Improved Appearance Contest

Hello T-Mag Readers,

I?ve been lifting on and off for the past year and prior to that I was lifting continuous for a few years straight. So a few friends and me decided to have a small contest to spur our lifting habits and to continue with them. The deal is a 2 month long contest that starts on Nov 1 and end in the first weekend of January. It involves the most improved in physical appearance and in strength. The winner gets 50 bucks from each contestant (5 or 6 people). The loser or who is decided to have the worst performance is required to wear a Speedo of the winner?s choosing at a beach in the summer. So as you can see I have no interest in loosing to these guys in anyway. I don?t want to wear a Speedo at a beach but I would love to pass that priviledge to them.

So I have 2 months to get into ?better? shape. I?m 6? tall and weigh 215 lbs with around 18% body fat. My opponents are all shorter than me and lighter then me by about 50+ lbs. If one other person joins this rat race, then I will have some closer to my height and weight range but pretty much everyone else is lighter than me. So there strategy most likely will be to gain weight and size more than to cut.

I don?t know what would be my best plan, so that?s why I came to you guys for advice. I hope you could critique my overall plan and maybe provide me some tips. My plan since I have 2 months to get into ?better? shape so I figure 1 month of bulking and then 1 month of cutting. For the cutting phase I will try the velocity diet during the bulking phase will just keep it to clean eating and keep my calorie count between 2250 to 2750 calories a day. For training, I will stick to compound exercises so 3x3 program or Westside. Cardio will be everyday during the bulking and cutting phase. But during the bulking phase it will be under 30 minutes (jumping rope and rowing). During the cutting phase, cardio would increase to 1 hour and include mostly treadmill and rowing. I would also include GGP but not to sure if that?s for the bulking phase (in place of some cardio) or during the cutting phase.

What do you guys think? Does that sound like a sensible plan or not? Should I even try a bulking phase or go straight to a cutting phase? Thanks again for any advice.

who reads T-Nation around here!?

Dude, you weigh 215 at 18% BF… YOU DON’T NEED TO BULK!

Now that we got that out of the way, good luck with the V diet, never done it myself, but it sounds really tough to comit to… Think you got what it takes? If you make it through the V diet and keep lifting during that time, I have no doubt that you can win.

Good luck.

KCB.

[quote]KCB wrote:
who reads T-Nation around here!?[/quote]

HeHeHe

One month of bulking followed by one month of cutting?

My head hurts.

Seriously though, who is doing the judging? Most improved appearance is rather arbitrary, isn’t it? I would just bribe the judge if I were you.

in your position it would focus on fat loss. in 2 months losing fat will make you look better then the other guys gaining muscle.

i would go about this with as many intense fully body sessions a week as your body will allow. days where you are too sore do some light cardio.

for diet, eat clean, and aim to lose 1 pound a week. if you do this correctly you will go from 18% to around 14% without any muscle loss.

good luck!

Yeah true Ive been thinking it over and I would be best off with loosing weight for the 2 months then trying to bulk up. It wasn’t as much bulking up as keeping my weight steady so I could focus on building strength. Some of the rules have changed, which give me a slight advantage. After pointing a few disadvantages, we agreed to have some physical strength contests too. Greatest Bench to BW ratio and Deadlift to BW ratio. So its not all appearance, its also strength. None of them know what a deadlift really is =).

The contest is really to spur on lifting in all of us.

But thanks for the advice guys.