No real plans, but I’m curious what some of the experienced guys think. I can provide better/more pictures if y’all want. I don’t really know how to pose though. I’ll definitely get a few leg pictures up. And back.
Soooo… what do y’all think? What are my weak points? I will get those leg pictures up, but as a lot of you guys know, legs are a strong point for me, particularly quads.
And how far in advance should I expect to have to start working towards a show if I decided to do one? I don’t really have a good feel for this. I think I’m pretty lean now, but I see guys start prep like 16-20 weeks out of a show regularly. IDK.
Gotta take some first. I always do the selfie thing. I need to get someone else to take the back shots. If I get to the gym tonight I’ll make it happen.
Definitely lean for a starting point. Obviously if you continue, you’ll see the “really cool stuff” when you hit mandatory poses… Upper chest attachments and fibers, deeper abdominals, radiobrachialis in your upper arm… All attainable IMO without losing any LBM in about 8-12 weeks of slow intelligent work.
(Didn’t see the leg pics, so that may alter my guesstimate a bit. Usually getting the real deep grooves in the upper quads and hammies can take longer than dialing in the upper body.)
I should add that my personal life is not conducive to starting a show prep right now. It would be at least several months down the line. I’m just kinda feeling things out right now.
Do it flip! You’ve got a lot of muscle man, shoulders are stand outs already. I bet shredded down you’d be a beast. I’m certainly no expert, but based on my very recent experience I’d recommend a long prep for the first one, because:
-Whatever your best guess is to your stage weight, you’ll probably have to lose more than you think.
-Best to go slow and steady at least for the first one while you figure out how your body responds to different macro breakdowns and other factors, and potential stall outs as it’ll give you time to make changes and keep making progress. Then if you do future shows you’ll have good data to pull from.
It could be a great advantage if you’re thinking about doing one later down the line, as it would give you time to experiment with your nutrition and hit the ground running.
That’s a good way to look at it. I’ve never actually tracked my macros to this point. Only tracked protein loosely, and added junk food in when I’m trying to push strength/weight up, lol. I think I should start logging macros to really get a feel for what I’m eating.
Alright guys… I got to the gym late the other night and didn’t have anyone to help me take pictures. So they’re kinda meh. This was after a leg workout.
Looking good man, you’ve got a lot of mass all around! Again I’m no expert by any means, but just my thoughts you’re in a good place to start a prep.
As you continue to plan to possibly do a show, tracking macros is a great idea so you can start making progress right away when you begin to cut. Maybe start by taking your best guess of what you’re eating, or should be eating for maintenance, and start there. Be very consistent for a few weeks, take pics once a week in the same poses (learning mandatories would be really helpful here), see how your body looks and check the scale. Then you can keep tweaking, so once you start your prep you’ll know what to do to start cutting right away.
Just a comparison, before I started my first prep back in January with Stu, he put me on a meal plan in October so we could try to gain a little mass and bring up some weak points before we started cutting, but also to figure out what my maintenance really was. Up until that point I tracked loosely but never was super consistent, eating the same macros for the day as prescribed without any deviation. We did that for a few months, and it was very helpful and informative. Once we started cutting in January, we were able to see movement pretty quickly as we already knew where to start.
