Mike's 2013 NPC Contest Journal

[gman]

Hope I am still allowed in this section...long time since I have been around, and it looks like only people who have competed before are posting now!

Anyway, Paula and I have been together for a couple of years now, and we got married in May of this year. Married life with Paula is great, and we have had so much fun. Although I have been lifting pretty regularly since I last posted on here a couple of years back, I haven't been lifting real heavy, and have had no real goals in mind other than to stay in good health and enjoy life.

We did do a highland game/strongman hybrid contest in May 2011, and I even tossed a caber correctly and got an 11 o'clock score in the contest.

But now, I have regained the urge to compete and prove to myself I can do it. I will be 51 at the end of September and would like to get my first show behind me, but I have a long ways to go. I have tentatively picked a show in late June of 2013, the NPC Virginia Grand Prix, held locally in Norfolk. I am at 220 right now, and my waist taped at 40.5", so I am obviously at way high bf% now. I am guessing 22% or so, because even when I did the transformation in 2010 at the Arnold, I was 14% at 185, and waist taped at 36.5". In any case, it is what it is, and I am going to get lean.

I am on TRT at 200mg per week of test cyp, so I may have some good muscle hidden somewhere, but I need to put some diet rules in effect and plan it out...but I am so used to just dieting after I get fat , I am really not sure how to go about getting more muscle and less fat with almost a year to go. Any suggestions are appreciated. I am considering a slow cut, but should I do it like a contest diet, or just clean things up real well and get my protein up to 250g a day? I am thinking to cut slowly, then perhaps do a test only cycle of 500-600 per week in the winter, and then go on my contest diet 12 weeks out. For cardio, I was considering trying to just do intervals 2-3 times a week for now, seeing as the long steady state cardio does nothing for me that I can tell. What bf% would even be acceptable when doing a cycle (would be my first one)

Anyway, I can't post as often as I used to, but I do plan on hanging around and staying up with you guys, and learn as much as I can in the next year.

cheers, and thanks for reading my rant!

[Hammerfit]

Hope I am still allowed in this section...long time since I have been around, and it looks like only people who have competed before are posting now!

Anyway, Paula and I have been together for a couple of years now, and we got married in May of this year. Married life with Paula is great, and we have had so much fun. Although I have been lifting pretty regularly since I last posted on here a couple of years back, I haven't been lifting real heavy, and have had no real goals in mind other than to stay in good health and enjoy life.

We did do a highland game/strongman hybrid contest in May 2011, and I even tossed a caber correctly and got an 11 o'clock score in the contest.

But now, I have regained the urge to compete and prove to myself I can do it. I will be 51 at the end of September and would like to get my first show behind me, but I have a long ways to go. I have tentatively picked a show in late June of 2013, the NPC Virginia Grand Prix, held locally in Norfolk. I am at 220 right now, and my waist taped at 40.5", so I am obviously at way high bf% now. I am guessing 22% or so, because even when I did the transformation in 2010 at the Arnold, I was 14% at 185, and waist taped at 36.5". In any case, it is what it is, and I am going to get lean.

I am on TRT at 200mg per week of test cyp, so I may have some good muscle hidden somewhere, but I need to put some diet rules in effect and plan it out...but I am so used to just dieting after I get fat , I am really not sure how to go about getting more muscle and less fat with almost a year to go. Any suggestions are appreciated. I am considering a slow cut, but should I do it like a contest diet, or just clean things up real well and get my protein up to 250g a day? I am thinking to cut slowly, then perhaps do a test only cycle of 500-600 per week in the winter, and then go on my contest diet 12 weeks out. For cardio, I was considering trying to just do intervals 2-3 times a week for now, seeing as the long steady state cardio does nothing for me that I can tell. What bf% would even be acceptable when doing a cycle (would be my first one)

Anyway, I can't post as often as I used to, but I do plan on hanging around and staying up with you guys, and learn as much as I can in the next year.

cheers, and thanks for reading my rant!

Glad to see you back Big Mike!

There is no dry cut answer. Everyone is different and responds different to different stimuli just as you found with your cardio.
My suggestion would be to come down very slow, no more than 2lbs per week. That way you will be able to tighten up as you come down. I also suggest tons of ab and lower back work. The new guys call it core! Deadlift and deadlift some more for back and abs. Squat like your life depended on it. That's my receipe. Good luck and keep us posted.

[Down4whatever]

Awesome!!! Good to see ya around these parts Mike!

You're committed now

I agree with Hammer, just clean up diet, allow minimum carbs during the week. Have a refeed Saturday and Sunday and pound it out during the week. You should be good for .50 to 1# of fat loss per week.

Looking forward to your journey!

[gman]

Thanks, Hammer! I love to deadlift, but haven't done it in a while...squats, let's just say, I look like I should be able to squat a lot more than I can...but I will do them both religiously for the duration...plus for chest, I am going almost all incline stuff to try to get that upper chest filled in

For a few different reasons, money and distance, we dropped our old gym for now and are now going to the rec center, which is much closer by(don't laugh too much, ours are really nice here in Va Beach, and only $11 per month) and did legs today. Unfortunately, the normal rec center I go to is closed for maintenance this week, so I had to go to a different one, and they didn't have a power rack...suckish. So I had to do leg presses instead of squats. I am easing back in, so I did the following:

5 sets of leg presses
4 sets of stiff leg deads
4 sets of extensions
4 sets of standing calf raises.

Not enough hard and heavy stuff, but I still felt it pretty good.

[gman]

Awesome!!! Good to see ya around these parts Mike!

You're committed now

I agree with Hammer, just clean up diet, allow minimum carbs during the week. Have a refeed Saturday and Sunday and pound it out during the week. You should be good for .50 to 1# of fat loss per week.

Looking forward to your journey!

Thanks, Matt. I am glad I committed to it, I have to do it now!

Yes, I do agree with you both, a slow cut is the best thing. Not quite a contest diet though, I am thinking, just a slow steady loss. For me, I think that is probably going to be 2000 calories a day since I sit all day at a desk. I am thinking to cut fat to 195-200, then re-assess at the time whether to try to bulk back up and add muscle

[gman]

Matt (down4whatever) and Michelle came up for our wedding, and this is what I looked like in May when we went to the gym...I was about 10 lbs lighter.

[Down4whatever]

Yes, good times!!!

What were those, about 125# each? Can't remember.

We LOVED that gym!

[gman]

I think it was more than that, but can't remember...seems like it was 135 in each hand just for the implement itself.

[Mac]

Glad to see that you're back. Congrats to you and Paula! Now get her back on here too and tell her I said hello.

[gman]

Glad to see that you're back. Congrats to you and Paula! Now get her back on here too and tell her I said hello.

I am glad to be back...I will tell Paula to get back on here too, but her job here is long hours, but maybe she can pop in once in a while and say hi!

[gman]

OK...today is Day 1 of the diet, so I officially weighed in and taped my waist. 221.4 and 40.25"

Did chest today. Warmed up, then did

5 sets of db incline press
4 sets of incline db flys
4 sets of leaning-forward dips to failure
4 sets of pushups with feet on bench to failure

Tried to concentrate on relaxing everything but my chest muscles to force them to do the work.

[Down4whatever]

Slow and steady Mike.

Any ideas on the quasi-contest diet? Strategies to keep disciplined?

[gman]

Slow and steady Mike.

Any ideas on the quasi-contest diet? Strategies to keep disciplined?

I am using the myplate system that is on the livestrong.com website. It is 10 times better than fitday. Everything I have typed in so far is already in their database, protein powder, etc.

I think on the diet, in general, I am going to loosely attempt 2200 or so per day, with 250g of protein, 75g of healthy fat, and 125-150g of healthy carbs. Clean eat every day except one night of letting loose a little every weekend. If not working, I will cut the calories just a little.

Not sure on cardio, but I think I will run wind sprints in the Rec Center gym 2-3 days a week for 10 minutes for now...the guy that was teaching me to pose a couple of years back (Va State NPC chairman) told me he had his athletes only do cardio when they stopped making progress. He said that was old school, and that if you do lots of cardio to start off, your body just gets used to it, and you have to keep doing more and more. lol

[Down4whatever]

Sounds good, just remember everyone is different, so you know to keep experimenting.

And, I beg you......please don't obsess over the scale! Use it as just a small piece of the puzzle. Personally, I think 2,200 calories is low enough and I would only add cardio from there. But like I said, that's what I would do. Do what you gotta do!!

[gman]

Thanks, Matt. I promise not to obsess over the scale. I am going more by the waist size. If it's getting smaller, I am losing fat, no doubt!