Teen's Road to Physique Competition

Friday rolls around, the tights come out and that can only mean one thing… leg day! However, these past two weeks have been a battle. Two Friday’s ago, following my leg day I woke up with tremendous pain in my knee, couldn’t squat, lunge, twist, essentially use my left leg, even walking was causing me problems. I would get a clicking on the outer portion of my knee, it was terrible. However, two weeks have gone by and the knee is feeling better, still not 100%, but definitely better. I feel like it is some form of tendonitis, so I will still not be squatting again today. Plan on doing some strength work for my sumo deads, 5x5@315, then some high volume leg extensions. Follow that up with some sldl’s and lying leg curls, hit some calves and will call it a day, going to keep taking it easy on my knee, and hope to get squatting again soon!

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Just a bit of an update. Walking around anywhere from as low as 148-151. Just been plugging away with training. Nutrition has been a little sporadic as I am currently going through pledging here at college so meals aren’t as consistent as they should be.

As always, I am open to any critiques and/or recommendations as to what to do.

Thanks guys!

Cold and rest help with knee pain.

I would suggest you take a look at your technique on lifts that stress the knee joint.

Some other things that may help:

1 You should include a leg curl movement in your program if you don’t have it already.

2 Focus on strengthening your hips (of course if you are a physique guy, upper body is your main focus but hips should be the secondary focal point if you have knee pain)

3 Eliminate all movements that cause pain

wow it has been way to long! What an interesting past couple of months it has been. I have had some of the most crazy experiences of my life this past semester and unfortunately my training has suffered because of it.

When we spoke last I was set on eating at maintenance and following the 4 day split from Dr. Clay Hyght as laid out in his article of the tried and true bodybuilding program template. I was also trying to overcome an apparent knee injury that did not allow me to squat and/or bend my knee past 90 degrees. Now that we have a time frame of remembrance for where we were let me update you all as to what has happened since.

Where to begin, the second semester of school started and with it, rush began. Being within my personality I ended up pledging a fraternity this past semester and oh boy was that something. Sparring the specifics, my training obviously suffered as did my diet. In essence I was on an unstructured training program and with pledging ended up losing roughly 15 pounds, hitting a low of 144.8 at a certain point. Being constantly underfed, aka a caloric deficit and not following a sound program, aka program hopping, my lifts have since plummeted. My deadlift has fallen to roughly 335 conventional and 365 sumo, my bench fell to 195 and obviously i was not squatting due to the knee injury.

As for my knee, its more of a positive spin. As of last week I have actually been squatting my most recent session was today where I hit 225 for 3 sets of 5, pain free.

Now to where I desperately need your help, my goals have not changed in the sense that I want to achieve the men’s physique look and compete in a competition. This was a major set back to that goal. For the past 3 weeks that pledging has ended and having finally crossed I find myself in a bit of a limbo of what to do, almost spinning my wheels in essence. I am basically unsure of what to do right now. I will include a picture of my current physique to aid in possible guidance at the bottom.

For the past 2 weeks roughly, I have been running the barebones starting strength of the following Workout A: squat press deadlift B: squat bench deadlift, in an effort to bring my lifts back up. However, like I mentioned above I am looking for guidance, with my goal in mind as what to do.

As for my diet these past three weeks, I am struggling. For some reason I have been binging at night, just gorging on tons and tons of food. Ill be fine during the day and then at night all hell breaks loose. my goal macros have been set at maintenance for the moment at 2400 cals, 140g of protein, 305g of carbs and 70g of fat. But again any recommendations as for what to do nutritionally are also wanted.

For some reason I feel like I am back at square one and just really need a push in the right direction of what to do right now. My current stats, still 5’6" still 19 and am 150 pounds with the physique to follow.

Thank you all!

Physique: https://i.redd.it/720ti2ek3tty.jpg

@robstein @IronAndMetal @Aragorn

I’ve thought about how to respond to this for a few hours now (I’m at work, so it’s not like I sat and dwelt on it forever…), and I’d like to pose a question before I respond fully. Before the question, I’ll throw some context for the question at you.

I remember college. College was fucking awesome. I went to a party school and I PARTIED, and I chased a lot of girls and got a lot of girls. I traveled in a rock band in college, and I was broke as shit all the time. What that amounted to was this: I didn’t have the time or cash to devote to ‘proper’ nutrition or ‘proper’/‘consistent’ training, let alone a contest prep. But I trained when I could.

Training was a way to hang with the guys in the beginning. It was just fun and I didn’t really see any ‘gains’. After a couple years, once the rock band settled down and I was on campus consistently, and I decided to stop smoking is when the gains started to come.

Touring in that band dropped my body weight to 112 pounds ( pretty low weight at 5’10") because all my money went to gas, cigarettes, music gear, and hotel fees. We were lucky to eat one meal a day and get some free drinks at the bar we played. But in two years of training and eating, I jumped up to 165. I wasn’t cut up and aesthetic, let alone stage ready, but I gained a lot of muscle mass, overall size, and strength.

I’ll stop my rant there and just ask this one question now: How do you want to experience college? When, in your mind, will you compete (a year, two years, after college)? The answers to those questions will definitely frame my answer for you.

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Why did you create another username and post another thread 5hrs ago?

Do you feel that the actual smoking restricted your gains, or simply this is when you made the ‘switch’ from an unhealthy lifestyle to one more geared towards making progression in size/strength?

I’m just curious, as you have surprised me with interesting facts on more than one occasion.

wow, I never truly thought about it, to be honest, but to answer your question I’ll start with I guess my own little anecdote to put some perspective on my final answer.

So my training background, in terms of lifting weights, has primarily been for the acquisition of strength to aid, in at the time, my sport, which was wrestling. The only program I ran with true consistency was stronglifts 5x5 and the powerliftingtowin novice program. Essentially I trained for strength and nothing else. During this time I also read everything I could get my hands on in regards to training and nutrition and developed a decent knowledge base of the basics when it came to the above topics. My junior and senior year of high school I tracked my macros in the offseason and lifted with a linear progression program, like the ones mentioned above. When the season came I would do what I had to do to make weight and then would essentially “reset” when the season ended in terms of my strength.
I was recruited to wrestle at Rutgers University coming out of high school and for the first three months of this past year, school-wise, that is what I was doing, wrestling and school. Staying small and lean for wrestling. However, I developed some unhealthy habits with food as the struggle to make weight is taxing and mentally started to get into a bad place as making weight took over my life. With that, I went to my parents and we all felt it was in my best interests to no longer pursue my career in wrestling due to the unhealthy relationship with food that it created.

With this, I was “free” to train however I wanted, I no longer needed to keep my weight low and just focus on getting strong I could try and build my physique to my goal, which is still that men’s physique look. This is where the downward spiral began. I had only ever known how to train for strength, which is where the origination of this thread came from, I wanted, for the first time, to train to look good, to train for aesthetics, to train for physique rather than sports performance.

You and rob were kind enough to guide me along and suggested the bodybuilding split by clay hyght and that I eat at maintenance macros and see where that would take me. You guys answered any questions I had and I cannot thank you enough for that. I was consistent for 6 weeks or so and then pledging began and you know the story of what happened with that. Everything sort of blew up in my face.

Now you are probably wondering why I gave you essentially my life’s story (training wise), I feel it adds appropriate context for my answer to your question.

Now that I no longer have to train for sports performance my training goals have become, at the root, to look good without a shirt on and to me that is the men’s physique look. Wide shoulders, the v-taper, small waist.

In relating that to my college experience this is where the “problem” comes in. I feel that through my career in athletics I have used to that as my identity, I was the wrestler and with that, I had that lean, ripped look that I was happy with. I feel my problem is that I put too much stock into my physique in defining myself. I want to have fun in college, I do, hell I pledged and joined a top-tier fraternity at my school. However, I also have my physique goals, I want to look amazing without a shirt on and those two goals clashed. I found myself refusing drinks or passing up on going out with friends because I didn’t want it to affect my diet and feared it would ruin my physique. Fraternity brothers joke around with me how they have never actually seen me “go nuts” because I never really let go in terms of alcohol, not that that is a bad thing but in relation to a typical frat bro it is different.

I guess what I am trying to say is that I want to be able to have fun in college and for me, part of that fun, would be having a killer physique.

As for competing I know it is unrealistic to compete in the time frame you gave (1-2 years after school) and know it wouldn’t be until much further down the road, but I would love to make great strides towards it while in college.

Sorry for the long post, but I feel it is warranted to truly describe where I am at and to answer your questions.

Thanks

I wasn’t thinking clearly and just wanted an answer, it was stupid of me and I regret it looking back now.

I acted impulsively in posting that and am sorry for it.

I guess I am just a little-overwhelmed atm and was not thinking straight.

My apologies.

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No worries fella, no harm, no foul.

Just:
Patience, young grasshopper

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I think it was a bit of both? I mean, this is totally hindisight. Originally, I decided to stop smoking to get ‘better’ girls (ha!) and because it was becoming too expensive. If I remember correctly, a pack of smokes increased $0.50/pack 6 months before I decided to quit. With my 3 pack per day habit, that was $1.50 per day…and you do the math. I also remember that smokes increased nearly $2 a pack a couple months after I quit.

Going hand-in-hand with that, I found that working out would lessen the headaches I had. Obviously, this is is because working out releases all those lovely brain chemicals that smoking does. So, I increased the amount I’d work out to help with my cravings.

That’s the switch from unhealthy to healthy you mentioned. And it’s probably the biggest thing…just the mindset difference.

More hindsight, I think the lack of nicotine helped my body in many ways: better blood-flow, better appetite, not as lazy, better lung capacity (over time). All of those things will help contribute to training intensity and recovery.

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No worries on length man! I’m not very into the whole brevity thing. = )
Quite frankly, I’m relieved that you want college to be fun. That was the way I wanted to reply from the start. I also think it’s a better way to begin training, and I’ll expand on that idea. However, work is killing me at the moment. I’m leaving the office in an hour, so I need to concentrate and get some shit done before I leave for heavy leg day.

Therefore, I will write a much more proper response when I get home from the gym.

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Thanks, I smoked through University as well, although only a 1/2 pack/day on avg. I couldn’t remember seeing any distinct difference in going from smoking to non-smoking as far as performance was concerned…I mean I still light one up with friends when I’m drinking to this day…but haven’t purchased a pack in a couple years now. Guilty pleasure I suppose.

That is crazy! Just lighting your next off the last one.

Sorry @pitbull97 for the slide aside/hijacking.

no worries at all!

IMO you gotta relax man, just enjoy yourself and don’t obsess about it. Train hard, consistently, and don’t sweat about your diet too much. Eat clean when you can, enjoy yourself when you want, don’t binge consistently and you’ll be fine.

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I agree with Rob, I just wanted to expand a bit more. Nothing against Rob though…he’s got prep-brain right now! = ) So…here’s my expansion:

I think that social media has really made fitness and bodybuilding weird in so many people’s heads. These fitness-people post pictures of themselves shredded year-round when all those pictures were probably taken within two weeks. But it makes a lot of people think they look like that all the time. And because of that, people believe that they themselves have to be perfect with training and nutrition all the time so that they can look perfect year-round too. NOT SO.

Right now you are simply building a relationship with the gym, building habits, building a foundation of strength and a physique. You only need to be perfect with everything if you’re Phil Heath or Kai Greene or Big Ramy AND you’re prepping. Even those guys let it go for a while each year. Nobody looks amazing all the time.

So, we hear this word: ‘Consistantly’ or some variation of it. It is not a synonym for ‘perfection’. Get that out of your head right now. That v-taper you’re after, the muscle mass you’re looking for, the abs, everything…that will take years.

Right now, it’s college You can work-out, eat decently, and drink beer. I did it. A bunch of dudes on t-nation did it (and still do it!). “But if I don’t eat amazingly, I’ll get fat!” Do more than just lift weights then. Here’s what I propose:

1. Lift three days a week - whatever works with your class schedule. I always like Monday, Wednesday, Friday. But if Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, or Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday works with classes and stuff, go for it. I’d do an A, B, C pattern (A = chest, front/lateral delts, triceps; B = Legs, Calves; C = Back, traps, rear delts, biceps). We can go more specific on that if you’d like.
2. Hit abs after every lifting session (body-weight stuff).
3. Run after every lifting session. I would run the train alongside the river and golf course year-round unless there was a blizzard or downpour. That was roughly 2-3 miles. But you don’t have to run that far. Running outside always allowed me to check out the babes sun-bathing or running, whereas the treadmill was boring AF. Plus all this running will help keep fat from accumulating…at least it should!
4. Don’t worry about supplements. This will do wonders: It’ll save you money, AND if you’re not factoring in calories from supplements, it’ll give you a lot more leeway with the ‘questionable’ food at the dining halls and beers on Fridays and/or Saturdays.
5. Alcohol: Go for it. BUT BUT BUT BUT don’t do the typical frat boy thing and drink every day. Go nuts on a Friday night. The lifting and cardio should push your metabolism to be able to handle it. However, if you’re ingesting all those shitty calories every day by drinking all the time, you will achieve the dad bod.
6. Sex: Go for it! Think of it as extra ab work, and extra chest and shoulder work; rather than you’re expending energy that could be used for recovery, or you’re not sleeping enough, or whatever.
7. Food. Just eat A LOT of food when you can. Be consistent with it, though. If you’re only able to eat three times a day because of the dining halls, do that. But make each meal really large. Don’t feel limited. Eat more meat than anything else from the dining halls.

Lastly, don’t sweat it if you can’t get to the gym Wednesday (or whenever). Just don’t let it become a habit. School happens, homework and exams happen. Take a short break from studying or whatever and do five sets of push-ups and crunches in the dorm room, if you want; go for a job randomly that day instead; hit the gym and do that session tomorrow instead.

What are your thoughts? We can go deeper if you’d like.

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This is the new T-Nation unofficial motto. Courtesy of @IronAndMetal

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“Cardio? You mean sex” :joy:

This looks incredible!

Everything makes sense and seems manageable. It really just kind of “clicks”.

It strikes a nice chord between having fun and still keeping my physique goals in check.

It really does just boil down to consistency, not perfection. My problem is that I guess I am constantly looking for the most “optimal” thing to do when in reality mostly anything will work I just need to give it time.

My only question boils down to the nutritional aspect, the training I get, I just need to do it and make sure I am progressing in some form, no matter what I pick in terms of a program or routine. However, with nutrition, if you could go deeper with that? Maybe I am overthinking again here, but just a lot of food, making sure most of it is from meat?

But otherwise, I truly cannot thank you enough as to what you just did for me, reading this-this morning has completely changed my mindset, I have been chasing perfection with my training, nutrition, etc and in doing so have done nothing more than spin my wheels.

You cleared a lot up for me and put a lot into perspective and I appreciate that greatly.

Thank you!

Sure thing, man - anytime. I wish I had a lot of this knowledge when I was in college. I didn’t know shit about training or nutrition then.

As far as nutrition, though…it’s slightly difficult for me to go deeper on the advice thing because I’m not exactly sure what’s available to you. I have to assume you’re eating out of the dining halls. If that is the case, then there’s going to be a rotating selection of food. Therefore, I can only tell you to use your best judgement.

You want to eat a lot. You’ll want to feel STUFFED, but not nauseous after eating. Why? Well, when I was in college, I walked EVERYWHERE, I was lifting and running, and not eating as often as bodybuilding articles recommend. Thus, there’s a lot of physical activity which will burn calories, and your non-feeding windows are longer (more time for your body to expend energy/use calories without ingesting more).

So…some examples from when I was in school would be like this:

Breakfast:
Big plate of scrambled eggs and bacon (those were staples for me)
Make a big-ass waffle at the waffle station
Fruit, if it’s available
Coffee, chocolate milk (I drank a shit load of that stuff)

Lunch:
Big-ass salad from the salad bar (greens, veggies, different varieties of meat on top, cheese, dressing)
Big plate of grilled cheese or chicken nuggets or steak (whatever entree they’re serving). If the entree selection sucks, there was always a deli sub station. I’d get a couple subs with every kind of meat on it.
Bowl of cottage cheese from the salad bar with fruit on it
Chocolate milk, some sort of caffeine beverage

Dinner
Pretty much the same as lunch. But I’d also have dessert at the end (there was always a soft-serve machine).

One of the dining halls on campus had a Wok station where I’d throw a bunch of veggies, meat, noodles, soy sauce, etc in there and make a big-ass plate of stir fry.

And then, of course, I’d always have snacks of some kind in the dorm room. Nuts, beef jerky, Raman noodles, granola bars, PB&J ingredients, etc. I’d eat some of that shit after working out to get me to the next meal.

The biggest guidelines I’d give you is to eat more meat than you think is normal, eat salads, drink milk, and eat cottage cheese. Slowly, it will become evident if you’re eating too much or not enough, and that’s really something you’ll have to figure out from trial and error.

It’s my opinion that tracking macros is really unnecessary unless you’re trying to get into contest shape or just lose weight in general. If your goal is to put on muscle and size, just eat. That goes against a lot of what you’ll read on here…so, take that piece of advice with a grain of salt. I will say, however, that you’d look pretty fucking stupid asking dining hall employees to put chicken nuggets on a scale so you know what you’re getting. = )

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I appreciate all your help, genuinely I do.

No wonder I got all those funny looks when I brought my food scale into the dining hall haha.

This all makes sense and now I just got to put my head down and commit to putting on size instead of constantly worrying about trying to stay lean.

I’ll report back in a month or so, I need to stay off these websites for a little bit I think and just train, eat and sleep.

You have given me what I need so continuing to search will only make me switch things up or overcomplicate stuff.

Thank you again!

Hope you killed your leg day last night!

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