What are you doing to yourself?!

You're selling yourself short.

As I sit here, just about to have a protein shake, I'm thinking to myself. Why? Why did you not get organized on Monday, get up early and pre-prepare some meals. Monday, the first day of the blog, I woke up late, trained, had fast food. Today, the second day, I've eaten three fast food meals. Yes, its calories. Yes, I held myself back and had water all day, which is extremely good, because usually I would just buy coke each time, but its not good enough. The quality of the food is also extremely important.

So after these few days, I'm going to list the 'progression' in which I hope to use in the next few weeks. Remember, I'm 1st year university, 23 yrs old, so my social life and student status still play a part. But only in making it harder. NOT IMPOSSIBLE.

So here's the progression, the way in which I'm going to change my habits, something that's not easy to do considering how long (since I left school) I've been doing it...

1. Eat enough protein. Almost beaten by 'eat enough calories' but - by eating enough protein, it takes up a lot of my stomach space, in addition to overall energy intake, therefore, if I don't eat enough calories, I'm still giving my muscles something to utilize in building muscle. Whether or not I'm in a caloric deficit or surplus doesn't matter so long as the protein is there, enabling strength gains and muscle building.

2. Eat enough calories. In order to gain muscle, your body needs 'additional' nutrients to put towards building muscle. Giving only 'enough' calories will give the body only enough nutrients to supply energy and recover, but not enough to make it want to increase muscle size (make sense?). All professional bodybuilders BULK, all tall successful bodybuilders have bulked for extended periods of time. Getting up to an uncomfortable higher weight, before dropping fat to become stage ready.

3. Consistently TRAIN (to get stronger). Never miss a workout. Always train to beat previous sessions somehow. No excuses. Not because your hungover, not because your tired or need to study. Nothing is an excuse. Missing a training session leads to inflexibility, loss of strength, loss of motivation, increased chance of it occurring again etc.

4. Rest. I don't sleep enough. I need to give my body enough time to go into a deep sleep. The release of growth hormones whilst sleeping is important in allowing your body to recover and grow.

5. Peri-workout Nutrition. Giving your body enough energy from complex carbohydrates to power through a workout. Enough simple sugars to spike insulin, shuttling nutrients into the muscles. Getting enough protein to prevent muscle catabolism. I have no proof for this but - I believe getting in a significant amount of calories, peri-workout allows for greater recovery, and greater performance.

6. Flexibility. To allow muscles to be utilized efficiently and to grow they need to be able to correctly function and this means being able to be stretched to their full extent.

7. Cardio. As much as I hate doing cardio. Having a good cardio respiratory system enables better shuttling of nutrients throughout the body, in addition to enabling increased endurance through strenuous exercises (breathing squats) and in giving better overall workout performance.

Its these things that I need to get in order to be able to perform at my best, which in my eyes is - performing exercises correctly, with full hearted effort, being powerful and fresh in training, have enough energy to perform and enough nutrients and rest to recover and grow optimally. Once these things are attained and consistent. The next phase in worrying about energy source manipulation, frequency, training splits, competitions can be thought about.

Off Day

Diet: 3 Bacon, egg and cheese muffins (McDonalds), 2 Piece Feed (KFC), Bacon burger (Chicken Treat), Steak, green beans, potatoes, 1s protein shake.

Shoulders+Traps

Workout went as follows:

DB Shoulder Press 15x12.5 8x17.5 6x22.5 27.5 32.5
Laterals Raises 8x8 10 12.5 6x15*
Charles Glass Lateral Raises 10x10 12.5 6x15*
Leaning Side Lateral Raises 10x10 12.5*
Bent-over DB Raises 10x7.5 10 12.5*
BTN Smith Press 12x30 30 30
DB Shrugs 12x27.5 32.5 6x 37.5*

*PR

Diet: 1 can mother energy drink, 2s P+C, 1s P, 350mls milk, 1 tbsp peanut butter, ultimate triple whopper, carbonara pasta, 1 tbsp peanut butter, 1s P.

What I used to look like..

March 2008 - 72kgs

Relaxed

 

Flexed 

(Yes, I sucked at posing haha!)

So it begins...

..Again.

I must have tried to start a blog about 10 times, every time failing from the start in order to change my sleeping, eating, training, motivational habits, each time failing, and myself trying to 'begin again' by sweeping my mistakes under the carpet and pretending like I'm perfect. Well I'm not. And neither is anyone. People need cheat meals, people need days off, people need days to just sit back, relax with friends and have a beer every once in a while. But the big difference between myself and lets say... 3-time Mr Olympia, Jay Cutler... he quickly learned from his mistakes and progressed further than anyone else, allowing himself to become a bodybuilding champion and that's what I hope to emulate.

Now... today, I woke at 1pm, after setting my alarm for 9.30am, no good... needs to change, but I'm up, have had a mother energy drink, have had a protein shake and am going to take progress shots and go to the gym to train shoulders.

My current training split is as follows:

Shoulders+Traps
OFF
Biceps+Triceps
OFF
Legs+Calves
Chest
Back


Updates soon.

MY BACKGROUND

SO...

After seeing all that insight from myself, you ask...who is this guy and what's he done?...

Well...Nothing.

Well I take that back, we've all done things... (that is what got us to where we are today) but... I'm saying from NOW is where things will be done... things will be done in order to achieve my goals and further me towards the end.

So now.. a bit about myself...

I like to refer to bodybuilding and my life as interconnected, intertwined into one web in which my actions in bodybuilding affect my life and my actions in life affect my bodybuilding - sort of like - 'WHERE LIFE MEETS BODYBUILDING'. And in order to realise why I've ended up here in my bodybuilding career, one must look at my life.

"My first taste of bodybuilding came when I was 16, in high school, and really just wanted be big and look good for the ladies, like so many. I trained 2-3 times a week, with no knowledge of nutrition or training principles and performed everytime - a workout consisting of pressing, curling and extensions - with some abs thrown in for good measure. As I had no idea what I was doing, it got boring so I threw it away.

After high school, I went to university to study business, joined the gym and made some gains in strength and size (minimal, but some) and then again gave up. I continued scraping through uni with pass marks and drank, did drugs and tried to become a rock star which I longed to be, but again I failed. I went to the gym on and off still, with different partners, did different programs I found in magazines and online, and continued to jump between wanting to be huge and wanting a six-pack for the ladies.

Eventually... at 20 years old, I stumbled upon 'Testosterone Nation', a website in which I owe a big deal  for teaching me nutrition, training and giving me a taste of what can be achieved with some effort. March, 2008, I joined, chatting on the forums and began gaining strength and size on my slender, 71kg frame, reaching 95kgs in June, 2010 (after a bet with myself that 'if i don't reach 95kgs, i will shave my head').

I reached my goal weight but still did it poorly, inconsistently, and through bad nutritional habits and training, which only allowed me to gain some strength but not much. I gained weight, but I gained a lot of fat... Again, a life lesson but all due to my inability to apply what I know and have learned.


Now, its at the start of September, 2010, 23 years old and I'm sitting on my computer, contemplating how and why I got here, angry at myself for not applying the knowledge learned to be way further ahead in my bodybuilding career than I am..."
 
So... thats a bit about me.
 
Next... coming up, pictures of myself when I joined T-Nation in 2008 at 71kgs and currently at 91kgs, fat, weak and raring to go.

No more excuses...

For as long as I can remember I've made excuses for my actions. Actions that didn't serve myself any good. Actions that got me in trouble, actions that made me lazy, actions that led me to where I am today, and let me tell you... it's not where I want to be.

From a young age, I've been spoon fed the majority of things that have come good in my life. Money, excuses, grades, a good family, a good life... all of which I've taken for granted and in doing so, have led myself to become dependant on others, doing minimal work to scrape through life, and overall becoming lazy in all my ways. My hygiene, my social life, my studies, my training, and most importantly the ways in which I carry out my life and to tell you the truth, like so many others... it needs to STOP!!!

Many of you reading this for the first time will be thinking, spoilt brat, why should I be reading this crap, this guy is just the same as every other lazy fucker in world, living off others, doing minimal effort and expecting more in return, and well.. you'd be right. But that is exactly why I'm writing this blog. To give myself some credibility, some self-worth, a way of showing others that although throughout your life you've led yourself to become lazy, fat, almost sloth-like in your outlook on life.. there's always room for change and that requires what I like to refer to as:

"PROGRESSION THROUGH AGGRESSION"

Aggressively seeking ways in which you can change your ways of thinking and doing things, in order to progress further towards where you want to end up. Sure, some will not achieve the end goal but that's what life is about.. striving towards a goal in the hope that you will succeed and you will reap the rewards in the end. And my goal:

"To become the best bodybuilder that I can become"

Wow, you say. The best bodybuilder you can become. That already places limitations on yourself. Well... it does and it doesn't. I say the best bodybuilder that I can become because my genetic limitations, my muscle fibre distribution, my clavicle width, my muscle bellies, all play a large part in determining what I look like in the end. But... that's not to say I'm not going to put my whole-hearted effort into trying to achieve success in the sport - and my bodybuilding goals? - I will post next.

Lastly...

If your wondering why there are mountains in the background, there are several reasons:

Firstly, and one that so regularly comes to mind, is the Arnold Schwarzenegger (see pic) documentary, 'Pumping Iron'. In it he's in discussion with a competitor and they tell him -"The king of the hill can only go down. The wolf on the hill, right...is not as hungry as the wolf climbing the hill." - Arnold retorts - "That's true, he's not as hungry. But when he wants the food, it's there." 

CLASSIC ARNOLD!!!

Secondly, I think the Arnold reference is right in speaking of bodybuilding as climbing a mountain and that in order to reach the summit, someone has to take into account, rest, recovery, training, nutrition and any psychological factors that must be endured on the way to the top. In order to make it to the top in bodybuilding, you must face any changes that arise and adjust accordingly. People will use different methods in reaching that peak, but there can only one person at the highest point.

Well... this is my mountain, this is my journey and I will make it to the top.