supercell

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

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ParaManiac

So glad you're doing another journal mate,such an ocean of information.

You're a top man,best wishes.

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hilly2008

as always mate looks like you have got a good plan. The diet and training all look good and i can see it will be a bit more enjoyable.

Keep up the good work im sure you will keep making constant progress with your hard work and dedication

dan2004

My word the detail you provide in these journals is unreal! Thanks for sharing this ill be following closely ! All the best

clarkey

Great to see you sharing your ideas again James, your posts inspire and help so many of us. All the best with your off season.

Nine Pack

James, call me one evening this week. I know I am usually just the diet guy but I want to run something by you....

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justdiscovering

knew you'd do one!!!! thanks again for the pleasure james.your time and effort much appreciated.:first:

hertderg

I'm over the moon that you are doing this journal James, the enthusiasm,info and advice jumps off the page at the reader and I know that it has a massive positive effect on myself.

Don't forget to include the you tube vids, they were a fantastic addition to your Arnold thread.

Good luck James.

jjb1

and theres me thinking i might not be logging on for a while.......then ya do another journal! ;-)

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ah24

Cheers J, your threads really do serve well for info and motivation

Nine Pack

Journal junkie :smokin:

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smithy26

cool , this should be good. good idea james

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d/l - 200kg
b/p - 140kg
squat - 140kg
goals - 15.5 stone

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DB

300kg dead would be impressive! now i aint one to comment on you dude as your are far more advanced than me.. but watch the waist with those heavy deads! dont want to get too thick! i got up2 260kg on deads but u could see my waist getting wider so knocked it back to around the 200kg mark for more reps

just a thought

p.s

good to se u back on the board! although i dont always post on your journal i always read every post just dont wanna spam up your thread

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Tinytom

Thats a good training plan James

I did pretty much that split last year in the off season and it worked very well

Too many people think about training a body in a week, well you cant do that and expect to grow freaky big because of the rest needed.

See you soon at Skyline.

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Warstu

will be intresting to good another journal of your , damn your lifts on delts were crazy and calve workout seemed good calves are my strongest bodypart but my calves are only 17s whih aint good hoping they look good after my cut.

Goodluck with your offseason bro

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Squat Max 150kg
Deadlift 140kg
Bench Press 100kg
Delt Pressing 90kg


7 Weeks into cutting Phase
Start At 105kg now at 95Kg