Bodybuilding Classic Physique Division Offseason log
You know you who it is already. Can't recall my old password or even what email I used so here we are. I promised I'd start logging if legend n1h did. So that's why I'm logging.
Short term goal:
Successfully formulate a relatively optimized and easy to adhere to offseason diet model. In terms of food selection, I am more or less following Chris Tuttle's recommendations. Our very own BGP has been getting some free diet stuff from Chris since he has a full client load but will send a handful of emails to people for free if you ask nicely and want help. If you don't know who that is, go on youtube/instagram and see the man's work.
Remain injury free, which is easy with my new exercise selection which loco would describe as "leg press and lat pulldown 4 lyfe"
Adjust to a more strictly bodybuilding programming style as opposed to a "powerbuilding" style.
Here is the medium term goal:
2024 summer on stage in classic physique division at a level that would be competitive for winning a pro card. Winning the card itself is immaterial for the medium term, it'll happen when it happens and I will be patient.
Possible obstacles to this goal are gym closers due to continued zero covid policy, possibly moving countries and being unable to focus on prep in the interim, or international political disaster. All of which are legitimate risks.
Ostensibly we will start competition prep late winter 2024 and do a very long slow 20-24 week prep where I never need to bring carbs lower than 200g/day.
Long term goal:
Compete in one professional level show in the classic physique divison in the next 10 years. Don't really give a **** about placings.
Natty: No. Test, deca, mk677, humalog, cjc with 1295 with DAC, berberine (although the last one is both a PED and a general health supplement). Low doses. high dose AAS are massively overrated for hypertrophy, the real magic is the insulin and gh (or gh secretagogues in my case). less than 1g of injectables with PEDs that work on the IGF pathway is much better than 3g of injectables, for example. I'd advise anyone who wants to go down the PED route to incorpoate gh or gh secretagogue peptides along with insulin while they are still taking 1cc of test per week before you ever add any other AAS or increase test dose. You can keep your AAS doses much lower if you actually address this very critical muscle building pathway rather than solely relying on AAS, which are harsh... man...
No prep drugs or harsh AAS until the aforementioned 2024 late winter date.
Diet: High carbohydrates with carbohydrate cycling (2 high days the day before my 2 leg days, 1 low day on the day off, 4 medium days per week offseason), moderate protein around 1.125g/lb of bw, low to moderate fats. I tried a high fat Palbumo approach in both offseason and precontest this academic year. It was a ****ing disaster; this is a terrible way to diet for bodybuilding. Although if somebody is not trying to look lean/dry/hard on stage and maintain athletic performance in the gym, it'd be a great diet to follow because antecdotally it can lead to very high compliance for some individuals because it just destroys so much of your physiological cravings and lowers appetite considerably. Somebody like the apple-pied obese woman who's username I don't even remember might do well on this because she could probably eat 80/20 ground beef bunless bacon cheeseburgers twice a day for an emotional high, not feel hungry the rest of the day, and have only consumed like 1800~ calories daily.
More detailed post with training program and food log to follow. I'm a busy man.
5-7? Holy heeeeelllll! That's crazy. Being a BBer is no joke!
I've honestly been super fortunate with side effect profile from bodybuilding and androgen use. No balding, no rage (except from ephedrine, that turned me into a lunatic), no heart issues, no anxiety. Mostly just digestion issues which were easy enough to solve by eating clean year round. The past 2 years bp started to get a little high even being hypotenion when natty, but easy enough to address with telmisartan. Deca kills my libido and sexual function but basically everything else increases it. I ain't mad. If I started losing hair I'm trt/natty instantly and headed to turkey loool.
Chest+back
NG machine press: 59kgx3 sets fail, 24, 14, 11
Chins: bwx15, 10, 8
Incline db press: 25kgx15x3
barbell rows: 60kgx15,10,11 paused underhand strapped
t-bar chest supported rows: 1.5px15, 12, 10
cable flies: 40x3 sets fail
Gym rats and girls asking if I'm a pro classic physique or men's physique. In 14 months I will be able to tell them yet.
I think 60 weeks out but I'll check again tomorrow.
Meal 1
100g oats 400ml skim 1 scoop whey 100g chicken tenderloin, **** ton of frozen raspberries
Meal 2-5
350g rice, 150g green beans, 190g chicken tenderloin, +8g fat from butter for 2 meals and +8g fat from guac, apple with meal 2 and 3. I ate 90g carbs worth of sour candy pre workout with 10iut insulin humalog.
Stressful day at work. I don't even want to post diet because I ate so little. Poor sleep+higher stress=me not eating.
arms+delts
long rope triceps: 4 sets myorep matching 60kg24, 24, 24, 24
ez curls: 4 sets myo rep matching 20kgx31,31,31,31
single arm overhead extensions: 40kgx4 sets failure
long rope curls: 4 sets failure
leaning away db curls: 7.5kgx4 sets failure
pushdowns: 4 sets failure
Prone delt raises: 7.5kgx4 sets failure
cable side raises: 3 sets failure
Not my finest day. Couldn't sleep last night and felt tired and irritable all day today. The chest/back workouts are a bit taxing cardio and cns wise so hard to calm down afterword and get mentally ready for sleep.
I really love this split though even after just 1 week. I read that this is actually the "arnold split" and something that wasn't uncommon in the 70s. So from what I gather 50s-60s was full body, 70s was higher frequency hitting stuff 2x/wk with chest+back/delts+arms/legs/repeat type splits, 80s and 90s was brosplit, then 2000s was back to frequency but PPL rather than the "arnold split". Big Ronnie Coleman was apparently the first well known ifbb pro who did what was 6x/wk proto-ppl, except he did pressing movements for shoulders on his back day.
I'm old and work a full time job and have a good balance between upper and lower body so doing only 1x/wk quad training and omitting the 2nd full leg day is fine i think. I did forget to put hamstrings at the beginning of the workout yesterday, unfortunately.
I've always liked the idea of having "big arms", and when I say "big arms" I don't mean objectively big arms which I already have. I mean having them be a relatively dominant bodypart compared to the size of everything else. It's not helpful for winning a classic physique show; Cbum obliterates a lot of guys who have superior arms like Ramon or Breon, but just for how I want my own physique to look I like the more arm dominant kinds of physiques. I feel like if you wanted to just impress bbing judges you'd train glutes and hams way more than anything else.
If you want big, dominant arms look no further than your best friend synthol:
do those people
a) actually think that looks good
b) actually think they are fooling anyone?
they aren't taking synthol, just vegetable oil. They dont compete in bb.
Flex Wheeler 1993 or Patrick Moore also site injected arms and they look great. But by 1996 Flex wheeler’s arms started looking stupid from overdoing it. If someone is taking synthol effectively, you probably don't even notice it. Even competitors and judges cant notice.
I will pass bc i think injecting arms is really painful. From a bbing judge perspective i score very highly in terms of balance with the exception of erectors overpowering every other part of my back, just in my own subjective preference id like more arms.
yo, so got a legit question\
you got a wedding/reunion/etc in a week or so and you're currently out of shape and 10+ pounds overweight
would doing any of the things you do to cut the days before the event help you look slimmer for the event and all the photos that will be taken?
still alive, did my chest+back workout and arms+delt workouts in Thailand. Squat workout in a few minutes, it will have been 15 days since I last squat and 8 days since I last trained legs. Lets see if I end up detraining too much to do legs only 1x/wk with fairly low volume...
yo, so got a legit question\
you got a wedding/reunion/etc in a week or so and you're currently out of shape and 10+ pounds overweight
would doing any of the things you do to cut the days before the event help you look slimmer for the event and all the photos that will be taken?
If you are fat, no. If you are muscular, yes. Muscular people are way more sensitive to water and electrolyte manipulation than normal people. If I cut carbs down to 50g per day for a few days I can easily drop several kilos and have a big visual difference in face and waist. That wasn't the case when I was 180lbs 18% bf or whatever
Legs
Leg extenions: 3 sets, machine was crap though
adductors: 3 sets
ham curls: 5 sets failure
HBBS: 140kgx11, 120kgx13, 100kgx16
Hit just under the session RPE I probably could have. Maybe shoulda just gone to 20 on the 100kg. Very pleased with how it's progressing. The 140kgx11 felt infinitely easier than when I did 12 a few weeks back. Gun to my head I can get 17-21 but be utterly ****ed up for a few days after and get no sleep that night. Next wednesday I'm due to hit 120kgx20 toes elevated sldl with pauses, that would be a really huge lift if I can pull it off. I would sorta like to attempt conventional dead stop strapped dl for 20 at some point for the novelty.
I haven't checked my bp. I've been off telmisartan just from being too lazy to buy any for like 3 months. I had a headache after leg training for the first time in over half a year. I need to get back on both it and cialis ASAP. Both of these medications are also helpful for managing nocturia, and cialis for BPH. I should take my own advice on proper prophylactic care by adding these medications.
yo, so got a legit question\
you got a wedding/reunion/etc in a week or so and you're currently out of shape and 10+ pounds overweight
would doing any of the things you do to cut the days before the event help you look slimmer for the event and all the photos that will be taken?
yeah, you can definitely drop 5lbs of water by eating nothing but protein and a few vegetables for 72 hours.
Literally just focusing on moving the weight with glutes instead of quads and my glutes feel lit up and sore today. I still got a very good quad pump. Maybe I've been doing the movement incorrectly for the last 16 years and needed to always think about glutes and be leaned over/less upright/chest up less all along. Not low bar and still easily identified as an ATG high bar squat, but you can see there's even subtle hip drive in these reps.
Next Next week I'm on holiday yet again. I may yolo out and try a set of 20 at this weight since I don't have to be on my work schedule. HBBS 140kgx20->leave the gym->"read relaxing green books that are legal in THailand but not China"->buffet when my CNS calms down finally 4 hours post workout sounds like a fantastic time. It looks realistic given the speed of the reps on video, but I'm pretty fast twitch dominant so that might not be a good indicator. My lungs felt fine after 11 reps and I only needed about 3.5 mins before the second set.
chest+back
chins (first set ng, 2nd and 3rd pronated: bwx20 (!?), 14, 10
machine press NG: 59kgx21, 15, 13
underhand row: 60kgx15, 8, 7
30 degree incline db: 30kgx15, 12, 10
ng pulldowns: 115lbsx11, 100lbsx13, 8 all paused
machine incline: 130x13, 10, 11
Felt awesome. however everything is supersetted and the barbell row+incline db is just too brutal. Two moves with high cns and cardiovascular load with bracing and balance. I need to finally break up with barbell rows and do some sort of chest support movement.
Literally just focusing on moving the weight with glutes instead of quads and my glutes feel lit up and sore today. I still got a very good quad pump. Maybe I've been doing the movement incorrectly for the last 16 years and needed to always think about glutes and be leaned over/less upright/chest up less all along. Not low bar and still easily identified as an ATG high bar squat, but you can see there's even subtle hip drive in these reps.
Those plates make it look like you’re squatting 500+.Not sure what RPE you are shooting for but those last couple reps didn’t seem to slow down much.
i do like 1 of those plates 😀
Those plates make it look like you’re squatting 500+.Not sure what RPE you are shooting for but those last couple reps didn’t seem to slow down much.
Shooting for around a 6.5-7 for each set. Bar speed is a very poor indicator of RPE for higher rep sets and people who are more explosive. That said, I think a set of 20 here with a lot of breathing is realistic. All of these reps were 1 breath between except 10 and 11 where I took two breaths.
"reps in the tank" is also terrible indicator of RPE at higher rep ranges. A set of 5 with 3 in the tank isn't that taxing and could be a 7. A set of 15 with 3 in the tank could easily be an RPE 9-9.5.
I can't train at super high RPEs anymore since I train Mo-Fri and have so much trouble sleeping if my session RPE goes over around 7 or if my heart rate gets too high. Plus I have a history of 14 years of chronic knee pain that only just now ended by intentionally scaling things back significantly. I've also been straight up making better gains by training much softer than before.
THings ain't going well with my Thai lady and dissolution seems almost certain. Meeting a HK girl tomorrow and we will probably do some lifting together. Gotta keep it toxic and start dating a new girl before you're officially broken up, kings. She's only 25, speaks almost 0 English but perfect Mandarin, is into fitness, is from a poor family and still lives with mom+dad+brother, and has dyed blue hair. No pics. Many of the younger generation Hong Kong locals don't speak English but do speak Mandarin, particularly from poorer backgrounds where crappy schools don't have the resources to have effective English programs but effective mandarin programs are dirt cheap and its easier for dumb kids to learn
I'll do some light glute+hams touchup because girls love training those muscles and I need the extra work anyway.
Another thing I've noticed: I definitely feel very sore in that lower glute/upper hamstring area. From ham curls, SLDLs, hip thrusts, and hamstring focused 45 degree hyperextensions I just could never feel this area activating. But as soon as I reintroduce squats? The area is on fire (in a good way). The so called 'glute ham tie-in' has been a nemesis for me and I think that atg squats actually do hit this specific part of the glute and hamstring very effectively.
arms and delts
ez curls/ss holey bar pushdowns: 20kgx35, 60kgx24, 4 sets myp rep matching each
holey car cable curls: 30kgx4 sets failure
single arm rope overhead triceps: 40kgx4 sets
concentration curls: 7.5kgx4 sets fail
pushdowns with normal bar: 80kgx4 sets fail
prone delt raises: 7.5kgx24, 4 more sets to failure
appetite obliterated.
Workouts looks ****ing beefy man!!!
We need more pictures bro!
Cool with videos aswell, show of your ****ing titan physique more often 😃
