Awesome stuff! I wish you the best!
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Awesome stuff! I wish you the best![/quote]
Thanks Brick, appreciate the kind words! Don’t go making me look too bad when you get started with your prep 
Not a whole lot to report, so far so good with prep. I do feel I am looking a little leaner and my weight is slightly down, so things seem to be going in the right direction. My training is also going very well. Strength continues to increase; I hit a nice (for me, pressing has never been a strength) volume PR this morning on bench. I did 6 pretty smooth sets of 4, 4, 3, 3, 2, and 2 reps at 250.
Definitely nothing special, but I’m on the right track to hit a 300 bench soon I hope! I’m very happy with how my training with The Strength Guys is going. Two weeks ago I had the same rep scheme on bench at 240 lbs and had to really grind out a few of the reps, so higher quality reps today at 10 lbs heavier feels like good progress. Wit macros being so high for the time being, I’m approaching training hoping to continue to stimulate hypertrophy during prep. I’ll post new pictures on Friday, when I’ll be 18 weeks out. I’m curious to see them side by side with my starting pictures, I think I’ll look a little tighter.
Thanks for following along guys!
Training went very well today. I had heavy squats followed by rack pulls, and was feeling really good on my first couple sets of rack pulls. I decided to improvise on the workout and shoot for a deadlift PR. I ended up pulling 500 lbs, a 25 lb increase from my previous best in a 4 week period! Form definitely got a little sloppy, I need to work on keeping my weight back. I have a hard time trusting myself to stay on my heels, feel like I’m gonna fall haha. I’ll upload the video here in a bit
Here’s a try at uploading my deadlift PR. Bear with me if it doesn’t work, pretty tech challenged here!
I did use straps, planning to start working on deads without straps as after my shows this summer I think I’ll switch my focus for awhile and try to find a pl’ing meet in the fall to compete in. I’ll try to hit this again in the next few weeks with tighter form, but I’m pretty excited about it nonetheless. 500 was a milestone I’ve been shooting for since I started deadlifting, it always seemed pretty unrealistic to me
Nice deadlift!
[quote]timmcbride00 wrote:
Nice deadlift![/quote]
Thanks Tim! Definitely not a smooth pull, and now I’ve got my sights set on 600 haha, but it’s nice to have a lift finally that I’m proud to report my PR on
Here are the pictures I sent Brian with my weekly update this morning. My new macros are 385 c, 85, and 250 p. So a decrease of 15 c and 5 f. Still refeeding twice weekly.
I weighed in at 189.2 this morning.
Here’s a back shot. Sorry for the bad lighting, had an early morning and had to take the pictures in a different spot than I normally will.
Congrats on the PR big guy!
[quote]pwolves17 wrote:
[quote]timmcbride00 wrote:
Nice deadlift![/quote]
Thanks Tim! Definitely not a smooth pull, and now I’ve got my sights set on 600 haha, but it’s nice to have a lift finally that I’m proud to report my PR on[/quote]
Maybe not 100% smooth, but what max deadlift attempt is?
There was no hitching, that was a nice rep, give yourself credit.
[quote]RATTLEHEAD wrote:
Congrats on the PR big guy![/quote]
Thanks Rattle! Just gotta pop in to your log for instant motivation, seems like you’re hitting a PR almost every day!
[quote]timmcbride00 wrote:
[quote]pwolves17 wrote:
[quote]timmcbride00 wrote:
Nice deadlift![/quote]
Thanks Tim! Definitely not a smooth pull, and now I’ve got my sights set on 600 haha, but it’s nice to have a lift finally that I’m proud to report my PR on[/quote]
Maybe not 100% smooth, but what max deadlift attempt is?
There was no hitching, that was a nice rep, give yourself credit.[/quote]
Thanks Tim, I appreciate it
Hey guys, sorry for the lack of updates. I’ve been pretty busy with the spring semester getting underway, not much free time outside of studying, class, work, baseball, training, food prep, and attempting to maintain a social life.
Anyway, things are going well still. I’m inside of 17 weeks out now, and hit a new bw low of 188.2 lbs. My macros on low days are now at 365 c, 80 f, and 250 p. I’m refeeding twice weekly at 560 c, 70 f, and 230 p. I’ll post new pictures on Thursday or Friday this week when I have my next photo check in with Brian Ahlstrom.
Good DL. You’re looking very lean and looking great with such a long way to go until the contest.
Can you elaborate a little on why a refeed is beneficial when you’re already consuming 365g carbs each day? Thanks, man!
[quote]iDrDan wrote:
Good DL. You’re looking very lean and looking great with such a long way to go until the contest.
Can you elaborate a little on why a refeed is beneficial when you’re already consuming 365g carbs each day? Thanks, man![/quote]
Thanks for checking in Dan, and I appreciate the kind words! I haven’t asked Brian many questions about the plan yet, but I definitely will try to understand why we’re doing what we’re doing as the prep progresses. My understanding of the refeeds though is that while I’m certainly not depleted at 365 g carbs a day, I am still in a deficit at these numbers.
I finished my offseason at around 425 g carbs daily, with several free meals each week, and I wouldn’t be surprised if my carb intake was over 800 g on these days. So I think it’s all relative to where a person is at. If someone was at 200 g carbs and dropped lower to start losing fat, they would likely incorporate refeeds. Refeeding even at my current intake will allow me to keep leaning up while eating as much as possible, at least that’s my hope 
Isn’t being able to eat a high amount of carbs great?
[quote]timmcbride00 wrote:
Isn’t being able to eat a high amount of carbs great?
[/quote]
It sure is! Being able to lean up while still eating more food than the average person makes prep so much less stressful. It makes eating meals with friends and family very doable, you can go on a date without having to make it obvious you’re on a “diet,” just makes everyday life much more maintainable when you’re combining high macros with flexible dieting. To be honest, I don’t know how competitors are able to eat 6 or more “clean” meals of traditional bb’ing foods a day. Maybe they’re more disciplined than me, but competing wouldn’t be worth it for me as I wouldn’t be able to keep any semblance of balance in my life
Great progress. I’ll definitely be following since I’m competing in my first show around the same time you are. Good luck!
[quote]yodaddy wrote:
Great progress. I’ll definitely be following since I’m competing in my first show around the same time you are. Good luck![/quote]
Thanks man, it’ll be cool having both of us and Grizzly getting on stage around the same time, great for motivation!