It’s been a tough weekend…

Down to less then a week out from the NLABBA Provincial Bodybuilding Championships and we had an unexpected misfortune this past weekend…

My girlfriend’s dad passed away the past Saturday morning… now we did know it was going to happen eventually because he had been diagnosed with cancer, but we didn’t expect him to leave us so soon. While there is never a “good time to die”, this is certainly some extra stress that I wasn’t planning on dealing with right now.

As anyone who has ever competed in bodybuilding knows, the last week before a show is difficult enough as it is because you are not operating at 100% mentally or physically due to being so depleted, eating a low carb diet, etc. And of course dealing with the death of a loved one is never easy, so combining both of them together is just a double whammy. It has really taken the wind out my sails so to speak.

As for my training, etc. at this stage of the game I’m doing “depletion” workouts for the next few days. Doing sets of 15-25 reps with light to moderate weights. The purpose of this is to deplete the muscles of glycogen and then when I increase my carb intake for a few days before the show the muscles will over compensate for the depletion and absorb even more glycogen then normal. Creating a fuller look in the muscle bellies.

My diet is very strict at this stage, I’m just eating beef, chicken, fish, green veggies, and protein drinks. No starchy carbs at all. On Wednesday I’ll start eating starchy carbs.

I’m also drinking more water then usual this week in order to get the body used to flushing out high volumes of water. Then I’ll cut back on my water intake drastically on Friday afternoon (before the Saturday show). When this happens the body will still be peeing out the water at the same rate, but I won’t be putting the water back in. So it will pull the excess water from under the skin creating a tighter, harder look for Saturday.

I took some pictures Monday night while I was practicing my posing. I’m pleased with my progress thus far, but I’m looking and feeling quite flat at this stage due to lack of carbs in the system.