[Kiera]

Awesome progress! Before we can give you our advice we need to know what your goals are! Are you wanting to compete or do you simply enjoy bodybuilding and looking for the next step?

I would definitely say you have made great progress and it would be awesome to lean out and get an idea of what you physique looks like. From there you have more options and if you want to go back into a gaining phase you can.

[Kiera]

Well I’m signing in from the beyond today because I’ve never done so much cardio in my life and I am absolutely shattered. Left for creamfields festival at 2pm yesterday and got home at 6am 😅. My legs and feet are absolutely ruined from all the walking and raving but I had the best time. It was the most fun I’ve had in a very long time and although it has definitely put me off any more any time soon. I will definitely be going back next year.

Tomorrow we are back down south and back to work with our usual routine at cojos. I’m going to smash out a legs/glutes session I think as I trained a big deadlift session on Friday and need to make sure I’m fully recovered.

[Kiera]

Rest day for me today! Heading to a festival later on and about to head over to Liverpool after getting my makeup done. I assume a lot of steps with be done today but other than tracking it on my phone I wouldn’t know.

It’s super important especially with the large number of younger people invested in BB on here to remember to balance your life. You are allowed to do fun things, you don’t need to restrict yourself 365 days of the year.

[Kiera]

Someone is always going to have better genetics than you so whether you have good genetics or not really doesn’t matter. You said it yourself ‘BB is your dream’ which must mean you enjoy the sport and like working out. If that is the case then do exactly that. Genetics never stopped anyone from trying in this sport, we all have weak body parts that we work on repetitively to bring up.. in essence that is bodybuilding! Judges feedback will always be about how you can improve.

Enjoy the process and don’t worry about it because an answer from us won’t change anything. And it’s a cheesy one but remember ‘hard work always beats good genetics if good genetics don’t work hard!’

[Kiera]

Trained today elite fitness gym today to train. It looks to be a pretty good gym with a really nice vibe and the people there are so friendly but they arnt well equipped for powerlifting. However saying that, only the very specialised gyms are.
I deadlifted on something that seemed to be a cross between a power bar and an Olympic bar but after loading it up it definitely was a stiff bar. Not ideal but I went with it, I also had 0 chalk and a very slippy hands which meant I had to reset after every rep.

Before now I may have shrugged the session off as I perhaps could train something else better, bench or maybe squat but I watched a podcast a while back that made me think about these situations and elaborated on facing them head first as it’s unlikely that comp day is going to be perfect. With that in mind I just got on with it and was pleasantly surprised with 2×5 @230kg today on a stiff bar.

I finished off with some back and glutes.

Tomorrow I’m off to a festival for the day, so will be a rest day!

[Kiera]

Rest day for me today, saw some friends up in Manchester for a coffee, currently on 12k steps so should think I’ll get that nearer to 20k by the end of the day. Getting my hair done today just in time for a festival I’m going to this weekend and also in preparation for heading back to dubai as they don’t offer my extentions technique out there.

This evening I may head to the gym for an hour to get in some cardio but nothing crazy. Tomorrow I’m heading to a gym round here for a deadlift session and will train either back or glutes.

[Kiera]

I haven’t done enough prep’s to give my answer of ‘what I usually do’ after a prep. My first prep resulted in me having a very bad relationship with food for several months as well as a very negative body imagine of myself for some time. I was only 19 going on 20 during it and the post show hit me harder than prep. I handled my second post show a lot better and allowed myself a few days down time (not indulging) but just enjoying my time and then was very motivated to get back on track. My meals included some foods I really enjoyed and I would say I rebounded really well from that.

There definitely isn’t a black and white answer to this one, it’s pretty subjective and depends on your mindset. However, it is wise to have a post show/rebound phase in place for you to follow and to be mindful of how much down time/off plan meals you have.

[Kiera]

20 weeks is a massive amount of time on a diet for someone who hasn’t really done it before. If there is not set end date for example of competition looming then there is no reason why you have to be in a continual deficit until you get to your desired goal

Like Peter has said above, utilise maintenance weeks. But make it’s it’s exactly that – a week where you’re at maintenance, and as a result your condition doesn’t get worse during that week and fat doesn’t accumulate

There is no limit to how many maintenance weeks you can have. – perhaps have one every 4th week if is this is where you see hunger and fatigue really rear it’s head instead of going months and months

This diet can be as hard or as easy as you want it to be, that’s the beauty of not having a set deadline.

[Kiera]

Crazy busy day today – up super early, packed up all our things from the air b&b we were staying at, took it back to my parents, headed to the gym for an early gym session and smashed out a surprisingly good leg session. PBing on my super heel elevated smith machine squats. Then headed back, loaded the car and the dog and drove up to Manchester where we will be for the rest of the week. Got stuck in 2 really bad traffic jams which wasn’t great but we got here around 7pm.

Tomorrow I’m going to take a rest day but Friday I’m going to head to a gym round here for a big deadlift and glute session 🙂

[Kiera]

Happy birthday Kiera as well 🤩 How do your current schedule looks regarding the hand operation? 😇

Thank you 🙏🏼 After a long diet phase and a pretty brutal powerlifting prep I took 3/4 weeks away from SBD and at the time I did have my hand operation scheduled for the last week of augest so I was going to hold off, let my CNS recover and focus on some BB style training along with improving my cardio vascular heath by incorporating some CrossFit style training circuits.
Pretty quickly after my operation was scheduled it was then moved to the end of September. Which wasn’t idea as I’m not in the U.K. for one and if I was to come back I don’t trust that the NHS wouldn’t move it again. Over in dubai I pay for private healthcare and they will get me into surgery within a few weeks so the plan is to get back and get it sorted out there. We don’t travel till the second week of September so it will be around then.

In the mean time I am absolutely smashing glutes and legs, keeping my CrossFit circuits in and I started deadlifting with straps which isn’t nice on my hand but I can manage it. I have decided against squatting and benching for a few more weeks as I wanted to give my bicep and shoulder a bit more time to heal and my current leg days are more than taking care of leg strength and stamina. I also know as soon as I start that will be it, switch flicked on and will stay on until I compete.

[Kiera]

One of the main reasons why tire experiencing those symptoms is that when dieting, quite often you are forced – simply by lack of calories allowed to consume, to lack micronutrients. It’s a much harder to get them all in when dieting in your allotted calories. This then leads to a lot of the issues you talked about.

When going back into a surplus, you can maintain lower body fat levels than most was assume you can, simply by slowly upregulating metabolism to allow you to consume
More calories and thus more food containing a variety of micronutrients.

[Kiera]

It’s my Birthday today 🎉 Chapter 24 has officially begun..

Had a lovely breakfast this morning and will work for a few hours before heading to the gym around 1/2pm. Planning on training deadlifts, glutes and some cardio today. This evening i’m going out with family for a nice birthday meal in the Docks, we havent chosen where to eat tonight so will need to have a look and decide what i fancy.

[Kiera]

Yep I agree with the above. 10mg eod is a fantastic start point. Asses sides, and run for approx 6 weeks and then take adequate time afterwards off. Bloodwork for females rarely gets skewed as the dosages used are so small compared to males, but virilization does not show up on bloodwork, that you have to account for yourself.

[Kiera]

Such a busy day today, we were planning on heading over to Ultraflex for a pre birthday session but with how much we needed to do the 5 hour commute there and back didn’t sound that appealing. We trained at Cojo’s instead which is still a win/win situation because it is quite literally my favourite gym and so peaceful, never struggle to get my head down and work!!

Todays session was mainly upper, some shoulders, rear delts, tricpes and some back with some assualt bike thrown in at the end. Tomorrow, i am going to deadlift and moving upto 210kg for some working sets of 5 and will follow that with some glute work. It is also my birthday tomorrow so have to get a birthday session in 🙂

[Kiera]

Great day today, trained a big leg session that was quad focused and threw in some hamstrings for a change. Progressing on all my lifts right now which is great fun ready to start SBD when we land back in Dubai in the next 2 weeks.

We decided to give those two lifts a good break, especially bench! The rest will have hopefully done my bicep and shoulder some good and put me in a good place to start lifting again. In regards for squat, although i haven’t been squatting in the rack, i believe a lot of my strength with still be there as i’ve still maintained my intensity on other exercises like smith squat, leg press and the squat machine.

I deadlift because i would be unhappy if i didn’t 😂 It’s something i love doing so i had a good 3 weeks away from it and started it back up about 2 weeks ago if i remember correctly. The plan is to enjoy the last few weeks at Cojo’s, get strong in the exercises i have chosen, enjoy it and then hit the ground running when i am back in Dubai.

My hand operation is still very much at the top of my priority list but we now think getting it done in Dubai will be better. I don’t know too much about this yet so once i have been to see someone i will update accordingly.