Training for a competition starts long before the ’12 weeks out’. You need to have a good foundation of muscle and your metabolism needs to be tuned and trained and ready to go, then you can START to train for a competition. Set realistic goals for what you want to weigh, how you want to look, and what you hope to accomplish. Be honest about where you are physically and how you look; about how much time you have to devote to training, work, sleep, school, etc. Discuss it with the people around you. Believe me when I say that training for a competition involves EVERYONE around you. Your family, friends, co-workers. They will all be affected by your training. Consider the financial aspect as well. Competing can be expensive for amateurs. Your gym fees, supplements, posing suites, shoes, Pro-Tan, tanning packages, NPC registration, entrance fees. They all add up.
But if after considering everything, you still decide to compete, you won’t regret it! The experience of stepping on stage looking your best is worth the hard work, early morning cardio sessions, and missed desserts, and so much more. It is your 15 minutes of fame.
I will break down my daily workouts including reps and weight used. I will most likely need to change things up a bit because my body adjusts to the training and diet and I plateau. The changes in my training and diet seem to jump start my metabolism. Don’t be afraid to change things if you see that you are not making progress. Everyone is different, and what works for me might not work for you, so use this training split as a guideline, not as a guarantee.
Currently, I am starting a 2 day split done 2 times a week. I am going to focus more on building muscle mass in my shoulders, biceps, triceps, work on separation in my quads, and do heavy abdominal work in an attempt to help define my abs. For my last show, I was at a low body fat, and my abs looked the best they ever had, but for as strong as they were and for how hard I worked them, they still didn’t show like I wanted them to. I am planning on staying with this heavy/low rep workout for 6-8 weeks. Until the first week in June. Then I will see where I am at. I am competing in my first show of the fall on August 30. If I can maintain a relatively low body fat over the summer while still adding about 3-5 pounds of muscle, then I won’t have to loose a ton of weight. I will still need at least 10 weeks to diet for the show, so I need to start dieting no later than July 21.
Click the links below to see my daily workouts. Be patient, the pages may take a minutes to load.
Month 1: April 21, 2003-May 23, 2003 Bulking
Month 2: May 24, 2003- June 21, 2003 Bulking
Soon to come: Pictures of each exercise being demonstrated.