[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
What a typical session is for me at the moment:
DELTS:
-Seated laterals (either machine, or DBs)
-Rear Laterals facing down on an incline bench
-Reverse Grip Military Presses (I don’t do this if I’m going to use DBs for presses)
-Seated DB Presses OR Seated Smith Military Pressed (traditional grip)[/quote] How do you feel about Behind-The-Neck (Seated) Smith Press?
[quote]tolismann wrote:
How do you feel about Behind-The-Neck (Seated) Smith Press?
[/quote]
Although I performed behind the neck presses when I first began training, it was only because that’s what everyone in the college gym seemed to be doing. Eventually when I joined a private gym one summer, I noticed a lot of the better developed guys did their delt work in front of their head. Someone explained to me that it was an unnatural movement, and that they were able to move heavier weights in this manner. At the time, I didn’t know anything about biomechanics, or effective training, but just the idea of not getting hurt, while also being able to lift heavier weights was enough of a convincing argument for me.
These days, I believe that DBs are a better method for my own shoulder work, simply because of the natural movement pattern they afford. Sure I’ll do Barbell work sometimes, usually either on a smith, or even standing push presses on ocassion, but alsways keeping the bar, (and my elbows!) in front of my body.
S
So the last couple of weeks, I’ve been experiencing a bit of knee instability. The outer portion of my left knee when doing deep hacks, and the inner portion of my right knee when doing walking lunges. As such, I’ve shelved my usual leg extensions as a means of pre-exhaust, and have been doing more compound work in an effort to get everything working together.
With the hacks though, I have had to forgo my usual ass to ankles approach, but everything else seems to be holding together, and with the focus on non-locking out and really dominating the concentric portions, I’m feeling pretty good (and actually a bit surprised at the conditioning of my quads now compared to last year’s preps).
Last night’s session was:
-hack squats
-Leg Sled (close stance)
-Front squats (shoulder width, not too heavy, but explosive/TUT reps)
-DB SLDs
-Leg Curls
-GHR’s
Definitely a lotta pain walking up the stairs to my apt afterwards 
S
I am now officially 6 weeks out from my first show this season (and it’s a biggie -lol), and my weight is 182.8 lbs as of this morning. Last year, at 6 weeks out of my 1st show, I was about 4 lbs heavier than I am now. Judging by my reflection, as well as pics and vids, I feel I am thicker, tighter, and hopefully at least as big as last year. Because I have been ocassionally at different gyms, the lighting situation has been pretty inconsistent. While training this morning, my brother caught a few vids of me in the gym (not our usual gym mind you) instead of taking still shots. I know you can’t compare with past weeks, but if you can look past the flourescent lights washing me out horribly (as if I weren’t pale enough!), I think I’m still looking pretty good considering how much size I’ve lost in the process (no way not to I’m afraid).
S
Stu good stuff…keep @ it, very inspiring. i check daily for updates it your prep. a few Q’s - Do you use sweet potatoes the last few wks or are they too starchy, some folks bloat w/ potatoes, do you? i dropped my girl down to 1500 cals avg and bumped up her fat, it was too low and she seemed to be stalling.
Q- she is always hungry @ night, she just drank a 100 cal. musclemilk lite 15g p 5 g carb fat 1.5g i suggested some egg whites w/ salsa + a spoonful of almond butter but she was tired and slammed the MM and is now ZZZZzzz. Q - ideas about food to calm her hunger @ night??? trying to keep her carbs low but if she’s under her daily totals i’m thinking P+F might help. do you do things like fat free jello? not likely to take away hunger but that w/ some almonds might fool hr into thinking it was a meal?
Also, because of the snack desire, she literally goes through sugar free gums (crazy flavors) like they are cigarettes. i think all the gum is causing her to bloat @ times and i am cutting her down to 2-3 pieces a day
I do not want to detract from your prep/focus but any insight would be helpful? also day of the show items to wear, flip flops, how about cloths to stay warm what’s best to not fuck up the color? cotton, nylon track suit? also the last coat of jan tana the day of is a shine to be slapped on, any experience w/ that? do you think propping the legs on a side wall to keep blood flow out day of the show is necessary?
things are going ok…still working on leaning out her legs more 2x day cardio, interval 2-3days a week plus the steady state. any tips for sucking down the legs? i’m hoping/thinking she’ll still be 7-10lighter sucked down before the carb up. her legs might not be as lean as her back but i think she is going to kill.
PLEASE KEEP UPDATING, IT’S ONE OF MY FEW PLEASURES IN THE BB SECTION.
here is a back shot from this morning, her taper is pretty damn good, she’s got the genetics to do pretty well.
also… has anyone ever told you you look like a jacked Michael Rapaport???
CYRUSEVEN75- Okay, let’s go down the list (take notes people! -lol)
-I don’t use sweet potatoes the last weeks, but only because I don’t normally eat them during my prep. Suddenly switching food choices is just asking for digestion issues if you ask me.
-Muscle Milk, while not horrible, is still liquid calories, and I know that it wouldn’t make me feel full in the least. Lately, even when using my 2 scoops of Metabolic Drive just before bed (with a couple of CLA capsules and Mineral Support), I find myself using less and less water, creating a much thicker shake which actually sits much better in my growling stomach. If you can get her to eat solid food, not only will it digest slowly, but she might feel better overall. Try mixing one scoop of Metabolic Drive (Banana) with some Cottage cheese and cinnamon. Going to sleep hungry just sucks.
-If she’s under her daily numbers, you could include some carbs in her evening meals, but keep in mind with the water storage associated with carb intake, she may APPEAR heavier in the morning than she truly is!
-I run through sugarless gum like you wouldn’t believe. I’m one of those people who is always hungry, and for someone who typically eats about 4000 cals when not dieting, even though my ‘diet’ numbers aren’t excessively low, I’m far from comfortable. The only real concern with sugarless gum is the sodium (if that is an issue for a particular individual, for most people I wouldn’t worry), and the sugar alcohols. 99% of t he time, the body will just send the sugar alcohols through because it doesn’t know what to do with them in terms of digestion.
In some instances though, based on the particular alcohol used in the product, some people can experience some bloat as a reaction. It’s not fat, and it’s certainly nothing that will affect her on contest day (she’ll drop the gum the last few days with most sodium containing diet products).
-Flip Flops are good because u just pop them on/off.
-I wear all black the day of the show, simply because your tan will come off on everything, and it’s usually cold when you’re wearing nothing but posing trunks, so you hope for every little bit of heat you can attract.
-I don’t really worry about the material though, I know that once I cover up, and then strip back down later for the evening show, that I’ll need a touch up for my tan regradless of what I’m wearing.
-I’ve never really obsessed about propping my feet up, although I have spent a considerable amount of time just laying on the floor due to lack of energy the day of the show -lol. The theory is that by keeping the blood away from your legs, they’ll appear more cut (the reason why you don’t pump up your quads!). If she wants to give it a go, by all means, but I don’t think this one is a make or break approach.
-Legs are tough. I know I’m still dissatisfied with how cut my quads were last Spring. This year, they look tighter earlier because of intelligent rebounding, and just the fact that a body will get better with each successive outing. Layne Norton has some of his clients do a short stretch of steady state work right after intervals, rationalizing that once you’ve freed up all those fatty acids, you need to burn through them.
My thoughts though are that based on reading how the drop-off in fatty acid oxidation is so severe at 25+ minutes, you’d be better suited just having a compeltely separate session instead of tacking more on to an already stessful one (Just my Opinion though). Most Pros I know will tell you that the legs come in last. Cordova told me a while back that his upper body is ‘ready’ in the 160’s, but he needs to dip into the 150’s to get his legs ‘in’. I know, not what anyone wants to hear. That’s why I went into my current prep expecting to be lighter by the end. I realkly want to raise the bar this year.
Uhh,… I think that covers all the questions -lol
S
So today is a High day (yay!), and I figured I’d outline what my feeding will look like for anyone wondering if I Binge like a fiend, or if there is any though put into typical plans.
Woke up at 182.2 lbs, and after an easy steady state session of incline treadmill walking (BCAAs and a Fat Burner about 15 mins before):
-Cup of Egg Whites, Ketchup (I miss this sooo much the rest of the week), Cup of Oats with 1 scoop Banana Metabolic Drive and 4 Tbsp Wheat Germ
-Protein Bar and some of the Jug of Mag-10 that I sip throughout the day
-Chicken Breast, Veggies and 2 Pieces of Whole Wheat Ezekial Bread with Sugar Free Jelly
-Metabolic Drive Shake and 2 Pieces of Whole Wheat Ezekial Bread
-3 Finibars (pre) and Anaconda/MAG-10 (while training)
-1/2 Cup Oats and Cup of Egg Whites (More Ketchup!)
-Metabolic Drive Shake (before bed)
I realized that although you can pretty much eat high carbs right up to your bedtime on a high/refeed day, I just feel better, and less bloated (water from all the carbs!) when I take it down a bit for the last couple of feedings.
Total Numbers for the day… 3040 cals, 310 prot and 312 carbs. In the past I’ve had much less protein, which is fine on these carb centric days, but my food choices (what I actually like to eat) just pushes the numbers this way. You can see that it’s really nothing as ridiculous as a lot of the IFBB guys profiled in magazines do (or at least like to say that they do -lol)
S
Stu,
would you avoid Rack Pulls and Power Shrugs for the same reason you avoid doing RDLs?
As always your advice is greatly appreciated.
Loving the gym video Stu, looking good!
Looking awesome! Sick arms and delts!!
Stu, what type of oats do you use? I keep hearing about steel cut oats and rolled oats. Are they that much better of a carb source than simple quaker oats in the big cylinder?
[quote]tolismann wrote:
Stu,
would you avoid Rack Pulls and Power Shrugs for the same reason you avoid doing RDLs?
As always your advice is greatly appreciated.[/quote]
I don’t avoid RDL’s, I just don’t really use 'em -lol. I am a big fan of Stiff Leg work, and while I don’t do so this year (back issues), used to do a hell of a lot of rack deads (and full deads all the time until about 4 years ago). As far as Rack Pulls, and Power Shrugs, I guess I’ve just become more ‘focused’ (if that’s a good word to use here) as far as targeting specific muscles. At 5’8, I had reached 220 lbs at my biggest before settling in around a fairly lean 205 lbs. Not small (or huge) by any means, but a hell of a base before even starting to think about altering my training specifically for bodybuilding competition.
If we’re talking about specifically targetting traps/upper back, A few exercises a rely on a lot would be:
-Rear BB shrugs on a smith machine (lets me angle my big ol’ ass out of the way)
-Front BB Raises with a VERY wide grip while laying prone on an incline bench (making certain to get a nice lower trap contraction a la high pulls, but with minimal stress on lower back)
-Low cable Shrugs with D-handles (standing a few feet away and pulling BACK and UP concurrently, with minimal arm movement)
Of course the fact that I used to full dead 5 plates a side did lay some foundation before I adopted my current approach. If you feel good using RDLs, Rack Pulls and Power Shrugs then by all means do so. Personally, I never was the ‘lift heavier for the sake of lifting heavier’ guy, which is probably why I developed the way I did. Still, others have trained in that manner and gotten equally respectable results. Everyone is different, BUT if a particular exercise or approach didn’t yield at least some benefit, it more than likely would have fallen by the wayside long ago
S
[quote]LiquidMercury wrote:
Stu, what type of oats do you use? I keep hearing about steel cut oats and rolled oats. Are they that much better of a carb source than simple quaker oats in the big cylinder?[/quote]
Lol, yeah, everyone I know (especially those who don’t even train) goes on and on about how great Steel Cut oats are. I’ve tried 'em, and they are tasty as well as having a pleasant texture, but for everyday eating, I just buy the giant cylinders (well, boxes actually from BJs) of Quaker’s Quick oats. Cheap to buy in bulk, good amount of food volume, and only 90 seconds to microwave serving and you’re good, who could ask for a more conventient carb source?
As to whether it’s a “better” source, I think we’re really really looking at the most microscopic issues here. The reason why oats (and I mean any oats) are such a bodybuilding staple is because of the complex nature and fiber content. Remember though that when you combine different macros together, ALL DIGESTION gets slowed, so you don’t need to obsess about glycemic values, and also that when dieting, the AMOUNT of carbs ingested is much more important than the TYPE.
Sure, digestion rate and satiety will determine an individual’s preferences (I get insanely hungry very fast, so I want more volume per calorie, while my training partenr Corey is pretty unaffacted by hunger… bastard -lol), but ultimately it all gets converted into glucose by the body.
S
[quote]Jab1 wrote:
Loving the gym video Stu, looking good![/quote]
Thanks, I didn’t think I could look any paler than I usually do, but the huge flourescent gym lights and HD quality of the camcorder just about washed me out of the screen completely -lol. I’ll try to get more videos, hopefully giving you guys a better idea what my condition is like than just the still shots I used in the past.
S
Magic Stu,
you look great,very nice (fore)arms&delts!
pls, put some video ofyour back,
do you always use that ROM when you do V handle pulldow and why?
thanx as usual
Mike
Stu,
Loving the updates man. It’s been said numerous times, but you are one of the top posters on here: tons of experience in the trenches, won your pro card, yet very humble and helpful to everyone on the forums.
I asked a question a few pages back, but it was the last post on that page so I don’t think you saw. I apologize if you just didn’t want to answer, because I don’t mean to be rude. I was wondering if you had any input on maybe an age requirement for on eto start taking Alpha Male. I’m turning 22 in several months, but I just don’t ever really feel like a true “Manly man” if you get what I mean lol. At what age did you start taking it and do you have any advice on when others should?
Thanks a lot, and good luck with your upcoming contest! I’ll be lurking along the way
[quote]buzza wrote:
Magic Stu,
you look great,very nice (fore)arms&delts!
pls, put some video ofyour back,
do you always use that ROM when you do V handle pulldow and why?
thanx as usual
Mike [/quote]
Thanks Mike. I’ll be trying to get more videos. I don’t always have someone around to work the camera though, as the usual folks I rely on during weekends (my brother and my girlfriend) are both prepping and dieting for their own shows, so they can’t just skip their own training to follow me around for an hour
Something I came to realize, and focus on more and more as I started competing, is how to really target my lats when doing pulldowns or pullups. You’ll notice that in addition to sitting upright (none of that leaning back stuff), I keep my elbows fairly close together throughout the motion, as well as pausing (stopping) when the handle reaches directly in front of my face. This not only keep the stress on the lats (when your elbows start moving away from each other, or if you start leaning back, the stress will shift to your mid back muscles), but minimize bicep involvement, which becomes a limiting factor on a lot of newer trainer’s back development.
Before my Spring 2010 prep, I had grown very dependent on doing actual pullups. The problem though, is that while my mid back displayed a lot of development and detail, I knew my actual lats could be thicker to offset my naturally less than narrow hip bones. Due to how my body would hang when moving freely through space, I decided to switch to the pulldown machine instead, where I could lock my body in place, and focus more on the actual mechanics of what I needed to accomplish. Sometimes I’ll throw in a few sets of pullups after the Pulldowns, just because part of my brain still feels that ‘real men do pullups’ -lol.
S
[quote]ashylarryku wrote:
Stu,
Loving the updates man. It’s been said numerous times, but you are one of the top posters on here: tons of experience in the trenches, won your pro card, yet very humble and helpful to everyone on the forums.
I asked a question a few pages back, but it was the last post on that page so I don’t think you saw. I apologize if you just didn’t want to answer, because I don’t mean to be rude. I was wondering if you had any input on maybe an age requirement for on eto start taking Alpha Male. I’m turning 22 in several months, but I just don’t ever really feel like a true “Manly man” if you get what I mean lol. At what age did you start taking it and do you have any advice on when others should?
Thanks a lot, and good luck with your upcoming contest! I’ll be lurking along the way :)[/quote]
Ahh! Sorry bout that. I’ve been getting on here a lot the past month while at work, as my computer melted down, and it’s really limited my accessability.
Here’s my take on Alpha Male: I tried a few Tribulus products years ago (mid-late 20’s), and while they might have had some effect, it wasn’t anything I was really really be amazed with. Since I’ve been relying more and more on covering my diet/supplement bases as an ‘older’ (damn I hate admiting that!) competitor these last couple of years, I’ve been making the rounds on anything that I feel might assist in the recovery process (Alpha Male, Mineral Support etc).
I started taking the Alpha Male last fall when I was not dieting, and not quite bulking, but more just training as hard as I could while trying to be certain that I would be in a ‘good state’ when I would need to start my diet the coming Feb. Training wise, I was hitting chest and legs BOTH twice every 6 days, which I know I don’t need to point out, is stressful as all hell. Were my body not able to deal with this constant barrage of iron, surely I would have broken down quite badly.
Well, come February, not only had I managed to keep my weight under 200 lbs (which was my plan in order to hopefully come in leaner this year), but I looked pretty damn solid. More solid in fact than I did at the same weight a year ago. So do I think the Alpha Male made a difference? Most assuredly. Hell, I’m going to be turning 38 next month, and I know (and my joints let me know on a daily basis) that my body doesn’t have the recuperative ability it once possessed. As much as it pains me, I’ve read enough literature to realize that even in the best of us, T-Levels will start to drop at some point (usually at about 30 years of age).
If it happens later, great, if sooner, taht sucks. All we can do is adapt as best we can. While I can’t magically tell you that it will help you out, I can honestly tell you that it works for me, AT MY CURRENT AGE. Success is never a 100% guarantee, BUT if your issue is indeed T-level related, this certainly isn’t a bad option to attempt in my opinion.
S
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
[quote]buzza wrote:
Magic Stu,
you look great,very nice (fore)arms&delts!
pls, put some video ofyour back,
do you always use that ROM when you do V handle pulldow and why?
thanx as usual
Mike [/quote]
Something I came to realize, and focus on more and more as I started competing, is how to really target my lats when doing pulldowns or pullups. You’ll notice that in addition to sitting upright (none of that leaning back stuff), I keep my elbows fairly close together throughout the motion, as well as pausing (stopping) when the handle reaches directly in front of my face. This not only keep the stress on the lats (when your elbows start moving away from each other, or if you start leaning back, the stress will shift to your mid back muscles), but minimize bicep involvement, which becomes a limiting factor on a lot of newer trainer’s back development.
S[/quote]
as usual, very teeknikal&exhaustive,thanx!
Mike