reverse military presses!) I always wonder if my joints would be healthier if my muscles were weaker -lol.

S

749

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:

[quote]Serge A. Storms wrote:

[quote]timmcbride00 wrote:
100 pound seated DB Press? Nice work.

I’m weak.[/quote]

That’s exactly what I was thinking when I read that. Damn.[/quote]

Yeah, I know… I’ve always been a little weirded out by the weights I throw around as well. There’s a video of one of my shoulder sessions online, where I was a month out of a contest and was still repping the 95’s (after pre-exhausting with laterals and reverse military presses!) I always wonder if my joints would be healthier if my muscles were weaker -lol.

S[/quote]

Ah the problems of being so damn strong.

Thanks for the response stu. I figured it would come back to the see what happens but figured i would attempt to pick your brain as well. So would you rather be the lighter one in the heavy weight or the heavier in the light weight? Depends on if you shred up even more than last year?

750

Stu I asked you this question in another thread, not sure if you saw it yet:

I feel like you talked about it in your old thread, but I can’t find it.
(question is second quote)

[quote]Rocky2 wrote:

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
I think it’s interesting that you will hear some people say that prolonged dieting will lead to muscle loss, while on the other side, you have so many top natural competitors doing prolonged cuts in order to preserve more muscle mass.

IMO It’s not a matter of cut duration that can be problematic, it’s a matter of reaching a point of diminishing, which can be avoided if you’re smart about it. I dieted for 21 weeks last Spring, and stepped onstage at my heaviest contest weight so far. Certainly didn’t seem like I dieted too long.

Keep an eye on your strength levels, daily energy levels, and weight stagnation. Also, how well you’re sleeping at night can be an indicator of pushing too hard, for too long as well.

S [/quote]

Great info.

Stu,

Once a person reaches their goal bf%, and their goal is to resume gaining lean mass, what should their diet look like after dieting for so long?

Should the person gently ease up their calories? Over how long? Say a person finishes a cut at 2000 calories, and their maintenance is 3000.
[/quote]

751

[quote]Rocky2 wrote:
Stu,

Once a person reaches their goal bf%, and their goal is to resume gaining lean mass, what should their diet look like after dieting for so long?

Should the person gently ease up their calories? Over how long? Say a person finishes a cut at 2000 calories, and their maintenance is 3000.
[/quote]

There are a lot of people that will talk about ‘holding’ a weight for a period of time, as if allowing your body to acclimate to it. While part of me thinks this can indeed be a good idea, another part of me worries due to how the human body tends to adjust to intake levels.

The reason people yo-yo diet is due to their bodies adjusting to the new, lowered calorie levels, and then suddenly thinking they can eat the same amount as what used to be their ‘norm’. Now, if that’s the case, obviously you can’t just jump your #s up without gaining a considerable amount of adipose. I think everyone would agree that working your #s up is best done in small steps over an extended duration.

The real issue in my mind, is how long you can maintain the lowered amount of cals and macros once you’re sufficiently ‘cut’ before your metabolism begins to slow, and the lowered intake becomes the norm. This will certainly vary depending on what approach was used to lean out in the first place.

A caloric cycling approach will certainly allow a bit more areas to play around with than a straight forward baseline-type diet. Also, if the dieter dropped their carb intake so much that their insulin sensitivity is now skewed quite a bit.

(ack! gotta go teach a class! I’ll write more on this later!)

S

752

I tend to agree Stu. Not only is there the metabolism issue, but most people have to do a fair amount of cardio to get LEAN, so just by virtue of dropping the cardio and/or the other conditioning work that we do considerably, the calories already “go up” in that regard. Its not much, maybe 800-1200 over the coarse of a week, but between that and a modest calorie bump up (500 a day lets say), it ends up being several thousand more a week.

I think immediately jumping from 2000 a day, to 3000 a day, plus ditching 7 cardio sessions a week is a potential problem. You’re talking about a difference of almost 10,000 calories a week when your body is potentially getting “adjusted” to the lowered intake and all the cardio.

Obviously you aren’t going to get FAT, but when you consider that you have to diet down again next year to compete, even 5 or 10 pounds of fat you dont have to lose again next year is good… Plus its more fun to hang on to the leanness you worked so hard to get.

753

Good point Lonnie. Often times people may reach their target weight, or level of leanness, and then even though they may still be eating pretty well, they drop all the cardio sessions that they’d gotten used to. Obviously the shift in the caloric equation will create a sudden abundance of energy nutrients that aren’t being put to use.

In terms of both cardio and food, your best approach is always little steps. If you are one of those dieters who really run down their carb intake, you are going to need to really be careful as you reintroduce things back into your daily diet. If done properly, you can even continue to lean out more (as you fill out) for several weeks! My suggestion in cases of having to reacclimate to a higher carb intake is to stick with the same food sources you’ve made use of during your cut, but over a timespan, work the amount up a little more each week,

Lastly, ROCKY mentioned Maintenance calories. If you’ve dropped sufficient weight (fat, possibly some muscle), your original maintenance # may not be as applicable as you think! So being in a horrendous rush to get back to the number that you think you truly require will not afford you the weekly option to visually assess if you’ve overstepped the ‘damage’ threshold in terms of working the #s back towards normalcy.

S

754

Oh yeah, little update: Started 3 weeks ago at 197.2 lbs, woke up this morning at 193.2 lbs. 4 lbs in 3 weeks. I actually panicked a little bit last night, as I will sometimes weigh myself before bed, simply to see how much weight my body ‘processes’ throughout the night. When I saw how low my pre-bed weight was, I immediately ran to my kitchen, and spooned down a few Tbsp of Almond Butter -lol, and No, I did not weigh it out!

I figure I’ve got a really good stretch of time before the contest (June 2nd), so I can really slow my weight loss as I need to. If things are looking ahead of schedule, possibly on target to exceed my 2011 conditioning, I can push if I need to. If I look like I’m going too quickly, possibly at risk of losing LBM, I can pull back. Having much more time, as well as the hindsight of 3 previous contest seasons, certainly gives me a bit more clarity on the whole process.

S

755

[quote]Lonnie123 wrote:
Obviously you aren’t going to get FAT, but when you consider that you have to diet down again next year to compete, even 5 or 10 pounds of fat you dont have to lose again next year is good… Plus its more fun to hang on to the leanness you worked so hard to get.

[/quote]

Yea, I’m hoping to hang on to it for a while lol. While I will be ending my diet near spring break, that is not the reason I was doing it for.

So something like dropping the cardio first, and maybe upping the calories to 2300 for a few weeks would be good? If I’m not gaining weight after a week or two, up it to 2600, or something like that?

756

Okay thanks for the replies you two

757

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:

There are a lot of people that will talk about ‘holding’ a weight for a period of time, as if allowing your body to acclimate to it. While part of me thinks this can indeed be a good idea, another part of me worries due to how the human body tends to adjust to intake levels.

The reason people yo-yo diet is due to their bodies adjusting to the new, lowered calorie levels, and then suddenly thinking they can eat the same amount as what used to be their ‘norm’. Now, if that’s the case, obviously you can’t just jump your #s up without gaining a considerable amount of adipose. I think everyone would agree that working your #s up is best done in small steps over an extended duration.
[/quote]

Stu, this is a point that I feel like I understand in theory but not in practice. I feel like the “work your #s up slowly” is something that a ton of people/products/etc talk about doing, but when I look at the big dudes on this forum and elsewhere, they all got big as quickly as they could, held the weight, then ended where they did.

I feel like it’s a big change in the past two years on TNation. When I first started reading this site, it was much like what I hear on Iron Radio and elsewhere: “You need to eat a freaking ton and get big and strong first. Don’t worry about your abs.” etc. But now, the obsession seems to be with “lean gains” and such.

Do you have thoughts on that change in position?

758

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Oh yeah, little update: Started 3 weeks ago at 197.2 lbs, woke up this morning at 193.2 lbs. 4 lbs in 3 weeks. I actually panicked a little bit last night, as I will sometimes weigh myself before bed, simply to see how much weight my body ‘processes’ throughout the night. When I saw how low my pre-bed weight was, I immediately ran to my kitchen, and spooned down a few Tbsp of Almond Butter -lol, and No, I did not weigh it out!

I figure I’ve got a really good stretch of time before the contest (June 2nd), so I can really slow my weight loss as I need to. If things are looking ahead of schedule, possibly on target to exceed my 2011 conditioning, I can push if I need to. If I look like I’m going too quickly, possibly at risk of losing LBM, I can pull back. Having much more time, as well as the hindsight of 3 previous contest seasons, certainly gives me a bit more clarity on the whole process.

S[/quote]

Had a similar experience, was feeling flat and could tell that I was light. I didn’t weight myself though until the morning. From 185 on Monday to 183 on Tuesday morning, time for refeed, 2 pounds is not good, as you mentioned, don’t want to lose LBM.

I feel on pace, it pays to give yourself enough time to get lean, instead of freaking out to rush things, I have to pull it back and refeed.

759

[quote]Rocky2 wrote:
So something like dropping the cardio first, and maybe upping the calories to 2300 for a few weeks would be good? If I’m not gaining weight after a week or two, up it to 2600, or something like that?[/quote]

Sure, just taking one step at a time is really the key point. Too many people take multiple steps (ie. dropping cardio, upping cals while choosing less clean food choices, even training less days per week), which is why they rebound with more fat gain than is really necessary.

Sounds like you’ve got a good idea how to ‘come out’ of the cut though.

S

760

[quote]The3Commandments wrote:
Stu, this is a point that I feel like I understand in theory but not in practice. I feel like the “work your #s up slowly” is something that a ton of people/products/etc talk about doing, but when I look at the big dudes on this forum and elsewhere, they all got big as quickly as they could, held the weight, then ended where they did.

I feel like it’s a big change in the past two years on TNation. When I first started reading this site, it was much like what I hear on Iron Radio and elsewhere: “You need to eat a freaking ton and get big and strong first. Don’t worry about your abs.” etc. But now, the obsession seems to be with “lean gains” and such.

Do you have thoughts on that change in position?[/quote]

First, let’s realize that the basic suggestions are going to be different based on your goals and starting points.
When you’re coming off of a cutting period, and your body has downshifted somewhat, jumping right back up is the surest way to get soft (I just wrote something about this above in this thread).

When we’re talking about putting on size, you must realize that the reason most people who spend hours and hours in the gym trying to get huge fail, is because they’re simply not eating enough (or enough of the nutrients they actually need). So in those instances, the advice to ‘eat a ton’, is relative to what the person has obviously been doing, namely undereating for their goals.

If someone is already relatively soft, I certainly wouldn’t advice bumping their cals 500 each day. Sure they’ll theoretically weight a lb more at the end of the week, but it won’t be muscle. The human body can only synthesize new proteins so quickly, and a lb per week just isn’t going to happen.

I don’t think it’s a change in approaches, merely a change in what people are paying attention to. If you’re a 98 lb male trying to put on size, even someone like Christian Thibs, (who admits that these days he’s more about making slow, lean gains) would recommend a larger bump up in calories due to the specifics of your case. People who experience less than the results they’re looking for, whether being unable to put on size, or being unable to get lean, tend to opt for the extreme approaches in solving their dilemmas. That’s the real culprit.

I’ve got a client at the moment who was very soft in the past, and while we’re trying to build some size, he is dreadfully scared of putting on too much fat. As such, I certainly couldn’t just bump up his #s each day. What I ended up doing was raising certain macros at specific points of the day (and not every day), reasoning that his body will make better use of the higher amount of nutrients it’s receiving.

You basically need the right tool for the job. Sometimes you need a hammer, other times might require a more precise instrument.

S