17 days out from Biloxi

I'll start a bit of a journal here to establish what I'm doing with my prep for this upcoming show.

Just a little bit first of what has transpired to get me to this point. My contest goal this year was Steel World, and then the Master's Nationals in Pittsburgh July 22nd. But due to some financial contraints which just seem to keep perpetuating itself, Pittsburgh is no longer in the plans. So we picked the Alabama State for the "biggie" to do this year. The guy that won my class there last year was phenomenal so I am sure this will be a big challenge for me.

So got Steel World behind me and that was a learning curve that I must say I didn't particularly enjoy! I was in real good condition on Thursday before the show on Saturday. And then something went wrong. One thing I have learned about bodybuilding competitions is that until you have a lot of experience determining what prep techniques work best for you in particular, it is a crap shoot at best. I took my shot and missed! I must have missed timed the carbs, water, sodium or all of the above. But I learned from it. Documented everything I did in my journal and now I have a different plan! Who knows if it will work. Getting ready to find out the hard way.

So I started my 8 week prep for the AL State and in the middle of the prep, got offered a small sponsorship to do a show in Biloxi which just so happens to hit right smack in the middle of the 8 week prep. Not good! At first I balked and said that's just stupid! Then after reflecting a bit, the reality is someone just offered to pay for my expensive hobby! On second thought, yeah lets do this! So with only 4 weeks to prepare I am off to making it happen, right or wrong.

I'm at 17 days out as the title say now and I'm really paying catch up. When you are on a 8 week prep and you switch to a 4 week prep you better be in condition already and I wasn't bad at 4 weeks but not hard either. Now I've been crushing the training as I always do. But that's not the hard part. The hard part is to keep training like a mad man but cut your calories in half and start doing 1-2 hours of cardio a day in addition to what you were already doing!

So that gets you caught up to where we are today. Today's menu consisted of 50 grams of carbs, 400 grams of protein, 10 grams of fat and hopefully 2 gallons of water (days not over ) 1 1/2 hour cycling this morning, 2 hours in the gym working on arms, calves, glutes and lower back. And somehow I'm going to get my tired ass on the treadmill for another hour before bedtime.

My biggest assests are my arms and back. My biggest weakness are lack of hardness in my lower back, hamstring/glute tie-ins and lack of thickness in my legs. Nothing I can do about the legs but to keep pounding them hard with squats and lunges of all kinds. But I can work on getting them more separated for the show so that's where my focus is on legs: lots of BW single leg squats. Painful shit for sure but it works.

I've also incorporated some circuits that one of my friends showed me to help with the lower back, glute, hamstring areas and that seems to working as well. Circuit consists of glute machine with lots of weight and lots of reps, then reverse hyper extensions twisting at the top, then reverse kickbacks done on the roman chair. This will fry your lower back real quick. And if you want a hard ass, try this out!

Had some setbacks lately that just make me even more stubborn and willful which is a good thing when you are prepping for a show because your mind is all over the place when your carb depleting so any mental toughness you can muster, the better off you will be. Nothing earth shattering but envolved people that I depended on that for some odd reasons beyond my control just vanished or played stupid games that I have no patience for. Whatever, it's all good. I always said, only worry about the things that you can directly control. Fuck everything else. That's their problem.

Today weighed in at 204, one pound heavier than yesterday which I think is a good thing considering I had a great quad session yesterday. Maybe I picked up a half a pound of muscle? One can only hope! Until next time....Stay Strong!