WC2019

[weighted chinup]

Welcome.

Daily entries with photos will be included, you guys know the drill, I've done this before!

Goal: competition ready condition @ 175lbs!

Workout Schedule:
Monday:
AM: Chest, Triceps, Cardio
PM: Side Delt, Rear Delt, Front Delt, Abs, Calves, Cardio
Tuesday:
AM: Upper Back, Cardio
PM: Biceps, Lower Back, Traps, Abs, Calves, Cardio
Wednesday:
AM: Hamstrings, Glutes, Cardio
PM: Quads, Glutes, Calves, Cardio
Thursday:
AM: Chest, Triceps Cardio
PM: Side Delt, Rear Delt, Front Delt, Abs, Calves, Cardio
Friday:
AM: Upper Back, Cardio
PM: Biceps, Lower Back, Traps, Abs, Calves, Cardio
Saturday:
AM: Hamstrings, Glutes, Cardio
PM: Quads, Glutes, Calves, Cardio

 

[weighted chinup]

Training: Training is twice a day, it's based on phasic potentiation and broken into 4-week mesocycles. Each mesocycle is designed to build off the previous mesocycle and they are all designed to give a synergistic effect to the overall goal of getting bigger. Lifts will vary each mesocycle as does general rep ranges (strength oriented cycle, moderate RM cycle, metabolic stress cycle) etc.

Each 4-week Mesocycle starts with the minimum effective dose of volume to grow and by week 4 is peaking the maximum effective volume, each week sees an intelligent increase in high-intensity techniques and methodology.

Regarding two-a-days, there are a couple of benefits, one is increased EPOC, the other is giving yourself time between half of your volume for the day gives you the better intensity and performance / execution for the second half of the volume, converting what would sometimes be considered "junk volume" into highly effective work (instead of doing your shoulder volume after you've done a bunch of heavy chest work and you're tired af, you separate the two, that way you're fresh and ready to do the same amount of work but make it more effective).

It's not done so I can do twice the volume in a single week or work myself into the dirt, that is not conducive to better progress IMO.

Currently on:
Mesocycle #6 (strength oriented/heavy lifting "focused" mesocycle)
Microcycle/Week 1/4: Rest/Pause Reps, Concentric Focus, Chain work, high EPOC, mild supersets
Volume for week 1: Minimum Effective Volume

1. Each mesocycle starts with mostly new lifts
2. Each week increases weekly volume
3. Starts at minimum effective volume and increases to maximum effective volume
4. Each week sees a planned increase in high-intensity techniques
5. Progressive overload on main movements
6. Be more dynamic with secondary/tertiary movements (including variation during the mesocycle if needed)
7. Each mesocycle changes focus of how reps are generally performed ie) one mesocycle might be more eccentric focused with lots of reverse band work or eccentric loading and another might be more concentric focused with more explosive work. This is done in a planned manner to work off the last cycle.

 

[weighted chinup]

Nutritional Philosophy:
My general nutritional approach is as follows:

• Carbs are primarily centered peri-workout
• Carbs are built in the peri-workout block first and spread outwards slowly during a growing phase as needed to grow
• Using grass-fed, free range, and organic options at all times
• High fiber from fibrous greens and fresh produce
• Fibrous greens, fermented greens, and resistant starches are incorporated with every meal
• Starchy carbs are redacted first during a cutting phase
• Carbs are reduced throughout the cut until towards the very end the only carbs are being consumed intra-workout or peri-workout
• Due to two-a-day training, fats are limited between workout 1 and 2 and kept to morning or late nights
• Food is cooked with lots of fibrous greens and fermented greens for gut health, digestion, and minimized bloat and increased satiety with negligible calorie increases
• Seasonings are zero-calorie (chili garlic sauce, organic mustard sauces, hot sauces, etc)

Current diet during Mesocycle #6 week #1

Meal 1:
200g extra lean ground turkey
*Cooked with diced spinach, 100g green pepper, and chilli garlic sauce

Meal 2:
160g Skinless Boneless Chicken Breast
*Cooked in vinegar with spinach, asparagus, green pepper, enoki mushrooms, and kale, and hot sauce

Meal 3:
40g whey isolate

*Session 1*

Intra-workout:
20g isolate
20g dextrose

Meal 4:
200g Skinless Boneless Chicken Breast
*Cooked in vinegar with spinach, asparagus, green pepper, enoki mushrooms, and kale, and hot sauce

Meal 5:
40g whey isolate

*Session 2*

Intra-workout:
20g isolate
20g dextrose

Meal 6:
200g skinless boneless chicken breast
or
200g extra lean ground turkey
1 bag of Shirataki Noodles (from fermented yams) (0 calories)
*added spinach, asparagus, kale, enoki mushrooms

***REFEEDS***
Every 4 days, add 200g carbs after the second training session. Usually, I will eat a high fiber but high carb/sweet cereal and use ice cold vanilla whey isolate as the "milk". It will become even cleaner as I get closer to competition.

Refeeds are essential with carbs this low outside of training, otherwise, sleep goes to shit and overall progress becomes quite slow.

 

[weighted chinup]

AAS:
Test P 400mg/week
Mast P 500mg/week
Adex .5mg ed
GH 2iu fasted am

(no fat burners or thyroid or tren will be used, the test will be dropped towards the end of the prep and winstrol will be added 2 weeks out, that's the only change)

 

[weighted chinup]

3/4/2018

Mesocycle #6 (strength oriented/heavy lifting "focused" mesocycle)

Week 1/4: Rest/Pause Reps, Concentric Focus, Chain work, high EPOC, mild supersets

Session 1:

Banded Decline HS Press
> started off with 2 warm-up sets of 15. this was done with a special kind of technique where the press gets accelerated as you get closer to the lockout to get a strong flex with your chest. this is done as "chest activation"
>*warm up* 2x15 20lbs (no band)
> 3x6 60lbs (red band attached) (1 second flex) (stop at 90 degrees before exploding up)

Rest/Pause Flat BB Bench
> done with a controlled eccentric and a 1-second pause on the chest before exploding up, using a medium width or slightly wider grip
> work up to a max set of 6 @ rpe 9-9.5 (working sets will increase as the weeks go by, today we are going to just find the working weight max to build off of)
>*warm up* several sets up to 225lbs for 5 rep sets
> 1x6 275lbs with 1 second pause on each rep and a controlled eccentric

Cable Flys
> I normally HATE doing flys with cables but every pec deck / machine fly was being occupied by guys doing really weird shit so I had zero desire to ask to work in.
> 3x8 25lbs (flex hard for 1 second) (good stretch on the eccentric to open up chest)

V-Bar Pushdown with Fat Grip
> 2 warm-up sets of 20 with super light weight to grease up everything
> I attached my straps to each side of the v-bar to create a fat grip to flex hard on
> 3x8 70lbs (1 second flex on each rep) (controlled eccentric)

Cardio
> 25 minutes of recumbent bicycle *LISS*

Session 2:

Banded HS Shoulder Machine Press
> this is done facing the machine, red bands are attached to each side of the machine, the trick is the explode up hard, flex briefly, and don't come down all the way
> Ascending Sets
> 1x12 30lbs (red band attached)
> 1x10 40lbs (red band attached)
> 1x6 55lbs (red band attached)

Bent Over Rear Delt Flys DB
> done with a hard flex at the top before gravity fucks you and with my giant head resting on a bench
> 3x8 35lbs

Dumbell Lateral Raise
> Perfect form on these
> 3x8 35lbs (try and hold at the top, control on way down, dead stop before coming up again to kill momentum)

Abs
> 4xfailure Hanging leg raises

Cardio

> 25 minutes of recumbent bicycle *LISS*

Couple of quick pictures from today

 

[weighted chinup]

Forgot to mention, I have been training 2x a day since October (steady progress made every week), dieting down since mid-November, and have a little over 6 weeks left of dieting left.

Current weight is 179-180ish (fluctuates thereabout), the goal is to make weight for classic and middleweight (175 for classic and 176 for mw).

This is my first time planning to compete so my main priority is to obtain the best possible conditioning I can for my first time.

 

[tengtren]

Height? How many weeks? Or have you picked show yet

I'm watching

 

[weighted chinup]

Height weight now? How many weeks? Or have you picked show yet

I'm watching

A little over 6 weeks, there is another show a little bit after that one I guess if something fucks up along the way I can plan to do that instead, but planning on the one a little over 6 weeks away.

5'6

179-180ish right now

 

[FourOneDeuxFitt]

AAS:
Test P 400mg/week
Mast P 500mg/week
Adex .5mg ed
GH 2iu fasted am

(no fat burners or thyroid or tren will be used, the test will be dropped towards the end of the prep and winstrol will be added 2 weeks out, that's the only change)

I like your approach with this a lot. Not going crazy with X amount of doses and X amount of compounds. I really respect your focus around diet and nutrition using the “compliment” of AAS and not trying to replace lack of diet or nutrition with AAS.

Look forward to following along your prep!!

 

[Eman]

Subbed.

Looking great, WC!

PS Your AI dose hurts me just to look at...

 

[Mac11wildcat]

Sub’d. Square the camera up in decent lighting and post some mandatories for us.

 

[weighted chinup]

I like your approach with this a lot. Not going crazy with X amount of doses and X amount of compounds. I really respect your focus around diet and nutrition using the “compliment” of AAS and not trying to replace lack of diet or nutrition with AAS.

Look forward to following along your prep!!

Appreciate it man, the reality is I just have a hard time handling higher dosages. Glad you're following.

Subbed.

Looking great, WC!

PS Your AI dose hurts me just to look at...

Thanks, Eman, and yeah, the AI sucks but not overly so I'll deal with it lol. As always, good to see you in here.

Sub’d. Square the camera up in decent lighting and post some mandatories for us.

Will do man, for sure, I have some time this Thursday evening in the brightest most "normal" lit room in the gym so I will have them up a.s.a.p within the week. I think like most people I fall in the trap of posting progress pics using shit angles and lighting but that won't cut it for something like this so I will have that squared up within the next couple days.

Glad to have you following as well.

 

[Mac11wildcat]

Appreciate it man, the reality is I just have a hard time handling higher dosages. Glad you're following.



Thanks, Eman, and yeah, the AI sucks but not overly so I'll deal with it lol. As always, good to see you in here.



Will do man, for sure, I have some time this Thursday evening in the brightest most "normal" lit room in the gym so I will have them up a.s.a.p within the week. I think like most people I fall in the trap of posting progress pics using shit angles and lighting but that won't cut it for something like this so I will have that squared up within the next couple days.

Glad to have you following as well.

Looking forward to it. Posing is one thing I DO know. It’s also where 99% of people fall short.

Are you coaching yourself start to finish?

 

[weighted chinup]

Are you coaching yourself start to finish?

Your input is always appreciated, I've been quietly following along your off-season log and it's nothing short of impressive.

And yes! I worked with the Atlas boys for my off-season/growth phase but I really wanted to attempt getting in contest shape using my own knowledge and what I have learned over the past couple years, I have been taking extensive notes with my controlled refeeds as outlined in the diet to give myself an idea of how to handle carb up and other things (what foods to use etc) so I tried to be cognizant of how much I don't know when planning time-frames for this.

I took a lot of detailed "notes" from my previous experiments with nutritional approaches and AAS over the past couple years (I even have an old slin log where I took pictures every single training session to track progress along with what I did that day) so I have about 2 years worth of written information I can reference and build from to keep things precise and specific to my body.

I want to get in the best possible shape I can, no questions, but on a lesser level I want this to be a litmus test as well: to see if this is something I even enjoy doing (competition prep) and where my shortcomings are (weak areas, or even strategy when it comes to food or gear or training).

I'm hoping it's something I fall in love with and next time I decide to do it, there will be coaching if for nothing else than the last few weeks to make sure everything is peaking properly.

 

[Mac11wildcat]

Awesome. And much appreciated.

I’m going to say this because I knew I needed someone else to say it to me.

When you think you’re lean enough, hungry enough, tired enough, you’ve got another 3-5lbs to go. Our eyes are always biased to our mental state. Looking at you now, i bet 16X is in your future for weight to get on stage truly peeled and dry.

 

[weighted chinup]

i bet 16X is in your future for weight to get on stage truly peeled and dry.

This is what I needed to hear. Knowing this is the case I can actually get there (I truly believe so anyway) instead of being a dumb-dumb and trying to stay above x-weight just to be bigger.

It also matches the experience of a couple of other local guys who told me likewise (similar heights and off-season stats and that was around the weight they were when they were fully dried out to make weight)

Thank you again.

 

[MCFC]

Glad to see you still at it @weighted chinup and still using the "less is more" approach in regards to the aas usage and letting the your nutrition and workouts do their thing. Your dedication and attention to detail is still inspiring to say the least! I have no doubt ANYBODY can learn something from following your logs.

In regards to the band usage... I've just started reading Meadows Mountain Dog training manual and am looking forward to incorporating them into more of my lifts like bench press and such. Is there a certain type of band you guys use for this? I noticed you said red band so I'm assuming it's a certain type of band.

 

[weighted chinup]

Glad to see you still at it @weighted chinup and still using the "less is more" approach in regards to the aas usage and letting the your nutrition and workouts do their thing. Your dedication and attention to detail is still inspiring to say the least! I have no doubt ANYBODY can learn something from following your logs.

In regards to the band usage... I've just started reading Meadows Mountain Dog training manual and am looking forward to incorporating them into more of my lifts like bench press and such. Is there a certain type of band you guys use for this? I noticed you said red band so I'm assuming it's a certain type of band.

Thanks man, glad to have you here!

Yeah, the red band is the red mini band.

https://www.elitefts.com/pro-mini-resistance-band.html

That guy right there, although I bought mine locally (northern lights brand).

The different colors denote thickness and tension (rated in lbs).

For a complete setup, I would get a set of the following:

https://www.elitefts.com/pro-mini-resistance-band.html
https://www.elitefts.com/pro-light-resistance-band.html
https://www.elitefts.com/pro-average-resistance-band.html

I don't see the need for heavier unless you're squatting 700+ lbs really, especially if the goal is bodybuilding or building muscle.

I would treat accommodating resistance, whether it's banded work, reverse band work, or chain work, as "sprinkles" to your training if your goal is hypertrophy or bodybuilding oriented. Make sure to cycle it and don't overdo it.

I have a tumultuous relationship with accommodating resistance, it's amazing for some things and even better for other things but if you overdo either of those things you can notice certain muscle groups getting smaller (I did reverse band front squat for 4 weeks, the first 2 weeks progress was good but after that my legs literally started shrinking - volume was closely regulated, and weight was added every week, and the reps were performed flawlessly, nice and controlled - it was clear I was overdoing it).

Always keep in mind that accommodating resistance is a method of overload and needs to be treated as such.

Sprinkles only is my approach to it now.

 

[Mac11wildcat]

Finally someone says it.

This chains/bands/reverse bands thing has gotten WAY out of hand.

IMO it should be used with the same frequency as set exentsion/intensity techniques and limited to only a few exercises it shows big value on

 

[weighted chinup]

Finally someone says it.

This chains/bands/reverse bands thing has gotten WAY out of hand.

IMO it should be used with the same frequency as set exentsion/intensity techniques and limited to only a few exercises it shows big value on

Agreed.

I think people fall too deep in the accommodating resistance rabbit hole because it's satisfying to lift x amount more than normal with perfect technique - but do it too much or too long and you will go backward fast.

I've fallen in that trap before and you can see yourself improve a little at the start and then slowly look shittier the deeper you go if you're dragging it on for too long. I wouldn't recommend it for most people unless they are disciplined enough to back off it regularly. The only reason I trust myself to implement it is that I've learned the hard way and don't want to repeat that mistake again.

1x a week on a big lift at the most is plenty and preferably not every week, and on smaller lifts, it should definitely be cycled. Those are my 'guidelines' but I will drop chain or band work even sooner if instincts tell me to.