Cameron Thomas
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I’d imagine physique changes these past 12 weeks have been fairly dramatic?
Any progress shots from the end of your ‘off’ period gear wise to compare with where you’re at now?
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Amped for the content James, you’re flying the flag for the UK in style. Do your thing my man.
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UPDATE – 6 weeks out
Officially hit the halfway mark last Saturday! Which is kind of scary for exciting at the same time because I think I’m in a good place and I like the way some of my poses are shaping up. It really is difficult to judge what you’re going to look like during a gaining phase when your lines are so blurred and proportions completely off.
Quite a busy one schedule-wise, if you guys follow me on IG you would have seen that I’m in the process of settling into my new gym as a trainer, and setting up my ‘brand’. I also spent the weekend in Nottingham for another weekend of the M10 Personal Trainer Mentorship weekend. Which is always great as it means training at M10 which is an awesome facility, and of course more education!
Recap of changes going into this last week:
Added 20mg Anavar daily
Switched out flank steak for chicken breast on one of my rest days, legs, pull & upper body days.
Reduced carbs by 25g on the other rest day, push and arm day.
Bodyweight:
I’ve actually been very relaxed these past few weeks over scale weight, I still weigh in every day, but I’ve only just updated the spreadsheet I use to track average weekly movements in two weeks. This past week I actually averaged a 0.5lb gain but visibly I am slowly starting to dial in the areas that have been a little more stubborn so it’s been wise to not focus too much on the numbers.
I’ve uploaded some comparison pictures from 1.5 weeks ago, to show you the difference. My initial thoughts were that my upper body, especially from the rear, have come in a few %’s.
Performance:
Well, I hate to repeat myself but… training & performance is still 10/10. Progressing loads, recovering well and I’ve slowly been tapering up the volume as each workout with an extra working or ‘metabolic’ style set here and there which I see no harm in continuing to do until I feel any further volume is compromising my ability to recover.
Bloodwork:
You may have seen an update on the bloodwork front a few posts back, but I’ve also got the results from the Free T3 check I ran. My T3 came back as being just below normal range which was interesting, I’ll be looking to see where at TSH to then determine whether there is any potential down-regulation in thyroid output to see if bringing in a small dose of T3 is necessary or not. Not an area of great expertise for me, so any input and opinions here would be beneficial!
Changes going into next week (implemented as of last Saturday):
Clenbuterol up to 40mcg (from 20mcg)
Yohimbine up to 15mg (from 10mg)Flank steak out on both remaining two leg days for chicken breast.
Nothing too crazy this week food wise, simply a little extra ‘boost’ on keeping that energy balance tilted in the right direction to accompany the impact the increased thermogenics will have.
Progress pictures attached! I’ll update with an insight into what a few workouts are now looking like from my rotation soon 🙂
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Jordan, going back a few posts you said you’d approach things differently in terms of training your abs more frequently whilst pushing up in stage weight over the years.
Do you not think that could lead to a bigger mid-section when considering all of the other variables (drugs, food etc) and combining that with added hypertrophic stimulus?
I’m definitely with you on the TVA control front.
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Just a very quick update with my Oestrogen values that came back a few days ago…
They came back at 130pmol/L which seems logical with where things are at currently (been skeptical of medichecks in the past).
So moving forward this gives me a good guideline with where to go with AI as I get closer to the comp.
Still waiting on results back for T3, to get a gauge on thyroid output as that will be interesting to see whether or not the diet/training has had any impact.
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2 weeks on 2 weeks off, or even 1 week on 1 week off seems like a pretty accepted way to maintain sensitivity from what I have read here and from the literature.
I’m in a similar situation currently, but off the back of what I have heard Jordan & Dr Dean mention in terms of the small % difference between the two approaches (also from trying to interpret literature to some degree) I decided to simply run it 9 weeks straight. With a taper similar to yours starting at 20mcg and maxing out at no more than 60mcg.
If you’re worried about those extra %’s, or anecdotally notice that bumping up from 20mcg to 40mcg has had no impact on energy balance (no change in body comp).. then I’d say it may be worth cycling it.
Might I add that I’m not the most knowledgeable on this topic though, so this is just my thought process on the matter.
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High carb meal, low GI.
Test BG 15-20 mins later.
Optimal reading anywhere below 7pmol/L but be cautious that stress can have an impact on your response here.
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I love the ‘NOT OPTIONAL’ part that Corinne added…
Just EAT!
It’s so foreign to me because I can’t relate to not being able to eat, but man at some point it comes down to weighing up how bad you want to grow muscle vs how much you despise eating!
JP had me eating 7k cals per day for quite an extended period, biggest I’d ever been.. strongest I’d ever been. Crazy part is I loved every meal lol
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If your reverse banding and using daisy chains, I’d get the shorter bands from Strength shop.
If reverse banding from the top of the smith machine or rack etc (without daisy chains), you’ll likely need the normal lengthed bands.
But depending on what you are banding will dictate the level of resistance you want from the bands. The greater load you have on the bar/machine, the bigger the discrepancy you want to create in the resistance profile by using the bands and so will need thicker bands with greater resistance.
E.g. reverse banding a leg press, you will want thicker bands than if you were reverse banding a bench press or similar.
It can be said though that it doesn’t necessarily mean buy thick bands, as I find their practicality is questionable.. you can just use x2 of a green band for example to create the same resistance.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkfqGJgp8nY&t=1s
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Excited for the content documenting your prep Corinne!
I went away on holiday for a few days during prep a few weeks back.. tried the whole boiled egg white hotel buffet thing but I couldn’t hack it (maybe I was missing the key component!)
Had to resort to tinned tuna lol
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Relative to your individual goals, is the goal overall development? I would assume so if running a full body split.
What @Christoph mentioned above is based on solid principles, I would simply add that you also have the potential to have multiple rotations of each workout where you can have a play around with body part order. To ensure body parts later on in the workout aren’t being neglected and each ‘large’ muscle group has a rotation where it is trained at the start of the workout.
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To my knowledge, there is no way of changing the genetic structure of your abdominals…
Who knows, there may be some crazy surgery that you can have (there seems to be something for everything these days) but if there is then I’ve never heard of it!
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Kieran you can take food on planes but.. why would you want to take meals for your trip? You’ll be in Florida! The supermarkets in US are incredible.
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That will be your genetic structure in terms of where your muscle bellies insert, there are many people with the same structure so I wouldn’t worry unless you begin to see any protrusions in that area as @jdh mentioned above.
In regards to tightening the waist or keeping it from appearing wider when pushing up in bodyweight or muscle mass, in my opinion, the only effective way anecdotally would be to ensure you are staying on top of your TVA. ‘Staying on top’ referring to regularly training it, effectively bracing your TVA during exercises that require stabilization of the spine & having a somewhat conscious awareness of your midsection in everyday life.
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