Bodybuilding Classic Physique Division Offseason log

fuucckkk just digging around for those photos makes me super excited to get back to the cut. Top photo 103kg bottom photo 93kg. Bottom of the cut was 90kg with a 25mg hctz but most of the time I hovered around 92-93. Current weight 102 and in obviously much better composition. So yeah, I was fat.

And this time I'm going to start a cut lean. I also built a ton of skill in how to actually diet as far as meal prep and eating habits. I won't have as much steps throughout the day getting to the gym and work, but 1-1.5 less hours in my working day and a lot less to do at work so I can easily be getting up for ~10-30 minute walks throughout the working day.

I look at those pics and one of my first thoughts is "holy **** I am not going to miss that shithole apartment, how did I live there for 3 facking years plz god no." Small, badly designred, terrible ****** neighbourhood, air inside was SOOOO DRY, snoring like crazy because of low humidity in the room, visually very unpleasant. The most dogshit place I've lived since I was 26 when I lived in the teacher dorm of my first job which was literally like a 3* hotel studio but with a ****ing hotplate.

Where I lived from 29-32 was absolutely gorgeous. Amazing neighbourhood, very beautiful visual environment, huge 180sqm, about 1k usd/mo which is very high for China, gardens in the community, English speaking neighbours, heated facking floors, Enormous kitchen and easy to cook/meal prep, convenient with deliveries straight to your door b/c each building was only 6 floors so delivery guys could put stuff right outside your door easily.

When girls (middle aged women, I don't date or fk young girls lol) came over they were like "omfg this apartment is amazing, I'm gonna have more orgasms than I would if you fkced me in a 60sqm shithole apartment!!!1"

Now is sorta okay. Not big but more modern and visually pleasing than my previous place. The days of bringing girls over are long over... gotta register guests because it's still technically on the school looool. It's aight I can get my gf a sort permanent registration and keycard to come and go when she wants.

How do you define middle aged? Seems to old for you if we're going by my definition, but I'm curious what yours is.

Why is this a problem? Do they have a cap on guests or something?

I'm pretty sure that just looking at you, everyone is pretty much thinking, "This guy facks". So you having a revolving door of "guests" is not really going to surprise anyone. Probably more surprising if you don't.

still hard disagree on "fat" - ie i know you're looking at it with the lens of bodybuilding but i still think you're needlessly harsh on yourself (but perhaps that gives the drive that helps you thrive and do what few can accomplish)

Middle aged is 30 here. I have been middle aged for a while.

It'd take way too much writing to give you a detailed answer, but in short "This is China. Things don't work that way here." Maybe Rickroll will explain why most Chinese girls would not be caught dead registering with the Bao'An in front of a school teacher dorm to go have sex with a foreigner, especially if she's a local. On the bright side, thais would not give a ***

Plus we're an informally religious school. Can't be formally religious in China.

Pull:
Chins: bwx16, 10, 9, 7 strapped on 2nd set b/c grip was slipping due to humidity. Didn't like it.
BB rows: 70kgx18, 12 lil pr on first set, longer pauses and slower eccentrics second set
Pulldowns: 3 sets
EZ curls: 20kgx34, 17, 10
seated hammer curls: 7.5kg dbsx10x3

Feeling some slight burnout/fatigue creeping up. I might pull back and just build rows back up from around 70kgx13 or 14 and add a rep each week. I'm still deciding how I want to handle my squat workouts. I may skip hip thrust and do ham curls (5 sets), hbbs 3 sets, leg extensions 3 sets and just go home. I can probably honestly get that done in 45-55 minutes and with squats being such a systemically fatiguing exercise it might be wise to keep sessions that have squats extremely short.

Kinda homesick and want to get back to China and start work.

While maybe normal in the modern world, even in China, the level of bodyfat in that first pic is high enough to be unhealthy for a male. And moreso for a male on steroids. You will definitely have issues with sleep, blood pressure, erectile function, cardiovascular health, pancreatic health, or liver health at that level of bodyfat for that height and weight. My bloodwork was obliterated on a mild cycle when that pic was taken. My bloodwork was fantastic on a heavier cycle in the 2nd pic. (Steroids aren't dangerous, being fat, even what a normal person wouldn't consider fat, is dangerous for your health)

I'd also guarantee the revealed (but probably not stated) preferences of the opposite sex overwhelmingly favor the 2nd picture.

I'd contend that the picture is not only fat and that anyone at that level of bodyfat or higher is doing damage to their health, even if natty but moreso if using steroids.

Fat. Cut.

lololololol

was in a relationship when i was there during covid, but it often crossed my mind how difficult single life would be with the covid protocols where i'd have to sign in when i went over to their place and vice versa

there was one girl i casually dated on and off for a while, mid 30s banker, had her own apartment despite being a local (super rare) and someone who was destined for a life of a spinster unless she latched onto a foreigner because she was an old lady by local standards

this was not a woman who was easy to pursue, took ages to crack that shell, she was not a woman for one night stands etc (at least not with me) and from what i understood her last boyfriend was another american

but i distinctly remember the very first time i went over to her place i stopped at the convenience store on the bottom floor to grab some drinks to bring up and as I'm buying them an old man who's just hanging out and playing cards loudly yells "you're in the wrong elevator shaft, you need to head out and take the next one and then go to the 7th floor" and sure enough that was the exactly correct directions to her place

now i like to think she wasn't sleeping around with foreigners left and right, but even so, it gives you an idea of how women there can gain a "reputation" like this old retiree sees a foreign guy for the very first time at the complex and not only knows which building the woman he's banging is at but which apartment in the building - and there were hundreds so it wasn't just a lucky guess - that guy had kept tabs on her ex (or perhaps all the dudes running trains on her) and saw another foreigner and was like "oh he must be here to bang the girl on the 7th floor"

2nd pic without a doubt an improvement, i just wouldn't use the word fat for the 1st

fair enough Unhealthy, but not “fat” in the aesthetic sense. Having a ton of muscle makes it hard to ever be “fat”.

I also just realized he has no idea what we mean when we use the word “local” and dont want to type it out on phone. It does not mean “Chinese”

OK, well that explains a lot. LOL at 30 being middle aged, though. I assume you're familiar with what middle aged means in USA #47.

What's old over there? 45?

That makes sense. For some reason, I thought you were worried about it on your end and it potentially affecting your employment in some way (e.g., they'll lay you off or not promote you or something).

@rickroll, wanna help me out here?

I have a huge glass ceiling here as an American teaching British curriculum for 9 years and just now entering my first british owned school. I can never ever be a principal at a place like this. But having Head of Department or any bullshit leadership title opens doors for british schools across teh world and more importantly, principal at a Chinese owned school or maybe one of the very rare American schools. But no, registering a bunch of girls and having them come in and out of my place woujld probably not damage my already poor prospects for rising up as an American in a British owned place. They rarely hire us at all and this one only hired me because it's in the middle of nowhere and people don't want to live here. Resume went straight to toilet for their shenzhen campuses where people actually want to live and they can afford to dumpster all non British/commonwealth CVs because they likely have 100+ applications per position where this place probably has less than 10.

local=from that city. This makes a huge difference in social behaviour and they are even treated differently under the laws and hukou system.

Chinese girls behave completely differently based on who they think is watching. In Thailand, nothing counts and you can bang straight male hookers no problem. But in your own hometown city? If you bang anyone other than a bf you've been wtih for more than 6 months and intend to marry, news of your sluttiness will quickly spread and your mom will call you on the phone weeping about what she heard from the neigbhours. If you're from a different city and have no family in the city where you live, you are far less inhibited about these things. Honestly, pretty much the same for guys too but to a lesser extent. Slut shaming is still far more intense than in the west, and here it's both genders joining in where in the west it's really female on female mostly.

Some places like Shenzhen or where I live are actually mostly non-locals. Where I was before was around 60% locals, and before that maybe 10%.

When you refer to "locals" in any major city this also usually means wealthy from housing bubble as well, though I guess in 2024 this is becoming less and less true!

Thanks, bro. How all this stuff works in China (employment, relationships, etc.) is truly fascinating to me.

yeah this is very much a thing in big cities

everyone who was a resident back in the 80s had worker assigned housing - when they privatized housing, they were just given that property

since people don't trust the stock market, they'll often stockpile real estate instead - so they all want to own apartments in the prestige cities so the cost of ownership is insane and you basically can't even get a terrible, dilapidated studio apartment in downtown beijing for less than a million dollars

a lot of those elderly chinese you see who retired abroad just figured "hey i can sell my apartment for 1.6 million and go buy a place for 300k in california and retire off the rest" so they go do that

all those number are in K so that first one is 95 square meters and just shy of a million dollars

mind you, these prices are all much lower than in the past as they've been falling steadily since covid, pre covid these would all be 10-30% more expensive

what 900k usd gets you in Beijing

and mind you, that's one of the "better deals" out there

this is about 6 million
https://beijing.anjuke.com/prop/view/S32...

cities like beijing also have much better schools than the rest of the country their universities must have a certain quota of locals (imagine if 10% easier to get into harvard if you were a boston resident) so a local with local hukou will be able to attend much better schools as well - this is a huge reason why so many middle aged parents leave their children back in the village to be raised by relatives because they aren't local and can't go to school there as a result, they need to stay home or their parents need to pay for private school or they somehow finagle a way to get that hukou - which is also why you have far better marriage prospects if you're a local because everyone wants to marry into that system - much like a green card marriage

64 weeks out
Legs
Seated ham curls: 130kgx17. 12. 10
HBBS: 140kgx12, 120kgx16
Lying ham curls: 2 sets 20, 13
Leg extenions: bullshit tbh

I trained too hard this session. I'm going to back down to hbbs 140kx10 and 120kgx13 or smth and add reps more slowly. If I have to lay down after squats to recover rather than just sitting down, taht means I pushed things too hard.

Good explanation Rickroll.

Met this huge white Irish guy around 6'5 jacked out of his marbles going for his pro card in men's physique. His fiancee is from the same place I was born and it was super awkward explaining I am "from" there without sharing any of the culture or language of the place and having adopted Chinese and language the past decade. He's only 25 already full time online coaching. His form on everything is so impeccable. Most 25 year olds are still throwing weight around ego lifting like ******s but this chap doing things the right way from a young age. Not great skeletal structure for aesthetics but clearly killing it financially and showing some ultra impressive client transformations. I've got a lot of things figured out but I could very clearly benefit from a "coaching mentor". I'm leaving day after tomorrow but I will meet with him next trip and try to pick his brain. There's a handful of people offering 'coaching mentorships' formally; it might be a worthwhile investment for me down the road.

I love BKK but jesus do I tire of Pattaya very quickly. Dirty, dogs, ugly people, low class people, 3rd world grime but not the endearing Chinese aspirational "we're gonna make it, bro" kind. . The Phratamnak muscle factory community feels like the only good part of this place.

My place in Suzhou was selling for around 1.4 million USD and I was renting it for about 1k/mo. A graduated student who's been in America asked me about the discrepancy between rent and home value in America vs China and I guess I'd never explicitly written it out but sort of intuitively understood it: Housing demand in China is really just demand for a store of value. Demand for SP500 Index funds and most value stocks in America is the same, but we have far less corrupt financial disclosure standards and a government and central bank less willing to allow for stock market corrections. People in China are rightfully afraid to put their money in financial markets becuase face saving culture basically makes it so that companies will never be really honest about how they're doing when releasing financial statements or other data, so like rickroll said, they ape money into the housing market. They still have ultra limited English for overseas investments and capital controls that substantially effect larger retail investors, so just buying SP500 like everyone else is far less of an option. The result is tons of housing being created as sort of a second currency that is just used for a store of value to protect against currency debasement in a way that replaces the stock market. Rent prices reflect demand for a place to live, while house prices reflect demand for stores of value. This same dynamic still exists in the USA, just the differences is Americans have far more options and competing stores of value. But none of this would ever be necessary if monetary police and central banking weren't so outrageously corrupt in both places.

Bitcoin, obviously. But even Bitcoin is becoming essentially captured by the financial system it was meant to compete with. Can it be part of the mainstream financial system and still fullfill its function as a hedge against currency debasement? I'm too dumb to contemplate this question, but my instinctual answer is 'yes'.

Nobody knows the exact number, but some Chinese economists are saying 2.8 billion homes for 1.28 billion people which is pretty funny.

I, also, live in a country where housing supply outpaces population. One of the fundamental problems with those aggregate numbers is they don't actually mean anything. You can buy an apartment for ~1100 USD (plus $100 for closing or so) that is ~45sqm, has never been updated since the 70s, and is in a dying industrial area. Alternatively if you wanna live in a hip area in a recently renovated building (or new build) you'll pay around 300x as much psqm. (I target middle class normies so we are like 120-150x that price.) I'm sure China does have some weird housing issues, but gross housing vs gross population is kinda silly at a country that size. Maybe in HK it would be a reasonable metric.

I do enjoy the China stories. Every time I think "Wao. This is ****ed." it turns out to be even weirder and more ****ed than I could possibly think.

I don't know shiet about BBing, but is being this tall a drawback? Intuitively, it seems to me that would be the case. Also, what would you say is an optimal height for a BBer? My guess would be just tall enough to get you out of manlet range, so maybe like 6'0". But I wouldn't be surprised if I was wrong in either direction.

I went to a seminar with Dorian Yates after he’d won his second Mr Olympia. Only about 80 of us there and it was in a small room.

He was about 5.9/5.10 but he looked about 5.6 because he was so ****ing uuuuuuuuge.

To this day I’ve never seen anyone even approaching the thickness of him. His pats were other worldly

pic for reference

lats obvs

That tall is very suboptimal. Around five foot nine seems to be the magic number for men's open. around six foot for classic and men's physique.

Men's physique, here I come! #geneticallyblessed

Don't need to train hard on legs. 40s isn't too late to start, but 50s is a bit tuff to be competitive.

Push

Smith incline: 80kgx20, 11, 8 all paused obv
machine press: 3 sets failure
machine ohp: 3 sets failure
cable side raises both sides at a time: 4 sets failure
pushdowns: 22x25, 3 more sets myorep matching

This gym is gay. More expensive than the one I was going to, AC sucks, people inside are all hideously ugly, in a shopping mall. But it has a really baller hip thrust and hamstring curl. The one I was going to before had a hip thrust that I couldn't feel even when I maxed out the plates and a hamstring curl that is sub-par and didn't give a great pump but I could still feel something.

I can always just barbell or smith machine hip thrust and I could play around with other weird hamstring exercises like on the ample number of cable machines this gym has. Those cable pullthroughs are a decent glute+ham exercise. That gym had kickass upper body machines and best AC of any gym I've been to in China which has to be dozens by now.

I feel super annoyed at having to take an 18 minute taxi to the gym and back instead of being able to walk and get steps in, but that's the cost of living in a super remote area.

Overall I clearly made the wrong choice for location as far as general life happiness over the next 2 years; however here is also the best possible choice for my career after these 2 years are up. Other places might have resulted in a much more pleasant 2 years, but weren't as likely to give me as many options after this contract (which after literally 2 days of work I'm almost certain I will not re-sign unless there's a huge amount of development in the city, making this the first job I stay at less than 3 years). Our Chinese principal is very fluent in English and used to be a Chinese as a second language teacher. At the big work dinner she said I was the highest level Chinese foreigner she'd ever encountered, well above the level of the typcail Macau native Cantonese speaking resident. She said she literally wouldn't be able to teach me at this level anymore. She seems to like me a lot. Hopefully she's attracted to me as well and this unconscious bias results in me getting preferential treatment at work and a good referral to either our campus in BKK or to become the principal of a Chinese owned school after this. I think the geopolitical risk is largely scaremongering by western media and greatly overstated, so as a result I'm heavily leaning toward the latter option at this point. Just 3.5 weeks in Thailand and I was already feelin yucky and like I wanted to come back home... I'm just not sure about living there full time. 3 of our teachers used to work there and relocated to China because salaries are much higher here. Is Thailand really much better for bodybuilders? Honestly I don't think so, no. Grocery prices are just better in China, gear is more accessible for the home-brewers, gh is way more affordable and accessible, transportation/lifestyle/shopping/etc are way more convenient, the country is overall more developed, Thai girls are still very accessible for dating or LTRs living in China given the proximity and how relatively easy it is for Thais to adadpt to China life. Gyms and bodybuilding network is way better in Thailand, but competition is way worse. They don't even have a local amateur fed that links to the IFBB, they have the ******ed competitor the the IFBB called PCA that everyone considers a joke.

You have better restaurant food and a few specialized bbing meal prep places, but are you honestly going to be dropping 1k baht/day on prepped meals? Probably not on a BKK international school teacher salary you aren't. And there's just way less food available with online shopping in Thailand compared to China where we have almost limitless choices at very good prices and 2-3 day delivery when it comes to protein sources. Live in China and Thai partner seems like a good tradeoff, as Chinese wives are one big disadvantage of living in China.

Then of course I've already committed so much time and energy to learning this place, language, and culture and I'm not looking forward to repeating that process again as an older guy. Regardless, having the option to move there or anywhere else as a direct result of living a way less convenient but more peaceful lifestyle out here seems like a worthwhile trade-off.

Diet started today already, I haven't got a scale for my new place yet but I was 103.8kg at the gym at night.

Meal 1
100g oats, blueberries, brown sugar, 350ml skim, 200g chicken breast, 150g green beans

Meal 2
300g sweet potato, 150g green beans, 200g chicken breast

Meal 3
Same as 2

Meal 4
150g salmon, 300g white potato, 14g butter, no green beans, 300g pineappl

Meal 5
???instant noodles, ~160g grilled chicken breast, some sort of asian spinache pre workout meal

12,800 steps

This is a good start but we'll obviously be cleaning this up as we go along. I just ordered my 2nd freezer, frozen raspberries, sirloin steaks, stevia, and the GOAT dieting food GREEN APPLES.

Stims starting at 30mg caffeine 2.5mg yohibmine which even after being off all stims since mid June I dont' feel **** from these. That's okay, we'll take it slow. I will add the clen only on October 7 monday after our national holiday. A good ~5-6 weeks of dieting without clenbuterol should keep me nice and sensitive so I add it when I'm lean and need the extra boost. By October 7 I should be on no more than 250 caffeine, 20 yohimbine, and maybe a third thing like synephrine or microdose of that condemend labz fat burner Arsynist. 1/4th of a capsule.

i'm sure you've addressed it already

but very curious about the gear, do you just buy it online or find it through word of mouth?

ie you're new to an area, do you just start walking up to people who are obviously on it at the gym and ask them how to get it?

what are the legal implications, ie could you ever get in trouble in the process of owning/acquiring it

do you tell your clients about your usage and if so, do you advocate they use?

if someone at school were to ask you if you're on gear what would your answer be?

Gear: Can be bought online via wechat sellers or can buy raw powders from a factory. Or you can buy from Thailand and bring back. Gear is not illegal here; my suitcase got lost in Macau and I had to go to the police station to get it. Filled with orals, oils, and clen. I got 0 grief from law enforcement. They made an itemized list of everything in my suitcase and required me to sign for it. I homebrew my oils and can homebrew a handful of orals in liquid form, but not all of them. Orals are optional and mostly used 4 weeks precontest anyway. I guess now I could also go to HK and buy OTC for way higher prices than I need to if I wanted. It's about a 2 hour journey by taxi+bus from my home.

Clients: Yes obv all my clients know I use. I "advocate" use if somebody has high level competitive goals or a medical problem requiring TRT. I don't recommend anyone get on steroids unless bodyfat is sub 15. One of the guys I posted a few pages earlier did his first show natty. And i mean legit loco/me sub 15, not 2010 bodybuilding/com 4 pack sub 15. One thing I've learned first hand is that these products work way better and have way fewer side effects when you are leaner. If somebody in the 20%+ range came to me asking for roid/trt advice, I'd say "fat. cut. then roids/trt". Even for somebody considering androgenl/trt, I'd get to low bodyfat first. Hypogonadism is likely to reverse when you get leaner and even if it doesn't, you get way less side effects when leaner because a lot of the aromatase enzyme is in fat tissue.

Syndr0me did a few cycles when he was "normal bodyfat for 2p2 in the SS+Gomad era"... so not even super fat and his side effects were off the charts. Floppy dick and mood swings from little 500mg test and 25mg dbol starter cycles. Even going down to 250mg test/wk, no penile function. Then he started his xfit era and got a lot leaner/smaller. Reintroduced test and rock hard boners, no side effects.

School one is tough. If they are Chinese and not a student, I will tell the truth. If they are foreign and DYEL or a student and DYEL, I will lie. Generally if somebody has several years of weight room experience they already know the answer so I never need to come out and say it. I lied once when 17 year old boys asked me, I told the truth when another foreign teacher asked me at my previous job. 100% DYEL NARPs here so keeping it very on the DL. Chinese people are generally chill about it and know its part of the game. Every gym rat benching over 225lbs in China is already on a mega-cycle that would make mine look pitiful.

I've been really enjoying this guy's videos. He is overtly fascist/nationalist. But I am deciding between living in 2 different fascist/nationalist states as a foreigner; I've voted with my feet and clearly my revelead preferences are fascism. I don't believe in democracy anymore. But anyway, sometimes I just think of this as lifting weights. But there is significance and meaning in this endeavour whether you acknowledge it or not. Highly recommended channel getting into the philosophy of training/exercise/bodybuilding.