After saying that I wouldn't be doing a pre contest thread for the British I felt like I'd short changed a few of you, so in its place I thought I'd give a different perspective on competition training by running an off season strength and mass journal.
As many of you know from reading my Arnold thread, I am giving the British my 'heart and soul' this year and know that this year is a good a year as any to realise my dream of winning the light heavies. There will as always be some incredible competition out there and that's why I made the decision to 'opt' out of the pre comp thread thing later this year.
As many of you are well aware my off season is normally very 'unstructured' but as you (or most of you are aware) I always said that 2008 was going to be a very different animal for me.
The journal will really be a log of all my training sessions to give you a little insight into what goes into a well structured off season strength and mass cycle. I will post my diet along with my training split and then after each sesssion I will post up weights, sets, reps and exercises used as well as training time spent lifting.
I have pretty much had 2 weeks off training (well training properly) due to being in the U.S and also falling foul to a flu bug/man flu thing this last week.
Today was my first session back and Matt was there fired up too, ready to start the programme which I believe will last around 12-16 weeks.
I have eaten well since returning from the States and have eaten clean but eaten a fair bit. My weight is now around 14st 7lbs when i wake which is about the heaviest I have ever been. I would like to slowly reach around 15st but no more, this will be around 7lbs more than I have ever held before. The plan will be to stick at around the 14st 7 mark for the next few weeks whilst my body once again gets used to the weight and whilst I shake off this cough I have from the man flu.
I will then slowly hope to creep up to around 15st whilst maintaining a good level of conditioning.
So what is the plan with cardio in this off season phase? Well my plan is to do around 20 mins 5x a week mon-fri with the weekends off. It will be fairly high intensity cardio but brief, just really enough to keep my appetite up and my metabolism healthy.
My training split is basically training each bodypart every 9 days so giving me plenty of time to rest and recover from the heavy lifting.
The split will be as follows
Day 1 mon train-shoulders/calfs
Day 2 tues off
Day 3 weds train-quads/hams
Day 4 thurs off
Day 5 fri train-chest/tri's
Day 6 sat off
Day 7 sun off
Day 8 mon train-back/bi's
Day 9 tues off
Day 10 wed repeat day 1
So we will just be training mon, weds and fri each week with weekends off.
For large body parts we will be doing around 3/4 exercises for around 3-4 sets which will include 2 warm ups then 1-2 sets to failure.
Reps will range from 4-10 typically.
Small muscle groups will be 2/3 exercises of 3 sets which will have 2 warm ups then 1 set to failure.
Rest time between sets will be anywhere from 2-5 mins depending on how much back slapping and psyching up takes place :-))
With my diet I am not being as strict with weighing my food. I will still be keeping an eye on weights but rather by the packaging rather than scales. The only foods I will weigh will be my oats, protein powders and WMS.
TBH I have a fairly good idea what a certain weight looks like now after weighing for nearly 12 months solidly. What I dont want to be at THIS stage is a slave to the weighing scales, this I will leave for the pre contest period as this is when I am religious about it.
I want my off season to be enjoyable and less stressful that my pre contest phase and this is one way I can minimise this and keep my body and mind healthy.
I will also go by how my body feels. If I feel full and not hungry then I will reduce portion size, if I feel hungry then I will increase if necessary. What i will do though is eat every 2.5 hours from the moment I get up to the moment I go to bed.
My supplements will as always come from Myprotein.co.uk and will include:-
MP Max meal replacements
MP max flapjacks
Acetyl L Carnitine
Beta Alanine
L Glutamine
Impact Whey
Total Protein
Vitamin B Super Complex
Daily Vitamins
WMS
Vitamin C
Caffiene Pro
Creatine
ZMA
My rough daily diet will be as follows and is pretty much what I have been eating since returning from the U.S
On waking 10g glutamine, 200mgs caffiene
Cardio 20 mins (only Mon-Fri)
Meal 1 7am 55g Impact whey, 60g WMS, 3g Beta alanine, 2g acetyl L carnitine, Vitamins and minerals
Meal 2 8am 50g Oats, 30g Total protein, 20g peanut butter, handful raisins.
Train 9.30am (Only Mon, Wed, Fri)
Meal 3 11am 55g Impact whey, 60g WMS, 5g creatine, 10g glutamine, 1000mgs Vitamin C
Meal 4 1pm 100g rice, 200g chicken, 10g olive oil, 1 samll pot natural yoghurt
Meal 5 3.30pm 1 MP Max meal replacement, 1 MP max flapjack
Meal 6 5.30pm 100g rice, 200g chicken, 10g olive oil, 1 apple
Meal 7 7.30pm 300g Oven chips, 200g steak, selection of roasted veggies
Meal 8 80g oats, 65g Total protein, 20g peanut butter
On retiring 10g glutamine, ZMA formula
Protein = 375
Carbs = 450
Fats = 100
Approximate k/cals = 4200.
On non training days the PWO meal will be substituted for a solid meal of similar breakdown.
Meals may vary a little and some days whole eggs will be on the menu (5 eggs) with (4x) wholewheat bread.
I will have 1 cheat meal a week if I feel it necessary and will be whatever I want but again no pudding as not keen on anything sweet.
So to today's session
Monday 10th March 2008 Shoulders/calves Shoulders 1. Seated 'dead stop' barbell shoulder press
1x8 60kgs
1x6 80kgs
1x6 100kgs
1x3 (+2 assisted) 122.5kgs
1x8 100kgs
2. Side raises (standing)
1x8 14kgs
1x8 19kgs
1x8 21kgs dropping to 1x8 12kgs (drop set)
3. Lying rear laterals
1x15 17kgs
1x12 19kgs
Total time 40 mins Calves 1. Donkey calf machine
1x20 3/4 stack
1x20 full stack
1x20 full stack
2. Standing calf raises (single leg)
1x10 whole stack (each leg)
1x10 whole stack (each leg) then 1x15 both feet with full stack (drop set)
Total time 10 mins
It was great to be back lifting some decent weights again and although I am not feeling 100% it did me the world of good mentally and as a result I have felt great all day with loads of energy.
The pump was excellent as I am full of glycogen and the associated water after the competition. My shoulders were that pumped they felt like they were going to split. Training calves after was a good idea as we forgot about how pumped and tight our shoulders were as the pain and blood transferred to the lower legs. A lot of stretching was done after calves as it was the first heavy calf workout for around 3-4 weeks.
So all in all a very positive start to this phase of the off season and for the first time I am really looking forward to training, getting stronger and growing some more. Matt has foolishly told me I will be aiming for a 300kgs deadlift by the end of the year....I just laughed at him and said 'Is that all!!!'
:lift:Considering I havent deadlifted for around 2 years it will be interesting to see where I actually end up, hopefully not in A&E!
Happy Lifting!!
J