Andy
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Yesterday was far less stressful than day 1 in Marseille. That’s always the case, once I’m settled I’m good. My head definitely wobbled last night where I went into the typical competitor overthinking rabbit hole. I semi coach myself, and most of the time I am VERY rational. I think I’m very good at not allowing my mind to wonder and go down this rabbit hole of the ultra fine details.
I keep telling myself, “my look is predictable, my weight is not doing anything wild, I know my body to the letter”. This is all true, and when my girlfriend and training partner(s) point things out I’m always like, “I already know this”.
Not that it’s a huge issue, but I can’t find decent light in my apartment to save my life, so that’s throwing off the visuals, and I don’t like relying on my bodyweight too much.
Anyway, 750g carbs today, I imagine that won’t get increased due to my inactivity.
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Always keep tissue work in. If you’re holding water from it, the massage therapist is doing something VEYR wrong!
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A super stressful first day here in Marseille for the Tsunami Showdown Pro. Nothing really happened, it was more so wee things like, getting trapped in a car park, taking numerous wrong turns and paying the same toll. . . twice.
We went and trained at On Air. it is NOT the kind of place I could train every day, I think that would be terrible. However, it done the job.
I’m very happy with the look, as is Nick. Tomorrow (Thursday – 2 days out) we’ll monitor the look by the meal, and find where is best. I do tend to look better with more meals, water and salt, so competing at 6pm suits me, other than it just being a long day.
So long as I can improve my look from Cali, I’m happy!
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A pretty simple yet busy weekend, with a push session on Saturday, and just resting today.
Nick and I decided to load 1200g of carbs today, which is what we done pre-Cali, and then held most of the week around 1000g bar Wednesday as I lost 5lbs from traveling. The slight caveat this time around is that I won’t be on an 11 hour flight, thankfully just a 2 hour flight – albeit Ryan Air, so it will probably feel like 11 hours.
Tomorrow we’ll more than likely run 1000g, but that depends on the look first thing which is pretty easy to judge now considering my physique is holding very well compared to previous years.
There is some debate if we should remove winstrol next week. As much as I do notice a good bit of visual change from using it, I’m starting to wonder if it is causing some very slight digestive stress.
We’ll see. . .
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Agreed, there will be a cal/carb amount where you just keep getting better and better without spilling, hold it there for a 2-4 weeks, pull expenditure as much as possible and then come back down if you need to for the show. Although, if you’re getting better and you’re happy with the look, do your best to hold it.
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A great back session with Chris and Kieran yesterday. Much like every session these past 2 weeks, the volume is at a baseline, all I’m doing is just giving the muscle a reason to stay there, and that’s about it.
I checked in with Nick yesterday, and we agreed to push the food up a touch more – having sat at 750g for most of the week. The goal for France is to come in just a little bit fuller, but nothing too far from what I looked like in Cali. Push fullness and I will 100% see a blurring of lines through my glutes, and my waist not being as tight as I want it.
No RDLs yesterday as much hamstrings still feel a bit under recovered. So I slotted in another rear delt exercise.
Rope cable pullovers – 3 sets, 12-15
HS SA PL lat pulldowns – 1 set, 8-12
Conventional T-bar rows – 1 sets, 8-12
Megamass chest supported t-bar rows – 1 set, 8-12
SA DB row – 1 set, 8-12
SA HS PL low row – 1 sets, 8-12
Standing rear delt cable flys – 3 sets, 15-20
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A pretty busy NTD yesterday. I still do 1-2-1 PT, but over the course of this season with everything being abroad I’ve had to curtail sessions, but to save face – more or less – I done 5 sessions yesterday, it was good to move and get in the gym again as I still love training people 1-2-1.
Checked in with Nick today, and the plan is to bump carbs up to 850g after a 5lbs drop over night. Obviously most of that is water from the flight, but still, I we have seen my physique go backwards pretty quickly in previous years, so staying on top of fullness/fatigue is paramount.
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Yeah smaller gauge needle, ensure you’re putting the needle all the way in – baffles me that some people don’t – massage the area with an alcohol swab very lightly, don’t inject and then go to bed and lie down.
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Legs yesterday was nothing special, it was pretty much the exact same session I’ve been running for the past 3-4 weeks. The aim just now is just to keep the legs there in terms of fullness. If they spend too long untrained I find that the separation doesn’t quite come through the same on show day. I’m not training to the point where I’m getting doms, literally just putting them through familiar patterns with 75% of previous peaks of load.
Cybex seated leg curls – 1 set, 8-12
– Each rep is paused in the stretch
Leg extensions – 1 set, 8-12
Pendulum squat – 1 sets, 8-12
BB squats – 1 set, 8-12
Prime lying leg curls – 1 sets, 12-15ive
Seated calve raises – 3 sets, 15-20
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I had an excellent push session yesterday, with the pump being absolutely blinding due to the 3lbs of fluid I’ve held from the flight. I didn’t do anything crazy, just pumped up the disco muscle (chest/shoulders/biceps).
I had a look this morning during posing practice and I’d say the majority of the water retention is confined to my calves/shins, the rest of me looks pretty good, and with a few more days of my body finding it’s balance I’ll be a new level of physique I’d say.
As I mentioned yesterday, I think there’s room to push fullness further, but I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel, if we’re going to make any adjustments to the peak, then they are going to be very minimalistic.
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Reverse into your holiday, slowly raising calories/CHO and tapering expenditure down slowly. You’ll most likely still be in a deficit as you raise your baseline of calories anyway, but the reverse will mitigate rebounding to heavily while you’re away.
Once you’re back simply continue from where you left off.
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That is us back in Glasgow after what felt like 5 minutes in LA/Cali. That was the trip of a lifetime, and one that also allowed me to present probably my best look to the stage in my career. We always try to bring the best to every show, but to bring my best to my pro debut made that experience something else.
The peak wasn’t over the top by any means. First off, we didn’t use any diuretic. We also didn’t change water at all. The most significant thing we done on a hydration front was to stop drinking maybe 45 minutes before I went onstage, and that was just so I didn’t have to pee while I was onstage. The look was the hardest and fullest I’ve ever been onstage.
Going into the end of the week, we agreed the best look around that time of the day (11am) was after 2 meals, and around 2.5L of water, so I simply spread that amount between 4:30am and 11am. Carbs totalled around 300g pre-stage, with salt 2.5g per meal.
Leading into the show we loaded;
Wed: 1200 (I dropped 4lbs from travel)
Thurs: 1000g
Fri: 1000g (it was originally looking at 750g, however, I was still bone dry around 5pm, so we decided to push to 1000g).
I’m sitting here looking even harder and fuller at 263, so I know there’s room for more.
Prior to the load my food wasn’t low either, between 750-800g per day.
After prejudging, I had another small meal 2 hours before stage, 500ml of water, and another 2g of salt. I felt a bit harder and fuller again, however, one thing to remember is that once the nerves of prejudging are gone, the body usually relaxes and looks better, so it’s not always down to the food.
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I don’t see any issues with those numbers.
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All over the place with my timing, and being run ragged on Tuesday with travelling.
We made it to LA safe and sound, no issues with travel, diet, or any other issue that might occur when you’re travelling this far.
I woke up 4lbs down from the week’s average, a combination of both dehydration, some flatness/pop and being up for 36 hours. We made sure that we went to bed to reflect normal kind of timings here.
Nick and I decided to run 1200g of carbs off the back of this morning’s check-in. I was probably the driest I’ve ever been, even typing this looking down at my hands, they are so unbelievably dry.
The 1200g is very easy to get in, more so with my day being extended quite a bit with being stuck in traffic, and spacing the middle meals out. However, I am cramming 2 meals quite close together tonight.
I think I should be at pretty much peak fullness tomorrow morning.
Going off the look/weight I think 258 is my best look (which I hit after 1 meal of 175g of carbs). However, Thursday and Friday we’ll get more insight into where the body looks it’s best, and then devise a game plan for Saturday.
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First leg of the journey complete (Edinburgh to Heathrow). This is usually the portion of long hauls that cause the problems due to connections being missed, however this time, I’ve booked 2 separate flights to LA, so we fly to LAX tomorrow at 10:30am, and I’ve just had my last meal (260g salmon, 150g white rice, 100g pineapple).
Weight has been holding between 257-259. We push the carbs up today by a touch to 800g. I’ll do this tomorrow as well, but only have 1 meal on the flight, keep water/fluid as high as possible and wear my trusty flight socks.
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