16 Weeks Out from First Show

Side tri, second try !

rear double bi …


abs n’ thighs


front lats

What are your macros at now

190c / 220p / 50f … high carb day once a week - 300g

current weight bounces between 76.5kg and 77kg

I want a body like this one…

In… how tall are you?

6ft exactly

Even coming in slow, I doubt you need 16 weeks. Looking very good in terms of conditioning. At 77kg now (169 lbs for those of you scratching your heads), with your frame, you really don’t wanna risk any loss of lbm in the process.

When I competed in 2011, there was a 6’ tall competitor in my class. He was diced, but standing next to my 5’8, half a lb under the weight class cut off physique (175.4 lbs), it didn’t do him any favors.

Looking good! I’m following along.

S

[quote]The Mighty Stu wrote:
Even coming in slow, I doubt you need 16 weeks. Looking very good in terms of conditioning. At 77kg now (169 lbs for those of you scratching your heads), with your frame, you really don’t wanna risk any loss of lbm in the process.

When I competed in 2011, there was a 6’ tall competitor in my class. He was diced, but standing next to my 5’8, half a lb under the weight class cut off physique (175.4 lbs), it didn’t do him any favors.

Looking good! I’m following along.

S
[/quote]

Thanks very much for your feedback Stu… yeah its been a little different this preparation to the first one a couple of years ago … The coach I’m working with for this one is really big on coming in super lean, basically because he knows that’s our best way of competing against the bigger guys who flaunt the rules of natural bodybuilding - and lets face it, they’re out there in numbers.

So we kicked off this cut mid-October last year to give it about 30 weeks and be ready well in advance … Cardio has slowly been increased and I’ve only dropped 10g of carbs / day from my original starting macros … I know he was very pleased with where I was at when we caught up last weekend for posing practise (the last batch of photos were taken there) … my weight has pretty much much plateaued at 76.5 at this current level of activity & food intake so there might be one more slight drop in carbs from here on in just really sharpen things up.

End of the day Stu, I know I’m very much a small timer even in the smallest levels of natural competition… it’s the personal battle & the sacrifice / grind and knowing you’re pushing yourself to places where the average gym rat dare not dream that does it for me … And the other great thing is that I’m now 4.5kg heavier than when I competed in 2012 but I’m just as lean if not a shade leaner right now… its a relatively modest return on investment for two and a bit years of training but when you’re drug free and juggling career, family, other interests ect ect, it feels nice just to carve out some improvements

Hey, sometimes weight will plateau but body comp can still improve from day to day. Obviously with time on your side, you’re not going to have to do much more in terms of really dropping #s, and if your conditioning continues to improve, you’ll be able to start bumping up and building some serious momentum actually going in to the show.

I’ve got a guy I’m working with now, and he’s 6 weeks out of his warmup show, and about 16 weeks out of his real target. He’s maybe around 5’6, and already down around `159 lbs, with serrated and vascular obliques. So while we’re gonna have to play a few games getting his lower half to match his upper, it will no doubt be a series of very small visual changes, with little (if any) drops in scale weight. Similar to what I’m guessing you will end up doing, I already know we’re gonna be feeding him up going into the second show.

Of course this is never a bad thing! Just ask anyone who as suffered horribly to duck under that weight class cut off -lol.

And yeah, I know how tough it is fitting “this” in with real life. I used to tell my wife all the time that there was no way I could continue to improve and do well if she didn’t support all the stuff that went along with it (“do you really need so many containers of protein powder?!”)

S

Stu, do you tinker at all with training volume / frequency / intensity as you get deeper into a cut (and the mental & physical fog gets thicker) ?

[quote]Ghost_Panther wrote:
Stu, do you tinker at all with training volume / frequency / intensity as you get deeper into a cut (and the mental & physical fog gets thicker) ?

[/quote]

I never really adjusted volume in terms of how much I would do each training session, but with frequency, I would schedule days just for cardio work. This would obviously alter my usual split rotation by extending it 2 days (so a 6 day rotation instead of my usual 4).

Intensity was always something during prep as well as off season that I would play by ear. Some days you just feel like you’ve got a little less gas in the tank, so pushing just seemed counterproductive. Other days, you felt like you could take on the world, so you hit the iron accordingly. It wasn’t something consciously planned out though. IMO the role of weight training during preps is to hang on to muscle, and while it is possible (to some degree) to make gains, pushing too hard can contribute to recovery as well as muscle retention issues.

Something else I know I’ve mentioned in past contest threads, was that as I would get further into preps, although I would have some ‘fog’ between sets, maybe during the day as I went about my 9-5 job, my strength during actual sets at the gym was never an issue. I truly think my being able to stay with the usual heavy weight work was a big help in not losing muscle en route to the stage.

S


Haven’t updated this for a while … four weeks out from first comp (doing three in total, finished by June 16) … chipping away, getting leaner

looks like a re-size of these pics was in order !

Current macros: 225p / 160c / 50f

current weight bounces between 74.5kg & 75.5kg (depending on water ect)


side tri

FWIW, some photos from today - two weeks out.


macros still at 220p / 160c / 50f