Bodybuilding Classic Physique Division Offseason log

Little sneak peak. 7 weeks and 6 days out from show day. But probably I'll end up doing these refeeds on Mondays which will allow me to comply with this diet for a few more weeks afterword. If my glutes and hamstrings are in by show day, I'll do the show and stop then. If not, I may not do the show and just keep dieting as long as it takes to get my glutes and hams in. Knowing I have one day per week where I can eat chicken, rice, and pineapple until I feel full eases things up psychologically that will allow me to just keep pushing down.

Impressive work!

Nice!

How much more weight will you hope to strip by game day?

Also, you’d never guess you were in China…other than the flag

Great quads

Looking hyooge.

It's so unpredictable for enhanced bb. And it becomes more extreme for people that aren't gassing hard in the offseason but then kitchen-sink during contest prep/cutting. Justin Harris said in one of his 2007 preps he started his diet at 260 and ended at a shredded 266. The guys who lose a ton of scale weight in contest prep are either running tons of gear offseason already or just started super high bodyfat or some combination of both. I also added legit gh for the first time during this cut. So rather than "how much scale weight" will I drop, it's more "the cut is done when the glutes and hamstrings are showing clear hardness and definition", even if that results in me dieting another 11-13 weeks instead of 8. It could be at 88kg, it could be at 82kg. We'll find out.

I don't know shiet about BBing, but you look jacked AF. Couple of questions

1. To me it seems your physique is clearly better than everyone pictured. Correct?
2. Lots of non-Chinese bros in the pic. Where do the natives train?

1. yes obv

2. They train here. There is no "foreigner gym". We just invaded the place for one night. It's a small gym so they never have more than 10-15 people there. EVeryone in my foreigner social circle either works a higher level and more time consuming 55+ hour per week job like myself or has wife/kids or both, so we don't get a lot of opportunities to meet and socialize. Friday nights we usually meet at this gym 2-3x/mo.

BBing gym with ostensibly bbing equipment but to be frank most of the machines look cool and still ****ing suck. They are powerlifters except one of the guys with tons of tats (the non-bald one) also bodybuilds. He hasn't done a show yet and was around 87kg at 6'1.5 last cut and still had a few kgs to lose to be stage lean. In these pics he's 105kg. Still using that polish coach I didn't like working with. He's making crazy fast progress and works super hard and is probably no more than 2-3 years behind me rn. They're all doing a meet next weekend in our city which I'm obviously sitting out. Powerlifting is kinda stupid and I'm sad it was the dominant fitness modality here for years but glad it isn't anymore. I mean it doesn't have to be lame, but athletes and judges turned it into a lame sport. If it were atg high bar squats, no fancy belts/wraps/sleeves, no sumo, no turbo arching, and no fatness it'd be a cool sport tbh.

Legs last night

Hamstring curls: 47.5kgx17, 12, 9
Leg extensions: 4 sets of 20 various weights
Paused SLDL toes elevated: 120kgx12, 9, 7
high and wide leg press: 3ppsx25, 20, 15

I don't like the high+wide leg press; didn't feel it in my glutes and hamstrings like I wanted. Just felt like a shitty version of regular leg press. I'll try the front foot elevated split squats again; I think the weird ball pain was from pants I was wearing and maybe it'll feel fine with shorts.

I couldn't get my glutes as engaged on these SLDLs at this weight, felt lower back taking over and my lower back is sore today. My lower back never got sore when I was doing 100kg for super high reps. Maybe I just bump up to 102.5kg or 105kg and continue the very high reps. My erectors are really overdeveloped overall because my deadlift style was basically 0 glutes 70% erectors 30% hamstrings.

Push
Internal Rotation
Machine incline press: 62.5kgx15, 12, 14
Flat db press: 30kgx15, 11, 8
DB prone delt raises but on a higher incline than usual: 4 sets wow felt a lot more side and less rear delt
Pushdowns: stackx22, 3 sets myo rep matching
Between pushdowns sets, did cable curls 5 sets to failure wow omg now I see what everyone is talking about

Basically my forearms near the elbow have been chronically ****ed since my "no straps ever" experiment. Cable curls totally take the forearms+brachialis out and its like pure bicep peak. I'm not sure why I never connected with the exercise before; probably because I only very recently started actually trying to train the peak of the bicep. It's working btw and my biceps are visually less flat, even in the extended deficit. I've basically been dieting since November with about 3.5 weeks of ****ing off in Thailand. This has been a pretty long diet but I'm not having much trouble sustaining.

Mistakes were made in the offseason and I feel like I finally understand what to do with offseason eating now, so we're not going to get so fat and out of shape that we have this monster-diet to get all the fat off next time. Dieting for so long has also forced me to get into really good meal prep and cooking habits that I need to actually sustain through the offseason instead of herp derping and ordering shitty high dietary fat takeout 6-10x/wk.

Had a pretty god-tier pump but was still fairly watery from the high carbs.

oh I did ez curls 20kgx30, 2 more sets myo rep matching at the beginning of the day on leg day but forgot to log it.

Pull today and my hamstrings+low back are still sore so gonna take out barbell rows and do pullups, single arm pulldowns, single arm machine rows, pullovers. More unilateral work henceforth. I can probably be doing less for upper back/lower traps and more for lats for the time being.

Pull

Wide grip pronated pullups strapped and with a pause at the top and the bottom: bwx15, 11, 11 humbling, but pain free
unilateral pulldowns: 30kgx15, 9, 20kgx11
Unilateral machine rows: 62.5kgx16, 12, 9
Lat prayers with rope: 3 sets failure
EZ curls: 20kgx27, 3 more sets myo rep matching.

This pullup variation with straps really tight and barely applying any pressure with my grip seems to be treating my forearms and elbows very gently. I'll do this from now on. the machine rows I'm not so sure about... although it got that lower lat area perfectly, it just doesn't feel like a challenging enough exercise. Single arm lat pulldowns felt great though.

Gotta work late today and so that means I'll be at the gym late so I'm going to totally phone it in on my glutes+quads sessions tonight so that I can actually sleep afterword.

Cable curls from yesterday ****ed up my bicep/pec tie-in again. The main reason I did so little bicep peak work is because the majority of the exercises that target that area also mess up my bicep/pec tie-in. But the ez curls, leaning away single arm db supinate curls, single arm overhead cable curls, and single arm cable curls without a stretch all seem to work well. Concentration curls are okay too. Today I'll do sum hammers seated with light weights/high reps/no momentum to give that tendon a break.

Legs
Seated hammer curls: 12.5kgx15, 12, 12, 12
Front foot elevated split squat 15kgx15x4 wow this is so much easier after you lose bodyweight
Leg press: 3.5ppsx25, 20
Glute cable kickbacks: 4 sets

Kickbacks felt great, but I feel a bit more hamstrings and less glutes when compared to hip thrust. Hip thrust is a fairly taxing exercise and I gotta figure out a way to do it on both leg days. Unfortunately the answer is gonna be "your leg sessions will take 90 minutes" if I wanna do it. Kickbacks idk if I'll stick with them. I'll try a few more times.

FFESS still hurting my pelvis and testicles regardless of what I wear. Maybe I'll try ordinary lunges and see how they feels idk.

Had the best workout I've had probably all contest prep. IDK wtf happened. I am guessing the carbs from monday finally kinda kicked in? Or maybe b/c I recently started doing a lot more of this lower fat salmon and less chicken breast and I was chronically fat deprived?

Push
Internal rotation stuff
machine press: 62.5kgx20, 16, 12
incline db press: 30kgx15, 12, 9
DB prone raises: 4 sets (ss with incline cable fly machine)
pushdowns: stackx23, 3 more sets myo rep matching
during rest periods did 5 sets of high single arm cable curls

Cardio 30 minutes AM and 14k steps.

Explosive pumps and a lot stronger than usual. Sam's club has this pre-packaged vaccuum sealed allegedly wild caught Salmon already marinated with some garlic+oil+paprika+ground bell peppers that's super delicious. It's not as flavourful as a regular salmon and considerably leaner with a more white-coloured texture. Each slice is around 200g raw weight/150g cooked not counting the weight of the marinade. Each slice is 36g protein 8g fat, so about 4g more fat than the same amount of protein worth of chicken breast. It's 130rmb for 1.1kg and can be cooked from frozen or refrigerated so its exceptionally convenient and absolutely delicious.

My new go-to meal is going to be this salmon+sweet potatos. It air fries up real quick in 6 minutes and keeps well in the fridge. I'm so ****ing burned out on chicken breast... I feel like I can only eat chicken breast with rice idk why. Got some tilapia too to trim off some more cals. It should be as easy as moderating/eliminating my added fats and just do 4 salmon meals+2 tilapia meals or a tilapia and a whey meal. Shooting for about 400g protein 200-275g carbs and no additional added fats, just the ones in the salmon.

I'm almost certainly not going to try and do the show. It's several hundred usd and a weekend to do everything and it just doesn't feel worthwhile for the stakes. I'd like to keep calories high and keep my diet going until middle of July before I start reversing out. I found out i have to be there in person for first tiem visa application and stay for 7 days while it processes for Macau, which means i can't do it until I finish my contract here on July 5 so I may as well just use a diet I could hypothetically stay with year-round that still has me chipping away the fat even if the scale isn't moving much and then finally start slowly raising calories once I fly to Thailand for a 4.5 week holiday.

I'll definitely get some professionally done photos and maybe videos if I can find a videographer who has done fitness stuff.

Lol good Lord; getting into G4S territory here.

Yeah it's not unreasonable that my calories approximately equal to his at a lower bodyweight due to much higher NEAT, higher training frequency, and relatively high cardio load. When I'm done dieting and start to get into full blown bulking I doubt my protein will be much higher than 240-260 and carbs will start around 400 and probably end up around 800-900 near peak bulk.

Bulking protocol from Milos Sarcev I dug up on the net. Pretty interesting, but obviously spamming the glutamine+eaas and weird pump supplements is pure FPS. The high carb+moderate protein+insulin+intraworkout carbs are the interesting part. Training was ppl with 2-a-days on 3 of the training days 6 days per week so in total 9 training sessions per week.

Food:
Meal #1 (7:30 AM)
60 grams of protein [240 calories] (choices: 2 whole EGGS, 6 EGG WHITES + 150 grams of LEAN BEEF) + 30 grams of ALMONDS or any type of nuts or 2 tbsp ALMOND BUTTER [180 calories]

(9:00 AM)
10 grams of EAA's, 10 grams of GLUTAMINE + 1/2 Tablespoon of Extra Virgin Coconut Oil

Meal #2 (10:00 AM)
60 grams of LEAN protein [240 calories] (choices: 300 grams of CHICKEN, TURKEY) and 100 grams of starchy complex carbs [400 calories] (choices: 130 grams of RICE) + (OPTIONAL) 1-2 cups of steamed greens (broccoli, spinach, asparagus...)

(11:30 AM)
10 grams of EAA's, 10 grams of GLUTAMINE

Meal #3, (1:00 PM)
60 grams of protein [240 calories], (choices: 300 grams of CHICKEN/TURKEY or FISH ) and 100 grams of starchy complex carbs [400 calories] (choices: 130 grams of RICE)

(1:45 PM)
20 units of HUMALOG

(2:00 PM)
PRE WORKOUT DRINK
20 grams of HYDROLYSED CASEIN
5 grams of CREATINE
5 grams of CITRULLINE
3 grams of ARGININE
2 grams of L-CARNITINE
2 grams of BETA ALANINE
50 grams of carbs: [200 calories] VITARGO, HBCD, KARBOLYN, DEXTROSE, MALTODEXTRIN

(2:30 PM)
DURING WORKOUT DRINK
10 grams of EAA
10 grams of BCAA
1 gram of L-CARNITINE
1 gram of BETA ALANINE
125 grams of carbs: [500 calories] VITARGO, HBCD, KARBOLYN, DEXTROSE, MALTODEXTRIN

(4:00 PM)
25 units of HUMALOG

(4:15 PM)
POST-WORKOUT SHAKE:
50 grams of HYDROLYZED WHEY or CASEIN
90 grams of carbs: VITARGO, HBCD, PIECE OF FRUIT
5 grams of CREATINE
5 grams of GLUTAMINE

Meal #4, (5:00 PM)
40 grams of protein [160 calories], (choices: 200 grams of CHICKEN or TURKEY BREAST) and 175 grams of carbs [700 calories] (choices: 100 grams of WHITE RICE + 250 grams of SWEET POTATO + 45 grams of SIMPLE CARBS)

(6:15 PM)
10 grams of GLUTAMINE, 10 grams of EAA's + 100 grams of carbs [400 calories] (choices: RICE CAKES, HONEY, APPLE SAUCE, RAISINS, ORANGE JUICE, ORGANIC CEREAL)

Meal #5, (7:15 PM)
60 grams of protein [240 calories], (choices: WHITE FISH or CHICKEN/TURKEY BREAST) and 100 grams of carbs [400 calories] (choices: 130 grams of WHITE RICE )

(8:45 PM)
10 grams of EAA's, 10 grams of GLUTAMINE

Meal #6 (10:00 PM)
60 grams of protein [240 calories], (choice: 300 grams of LEAN BEEF) and green salad with Balsamic Vinegar

Cycle with this diet:
Sustanon 250mg EOD
Mast-p 100mg EOD
Tren-a 100mg EOD
Anavar 60mg ED
Arimidex 0,5mg EOD
HGH 9iu

Wife recently had a surgery and for her recovery she was recommended 60g/protein each day. Nice to see you making sure to get that every main meal.

👍

BW hit an all time low of 91.5 this morning. I should probably stop weighing myself and obsessing over it like a teenage girl with an eating disorder and just go based on check-in pics.

Pull

Strapped wide grip pullups: bwx16, 12, 11, 10 had to answer a 15 minute phone call between sets 3 and 4
single arm plate loaded pulldowns: 1.75ppsx22, 19, 12 shoulda gone heavier
Single arm machine rows: 62.5kgx18, 14, 12 going to go back to doing this bilaterally
Lat prayers: 2 sets
Bayesian curls: 7.5kgx4 sets fail

I got off work late, got to the gym late, and had that phone call so by the time I got to curls it was past 8 o clock and I just phoned it in and went home.

Cardio 30 minutes, steps 18k.

Tomorrow morning I fly to BKK where I'm frankly going to have a break. I might train light once in the 4 days I'm there. I'll eat healthy bodybuilding food and limit the amount of cheat meals to once per day and don't go psycho. Might also take a break from stimulants/cardio and just get 12-15k steps and come back to full throttle once I've returned to China. I'm still far ahead of schedule enough to where I can take a 4 day break and be fine or even better off to get some of that fatigue rinsed off.

I dropped my test to just 1cc/wk split over 3 .33ml shots and I'm looking fairly dry. Also picked up some hydrochlorothyazide. I'm not going to do the estrogen depletion to dry out but I might do the show anyway because more stage experience is good and probably worth paying money to get. I still have a ton of time to decide.

Offseason protocol from Dave Palumbo. I'm not so confident in this style of offseason eating to be honest. Everything I've read points to fats being mostly just a less efficient energy source for bodybuilders. While potentially good for dieting, it seems like this approach will lead to worse performance and more fat gain than a higher carb approach. Also why the **** olive oil? there's so many delicious fats like salmon, chicken thighs, steak, tuna, avocado, nuts, nut butters, butter. I would never eat oil as part of a meal probably.

Cycle seems kinda stupid with the EQ for only 6 weeks, but it'd be fine if you skilled that and just alternated the parabolan (tren) and deca instead.

Diet:
08.00 pre-workout shake:
Whey Isolate 60gr
Waxy Maize 20gr

08.30:
Training

09.30 post-workout shake:
Whey Isolate 60gr
Waxy Maize 40gr
Creatine 5gr

09.45:
Insulin 10iu

MEAL 1:
Egg 5st
Egg protein 3rd
Oatmeal 85gr

MEAL 2:
Chicken fillet 225gr (uncooked)
Sweet potatoes 280gr
Nut oil 20ml

MEAL 3:
Whey isolate 60gr
Peanut butter 30gr

In between:
Insulin 8iu

MEAL 4:
beef 225gr
Potatoes 350gr
Olive oil 20ml

MEAL 5:
Chicken fillet 225gr (uncooked)
Rice 65gr (uncooked)
Olive oil 10ml
Walnuts 100gr

MEAL 6:
beef 225gr
Rice 65gr (uncooked)
Olive oil 20ml

Supplements:
Vitamin D 5000iu
Calcium with magnesium 1500mg
Multivitamin
Primrose oil 2600mg
Omega 3 3000mg
Glucosamine Sulfate 4000mg
Fiber 5gr

Cycle:
Week 1-6:
Sustanon 350mg EOD
Boldenone 200mg EOD
Dianabol 30mg ED
Arimidex 0.5mg EOD
HGH 6iu ED
Insulin 18iu ED
GHRP-6 250mcg post-workout and 250mcg before bed

Week 7-12:
Test-e 350mg EOD
Parabolan 76mg EOD
Arimidex 0.5mg EOD
HGH 6iu ED
Insulin 18iu ED
GHRP-6 250mcg post-workout and 250mcg before bed

Week 13-18:
Test-c 350mg EOD
Deca 200mg EOD
Arimidex 0.5mg EOD
HGH 6iu ED
Insulin 18iu ED
GHRP-6 250mcg post-workout and 250mcg before bed

Another Dave Palumbo protocol for a pre-contest superheavyweight bodybuilder who got extremely fat and out of shape offseason and had to drop like 50lbs in 16 weeks. I think this approach would work okay; I can see the benefits of raising up fats during a dieting phase even if I myself am not doing that this time. I would never do 40g carbs from white rice though that's just silly and asking to be hungry all the time. Substitute in brown rice, quinoa, sweet potato, or white potato. I would personally fail the **** out of this diet because I love fruit and wouldn't be able to not eat fruit for 16 weeks. I'm sure you could sub in some fruits for some of the carbs and it'd still work fine.

DIET ROTATION: DIET #1 (Protein/Veggie/carbs) for 3 day………then DIET #2 (protein/fat) for 1 day……….repeat

PROTEIN/VEGGIE/CARBS DIET

MEAL #1

12 Egg whites with 1 cup oatmeal (I want 40g carbs so read the oatmeal box to ensure you’re using the correct measurement to yield 40g carbs))

*** You can make the egg whites Omelet style with some onion and spinach if you like. Use Macadamia nut oil to lightly grease your pan

MEAL #2

8oz white fish (cod, tilapia, flounder) with 1 cup white rice (40g carbs) and 1/2 cup green beans

MEAL #3

8oz (cooked) chicken (or Turkey) with 1 cup white rice (40g carbs) with 1/2 cup green beens

MEAL #4

SHAKE: 50g Whey Protein Isolate with 1.5 tablespoon of All Natural Peanut butter (no sugar added) or almond butter

MEAL # 5:

8oz white fish (cod, tilapia, flounder) with 1/2 cup spinach and 7oz baked potato (around 30g carbs)

MEAL #6

8oz (cooked) RED MEAT (filet mignon, or top round cut) with 1 cup green beans or 1 cup asparagus

PROTEIN/FAT DIET

MEAL #1

4 whole Omega-3 Eggs (with 5 additional whites)

*** Omelet style with some Onions and spinach if you like. Use Macadamia nut oil to grease your pan

MEAL #2

SHAKE: 50g Whey Protein Isolate*** with 1.5 Tablespoon of All Natural PB or almond butter

MEAL #3

8oz (cooked) chicken (or Turkey, or Tuna, or tilapia, flounder, or cod) with 1/3-cup RAW almonds, cashews or walnuts

MEAL #4

SHAKE: 50g Whey Protein Isolate with 1.5 tablespoon of All Natural Peanut butter (no sugar added) or almond butter

MEAL # 5:

8oz (cooked) chicken (or Turkey, or Tuna, or tilapia, flounder, or cod) with 1/3-cup RAW almonds, cashews or walnuts

MEAL #6

8oz (cooked) Salmon, Swordfish, or 8oz RED MEAT (filet mignon, or top round cut) with 1 cup green beans or 1 cup asparagus with1 tablespoon of Olive Oil or Macadamia nut oil

*****MEAL ORDER IS UNIMPORTANT. ALL MEALS ARE EQUAL.

***ONCE A WEEK, HAVE a CHEAT MEAL (instead of MEAL #6) Double Quarter Pounder with Large French Fries

*** You can use sugar-free soy sauce, mustard, and vinegar for condiments.

*** You can drink water, sugar-free drinks (diet soda), coffee, or tea with STEVIA BALANCE (no Equal or Splenda Packets).

Protein/Fat diet looks way more enjoyable

I could eat natty nut butter every day happily. (as long as I could slurp a mouthful of milk after each serve)

Diet soda ok, but no equal or splenda?

Most of the these protocols are kinda ******. The weird specificity of particular types of carbs/proteins/fats/etc are all just asinine since everyone has different preferences/tolerances. Obviously you can't sub in packs of gummies for oat meal, but there are a variety of other things that will fit your dietary needs.

Not everyone can be Brian Shaw and eat the same thing 8 times of day (weird organic ground beef, rice, broth, OJ) and not wanna die.

I would like to subscribe to your newsletter good sir.

Then again endurance athletes make the candy consumption of legit big fats (RIP YTF, sorry MLY not fat enough) seem paltry. I imagine gummis would make a substantial amount of this consumption. But I suppose it is personal preference. Prob not much hard candy. Lollis and jolly ranchers just take too long to consume. But again... When you're at the very edge of human performance and consuming 5k+ calories. You're in a really really niche space.

For some people the general monotony of each meal is part of the deal and makes it way simpler for their consumption. For most people who aren't mentally ill, they'd prob rather die. Whether you have two hard boiled eggs, soft or poached on your morning toast isn't gonna be meaningful. The hot sauce isn't gonna matter, etc etc. But some people go fully insane and don't understand that having a volcanic **** after eating two poached eggs covered in some Ghost Pepper hot sauce is probably not very nutritious.

I think my rage is more toward people who give these incredibly limiting guidelines that morons totally believe and don't understand that they can enjoy a delicious deer steak on occasion instead of lean ground beef. Or subbing in some swordfish for tilapia isn't gonna be the deciding factor in your diet. Like is "white fish" not descriptive enough? Do we need to specifically limit ourselves to three types despite most people being completely unable to tell the difference between halibut and cod? (Lets not discuss plaice.) Will some ****** keep eating a ton of black cod and not understand that its an oily white fish that isn't actually cod?

And to be honest, yes. I think most people are this ******ed and giving these distinctions helps since someone might drink 7-Up or Sprite thinking they're diet sodas since they're clear. Since that is what makes things have calories...

This is exactly why I "broke up" with my coach very quickly. I wanted to sub in things like shrimp or tilapia for chicken breast sometimes and he's just like "NO YOU HAVE TO DO THE MEAL PLAN EXACTLY AS WRITTEN!1!" and clearly doesn't understand how nutrition works. As you say, subbing gummies for oatmeal is obviously dumb, but subbing venison for lean ground beef or shrimp for chicken breast is obviously going to be fine.

That said, I could eat chicken breast, pineapple, rice and various derivatives (cream of rice, rice cakes), green beans, avocado, fat free milk, salmon, and blueberries for 90%+ of my daily calories for years on end and feel great.

Some of these coaches have developed really good protocols via trial and error that will obviously generate elite bodybuilding "athletes", but they seem blissfully unaware of why the protocol worked or what parts could be modified to preserve clients sanity and resistant to learning in general.

I'm gonna try to make 'skim milk quark' today. Had some quark for the first time last week and it was amazing. If that doesn't work out, I'll try making skim milk cottage cheese instead. I definitely miss having cheese in my diet but I need to figure out a low fat/fat free cheese I can make as Chinese don't sell this anywhere because most Chinese literally don't know that macronutrients exist and are a thing.

I only trained 3 times on the holiday and mostly just enjoyed life and allowed myself to over eat. Weighed in at 95.6kg in the morning after weighing 91.5 the morning before I left. Didn't take any stimulants or fat burners. Basically it was a 5 day diet break and I'm ready to head back into fat loss. There's just nothing important at stake for this show in June and given the cost of entry fee, tanning, hotel, and transportation it's hard to justify dropping the money on it just for some stage experience which I already have. I've made good progress but I've been very loose with everything and I'd rather go on stage having actually tried hard. I'll be much more locked in for either October 2025 or March 2026 show; I haven't picked which one I'll do yet as it depends on schedule and the conditions of my new job. I'm realizing that I'm probably only around 7-8kg from my classic physique weight cap as an amateur when in stage shredded shape so I really don't need to push aggressively with food and PEDs given how much time I have to put that muscle on.

I'll still get some professionally done photos and maybe video as I wrap up the fat loss phase, however.

This was taken after doing a swedish massage with deep tissue and all that. Very surprisingly this brought out crazy vascularity in my quads.