Had some great workouts the past couple of days, strength has been way up! It feels so good to be enjoying training again, and having gas in the tank to really kill it. I trained every day this week in the gym except for one off day on Wednesday, did a few LISS cardio sessions, good opportunity to get ready to change programs and make use of all the extra food I’ve been eating. It’s not a ton, but the body is so sensitive after a contest prep. I haven’t been super prep strict this week, but I haven’t binged, and am just eating larger quantities of healthy food, with some halo top every now and then of course, keeping calories at 2000-2100 depending on the day. I think it’s important to let your body start recovering post contest and get more food in there, some people take a week or so off the gym after a show. There are certainly benefits to that, but in my opinion adding more food plus stopping training will potentially add more fat than keeping the training up, for me it definitely will.
Weight/bloating is going down, down 3lbs from yesterday, abs are reappearing again and looking/feeling leaner. I’m anticipating another week maybe before it’s all out, I’m hoping to settle around 145-146 by next weekend. I’m thinking that 155 would be my ideal maintanence, but I definitely want to add some size slowly and steadily. So, if I get to 160 that’d be fine, but I may pull back to 155-156 if I get that high.
Where do you fall in terms of meal frequency or duration between meals? Do you not have any qualms so long as at the end of the day the macros are hit or do you split your meals up into 6 small ones or eat every x hours?
@pitbull97 - I hope all is well with you man! Regarding your question, I think the “get all your macros by end of the day” is most important, but is very basic, and there are definitely advantages to finding the best meal/nutrient timing that works for you, your schedule, metabolism, etc.
“All your macros by end of the day” I think does have some flaws. For example, I don’t think it would be optimal to have one or two big meals a day, as your body probably wouldn’t be processing everything most efficiently. I think the whole “30g of protein at once” isn’t accurate and you can handle more, but IMO 5-6 feedings of 30-40g protein per day is far superior to two feedings of 80-100g protein per day for satiety, and muscle repair/growth.
Ultimately, I think splitting up your macros into 5-6 meals is ideal, because it allows a steady supply of energy to your brain, body and muscle repair/growth and allows you to eat roughly every 3 hours or so. How often you eat is up to you and depends on what works best for your schedule and body. Personally eating every 3 hours for me works well, I can stretch it to 4 if I have a big meal.
If eating 3 or 4 meals a day works for you, there’s certainly nothing wrong with that and ultimately won’t make much a difference in body composition compared to 5 or 6 meals. But, you may find you function better on more frequent smaller feedings, or larger, less frequent feedings. For me personally, in the prep season I like 6 meals. Off season I can swing 5 meals because they’re bigger as I have more cals to play with, but personally I need a least 5 meals a day, 6 is my sweet spot.
Hoe this helps man please let me know if I can elaborate further!
It’s amazing how quickly strength starts coming back in the gym. This week I’ve had great workouts, yesterday I was setting PR’s on chest with incline DB press and flat plate loaded press. Typically I DB incline press between 90’s and 105’s for my working sets. By the end of the prep two weeks ago I was incline pressing 75’s, sometimes 80’s, because the strength and energy just wasn’t there. Strength was solid through most of the prep but the last few weeks when body fat, carbs and cals got very low, it took a dive. No glycogen, totally running on fumes. Yesterday I did 5 working sets, and was able to get my last 3 sets of 8 with 100’s and it felt great. It’s just awesome to be back in the gym, enjoying training, feeling the pump again and like I can move some serious weight, with plenty of gas in the tank.
For this week I’ve settled on 2,000 cals a day split up between 6 meals, and it really feels like a feast compared to what I was doing. Carbs are at 160. Here’s my typical daily menu:
1. Egg whites, bacon, veggies, 2 pieces of Dave’s Killer Powerseed Toast with fat free cream cheese and sugar free jelly
2. Bowl of hot ezekiel cereal, either with some peanut butter and cottage cheese, or a chicken sausage
3. Big ass turkey salad
4. Pre workout meal - the oatmeal cake I posted earlier, consisting of oats, Metabolic Drive protein, nut butter, little baking soda and some egg white, usually topped with sugar free jelly. So good, filling, and fuels me up right. If the schedule requires something quicker, Finibars!
5. Meat and veggies with 1/2 cup brown rice
6. Protein muffin - 2TBSP almond butter, 1 scoop Metabolic Drive protein, plus 4 Flameout
Takes me to 2000 cals, 194p, 160c and 55f
Last off season I was able to make my way up to 2,400 cals and about 300g carbs a day while maintaining weight and abs, so I’d like to make my way back up there. For now, it’s a slow and steady ride there, but I already feel SO MUCH better, I don’t mind waiting, and getting there too quickly would add way too much fat at this point.
Mentally still slowly getting back to normal, but much better physically, and it just feels great to be feeling more “alive” again, have more emotions and not be so dulled, and enjoying not obsessing about prepping. Prepping for a show really does take over your life, and your brain. Especially as the show gets closer, it’s all you think about. So, it’s nice to be able to focus mentally on my wife, my pups, my family, my career and just enjoying life. Last year as soon as I stepped off stage I knew I was competing again this year. It was well worth it to have such an intense and regulated off season, my 2017 was much more productive, efficient and rewarding because of it. Currently, while I’m not sure if/when I’ll compete again, I do know it won’t be for at least a couple of years, just feels good to not be worrying about it, eating healthy, training hard and staying lean because I enjoy it, rather than feeling any sense of obligation.
I just wanna chime in that some people are much more subjective to fluctuations in blood sugar levels. If I don’t eat frequently, I can actually get a bit woozy and downright irritable as a result. Now realize that all the available science (as limited as it is mind you) points to there being no real difference in terms of meal #s or timing (“don’t eat before bed or you’ll get fat!”), BUT in the real world, you will notice how such approaches can affect you quite noticeably.
First off, congrats on the show. You were ridiculous looking. What are the dumbell /barbell movements you feel do the job of best building the targeted muscle? All I have are dumbbells/barbells and I’m curious what I might have overlooked, or am possibly performing incorrectly. Thanks in advance.
In your opinion, what is your best/ favorites splits to add size ?
How frequency influence your progress ? (mainly on off season)
Do you prefer standards BB programs or stuff like PPL and high frequency?
Thanks for sharing all of this man
@eric_reichelt and @humblelifter thanks for posting guys! I’m sorry I haven’t had time to respond yet, I want to make sure I give thorough enough answers and I’ve been crazy busy catching up on my music. Just wanted to let you know I saw your posts and will get back to you ASAP!
@eric_reichelt thank you very much man! Regarding your question on dumbbell/barbell, happy to offer my input. Personally I don’t use a barbell anymore for anything other than squatting, and sometimes rack pulls. I used to do a lot of barbell military pressing and benching, and eventually starting experiencing some shoulder impingement pain and finger numbness. So, I stopped there, and moved to dumbbells for all of my free weight movements. I like dumbbells better because:
-Works limbs individually, harder for one side to take over.
-The hands aren’t in a fixed position like they are on a barbell, so you can really manipulate the movement to make sure you’re contracting your muscles and getting a good MMC. For example on barbell bench, as you push up you can’t really contract your pecs at the top, versus if I’m using dumbbells or a hammerstrength type machine, the hands will come closer together at the top, getting a better squeeze and pump in the pecs. I think for developing a muscle for bodybuilding purposes, dumbbells are a better tool than barbell. Not like you can’t build muscle using a barbell, I just think dumbbells have advantages.
Alright, now that’s out of the way, if you’re limited to barbells and dumbbells, hopefully you have a bench also? I’ll list some exercises I like using that equipment that I feel does a good job developing the targeted muscle, there are of course others but I’ll list my preferences. Also, keep in mind what will ultimately determine if you’ll build muscle with these exercises or not will be your execution of them, maintaining a good MMC, training with intensity and supporting your growth with optimal nutrition and recovery.
Chest - on pressing movements I typically stop just before lockout and maintain a brief pause and squeeze, making sure I’m keeping the tension in my pecs. If you lock the arms out straight at the top tension will transfer more to elbows and shoulders, and you won’t be maximizing TUT for your pecs.
-Incline barbell or dumbbell presses
-Flat barbell or dumbbell presses
-power flyes (I personally don’t like doing full extended arm flyes with dumbbells, I’ll do them with cables though.)
-floor press
Back
-barbell rows, I usually alternate pronated and supinated each session- really make sure to initiate the movement with the back and not the arms
-1 arm dumbbell rows
-chest supported dumbbell rows
-rack pulls
Shoulders
-Seated dumbbell press
-dumbbell clean and press
-upright rows
-front raises - alternate hands pronated and neutral position
-lateral raises
-leaning 1 arm lateral raises
-bent over rear lat raises
-6 point raises for a finisher
Biceps
-barbell curls - can play with hand width, like hands in front of shoulders, or wider grip
-dumbbell curls
-concentration curls
-seated incline dumbbell curls
-seated top half barbell curls - sit on the edge of the bench with a barbell resting on your lap with arms at 90 degrees, and perform the top half of a curl with a big squeeze. Come down, lightly rest the barbell on the lap, and repeat.
-reverse curls
-hammer curls
-cross body curls
Legs
-barbell squats
-lunge variations - forward, back, side, walking lunges with barbell overhead, on your back, or dumbbells in your hands
-bulgarian split squat
Again, these are just my favorites. Hope this helps!
@humblelifter - thanks for posting! If the main goal is to add size, I like a 5 day split, with 2 off days for recovery/growth. It’s extremely important to give ample enough recovery time in a growth phase, because that’s when the body grows! Any way you like to split up the muscles are fine, you could do something like:
Chest
Back
Off
Delts, abs and calves
Legs
Arms
Off
or if you have a specific area you’re trying to bring up, you could alter the split to train twice. For me it was arms all year, I’ve been training them twice a week for a year, so you could do something like:
Chest and triceps
Back and biceps
off
Delts, abs and calves
Legs
Arms
Off
But again for adding size definitely a 4 or 5 day split, 5 is my preference.
I think if you’re trying to bring up a muscle group or groups, raising frequency is a great way to do it. Right from the beginning of my last off season in June, I started training shoulders and arms, and also back, twice a week and did that for 5 months, and once my prep started I continued training arms twice a week. I saw significant improvements in my back, shoulders, and arms in that time, and continued through my prep. So, I think raising frequency for a specific goal can be very beneficial. More isn’t always better, you still need to allow enough time for recovery. So, if you do train a muscle group directly twice in one week, ideally they’d be 3 or so days apart.
It’s also important to adjust your volume of each session, remembering the point of training is to recover from training which is when the growth happens. So, if you’re training back or shoulders twice a week, you can’t train them each session like you’re only training them once a week, with a lot of volume and potentially going to fail. So, if you’d normally have 15 working sets in a shoulder workout once a week, then maybe do 10-12 sets at most during the double sessions, totaling 20-24 sets. IMO increasing volume somewhat is a good thing and can lead to more growth, but if it’s too much to optimally recover from, you won’t see the benefits of the raised frequency.
For me this initially took some adjusting of my training intensity, because especially if you’ve been training long enough, sure you could go into the gym and work shoulders for two hours and still be able to move some weight around. But, the key is to know how much you need to do, execute with everything you’ve got, maximum intensity with great MMC, and then focus on nutrition and recovery. [quote=“humblelifter, post:628, topic:224871”]
Do you prefer standards BB programs or stuff like PPL and high frequency?
[/quote]
Personally I prefer a standard bodybuilding template, because it just works, provided you are training consistently and know how to train. By “know how to train”, I mean establishing a great MMC, really working the contracted muscle and actively improving, rather than just moving weight around. I am in no way discrediting other types of programs, I just like a regular bodybuilding split, modified as needed.
If I want to work on a specific muscle group, I’ll adjust the split or frequency of my training, go to a 6 day split, or 7 for a few weeks, etc. It’s important to make adjustments in phases and programming to make sure you keep progressing. For example during my prep I trained every day, and towards the last 4 weeks had to go down in weights because strength/energy was diving. Now prep is done, so now I’m moving to a 5 day split for more recovery, focusing on heavier weights, lots of 5x5 to start my sessions and keeping everything 8-10 reps at most for a little while. After 6-8 weeks of that I’ll make more adjustments to ensure progress, they might be changes in exercises, sequencing, rep ranges, frequency of different muscle groups, etc.
Hope this helps man, anything else I can blab about for a while please let me know!
Beginning the third week post contest, really feeling better and enjoying living normally, and having time to catch up on my writing. Weight has been hovering around 153-155 depending on the day, which is fine. I’m still looking lean enough for my liking, strength is WAY up, and I feel great. I’m going to keep my weight capped at 155, so if it starts going over that I may need to pull back a little, but so far so good. I’ve been eating about 2,100 cals a day with about 200g carbs, no cardio.
A couple days ago was my second leg session after the show, strength is coming back quickly with the squatting.
-245x10, 265x10, 285x10, 300x10, 315x10.
Felt pretty wrecked for a couple days, but that usually happens after a show when I haven’t trained legs for a couple weeks directly and I get back into it.
Since the show I’ve been focusing on my writing and and have had marathon days in my office every day. It’s crazy to go from prepping with being in the gym for two hours between weights and cardio, and cardio in the morning, to go from sitting in my office for 9-10 hours straight writing music all day every day. I get some walks in when I can, but this time of year is so busy that some days I just have to keep going and not stop for anything. The last few weeks of my prep were completely worthless writing wise, so I’m playing catch up pretty hard right now.
That being said, last week I finished an entire production in 6 days, something that usually takes me at least 2-3 weeks minimum. So, we celebrated last night. I found this recipe on my Facebook feed from Biotest, and at that moment, I knew what we were eating for dinner.
That’s exactly what we made, with some halo top. Brownies consisted of organic pumpkin, Metabolic Drive chocolate protein, 2 eggs, organic cocoa powder, stevia and baking soda. What a fantastic dinner!
A couple of crushed pretzels and a handful of sprinkles to top it off. Sharing the entire brownie pan and a halo top only came out to about 550-600cal meal, all protein and fibrous carbs, with a small amount of sugar from the halo top.
I’m expecting the pro-shots from the show and photo shoot over the next couple days, so I’ll post some of those up, wrap up this thread, and start an off season training/Q&A thread later this week.
Great back session yesterday, strength and performance feeling better every day. It’s very enjoyable to be able to train hard again, and also not do cardio after the weights. I’ve settled on a 5 day split the past couple weeks and will follow this for the next 4 or so weeks, nothing special.
MON - Chest
TUE - Back
WED - Delts
TH - OFF
FR - Legs
SAT - Arms
SUN - OFF
I’m doing some 5x5 to start off some sessions, keeping everything 8-10 reps throughout the entire workout, a great change from the last part of the prep when energy is low and strength isn’t optimal. I still went as hard as possible, but on 30g direct carbs a day there’s only so much gas in the tank, it feels great to be able to go hard and heavy again, and eat up afterwards.
I believe the key to staying lean year 'round while being able to enjoy yourself is to construct a maintenance plan that you really enjoy, and won’t feel the need to stray from. That way, when the situation arises that you do want to have something you normally wouldn’t, it’s no big deal. The past few days I’ve been able to squeak up to 2,200 cals a day at 230g carbs, and weight has gone down to 152. The key for me is to not snack on extra Halo Top in the evenings So, I’ve put together a good maintenance plan that allows me to “plug and play” various protein and carb sources. I calculated a day’s worth of eating on this plan, so I know that whatever carb/food choices I plug in, I’ll wind up roughly with the same totals at the end of the day.
Doing 5 meals a day now that they’re bigger, and 5 meals allows me to keep them nice and big, feeling full and satisfied.
1. 1 Cup egg whites, veggies, 60g carbs
-Carbs typically come from various “Dave’s Killer Bread” (they have a ton and they’re all good), pancakes, fruit (bananas, apples, mango), or sweet potato noodles. Every morning I pick how I want to have my 60g carbs, so I enjoy the variety.
2. 3 eggs and a chicken sausage big ass salad
-My only meal without carbs, good way to get the good fats in, stay full and eat a big meal
3. Pre workout meal I’ll change this up daily also and rotate between:
-Oatmeal pre-workout cake
-Cream of rice pre-workout cake
-2 Finibars
-A bagel with peanut butter and protein icing - today I have a pretzel bagel on tap, never had one before!
4. Dinner - 40g protein, 60-80g carbs depending on the day
-Chicken thighs, steak, etc.
-Rice, potato, rice pasta, brown rice tortilla
5. Shake
-This is my favorite pre-bed meal, I call it “blueberry ice cream”
-4oz cottage cheese
-1.5 scoops Metabolic Drive chocolate
-1 cup frozen blueberries
-1 stevia packet
THEN
-Top with 1oz crushed almonds
On back or legs days I’ll eat a little more carbs.
So, I’ve put together a good maintenance plan that allows me to “plug and play” various protein and carb sources. I calculated a day’s worth of eating on this plan, so I know that whatever carb/food choices I plug in, I’ll wind up roughly with the same totals at the end of the day.