Stu, from how you describe GHB, im assuming its essentially a Glute Ham raise. Im curious as to why you do it on a Lat pulldown rather than a lower back extension machine. Is it just easier to add weight to the exercise? Lol Id like to bring my hams up and if this GHB is >> my Glute ham raise, then ill definitely toss it into my arsenal, though i am rather skeptical about fitting my knees on the seat lol
[quote]Akuma01 wrote:
Stu, from how you describe GHB, im assuming its essentially a Glute Ham raise. Im curious as to why you do it on a Lat pulldown rather than a lower back extension machine. Is it just easier to add weight to the exercise? Lol Id like to bring my hams up and if this GHB is >> my Glute ham raise, then ill definitely toss it into my arsenal, though i am rather skeptical about fitting my knees on the seat lol[/quote]
I don’t think I could ever get the same feel in my hams trying to duplicate the motion on a back extension machine. The thing about doing them in the lat Station, is simly that there is nothing really bracing your upper legs, so it really does require the full stress of your hamstrings to bring your own bodyweight back upright.
There is also noticeably no stress on your actual lower back doing them this way, whereas I imagine that no matter how much you may try to isolate just your hams on a back extension machine, your back will still end up with a good degree of stress (while the hams will not get as much as you really want them to).
Admitedly it is awkward on the knees, and it did take me a good amount of time to get almost-comfortable doing these (it’s never gonna be 100% comfy, just deal with it -lol). The bottom line though is that you will seriously feel these, and in most cases, it’s the mroe difficult, or just more painful exercises that yield the most results a little meathead mindset, but it works for me 
S
ugh, imma have to go look like a putz in the gym and try these now, DAMNIT STU!
Hey, someone has to do the difficult stuff. My little mantra has always been “don’t look back tomorrow at today’s workout and know deep down that you copped out, even if only a little”. How many people do you see week after week, month after month, year after year, and they look exactly the same?! Don’t be one of those people, be better!
S
Been enjoying a nice high carb day today (especially nice after yesterday was low). Something I realized about half way into my last prep, was that the extreme difference between your high and low days is what essentially keeps your metabolism speeding along without slowing down too much from the lowered overall cals. As such, I’ve been trying to push my suffering a bit more on the low days.
Even though I planned to keep the cals around 2400, I’ve been closer to 2200 the last week and a half (with about 100g carbs). The high days on the other hand, have been about 3000 cals, with close to 300g of carbs, sometimes requiring me to really force them in even well into the evening. I’m sure most people would look at me force feeding myself carbs and question if my goal is really to lose weight -lol. The fluctuations is what every natty pro I converse with seem to favor, and without a doubt, I believe what allowed me to keep so much lbm last time out.
S
I’m with you on the larger fluctuations, I’m surprised it takes some “forcing” to get 300g down though
Stu, I have a couple questions. Will you do the splits like Thib recomends to for bringing up weaknesses?? Your training split that you are doing now of basically hitting every bodypart once per week because of contest training and limited calories?? I am sure that Thib has a belief that say you don’t want to bring up a bodypart or bodyparts he has a belef in the way to hit them ie… split wise, your opinion??? I could have missed these posts he put up so I figured I’d ask you. I do remember him saying this is for growth, so I figured you should not do this part of hitting bodyparts 3x per week on a contest restricted diet. Thanks… Oh yeah by the way I am not no newbie I have been training 20 years, just kicking some ideas allowed. Anybody can post too… Again thank you.
PUMPED340- Most day’s I don’t have to, but because I’m not on a 7 day split, where the high day comes out on the same day each week, sometimes I can get a little off schedule on weekends. Sleeping a bit later, going to the gym early in the morning instead of my usual 5pm on weekdays, and being with my girl (instead of my work schedule which allows me to eat at specific points in the day) will sometimes throw me a bit. Last high day I suddenly found myself around 6pm, and still needing a ton of carbs. Not knowing what we were going to be doing that evening, I didn’t want to get all my numbers in one, or even a couple of feedings (nothing worse than having already eaten your days’ cals and still having several hours time to go before you can get some sleep).
SRIZ- I totally agree with Christian as far as bringing up weaker areas. I was focusing a lot of my outer quad sweep as well as my chest thickness this past year, and I really notice a big difference. However, you can only ‘specialize’ for so long, and in my case, as much as you may TRY to make some gains while dieting (it’s the best way to maintain LBM), I believe the real name of the contest prep game is maintaining what you’ve built. The last thing you want to do is have a stronger bodypart lose some ground because not only are you in a caloric deficit, but you decided to train it less frequently so you could try to bring up a lagging part. I know that having 2 days just for my interval work means that I have less days to schedule my actual weight sessions, while not allowing so much time to elapse between specific sessions that I lose ground. Let’s say I try to keep a chest specialization, possibly 3 days of chest, 2 days of cardio, and then still needing another 3 days to get the rest of my body. That gives me an 8 day rotation, meaning that everything aside from my chest will receive direct stimulation every 9th day. That just sounds like a little too much of a time gap for my comfort. Obviously if you don’t have to schedule separate cardio days, and can up, or even keep a maintainence level of cals, it would be a great approach.
S
Stu, do not know if this has been asked but is your in-season training the same as your training during prep? If not what are some of the differences?
Stu,
Do you use the glycemic index when considering carbs you take in per day? For example, oatmeal vs. pasta
Stu, thanks for the reply. I agree with you. Do you think that including more days with weights and doing the cardio on the same days of weights would be ok? One more question, I saw you posted your training split with the exercises. The exercises that you do on that list are they done the perfect rep by 8x3 etc… or are they grinded out with reps of 8-12?? Thanks, and good luck with your training.
XXSeraphimXX- When I’m in ‘off-season’ training, I actually give myself days off from the gym. During my contest split, my ‘off’ days have turned into days when I keep my overall cals lower and make the most of the decreased intake to get my cardio sessions in. I don’t typically do cardio when not dieting.
I know some people say you should do some because it keeps you in ‘better shape’, or that it improves blood flow which will enable more growth, or a whole number of reasons, but the reason I always felt made the most sense, is the one that tells you not to do cardio in the off season: By not being used to the cardio sessions (I use Intervals), it’s much more of a shock to your body, and you can get away with less when you actually do start to incorporate them into your prep. Again, this just makes sense to me, and obviously if I had high blood pressure, or a medical history I’d probably be more concerned with my overall health instead of just being worried about optimal fat loss -lol.
Also, when I’m not dieting, I make use of CT’s approach as far as specialization to bring up lagging bodyparts. This is something I really tried to do this last year, and think my outer quad sweeps will definitely be improved by the time contest day rolls around (the thickness is evident in current pics, hopefully I will be able to retain a lot of the gains as my weight drops).
TOMKADE- I used to worry about the glycemic index insofar as the only time I really allowed myself simple carbs was PWO. What I found to be of much more help when dieting is the ‘satiety index’. Obviously my choices are all complex when dieting (aside from the FINiBARs I take before a session), but my actual choices are made based on how full I will feel after ingesting it.
S
Stu,
I read an old thread of yours when you were talking about supplementing with leucine.
Are you doing that as part of this cut as well?
Do you do it during your bulk phase as well or is it part of your ‘cut stack’ so you minimize muscle loss during your cut.
[quote]sriz wrote:
Stu, thanks for the reply. I agree with you. Do you think that including more days with weights and doing the cardio on the same days of weights would be ok? One more question, I saw you posted your training split with the exercises. The exercises that you do on that list are they done the perfect rep by 8x3 etc… or are they grinded out with reps of 8-12?? Thanks, and good luck with your training. [/quote]
I tried doing a few bouts of cardio after my shorter weight sessions last year, and to be honest, I was just too run down after the weights (and diet) to really give it my all. Once I switched to the seperate days, I just felt that I was getting mroe out of it. Talking to Shaun Clarida (WNBF World Lightweight champ), I found that he uses a similar approach to what I do (low days reserved just for cardio work), so it definitely reinforced my thinking.
Grinding reps are a thing of the past with me. Even when I was less concerned with maintaining acceleration on every rep, I never really tried for more than 1 or 2 of those ‘slower’ repetitions. My reps are usually around 5-6, only allowing them to sometimes go up to 8 when I do preacher curls (I’ve had several arm ‘issues’ so I just feel them a bit better), but still focusing on speedy concentrics.
S
[quote]ridethecliche wrote:
Stu,
I read an old thread of yours when you were talking about supplementing with leucine.
Are you doing that as part of this cut as well?
Do you do it during your bulk phase as well or is it part of your ‘cut stack’ so you minimize muscle loss during your cut.[/quote]
I was a big fan of BCAAs as well as extra Leucine a year ago, and am still should anyone ask me. However, since starting to make use of the Mag-10 throughout the day, I feel that the BCAAs become unneccesary. Basically the Casein Hydrolysate absorbs so quickly that taking extra BCAAs would just be pointless.
If you were to add the extra bit of Leucine to meals (I used to scoop 5g into my morning oatmeal, and then an extra 5g into my pre-bed shake), I don’t imagine it would be a bad thing though. For a few friends of mine who are unable to use the Anaconda/Mag-10, I still recommend the same BCAA + Leucine approach that I feel worked so well for me last year.
S
Ah thanks.
Okay, here we are at 12 weeks out. If I can indeed count on again losing 3-4 lbs from water the last week (carb deplete and load), then my target weight is going to be 178 lbs by the beginning of peak week. That basically gives me the next 11 weeks to lose 18 lbs (about a lb and a half a week). So far the weight loss has been about 2 lbs a week, mostly I imagine due to the shock of a sudden diet, and I imagine things will slow a bit in the weeks to come. I’ve held off on the impending morning cardio, as I really have no reason to try to speed things along at the moment. This is the pitfall for all competitors, wanting to do everything they possibly can at once, and ultimately losing too much size in the process.
Last time Brian Whitacre really impressed upon me the fact that the goal of competition dieting is to maintain your LBM as best you can. Considering that I really didn’t have to add the morning cardio sessions last time until the last 2 - 2.5 weeks, I’m going to hold off as much as I can. The fact that I’ve indeed built a good amount of new muscle mass this past year gives me a higher BMR than last year, so I can actually diet on a higher level of calories than I initially planned. We’ll have to just see how things progress on a weekly basis.
This week I can honestly say that I’m pleased with where I am. With the added upper thigh thickness, thicker lats,and fuller biceps (especially evident in the front double bi), I think I’ve successfully created a better ‘X’ shape, which will hopefully detract from my waist. I knew full well that I couldn’t shave any of my hip bones off, so the only way to remedy the situation was to be thicker this time in the areas that would offset the effect. Last time out I was without a doubt one of the biggest guys in the middleweights. This time I want to be ‘THE’ biggest guy in the class, but with the same crisp conditioning I displayed last time. Hopefully my legs will start tightening a little earlier because that’s what really made me panic in the past.
S
The work you did on the quad’ sweep during the off season is definitely showing through. “X frame” is the right phrase, great work!
LtL
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
[quote]sriz wrote:
Stu, thanks for the reply. I agree with you. Do you think that including more days with weights and doing the cardio on the same days of weights would be ok? One more question, I saw you posted your training split with the exercises. The exercises that you do on that list are they done the perfect rep by 8x3 etc… or are they grinded out with reps of 8-12?? Thanks, and good luck with your training. [/quote]
I tried doing a few bouts of cardio after my shorter weight sessions last year, and to be honest, I was just too run down after the weights (and diet) to really give it my all. Once I switched to the seperate days, I just felt that I was getting mroe out of it. Talking to Shaun Clarida (WNBF World Lightweight champ), I found that he uses a similar approach to what I do (low days reserved just for cardio work), so it definitely reinforced my thinking.
Grinding reps are a thing of the past with me. Even when I was less concerned with maintaining acceleration on every rep, I never really tried for more than 1 or 2 of those ‘slower’ repetitions. My reps are usually around 5-6, only allowing them to sometimes go up to 8 when I do preacher curls (I’ve had several arm ‘issues’ so I just feel them a bit better), but still focusing on speedy concentrics.
S
[/quote]
Thanks for sharing this Stu, really helpful. I’m going to be removing some waist sludge starting next week (wife’s orders) and this gives me a better plan.
Fcking awesome work Stu!!
Will be following your progress VERY closely. I PLAN of competing for my first time this year October. Next few months, I am gearing diet and training MOSTLY toward gaining lean mass and will begin COMP DIET 16 odd weeks out.
Stay strong,
GJ