6’1" around 205 pounds. Natural. Want to reach 210-215 lean
Hello :). Is 230ish+ at 6’1" obtainable at like 12-13% bf, without gear? That is my long term goalWhen I was around 18, I was a lean 175 and progressively worked my way up to over 200 pounds. Anyways, I am a natural lifter and I lifted for strength/athleticism from when I was 15-18. I seriously started lifting in a bodybuilding approach around 11 months ago.
Do you all have any contest day advice? How long should I plan my cut? If I wanted to get pretty lean, how much weight would someone in my current shape, have to typically shed off? Around 15-20 pounds? More or less weight? Anyways, I plan on staying natural and I don’t think I ever want to run any gear. How much on measurements would I probably lose, if I wanted to get contest ready?
My current measurements are:
17 inch arms (pumped)
14.5 inch forearms
18.5 inch calves
27 inch quads
46 inch chest
30/31 inch waste (when I was lighter, it was below 30).
Thanks for any information that you all can give provide me with. I have never done a contest before and I was wanting to do one. And I am working on my posing aswell. It’s not the best, but I am watching videos and trying to improve on it. I practice daily now.
I’m kind of surprised no-one replied yet. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about BB but I’ll have a shot at helping.
From what I can see, you’ve got a good physique for your age, so kudos there. At a guess, you’re sitting around 12-15% now. Stage ready I think you’d be weighing between 175 and 185 lbs, just based on getting your bf to around 5%, but you may not need to go that low. Paul Carter has written some pretty good stuff about getting stage ready here and on his own site. Mike Israetel also has some rather good resources.
In terms of your actual physique, I think it looks balanced (remember I’m no expert).
I think in your position what I would do is pick a show nine months to a year away and go for it. If you picked a show a year out, you could see what size you could add in three months (accepting a trifle extra fluff) and then start a slow, controlled cut for six months or so. That could get you to the 10% mark by three months out I guess, so you’d have three months to get really peeled.
I think that’s accurate: 170s to 180s, but these are educated guesses, which I’ve learned is part of the game when starting out for a first show. I am a one-show wonder after all.
Paul Carer has VERY useful diet information for getting shredded. He got shredded to the bone for his only BB show. His skin was like see-through. I don’t know much about Israel’s stuff but he has come into shows very soft, from what I’ve seen.
@Loupel[quote=“Loupel, post:1, topic:224807”]
Is 230ish+ at 6’1" obtainable at like 12-13% bf, without gear?
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Yes, it is. There’s a guy Kurt Weidner, who’s a damn tank and competes at 200 pounds and six feet, if I recall correctly. He’s natural. I am not sure about the body fat percentage but relatively lean that is possible for an offseason weight, though likely not for you right now! But in the future yes! 12% is actually quite lean.
However, FORGET about body fat percentages. No one really knows what the heck they are unless they go for regular checks with underwater weighing or DEXA scans.
I believe for one’s first show they should take a minimum of four months, and more if they are soft. My prep took five and a half months because I started out too soft.
You likely have to lose more than 20 pounds, maybe up to 30 pounds. Yes, it’s severe, but natty BB is severe if you want to come in shredded. See my personal thread on here. I lost 36 pounds!
Forget thinking about measurements and do the appropriate training for your physique, strengths and weaknesses and work on posing. Your overall appearance is what counts and no judge jumps on a stage to check measurements or your weight! They want to see definition and muscle and symmetry–that’s it! It’s the whole package. I beat three much larger men in my show because of my overall package and condition, not because of measurements! If it were measurements that mattered so much, they would have all beat me considering their size.
SMILE in all poses, no matter how uncomfortable you are. You have to look like you don’t want to leave the stage and that you were born to do this!
I sucked at posing at first but finally nailed it. Practice all the mandatories.
You have to flare your traps in a crab pose and bend from the waist less.
Your hiding your physique in the side poses and not sitting on your legs.
Not flexing the quads enough in the abs-leg pose.
There are other flaws in the poses, but you will get the down when showed how it’s done.
Definitely respectable progress at your age. Don’t worry about measurements, aside from simply using them as a gauge of progress if you plan to compete. No one ever gets onstage and measures the competitors’ arms or other muscle groups. THis is why you always hear about the sport being one of Illusion. If you can APPEAR larger, or more tapered, throough conditioning, posing, and even other muscle groups that might surround a lagging one, that’s all anyone can visually assess.
230 at 6’1 is definitely attainable without gear. Doing so in contest condition might be another story. The guy Brick mentioned, Kurt Weidner, is about 6’ and on contest day is about 200 lbs. Now, that’s contest level shredded, not everyday lean. My brother is 6’ and about 225-230 at the moment, and walking around in slacks and a dress shirt, he looks pretty damn imposing. Of course to “don the speedo”, he knows he’d be under 2 bills if he wants to come home with any hardware.
As to contest day advice,… well, I think we’re really putting the horse before the carriage here. As good as as foundation as you do have, getting contest lean, WITHOUT SACRIFICING MUSCLE, is your first order of business before even thinking about carb up strategies, fake tanning products, etc. I will say that most competitors I know (friends, clients, other pros) usually take 16-20 weeks to slowly dial it all in. For your first show, there’s no 100% foolproof way of knowing how much you’ll ultimately weigh, but as I was told during my first prep: “it’s not what you weigh, it’s how you look.”
Well, I think I will take my time and bulk up a bit more before I cut. I will probably add 10-15 pounds and then rethink about when I want to cut down. I want to build more muscle and I feel like if I cut down to 180s or hell even 170s at over 6 feet, I would look thin. I am going to really work on bringing my arms and chest up a bit more as well.
And I feel like I have to say something about my current body fat and how I look on a pump. I feel like I look like a completely different person when I am pumped and people have commented on my 3D look in my chest/arms at the gym. My upper chest and shoulders get striated when I am working them. It makes a huge difference for me. My triceps look way bigger on a pump aswell. Anyways, thought I should throw that out there, because my arms look a bit flat after they have been worked out/are recovering and I looked a bit flat in some of these photos.
