Traning: Thursday, July 26th 2012

BODY-WEIGHT THIS MORNING: 202 lbs

NUTRITION: Morning extended overnight fast until mid-afternoon. Carbs higher through afternoon/evening.

SYNOPSIS OF MY SHORT-TERM GOALS: I'm currently eating and training to gain a little more muscle while maintaining my current body fat percentage of around 7 to 8% before I start to cut for the October Physique contests I plan on entering. I especially want to add some muscle weight to my go-go-gadget arms, front delts, chest and calves. With no weight limits in the NPC Men's Physique Division, only height classes (up to 5'7", 5'8" to 5'10", and over 5'10"), my ideal body-weight target is only governed by aesthetically how I carry the weight and in what proportions. This mean's I can concentrate more on what weight class I want to powerlift in, since I plan on doing these competitions pretty close to each other. My strength and weight has been steadily increasing over the past few weeks of training hard, and while weight gain past 200 lbs has always been very difficult for me, I'm attributing this new progress to the couple months of taking it easy after over a year without much of a break. If this progress continues as I work hard, I'd like to reach a competition weight of a little over 200 lbs at the physique contest date. That means carbed up (glycogen supercompensation) I would be competing around 210 to 215 lbs in a powerlifting meet and could easily cut for a 24 hour weigh-in to the 198 lb class, which will work perfect either a few weeks before or after the 2 Physique competitions. My only conmcern is if I switch federations (I currently have only competed in the APA) I may end up powerlifting in the new weight classes, where I'd be stuck choosing between a dangerous cut to 183 lbs (83 kg) or competing with bigger guys than me in the 205 lb class (93 kg), unless the meet has day of weigh-ins only. I know I'm rambling, but it's my blog, so go watch some internet porn if you don't like it.

TRAINING NOTES: I ended up doing a short evening training session at home with a set of bowflex selectable dumbell weights. I wanted to get in some extra hypertrophic arm work, done in an efficient time span, and the DB curl to press perfectly fits that. The higher rep set of goblet squats was just enough load to get some blood flowing in my legs to assist with recovery, along with providing some full body work.

WARM-UP:

• Foam Roll
• Quick Dynamic Stretching (shoulder mobilization)

GOBLET SQUATS (explosive, deep as possible, mostly to warm up): 90 lbs x 20 reps

DUMBELL CURL TO PRESS (strict form up to 60 lbs, then some body english with the curl part of the movement. Minimal push to the pressing part of the movement. Rests were 45 seconds to 1 minute on most sets):

• 40 lbs x 16 reps
• 40 lbs x 16 reps
• 50 lbs x 10 reps
• 50 lbs x 10 reps 
• 60 lbs x 8 reps
• 60 lbs x 8 reps
• 70 lbs x 6 reps
• 80 lbs x 4 reps
• 90 lbs x 2 reps

FOAM ROLL AND STATIC STRETCH: 20 minutes. Did this stretch, shown by the occasionally useful Chaz Poliquin, using the foam roller after working over the knots in my back with it:

And for everone (err... I guess for just the guys) that actually read this instead of abandoning my rambling post to watch internet porn, here's a thank you:

 

That's Jamie Eason, my friend Wes' favorite model. It's true she's not nearly as smoking hot as my girlfriend, but hey, that's why it's great to be me, lucky sand-baggin son-of-a-bitch that I am.