Monday 23 January 2012

Year of the dragon or the monster?

So we are about to enter the Chinese "Year of the Dragon" but for the people that I'm coaching for competition this year it will instead be the year of the monster. Because whilst others are already talking about dieting, me and my team at Golds have decided that there will be no early qualifying shows this year and that bulking up will continue well into March at least. The only possible exception will be Del from Wales, and we will make that decision in a few weeks time. This means that for now it's all about heavy compound training, although Danny & I did a holistic guns workout on Saturday just for muscle confusion purposes, it seemed to work quite well as you can see!  

Monday 9 January 2012

Off season - sensibly!

So now we are well into the new year and like most of us I am using this time to bulk up as much as possible, even though I am not planning to compete again, although I must admit that due to certain recent events I'm already tempted to reverse that decision so watch this space. I'm not a fan of off season cardio for a couple of reasons but I have had to start doing it as I quickly went back up to 19 stone and that weight is uncomfortably heavy. A sensible off season is training hard, lifting heavy and eating well but keeping the diet clean and doing a bit of cardio, that way any weight increase or new bulk will be mainly muscle, which will show when it's time for the hard dieting. The other thing to do is enjoy life outside the gym, that's what I do, usually with these three, they become more amazing every day!