Back to my roots: Part 1

When I began to gear up for USPF Nationals earlier I went in with only that meet in mind (ok, so maybe I was going to do a USAPL meet too, but I quickly came to my senses). I wanted to have a great day on the platform and redeem myself from a shitty showing I had a couple years ago.

But something happened along the way. I began getting the bodybuilding bug again. But why? Well, lets rewind about a year ago..........

July 2012

I was sitting in the press pit at the inaugural Wings of Strength and NPC Tim Gardner Chicago Extravaganza in Rosemont, IL. Helping cover the show provided me the opportunity to not only talk to pro's but some amateurs as well. At this point I was working for Flex Magazine for a couple months and was just soaking in the atmosphere of watching various shows and filming workouts of other competitive bodybuilders, women/men's physique competitors and figure girls. As I was sitting down in the press pit, I was thinking to myself of how cool it would be to participate in a pro/am show. Standing on the same stage that the pro's would use. But that thought quickly went away when I thought of the work involved

"Man.....lots of cardio? No Chipotle? No PIZZA?!?!?! I'm good dawg........"

So the beat went on. Just heavy training and being pretty liberal with my eating.

Mr. Olympia 2012

I had the wonderful opportunity to attend the Mr. Olympia as part of Flex Magazine (or swole up water-boy, whichever you prefer) and once again was provided a unique aspect to see the pinnacle of the sport. I saw how athletes approached the biggest show of the year. I once again thought to myself of how cool it would be to get a warmup suit, be briefed on how the show will go and pump up backstage before showing my wares off to a crazy audience. But once again, I was afraid of taking the first step of competing in an NPC local show........

"Bro, your'e broke, you have a lot of fat to lose and you have to give up what little social life you have. Sit the fuck down!"


Larry's best supporter is Larry, right? So I listened. And stayed sitting the fuck down.

March 2013

I started prep for Nationals around this time, give or take a few weeks, and was getting stronger. I was feeling good and decided to start doing some fasted cardio to bring my weight down a bit. Well, one morning per week turned to two, two mornings per week turned to three and three turned to five. I'm not sure why it happened but then the thought popped in my mind....

"Larry, your last show was 2005. How long are you going to wait for the prefect situation? Just do it. Your'e going to be broke either way this summer, you may as well accomplish something you've been wanting to do." And with a little nudging from my friends Marisa Inda and Troy Smith, I started cleaning up my diet for a run at the NPC Tim Gardner Extravaganza held that July. There was one issue though. USPF Nationals was the first weekend of May. The show was scheduled for July 6th (which currently is next week) and if we do math, that leaves me with about 8 eight weeks to basically pull a rabbit out of my ass. So now, here come negative Larry again.

"Thats a lot of work. You have to be super focused and can you do it?"

It happened to be a chance conversation with a classmate of mine at UNL named Paige that made me think a bit about doing the show. She also sent me a rather encouraging Facebook message telling me to go for it, because she saw what I posted and that my heart was still in the sport.

 I also remembered a conversation I had last year with someone who was preparing for a show. What was said triggered something in me a bit and I'll never forget it. I normally don't let a whole lot of things rattle me, but this did. I'm paraphrasing as the convo took place more than a year ago........

"You can't do both. You have to be big and fat for powerlifting."


Oh really? Lets see about that hypothesis. Game the fuck on.

I cleaned up my diet and kept doing fasted cardio. I kept telling myself to not go overboard because my main focus was the meet. Once that was over, I could drop the hammer and go full bore into contest prep. I didn't care about how much it was going to suck. I didn't care about how much money it would cost. I didn't care I wouldn't be able to eat my favorite foods the first half of summer. All that mattered was standing up on that stage knowing I gave my all...........but lets rewind to the Nationals.


May 2013

With my programming done by the crazy Jennifer Petrosino of Elitefts.com, I felt at my all time best. I did a weight cut to 220 and went in to set some records.

That didn't work out too well, as evidenced by my performance in the video.




I bombed............I cried.........I had to show my face at the NPC IL State as a semi fat powerlifter who is trying to be a bodybuilder. Not only that, I had to explain to people what bombing out meant. You live, you learn, you move forward.

So with the meet over, I rested and ate up on Sunday and began my prep on Monday for the show. So basically everything was switched up and my program had more tempo based training, heavy eccentric and timed sets. All of which made a difference. Sometimes I took the liberty of changing things based on the day and how I felt, sometimes I didn't. But the best part about the program Jenn put together is I stayed pretty strong throughout. I was still able to squat 500 in knee sleeves (high-bar so I was pretty much all quads)

My cardio consisted of what I like to call the "King Kamali special" which was two hours a day, 6 days a week. Optimal? Absolutely not, but very "cleansing" to me. So I kept doing it. Add that with the training I was doing and you get the pics below of where I started doing prep at, as compared to now

The pic on the left was the Monday after Nats, the pic on the right was Monday morning before cardio. Perfect? No. 100 percent in shape? No.......but that wasn't the goal. What I wanted to accomplish and how I went about will be explained in the next installment. Until then, I have to fuck this stepmill up.

Training and stuffs

I'm sorry for the lack of updates on my prep. I havent turned on my computer since the last blog post and to be honest, I'm not sorry about it. I've just been focused on the task at hand and making sure I come in the best possible shape. On top of that, I just havent had a whole lot to say. I will strike on some things I'm doing right now.


- Volume has been pushed up. I'm keeping a running tab of how many reps I'm doing and I'm trying to beat that number each workout. I realize though as the rep count gets higher, the more exercises or sets I'l have to do. Thats fine by me. I'd rather lift more and do the same amount of cardio.

- Speaking of cardio, make no mistakes about it, I'm still doing it. Just not a shit ton like I did back in my 20's. Lets just say my knowledge base has increased a bit and tons of the shit is not needed.

- Switched my protein sources around and I'm eating chicken and tilapia quite a bit more. Salmon and grass fed beef is still in there. Usually in the morning due to the fat content kinda helping me get through the day. And well I also like beef in the morning. So there.

- Supps are Aminolast, Glycofuse, Vasotropin and Detonate by Gaspari, EVP by Evogen, Cell Dynamic and casein hydroslate by Truenutrition.com  Each one serves a purpose. I'm still trying to "volumize" and use the "pump enhancers" to help do that along with the volume training. If they don't work, hell, pacebo effect is a motherfucker. Straight broscience, I know.

- Mindset is improving each day. I take each day as it comes and don't too much worry about tomorrow. For those that don't know, I take a slight detour to get to the gym now. But it honestly saves me about ten minutes off my commute. So no biggie.

- Lastly me and a good friend are collaborating on dialing my training in more. We have been speaking about incorporating time under tension (TUT), eccentrics(negatives) and other things. Yes I'm sweating, yes I'm moving a lot of iron, but I'm not afraid to experiment. I'm in this thing to learn as well. Expect more on that in bigger post in the future. Hell, maybe even an article.

Thats it for right now. Things are moving forward and I'm feeling good overall. Onward.

Training and the New Challenge

Monday: Back

Lat Pulldowns:
80/20
120/15
150/15
180/10

Trap Bar Rows:
135/10
185/10
225/10,10

One Arm Rows:
105/10,10,10

T-Bar Rows:
140/10
175/10,10

Seated Rows:
135/10
165/12
195/10

FST-7 Lat Pulldown

Tuesday: Chest till I couldn't chest no more.



First couple of days of bodybuilding style training for my prep is officially in the books. Feeling pretty good overall even with increased cardio. As you can see, I've pushed up the volume pretty good and I'm really feeling that DEEP muscle soreness. I have to admit, I totally forgot how much of an all consuming effort contest prep really is (in addition to being pricey). I wake up and basically go from one side of town to the other and put my cardio time in. Roll back home and i'm only there for a couple hours. Enough time to cook and take a nap. Get up, go back and train. Go home and by that time it's almost 10:30 or 11 and it begins early in the morning again.

This schedule will soon have summer classes injected into it and I'll account for that later, but right now, this is how it's going down. I'm not super strong on reps right now. At least not in the 10-12 range, which is what I'm trying to do. My main thing is bringing my waist in and showing up in good condition to be competitive. I'm doing what I can and the judges will do the rest. I have a picture of how I want to look and I'm pushing for that look.

My diet hasn't been painful yet. I have switched to fish and chicken and reduced my red meat consumption a bit. Carbs are low but they fluctuate based on what I'm training. I hit legs tomorrow with a buddy, so I will take in some to get through the workout.

I'm going to write a New York Pro assessment  but only AFTER the competitor list comes out and I will have it here. I may submit it, but I'm not sure.  

Time To smash legs. Keep banging                            

USPF Nationals and my next step

Well Nationals has come and gone. Been preparing for it for quite awhile and was elated to get it on in Rosemont with a lot of other great lifters.

Unfortunately that was not meant to be, at least not totally. For those of you that follow me on social media, you know I did a cut to be in the 220 lb class. It was more of an inadvertent cut. I was doing cardio and eating more controlled because during my prep I put on a few pounds and was close to 250. Not sloppy or anything, but definitely didn't want to be fighting to stay in the 242's which was supposed to be the original class I was staying in. Fast forward to last Monday, I decided to cut to 220 since I was on nine pounds off.  Drank a couple gallons of distilled water on Tuesday and Wednesday along with not eating on Thursday for a Friday Morning weigh in. I hit 219.8 and began my Pedialyte and creatine ingestion. Ran into Paul Carter and had breakfast with him and his wonderful family and basically chilled and ate carbs and other yummy things the rest of the day.

I felt good Friday night and slept great. Woke up on Saturday and had some leftover pizza from last night and was ready to rumble. Warmed up for squat with some mobility and felt fine.Warmups in the warmup area went well. I knew my opener was light, so that wasn't an issue. Got to the platform for 501 and it went smooth. Needed to speed it up a little, but the strength was there. Went to 539 and nailed it 2-1. Took an american record attempt of 566 and got stapled at the bottom. I had NO reversal power out of the hole with it.

After missing the squat attempt, I was happy with a PR of 539 at 220 lbs. With that I went and got a BLT and some chips to bloat up a bit more for the bench. The sammich was good, chips were great and the warmups went great as well. Best I felt in weeks and was opening with 369 lbs. I hit 365 and above in training numerous times.

Opening attempt: No good

Second attempt: No good

Third Attempt: No good.

Triceps couldn't finish, wasn't tight enough, blah, blah, blah. Bottom line. I bombed the fuck out and I'm pissed. There are a myriad of things I'm fixing going forward but as of right now that will be on the back burner. There is no blame except my own.

No time for pity parties. No time for woe is me. That shit is over.

I do have some notes about the meet overall though:

-The USPF is a legit fed in my eyes and I won't argue this with anyone. It's rebuilding and a long term goal of mine is to bring it to Nebraska if I kick my career of there.

-Lance Karabel gives a lot to the sport in the Chicago area. Solid guy all around!

-Scott Smith and Chris Papillion are beasts. The size of Scott Smith's legs can rival any in shape pro bodybuilders.

-Having a legend like Ed Coan tell you what your faults are is very humbling. But for him to take time out and talk to you and give advice is golden. His words have been heeded.

-Brandon Lilly is a big dude. I didn't go to his seminar yesterday but I will be going to the Juggernaut Seminar at Chicago Crossfit in june.

-Paul Carter is a big ass dude. But someone who knows training and how to pick smart attempts. I know he will be at Worlds. Cant wait to lift with him again. His daughter, Hannah Carter is getting strong at 14 years old and setting American Records

-Ellen Stein is over 60 and squatting over 300 lbs with textbook form. Your age and excuse for why you cant perform at an age is invalid. Quit putting pressure on a number and do some epic fucking work.

-It was good to catch up with people I don't normally see more than once a year. Guys from Michigan and over the Chicagoland area.

Went to a bodybuilding show that night, the Illinois State Bodybuilding Championships and saw some good people! Kevin Jordan, Tommy Busch,  Jerome Cheatham, Eric Posejpal and others. Which now leads me to something......


I'll be on the stepmill by the time most of you read this today, and my skinny ass will be getting ready for the NPC Tim Gardner Chicago Extravaganza. I'm going to tell you is I'm doing this for me. I havent been onstage in 7 years and I want to see if I am still halfway decent. No, I'm not having my prep done by anybody. Why? Because I feel (and it's my personal opinion) you should be able to do some stuff on your own. Yes, I will consult with some people, but I like having the drivers seat. Back to work, because no one will do it for me.

Here are some pics from last Monday before I started my weight cut for Nationals. I was 229 before cardio. Funny. I know

This last eight weeks may be a self imposed version of Hell and I'm sure these will circulate around the interwebz.

                                                            Sexy back? Or sexy Fat?

                                                   

IT'S STILL MY MUTHAFUCKIN SET!!

DE Bench

Bench:

185/ 5 sets of fast and furious

Assistance work:

Stuff to get pumped up with and move blood around. Seriously though, assistance work doesn't matter at this point. Get in and get out.

I'm glad my workouts are short because finals hurt......big time hurt.

Everything moved well for this session. I see me and blue heat will be friends because my arms still ache a bit while pressing. Be glad for meet week gets here. I'm getting antsy a bit.

Wednesday Training- Speed squats

Squats
260/5 sets of 2

Speed Deads
430/6 sets of 1

Banded good mornings/ 100 (spread out over 2 sets of 50)

I really, really, REALLY did not want to train last night. Gym closes at midnight, I packed my bag and left to train at about 10 pm. With finals, projects and makeup homework, I was not a happy camper. Add to that my carbs are pretty low right now and you have one lazy sumbitch.

The workout went smooth and stuff felt fast. I wasn't focusing on lots of bar speed (or bar rape as Paul Carter likes to say), but to reinforce technique. Mine always needs tweaking, so it's good to get these days in.

Weight is about 235 right now. I was asked if I was a powerlifter in the rec by a guy who is pretty strong and was told " Damn, you're lean for powerlifter". So I guess I'm doing something right on the diet and cardio side.


Moving forward.

Monday Bench and a couple things

Bench: Worked up to a single of 380 (will be 2nd attempt at the meet)
Pulldowns: 2 sets of 10
Pressdowns: 2 sets of 20
Seated Rows: 2 sets of 10

My nutrition has not been as optimal as it could be. I did some tracking for the past couple days and found out I'm simply not eating enough to facilitate proper recovery. Going to start pushing the protein more (increasing portion size) and continue to have my carb meals around my workouts. I can be doing more at the table for the meet than what I am.