I finally decided to pull the trigger on competing in a bodybuilding show, yay! Haha. I'll be competing the August 4th weekend in the "NPC Knox Bodybuilding, Figure, Bikini & Physique Classic" and it is also a national qualifier so the competition level should be high.

I'm working with Alex Azarian for my contest prep so while I can't disclose all the details of what I'm doing, I'll do my best to be as informative as possible. For those interested, at the end of this thread I will give a debrief on how the prep with him went so you can decide if you want to work with him in the future for diet or contest prep.

Anyways, I'm roughly 22.5 weeks out right now and I began prep at about 282 lbs (empty stomach). Alex doesn't care about weight, just the condition I show in my pictures so I likely won't keep tabs on it too much. That's just to give you an idea of my starting point.

Nothing too drastic is going on just yet, he said we'll make the most changes once we reach the 16 week mark. He prescribes a high protein, moderate carb and low fat diet so we cleaned everything up and I'm eating your common prep foods....white rice, Ezekiel bread, lean steak/beef, chicken, egg whites, etc. Nothing special. Cardio right now is 25 minutes 4x/week on the stair mill after I lift(that thing is fucking terrible lol, 25 minutes of 280 lb calf raises....FML haha).

I'll post a few pics of my starting point, I'm excited to see how everything looks when I'm leaned out. Feel free to ask any questions and I'll answer to the best I can given the constraints of the prep services. Constructive criticism and feedback is also welcome.

Excellent. : )

I'll just post up a few, I'll probably update with pics every two weeks. That sounds about right at this point in the prep. All of these will be taken unpumped before I go train for consistency's sake

.

Badass

I'm practicing taking pictures without the use of a mirror and it's definitely a little awkward hitting the poses correctly but I'll be working on it. I'll be playing with the foot placement on the front biceps shot, I like the staggered stance. Put my weight on my left leg and have the right leg out to the side and in front a little more but I decided to give the traditional stance a shot just to see.

I know it's been said 1000x but I'll say it again just to answer the questions that will be brought up because of it. I had bad scapular and hip displacement that went uncorrected for the first 5 years I was training. This led to imbalances in the left and right sides of my physique, you will notice a difference in the legs. It was corrected as best as it could be this past year and since then I've made some good strides on fixing those imbalances, but it will take time.

Trust me, I am aware of it. Haha.

Hell yeah!
('bout friggin time -lol)

S

Finally! Looking forward to following.

For the record, I would pay good money to have your weak points.

Following for sure. You are a fucking tank man, imbalances or not haha. Good luck with the prep.

Huge mother fer!

This will a great addtion to the other competeiton threads. Are you able to give any ideas on nutrition and training? Or is that classified?

Either way will be following

That's a big ol' boy right there.

Big guy.

Work on your posing. Your lats are way bigger than your front double bi shows.

I knew this lurking would pay off, this will be one of them great reads.

Sweet! I've been following your T-Cell thread for a few years now, and as a fellow 6'2" BB-er, you've been a huge inspiration. Super excited for this, good luck bro!

Awesome. Also been following since the T-cell thread, can't post there though. Good luck you monsah.

I'll be following this. Good luck.

In for eyecande I mean information.

The stairmill is indeed da debil.

My prior coach's girls all called it "The Deathmill"

Haha, thanks for the support everyone.

I set up my own training, so yah I can share it. I'll make a post about it in a sec. As far as the diet goes though, he gives actual meals and portions, not just macros so that limits my ability to tell you exactly what I'm eating.

The most eye opening part about the diet has to do with the food scale. When your unit of measurement has previously always been "a big fucking bowl of it", it's a mindfuck to see how little something like 8 oz of cooked chicken and 4 oz of cooked rice is. It's not much lol.

That front biceps shot definitely looks like crap want2getlean, keeping my feet together made the pose feel very awkward, but I wanted to try it. It should look better next time. I've only been practicing posing without the use of a mirror for a few weeks and man, it is so much harder, haha. Really tough to make that mental image of how you look in the pose match up with what is in the pic.

lol Hallowed, glad to see you stop by! Man, that stair mill has raped me. I confess I have yet to reach 25 minutes on it, haha. I tried it for the first time yesterday after training shoulders and hamstrings and I made it 1 minute and 37 seconds before my calves and legs got super retarded pumped and then completely cramped up. Not cool. I did make it to 10 minutes today though! WOOOOO!!! haha

I usually train 5 days in a row then take the weekend off but it usually ends up me going for 2 weeks straight before I take a day off, haha. It just depends on how I feel.

My split is as follows:

Back/biceps
chest/triceps/calves
quads
shoulders/hamstrings
chest/arms/calves

I usually do 3, maybe 4 exercises with 3-4 working sets. Reps, I try to stay around 8-12, sometimes I go as low as six. I don't do the really heavy weight for 2-3 reps stuff anymore. I've been liking a heavier volume approach.

I'll try to give some sample days, only working sets are listed.

**Back/Biceps**
shoulder width lat pulldowns 4x8-12
V grip pulldowns 3x8-12
Smith Yates style DL's 3-4x8-12
1 arm tbar rows 3x10-12

Incline DB curls 4x8-12
seated DB curls 4x8-12
kettle bell hammer curls 4x8-12
preacher curls 3x10

**Chest/Triceps/Calves**
Low incline DB press 3x8-12
Low incline DB fly 3x8-12
Low incline Smith press 4x8-12
Cable Flies 3x10-12

1 arm rope pushdowns (elbow flared) 4x12-15
Seated Ez bar OH extensions 4x10
Seated 1 arm OH DB extensions 3x8-12
Dips 3 sets to failure

Straight leg calf raises 5x10-15

**Quads**
Leg press 4x10-15
Single leg LP 4 sets for left leg 8-12 reps 1-2 sets for right leg
Hack squat 3x10
Leg extensions 3 sets to failure
DC extreme stretching

**Shoulders/Hamstrings**
BB shrugs 5x10-12
Standing BB military press 4x 6-10
reverse cable flies 4x12-15
cable or DB laterals 4x8-10

Smith SLDL 4x10
Lying hamstring curls 4x8-12

**Chest/arms/calves**

Same as above except for calves I do them bent leg for the soleus 5x10-12

Some little tidbits: Dropping squats has been the best decision I made recently regarding my leg training. Doing super deep, slow negatives on leg press really allows me to feel the muscles working much better and get more out of my workouts. They've definitely been growing; leaving on my knee sleeves b/w sets used to be completely fine but now they cut off circulation if I leave them on the whole time, cool yet painful lol. I also don't lift super heavy anymore, I go lighter and really focus on making sure the muscle is working. IMO there is a huge benefit there and a lot of people miss out by focusing on strength as the only means of progression. However, I really only suggest this approach for more advanced lifters.

That thread with the video of Kai doing biceps curls is pretty much spot on for how I like to view my training.

oh man this is exciting

1 minute and 37 seconds? thats it? haha

Good luck man gonna kill it

What's the maximum posts per page? I want to be on the first page.

Know what you mean with weighing the food. Training looks good. What was your off season diet looking like up to starting the planned diet? Obviously no measureing...lol Any ideas what kinda macros or totals you were hititng?

Appreciate the info. This will be a 'mazing thread