Nutrition
The first two weeks following my show I traveled in the USA, visiting New Orleans, San Francisco and Las Vegas. During that two week period I was not tracking macros because my number one priority was enjoying myself and experiencing the culture and food in those regions. I was also staying in hotels and didn't have cooking facilities which made tracking more difficult. Typically what I did was created a structure of food for the first three meals of the day and left around 500 calories for my final meal which was untracked. No doubt that last meal was generally well over 500 calories.
I want to note just how easy it is to gain weight post contest and that how little physical activity contributes to mitigating that weight gain. I was training nearly every day and I was walking everywhere, all day. I hardly ever caught a cab or used public transport. I walked until I literally had blisters on my feet. It was a great way to see the different cities and my caloric expenditure would have been way above average but it didn't stop me from gaining weight.
Following my return from the USA my weight had skyrocketed from around 90 kg to 105 kg. It turned out that quite a bit of this was fluid from the flight and within two days I was back down to 99 kg. That is still a gain of 9 kg in just 2 weeks! At this point I began tracking macros again. My starting macros were 300 P, 350 C and 70 F (3200 calories). We actually kept me on those numbers with a weekly refeed at 4200 calories for around a month before bumping that up to 3400 calories. A few weeks later it was 3600 calories and then 3800 calories. At some point we dropped the refeed days off and also started aiming for a calorie target rather than specific macros (with a protein target of 250 - 300 grams per day). The catch with tracking calories instead of specific macronutrient targets is that I generally find fats tastier but carbs are a bit more beneficial for me in terms of fullness and energy. So I need to be careful with over consumption of fat and under consumption of carbs. After a month or so on 3800 calories we decided that I was gaining too fast and so now I am back down to 3600 calories and sitting as of today at around 101 kg. That's an average net rate of gain of 0.4 kg per month.
It really took me about two to three months until I started feeling 100% again. This encapsulates various areas such as gym performance, appetite, mood, energy, libido etc. Given that I did diet for eight months this was to be expected. Some areas recovered faster than others (some things like energy recovered quickly and other things like appetite took longer to normalise). In the end though everything recovered.
Right now I am fairly happy with body composition. I have enough body fat to give me reasonable leverages for my lifts and to protect my joints but not so much that it takes me way to far away from contest shape. It's a good place to sit. The plan at the moment is to more or less maintain my current body weight and body composition for a bit longer and make as much progress as possible in the gym. From there we may try to start increasing weight again and the plan is to hit around 105 kg by the end of this year.
Training
I did actually train whilst I was traveling. I didn't train every single day but I did fit in a reasonable amount in the mornings or evenings around sight seeing and tours. I did an upper lower split as that way it didn't matter too much if I missed a day or two as I'd just pick back up at either upper body or lower body at my next workout. It also didn't matter to a huge degree what equipment the gym had available with this split as I could always figure something out for each muscle group.
When I got home we continued to run the split that I had been running during contest prep for another two weeks or so and then we transitioned to an upper lower split (3x/week frequency). We did this not only to try it out but because having three upper body days and three lower body days allowed me to shift more of my weekly volume toward my back, hamstrings and calves which are the biggest priorities for this off season. My main lifts for this were a high bar squat, sumo deadlift, bench press and seal row. We took out OHP for this block because I was having some scapular motor pattern issues. Those lifts were done two to three times per week at reduced intensities. AMRAP (as many reps as possible) sets were done at the end of each week as a means of updating my 1 - 5 RM which those intensities are based on. My secondary work was split into three upper body days and three lower body days (6 days/week). Volume per session was down a bit to account for the increased training frequency. My secondary work was also done in either the 8 - 12 rep range or the 12 - 15 rep range.
After numerous months of running this split we did a four week transition block. This meant that we switched my main movements for similar movements to give my body a break from the same movement patterns. For this purpose we included a smith machine front squat, conventional deadlift, weighted chin up, incline bench press, close grip bench press and barbell hip thrust. I enjoyed all these movements and found value in performing them and giving my body a rest. Secondary work was the same as the previous block but volume was tapered during this month. The only slight problem was that I experienced a few bumps and bruises during the transition block. The conventional deadlifts flared up a previous lumbar disc injury (I knew I stopped doing them for a reason!) and I also triggered a slight patellofemoral injury in my right knee doing leg press. I think in the future if I do a transition block I'll either keep sumos in or do something like trap bar deadlifts. C'est la vie, these things happen. On the bright side because I was tapering for quite a reasonable time, my strength went through the roof with the majority of my accessory work.
Now what we are doing is running a new split. The main lifts are much the same as the original split except we have added an OHP (for which I am doing a seated dumbbell shoulder press). It does feel good to OHP again! And the secondary work has now been organised into a twice/week frequency split over six days (except for back which is trained three times and shoulders which are only trained once). Volume has remained the same for all muscle groups, the only thing that has changed is frequency (and in a few cases exercise selection). The purpose of this block is of course to make gains but also to allow some of those boo boos to recover. I've had to include a bit of higher than average secondary leg work as part of the knee recovery process. I also just really enjoy training this way so hopefully we can do more of this in the future.
My take on the different splits (primary difference is training frequency) is that the upper lower split really let me develop two areas really well: legs and back. It makes sense that it would happen that way too because I was training legs three days out of six and I was training back three days out of six with one third to half of my upper body training being focused on back. My stronger muscles didn't exactly "suffer" but I could tell they just weren't as full as they normally would be. Training twice per week allows a more even development across my physique, though in this case I have kept my back at three times per week as it is a priority.
I hope that gives you somewhat of an idea of what I have been up to this off season and how I have been progressing. Below I have included a photo showing my back progress (rear double bicep is one of my weaker poses).
Left: 5 weeks post contest, Right: Last week
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I will continue with these blogs to keep you updated on my progress as well as discussion of any topics that come to mind.
Peace!
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