It’s been a couple weeks since the powerlifting meet and I haven’t posted anything. I’ve actually been training pretty hard though. I want to keep my strength as long as possible - so I’m trying to stay as heavy as possible for as long as possible. I wnat my rep range to be usually around 6-10 for right now for most exercises.
I want to really focus on my back and chest in what little “off season” I have left and into the pre-contest season. So I’m trying to work out both of those body parts twice a week, instead of legs like I have in the past.
I have a wedding and honeymoon at 17 and 16 weeks out so I had to come up with some sort of plan. I didn’t want to go straight into pre-contest diet because I think I’d be ready way too early. But I also don’t want to wait until after the honeymoon to start because then I feel that I would be rushing… and might not quite be ready in time.
Here’s The Plan
I got up to around 204/205 during this offsesaon, then I went on a mini-diet before powerlifting and got down to about 195… now I’m continuing the mini-diet (with a few alterations) andworking my way down to 190 and hope to be around 185 by the wedding…. May 17. At that point I’ll try to enjoy myself during the wedding and honeymoon. When I come back I should still be less than 190. Then I’ll be 16 weeks out and give it all I got from there on out.
One thing that conerns me is that on the honeymoon I will actually lose a lot of weight… and lose muscle… so I’m going to try really hard not to lose any weight and hopefully I’ll gain weight during the honeymoon. This is actually a general concern I have overall…. that I’ll lose too fast and lost too much muscle… so I’ll have to pay close attention not to do that.
When I first was thinking about doing the powerlifting meet coming up I was excited because my numbers in the gym were shooting through the roof week after week… over the past few months though things slowed down.
We deadlifted last week and I don’t remember what I got, but I know it was where I needed to be. Then, yesterday I was looking at the state records that I had hoped to break and some of them I had never touched in the gym (squat) - I was a little down…. but I went to the gym yesterday and squatted the same as the state record, which was a PR at 435#. Today we went to the gym and I benched 350 which is right where I want to be come meet time. So, I’m feeling a lot better about the competition coming up than I was.
The best part is that I’m lighter than ever…. I weighed in at the gym at 197 with shoes and sweatshirt on… at home after working out I weighed 193. So I will eat good this week and I shouldn’t have any problem coming in at under 198 next Saturday.
My blog has gotten off track a little bit. I’ve started basically just listing exercises I’ve done and the amount of weight and maybe the amount of reps. This is pretty boring to write and very boring to read - so what’s the point? I’m going to start writing more of my thoughts about lifting, preparing for a contest, dieting, attending contests, or other strength sport related topics. I probably won’t be posting every day because there isn’t something good to write about every day, however I will try to update this blog at least a few times a week. I might still include certain lifts/weights that I do in a workout if it is a PR or somehow newsworthy.
Me and my brother lift at Gold’s Gym in Omaha. Everytime we lift I hate the gym a little bit more. We’ve thought long and hard about different options - but right now it looks like we’re stuck at Gold’s Gym.
Gold’s has treated us pretty good for the past 2 years, however they’ve recently decided to make some changes. They’ve put ads on the radio saying “they don’t want any concrete heads” … “and people carrying around gallon jugs of water”. The gym itself has turned into a circus with lights and sirens going off complete with Disney music in the background.
Everybody who lifts any amount of weight jokes about it all the time - “you’re going to set off the alarm!” And the serious lifters aren’t really a small portion of these gyms’ members. We’re all experienced and have been at the gym for a while, but according to their radio ad, “Gold’s Gym would rather get a new member than keep an old one.” How does that make any of their members feel?
My bro sent me an e-mail today with a quote that he liked and I did too:
As a young lifter, I remember going into the gym and seeing some really big, strong dudes lifting heavy weights, clapping chalk, and making a lot of noise. The music playing on the stereo made you want to work out the moment you walked inside. This has been replaced by a bunch of pencil neck “trainers” with extra-medium muscle shirts and small shorts running around with clipboards having their clients balance on top of a swimming pool ball, juggle dumbbells, and recite their ABCs backwards. - Paul Caldwell
I searched and found the rest of the article here: www.EliteFTS.com I don’t know who Paul Caldwell is and have never lifted at his training facility - but I’d like to… anything’s got to be better than Golds Gym Omaha.
I was wrong again… I didn’t think yesterday’s chest workout was that great but my soreness today proves me wrong.
Last night I got a horrible nights sleep. So today I took off work 2 hours early… went home to try and nap but couldn’t so I watched a Jay Cutler video. I think the rest did help me though, because I was ready for the workout. Back is the most important day for me as far as bodybuilding goes. Here were our exercises:
- T-Bar Row
- Pull downs behind the head
- Hammer Strength Pull Down
- One arm row (at this point my lower back was killing me, mostly because of DL 2 days ago)
- Cable Rows
I thought today’s workout was good and I got a good pump.
My fiance, Pearl, has been eating clean and dieting a little bit and after watching Jay Cutler’s video I am getting the urge to start eating clean too. So I think I might make a few changes to the diet for the next 10 weeks. I still want to keep my calories up and keep my weight constant or going up, but I’d like to start eating cleaner too. I’ll decide this weekend when I go to the store.
Last workout of the year… it wasn’t the best that’s for sure. Here was bench press sets:
- 135 x 5
- 205 x 5
- 245 x 5
- 275 x 5
- 285 x 5
- 275 x 5
Another exercise we did that I really liked today was incline Smith machine. On the last set we did 5 full reps, 5 half reps, 5 full reps, 5 half reps. I really felt those.
However, I was immediately tired when I walked into the gym. This has been a problem for me for about the last week, but it’s coming earlier and earlier in the workout. I feel like I want to go to sleep. I’m not sure if it’s because I haven’t been working, if I’m getting too fat, if I need to do cardio, or drink an energy drink before I lift. I’m going to have to change something though because I’m tired of getting tired.
Another thing that’s happening is Gold’s Gym is changing some of their policies… basically they turning into 24 Hour Fitness. My brother wrote about this on his blog. They’ve mentioned, and we’ve heard about it before, that they’re not afraid to kick out anybody “making too much noise” or “dropping weights”. Not that we’re throwing weights around, but when you’re doing a max deadlift its hard to set it down gently. So we’re just kind of expecting to get kicked out sooner or later. None of the other gyms in the area appeal to us, so we’ve played around with the idea of renting a storage unit and buying some of our own equipment. We’ve thought about this for a couple years, and now might be the best time as any to actually do it… at least on a small scale.
Monday is an off day from lifting… and I also got a half day off work, which is always nice. I was reading through some of the Bodybuilding.com Contest Prep Forums and saw some posts of some first time competitors getting started on the contest prep. That’s great that most of them are starting out more than 20 weeks out and some of them even 30 weeks out. However, I notice one thing that a lot of these first timers have in common is that they all expect to be tired, hungry, cranky, have no energy, and have bad workouts.