Step one; Get rid of all body fat.

Monday night at Natick gold's started with flat dumbbell bench press, 60,70,80,90,100 to failure. Incline free weight machine 185lbs 4sets, all to failure. Incline dumbbell flies, 50,60,70,70 all to failure and cable crossovers 4sets to failure.

Standing straight barbell curl, 4 sets to failure, French barbell curl (like a two handed hammer curl) 4sets to failure, preacher curls, 4 sets to failure

And what I mean by failure is, we don’t count our reps, we just go until we can’t go no more, while maintaining form. You go until you can't keep form or can take the burn anymore...

Alex and I held mandatory’s in one of the yoga rooms afterwards.  I basically called them out and we ran through them as you would if you where completing. We plan to do this after every workout up to the show. This only takes 15 minutes to run through 3 times and the benefit is huge. Gives you shape, hardness, control, burns fat, flexibility, strength, stamina, helps you relax and aids in muscles memory to name a few.

I always believed that muscle memory comes from visualization and how you see yourself and remembering how you look will help you get back to where you were, faster. Always strive to see yourself better , so that your muscle memory keeps growing as well. sB

Tuesday night at Natick gold's was LEGS... Alex and I ran them backwards, Donkeys, Lying legs curls, seated legs curls, stiff legged dead lifts, leg extensions, legs presses, we started with 3 plates each side and did 4 sets going up 3 plates each side each set, ending with Jefferson’s for 3 sets

Just only after 3 days of Alex going back to 25 grams of carbs a sitting, his weight came right back off, from 205.4 on Saturday to 201 today.

What this tells me is if Alex eats 50 grams of carb's every 2.5 hours, instead of 25 grams every 2.5 hours he will be 5 pounds heavy (more filled out) and at 50 grams of carbs he's still dry, which tells me we might get away with 75 grams or 100 come contest and add 7 to 10 pounds of muscle weight

Step one; Get rid of all body fat. Step two, Fill your muscles up with as much water as they will hold, Step three, Get rid of all your subcutaneous water.

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Shrink wrapped

Alex ran another 50/50 week of carbs/protein. We wanted to see where his weight would stop and how he would look when it stopped.

8 days later, 205 was where he stop and leveled out. Now at this 205 he's so much bigger looking and leaner, then he was the first time he was at 205 (on his way down to 200) which was 3 weeks ago.. 

Let me break this down... 3 weeks ago Alex was 205 coming down from 209 the week before and 214 the week before that, by eating 25/50 carbs/protein. 2 weeks ago when Alex got to 200lbs, we upped his carbs to 50grams a sitting and he slowly climbed back up to 205 within a weeks time and stayed there for the following week as well, which tell me he's carbed up to the 50grams. Now this time at the 205 weight he's so much bigger and even leaner

We did this to show the kind of effects carbohydrates have on your body. You can really notice much more so, what foods do to you, when your body fat is low. That is the time to learn yourself and take full advantage of the opportunity.

So this week I also wanted to show Alex what sodium can do to you as well, so Thursday night at 6pm we both went zero sodium until Saturday morning (today), like if it was contest day. We only ate boiled chicken and potatoes for all of our meals, drank distilled water, stopped our vitamins, completely zeroing out our sodium... zip went the skin!

The one time I didn't take pictures... sorry!

As expected our skin became so dry. You could really notice how different our skin looked. We lost around two pounds and that two pounds of subcutaneous water makes a BIG difference.

So now that we see what we can do in a short period of time, lets get back to business, which at 6 weeks out today, is still getting ripped.

Alex will now go back to 25/50 for the next 4 weeks and this will rid any remaining fat he's carrying and then when he's two weeks out, we will decided when to start going back up with the carbs and begin growing to the show

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Two on, two off, two on, one off

Starting Monday, this is our new training pattern... change is good.

We still hit Chest and Biceps on Monday and now Tuesday we hit Legs, have Wednesday and Thursday to grow, then Friday we hit Shoulders and Triceps and Back on Saturday's where we will do a dead lift or Sumo Dead lift, which works legs twice a week, so putting leg day on Tuesday was a must and Sunday we grow again

This week we trained legs on Wednesday to get ready for next weeks change and we really didn't go crazy, because they were not healed from the previous Saturday.

Thursday John and I hit Shoulders and Triceps, Alex did his Friday

Today Alex and I hit Sumo's and Back...John will get in done before the weekends over

Now we are ready to rock and roll with this new split

Alex's weight climbed back up from 201.8 to 203.4 up 1.6 pounds due to the carb increase, which is to be expected and he's just as lean and just as tight, only now he's just a little more fuller. Alex is going to drop the pasta now and start eating only potatoes and still keeping the carbs at 50 grams a sitting for another week

I got a better camera, (not a phone), but I still don't have the lighting down...

Here are the latest pictures of Alex

I decided I wasn't going to let Alex have all this fun to himself and I'm going to compete as well at the New England's, since my NPC card is still good...

Right now I'm waking up at 220 and I'm pretty much as lean as I was a month an a half back, when I competed at the Nationals. I figure 4 weeks out, is when I'll drop my sugars and lower my carbs, to pull out excess water and lose any fat I have, I'd like to step on stage around 213.


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It's called Prowler 2

I think they should call it, Leg Destroyer 2!

Instead of lunges today, we added this exercise and I got tell you, WOW we will be doing it again!
The Gold's Gym in Natick has a 25 yard strip of Astro-Turf that this thing slides nicely on.

We started with Squats, 1 plate 2 plate 3 plate 4 plate, I was done after 3 plates and dropped down the weight for my last set. Then onto the Prowler 2.

You slide 45 plates onto those poles, we started with one on each side and down and back we went on the turf. On the way down, we put our hands high up on those polls and pushed our asses off as faster we could, like doing a sprint. Man the whole back of my legs filled up quick with blood. On the way back, we held our hands on the top smaller horizontal bar, which was harder and put your body more parallel with the floor, hitting your quads like crazy, we sprinted back We adding a 45 aside, we did it again. I was DONE then, my legs hurt so much!
The lactic acid build up was so intense, I couldn't even bend my legs anymore, they felt like burning springs.
Knowing the only thing that gets the lactic acid pain to go away is to do another set of something and fast, next was leg presses I couldn't wait to do my set, we starting with 3 plates aside, then 6 then 9 for 3 sets. It worked, the pain was less, but the pump was still there and I still couldn't bend my legs. Next was Stiff legged Dead lift, then Leg extension, Leg curls, (doing leg curls my quads where on fire, because I had to bend them to do the curl, pretty awesome feeling!), Donkeys calves, Abs, then off to the posing room
I love Leg workouts!

Alex weighed in this morning at 201.8 down 5.2lbs from last Saturday's 207. He looks better and better each week. For this coming week, we are upping his carbs, going back to what he was eating when he first started 5 weeks ago. What we should see is a bigger Alex, just as cut and even looking more cut in certain areas and the weight should continue to go down as he continues to burn fat

Here are the latest pictures, I have to point out, we just trained legs and his legs are washed out completely after what we just did, so you are not going to see, what we see, when we look before we train. Not to worry, his quads are separated already

Still haven't got the lighting right yet
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A little history and the compulsories

This morning Alex and I trained legs, we ran it backwards, which we do every once in a while, starting with calves into hams, then quads, most of the time ending with squats, but not today, after training back the night before, the lower back wasn't having it. But we still had a sick leg workout with a sick pump!

Starting with donkeys, to lying leg curls, seated leg curls, stiffs legged (this blow the lower back out), leg extension, walking lunges (35 dumbbells up and back x 2 100 yards) and ending with hack squats, I was pretty much done after that.

Bob O'Brien an old time bodybuilder from back when I did this 20 years ago, came by the gym to hit some poses with Alex and check out his progress, he too is getting ready to step out on stage after 20 years.

Bob had mentioned on a number of occasions remembering competing with me at 1991Gold's classic and I happened to have a link from a web site on my blog that has the placements from that show and sure enough, there he is and Chirs Pappas too another friend from the past... I decided to look at the other links on my blog, mainly my last competition the 1992 Mass States, my name was a hyperlink and it took me to my history from "92 to current, pretty cool... too bad I couldn't find from when I started in "85, but I'm happy to have this link... kind of cool to see such a jump from "92 to "09

Alex is 8 weeks out today and right on target weighing in this morning at 207. 2.5 pounds less then last Saturday..

Here are some compulsories we took after legs today... remember we just trained legs, they are filled with blood, you are not going to see much separation

He will keep everything the same another week

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