"Thibs,
Do you train alone, are you throwing up 425lbs without a spotter? Very impressive.
Best wishes,
James
Most of the time I train alone, but sometimes I train with one of my client. Which was the case for this workout."
Wow, what a lucky guy/girl. I can’t imagine training with Thib! Hope you’re progressing well.
Good luck with your prep, I hope you do the show, or make the best choice.
-MEYMZ
Today my weight is 222lbs… down roughly 6lbs, mostly because I dropped a lot of water and did two tough sessions yesterday.
Yesterday’s two heavy sessions left me pretty beat up today so I’ll likely do only beach work (arms and abs).
For those of you who like numbers, yesterday my intake was:
Calories: 2887
Fat: 71g
Carbs: 113g
Protein: 420g
The 420g is higher than I had planned mostly because I had two post-workout shakes high in protein. However my fat intake was a bit low, so I’ll probably add 15g of fish oil (I’m at 30g at the moment).
[quote]daffyduck wrote:
Wow, what a lucky guy/girl. I can’t imagine training with Thib! Hope you’re progressing well.[/quote]
Hey, I’m just a normal guy. And to be honest I’m not a lot of fun when I train… I might speak two sentences per hour!
Coach,
Will you be using something like Poliquin’s Lean Legs or will the high fish oil intake sort out any problem areas you might have.
[quote]joseway1979 wrote:
Coach,
Will you be using something like Poliquin’s Lean Legs or will the high fish oil intake sort out any problem areas you might have.[/quote]
I’m already consuming 30-45g of fish oil.
Lean legs only work on the lower body, and my quads/hams have less than 2,5mm of fat and are super veiny year round.
Thib’s
I’m a big fan and I think you and Coach Poliquin are the most knowledgable and dynamic coaches I’ve come across. Thank you for sharing/giving so much to us.
I really hope your final decision is to compete as I think you are your own biggest critic and would like to see you at your best.
I dunno what I did last night but I lost another 3lbs, down to 218… must have carried a lot of water 
BUT I’m actually getting stronger, so I’m not worrying. And I’m starting to look near contest ready… maybe my body has Dexter-like metabolism now!
Anyway, yesterday’s numbers were:
Calories: 3216 (migh have to increase that a bit)
Fat: 70g (despite my efforts to try and increase it… probably due to the fact that I had to replace a beef meal with a shake)
Carbs: 149g
Protein: 383g
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
BUT I’m actually getting stronger, so I’m not worrying. [/quote]
I’m curious about this statement. As in stronger compared to when?
If I’m not mistaken you were able to bench 420lbs+ a few years ago. Might seem like a dumb question but I don’t have years of training behind me to know any better.
Just curious about your carb intake, as ~150 grams seems a bit high for a pre-contest diet. Are most of these coming from your post-workout shakes?
[quote]mabbott29 wrote:
Just curious about your carb intake, as ~150 grams seems a bit high for a pre-contest diet. Are most of these coming from your post-workout shakes?[/quote]
Why is it a bit high? I’m already at 8% BF or less, so I can have more carbs.
150g of carbs per day isn’t much when you train twice a day and walk all day.
Plenty of pros and top amateurs diet with 250g + of carbs.
Heck, my ex-girlfriend dieted at 300g of carbs per day and competed as a completely peeled 126lbs.
Everybody is different and the leaner you are when you start the diet, the more carbs you can have.
I never thought of it that way, thanks for the info. Just another reason for me to get much leaner!
[quote]hardgnr wrote:
Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
BUT I’m actually getting stronger, so I’m not worrying.
I’m curious about this statement. As in stronger compared to when?
If I’m not mistaken you were able to bench 420lbs+ a few years ago. Might seem like a dumb question but I don’t have years of training behind me to know any better.[/quote]
My best bench was 435, which I hit about 6 years ago when I was over 230lbs and training for strength events moreso than shape.
I stopped focusing on strength and went the bodybuilding way and wasn’t able to go above 385 for a long time. Not because my muscles were not as strong, but because the nervous system wasn’t as efficient.
A 425lbs bench is the best I’ve done in 3 months. I’m comparing myself to my pre-diet numbers… it makes no sense to compare myself to what I did years ago. I go with the immediate pre-contest period, since this is when I had the muscle mass I started the diet with. As long as I’m not losing strength compared to that period I’m not losing muscle mass during the diet.
[quote]mabbott29 wrote:
I never thought of it that way, thanks for the info. Just another reason for me to get much leaner![/quote]
The reason is that the leaner you are, the more insulin-sensitive you are. This means that for a given amount of carbs, your body will need to produce less insulin and you will tend to store more of the ingested nutrients in the muscles instead as in body fat stores.
Hey Thibs,
Post some pics…
Very cool following this Thibs, thanks so much for sharing. I’m prepping myself at the moment, and I was a little hesitent to have any carbs at first. After some research I heard, and came to understand how natty BBers need carbs to retain as much lbm as possible. Brian Whitacre actually said the goal was to TRY to retain as many carbs as possible, and make adjustments accordingly as you get closer to the show.
Considering your past diets, and your own insulin sensitivity, do you think youll end up really low towards the end, or will you be able to keep a fairly moderate, maybe 150-200g intake all the way through?
S
[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Very cool following this Thibs, thanks so much for sharing. I’m prepping myself at the moment, and I was a little hesitent to have any carbs at first. After some research I heard, and came to understand how natty BBers need carbs to retain as much lbm as possible. Brian Whitacre actually said the goal was to TRY to retain as many carbs as possible, and make adjustments accordingly as you get closer to the show.
Considering your past diets, and your own insulin sensitivity, do you think youll end up really low towards the end, or will you be able to keep a fairly moderate, maybe 150-200g intake all the way through?
S
[/quote]
I do have a history of poor insulin sensitivity. But by keeping myself at 8% or less year round for the past 3 years (despite periods of fairly high carb intakes) I think that my sensitivity is much better now. I might have to lower carbs a bit as I go along, but I only have around 15 more pounds to lose then dehydration… and I have something like 15 weeks left. So I should be able to keep some carbs in.
[quote]Christian Thibaudeau wrote:
daffyduck wrote:
Wow, what a lucky guy/girl. I can’t imagine training with Thib! Hope you’re progressing well.
Hey, I’m just a normal guy. And to be honest I’m not a lot of fun when I train… I might speak two sentences per hour![/quote]
It’s hard to be much fun when you’re intently focused, so I think there is a lesson to be learned there, even if it seems obvious to most. When you’re training, you have a laser-like focus and concentrate solely on the task at hand. If more people locked in like that, they’d probably see much better results.
Regarding your fish oil intake, have you ever gone above 45 grams/day for a brief period?
Do you find that taking 30-45 grams during a contest prep phase helps make getting contest lean “easier” than it otherwise would be? I ask this, because I’m assuming that at your level of leanness, if fish oil intake were based solely on health/keeping inflammation at bay, then the typical daily intake might be lower than that under other circumstances.
hi Coach,
what are your carb sources?
[quote]totti13 wrote:
hi Coach,
what are your carb sources? [/quote]
SURGE WORKOUT FUEL, SURGE RECOVERY, pineapple, oranges, grapes, yogurt, residual carbs from protein powder.