My contest prep for my first actual show that’s in, I don’t know, 5 WEEKS, is pretty radically different from the prep you may remember from my photo shoot prep of last year. First of all, having just recently returned to training due to injury, I’ve had a lot of weight to gain back and very little time to do so. To do this I’ve been following a very high calorie (6-7000Kcal/day) diet and have kept my cardio and lifting schedules pretty light given the little time I have left to prepare. ‘Light’ for me tends to mean not lifting weights twice a day until I injure something, so in designing my program I decided to try and follow the format used by top bodybuilding trainer Hany Rambod. Hany trains the current Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler as well as several other stars, so his training principles get a lot of attention in the muscle building media. The reason I thought his set up would work well for me is because it is low frequency (only hitting each muscle group once per week), and high volume (which means more sets but a little less weight). These factors meant I’d have maximum recovery, so I’d get to train hard and stay away from re-injury. My initial program (which I posted when we returned from our cruise) looked like this, but I have since changed the exercises around to keep my body improving.
An important part of my routine has been adding an FST-7 to the end of each workout. This technique gives you a great muscle pump and really helps fill out the muscle without having to use a ton of weight. I’ve seen progress from it on all my muscle groups, but especially on shoulders and calves! Hooray! For those of you who may not know, my calves give me more trouble than anything so this progress has been very exciting! Below is a side chest shot Marcella was kind enough to take of me last week, so you can see I’ve got some of my barbarian-esque size back!
Dietarily, I am going to stay on a high calorie/high carb diet (gasp!) until 1-2 weeks before the contest. This is contrary to the central dogma of bodybuilding, but right now my main goal is gaining and keeping size, so I will pursue that until the very last minute and work on keeping as much definition as I can on the way. More to come, and in the meantime wish me luck in my preparation!
Hi Derek,
I’m new to your blog and I have a couple of questions that you might be able to help me with.
Like you I’m coming back from an abs muscle wall injury and I need to gain muscle. I’m one of those who can’t gain weight easily and I don’t have a big appetite. I’m planning to work out twice a day three times a week, so my questions are:
1-what nutrition program I should follow?
2-would that workout schedule is advisable?
3- where did you get injured and how you are preventing it from happening again?
I hope your prepartion for that show is going well or went well.
Thank you
Jean
Hi Jean,
Thanks for writing! I would check out the articles I’ve submitted on veganbodybuilding.com for some good ideas on a nutrition program. As for a workout schedule, I’d avoid weight training twice a day and stick to a once per day, 4-5 days per week program. The main thing you want to do is give yourself plenty of time to recover between muscle groups, and avoid any exercises that make your injury hurt.
I strained my abdominal wall while leg pressing 1000lbs, and I continued to train heavy on it for a month until I had to stop from the pain. Don’t make my mistake!! If anything hurts, STOP and avoid that exercise until you are pain free. That’s what I’ve been doing!
I see that we had the same type of injury. I’ll apply your advice.
Thanks for responding.