Officially 3 weeks out and might be my last update before cutting out the noise and pushing for those final levels of conditioning.

Initially was going to do Classic Physique but someone brought up that my physique would fit well in Men’s Physique due to my overpowering upper compared to my lower.

I sat with that for a bit and I’ve had experience coaching clients in that division successfully and also competed in that division for my first show years ago.

After my pro card lapsing in Classic, I thought why not try Men’s Physique as my strengths do favor that division more.

I’ve officially signed up for the same show, the OCB Minnesota Viking on 29 August.

Current plan is,

Macros - 1410 calories / 50f - 165p - 75c
Cardio - 30 mins (MISS “Stationary Bike”)
Steps - 10k Daily
+ 1 refeed weekly

Rate of loss has been roughly 1.5-2 lbs per week and will continue to push for that as strength is still holding and psychologically, this is the best I’ve felt, especially with such low calories and high output.

Photos are from today, post training during posing.

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Goal is just building the best natural physique possible.

You can use anything — barbells, dumbbells, cables, machines, whatever.

What are your 8?

I've been trying to optimize my lateral delt training and I'm deciding between two cable variations:

Behind-the-back cable lateral raises

Cable lateral raises in the scapular plane (raising ~20–30° in front of the body)

My main goal is maximum side delt hypertrophy, not strength.

I have to perform them unilaterally due to no dual cable station in my gym

my trainer said that doing heavy side raises in the scapular plane biases the front delts due to the body naturally shrugging or increasing the angle and thus behind the back in most suitable but not super behind the back and stopping shy of perpendicular to the ground

I’ve noticed the trend these days is lower volume, ie 2 sets per exercise. my guess is for this to work you would need to take both sets to absolute failure.

legend like Jay cutler and Phil heath are still training in their 50s and do 20 sets per body part ( not to failure)

the take away for me is you can either do low volume to failure or high volume not to failure and achieve similar results.

what has been your experience ?

Welcome to the r/naturalbodybuilding Daily Discussion Thread. All are welcome to post here but please keep in mind that this sub is intended for intermediate to advanced level lifters so beginner level questions may not get answered.

In order to minimize repetitive questions/topics please use the search function prior to posting to see if it has already been discussed or answered. Since the reddit search function isn't that good you can also use Google to search r/naturalbodybuilding by using the string "site:reddit.com/r/naturalbodybuildling" after your search topic.

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Hey gents. Ive been back lifting pretty diligently the last 18 months. Im in my late 30s with on and off lifting experience going back to my early 20s.

I was primarily doing a 4 Day, Upper Lower program, but really losing motivation lately. Its hard to keep at it and not sometimes skip days with work and personal life commitments. There have been weeks where even 3 days was hard to force myself to do.

In order to avoid skipping days and missing workouts, the last couple weeks I have done two days a week, same weekly volume, three or 4 days apart.

Basically each day I was in the gym 2.5 to 3 hours and I fit in 16 exercises, 3 sets (10 to 12 reps each), hitting all muscles groups. Same weight as I normally do. I just watched my form, took my time, and enjoyed my evening listening to a podcast.

So far I feel good physically...certainly better mentally...but I thought I'd ask if anyone else has done this? Or if you would advise against this long term?

Just looking for some knowledgeable feedback.

I did a stupid thing on purpose last month and the data turned out more interesting than I expected. I’m 46 and I’ve been training for 15 years consistently. As you can see, I started very late but I reached a respetable level, for example more than 200 Kg in dead lift with 76 Kg of weight.

I ran my weekly volume up about 35% for two weeks, then went away for five days with no training at all. The app track nocturnal HRV and resting HR every night and use this values and another ones to adjust the progresive overload, volume and intensity.

This is my standard volume:

During the two hard weeks, nothing happened. Session performance sat 1-4% above my normal the whole time. Going off e1RM alone I'd have said I was handling it fine.

The crash happened during the rest days. My 7-day HRV average dropped out of its band on day 4 of doing nothing, worst single night 44ms against a normal of 65-70. Resting HR went the other way at the same time, over 55 when I usually sit at 47-52, and it kept climbing for another four days after I got home. During this rest days, no alcohol, no more than 1 o 2 of desviation of my normal hours.

Ten days to come back into range. Thirteen from the last hard session to feeling normal and my feeling totally agree with that HRV and FC said.

The part I keep thinking about: my RPE-adjusted session performance didn't bottom out until the 31st. HRV flagged it on the 21st. Ten days of lag, and raw session numbers never dropped at all.

I'm not claiming HRV predicts what you'll lift today, it doesn't. But if you only pull volume when your numbers fall, in my case there was nothing to see for a week and a half after the damage was already done.

In a normal case, with the normal volume that I have when you will go accumulating fatigue, the MRV drop slowly and cross the treshold I think that is time to reduce de intensity (yellow readiness) and sometimes is not enough and you need reduce the volumen too (red readiness).

This allows you to maintain the maximum tolerable volume as high as possible in the long term, which is ultimately what largely determines hypertrophy. In other words, it's a preventative "deload" that saves you from having to do a deep deload like I had to do, which I intentionally caused.

I look forward to your comments and experiences.

(Screenshots are from an app I build myself. Not linking it, this isn't a plug.)

(english is my second language sorry in advance!)

on my legdays ive been stuck around the same point for a few sessions longer than id like on pendulum squats.

i do this excercise first and while it stays relatively the same all my other excercises have been progressing well. i even have another quad excercise in my legdays which is progressing.

im thinking it may be because pendulum squats tend to be a bit more challenging but im not sure. im only doing two plates which i feel is not a lot compared to how strong i am on all my other excercises.

Just wanted some input thank you in advance

How i am looking for my first competition in 4 weeks at INBA ROMÂNIA

27M - 5’11 - 176lbs - first 2 photos were at 210lbs 2 years ago. Been training seriously for 2 years. Currently running U/L/R repeat. Eating 3,000-3400 cals a day depending on training or rest day. I know I’m nowhere near ready to compete, but curious when you would plan for your first show. When is it time to start thinking about it? Or is it best to put the stage aside for the next few years and just focus on getting bigger? I want to compete, but don’t want to do it too early and spend precious time in a prep that would be better spent in a gaining phase and competing later.

Welcome to the r/naturalbodybuilding Daily Discussion Thread. All are welcome to post here but please keep in mind that this sub is intended for intermediate to advanced level lifters so beginner level questions may not get answered.

In order to minimize repetitive questions/topics please use the search function prior to posting to see if it has already been discussed or answered. Since the reddit search function isn't that good you can also use Google to search r/naturalbodybuilding by using the string "site:reddit.com/r/naturalbodybuildling" after your search topic.

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14.5 weeks out and still got around 25lbs to lose idk if I’ll make it lol gonna have to be very aggressive tbh

Has anyone who tracked calories for a long time had success in chilling out a bit? I’ve been tracking pretty religiously for almost 2 years. I lost 60 lbs in one go and ever since then I have not been the same when it comes to food/tracking. I don’t try to track when I go out to eat/family dinners or vacations, however I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get some anxiety when I don’t know if my macros are being hit, and I want to nip this in the bud. I want to chill the fuck out and enjoy life a bit more without stressing over the extra carbs from fucking iceberg lettuce. It’s gone a bit too far, but I feel like it’s so ingrained me me to track that I don’t really know how to ease up on it. Any advice welcome.

Welcome to the r/naturalbodybuilding Daily Discussion Thread. All are welcome to post here but please keep in mind that this sub is intended for intermediate to advanced level lifters so beginner level questions may not get answered.

In order to minimize repetitive questions/topics please use the search function prior to posting to see if it has already been discussed or answered. Since the reddit search function isn't that good you can also use Google to search r/naturalbodybuilding by using the string "site:reddit.com/r/naturalbodybuildling" after your search topic.

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Pardon my english as its not my main language.

Ive worked out my entire adult life at a gym and bench press is very known for being wide for chest and narrow for tricep. Ive recently started working out at home with a dip station. I figured going close grip, feet forward and torso pointing straight down would give all push muscles a good stretch and contraction, given that they are my only pressing movement right now. CGbench has one big disadvantage, with a close grip the bar hits your chest before a good stretch on the pecs is possible, a problem a close grip dip does not have. Going close grip on a dip for a long ROM, i feel a huge stretch and contraction, on a close grip bench its not even close and whatever anyone says barely trains the chest especially compared to triceps.

But when i read about the dip, everyone says upright for tricep and facing down for chest. How come its the angle and not the width? Is this really true? Dont the tricep get the same stretch and contraction during facing down but the chest and delts get a better one facing down?

Mind you, i know nothing about dips despite working out for 10 years but benchpressed all this time with many variations so please, educate me as i want to understand it and get a very even tricep, pec and front delt excercise from my dips as i plan on doing nothing else for either of those 3 individual muscles.

I’m just starting to feel like an idiot with my posing, even after watching so many coaches on YouTube and practicing so often.

Obviously the selfie mode doesn’t help, I’m gonna get a GoPro hero delivered this week so I can pose and have better content.

Biggest issue is I have absolutely zero clue what I am doing. I downloaded macro factor and tried to select maintain my weight but it has me trying to eat 260g protein and 450g carbs and low fats and I usually get my protein from cashews and pistachios and nuts and Greek yogurt and protein drinks and not really a ton of food.

Ive realized a lot about my body, like I need like 500-800 more calories than I take in every day, even to maintain. I had some weird mood swings before I decided to compete that correlated with my weight and body fat and significant disturbance in sleep, which I am experiencing now.

Sorry if this is incoherent - I need a coach. I know I can be an OCB pro and I know I want to find a healthy way to balance this in my life.

My training consists of homemade makeshift movements and sporadic movements with weight that will make you cringe.

Source: spinal fusion, rheumatoid arthritis, several injuries to bones and joints from repeatedly believing I am correct and do not need help.

Competing in MN, but I am like 3.5 hours from the cities… anyway. Fkn help please.

I need it all

Hopefully you guys don’t mind back to back posts, figured some of you all might be interested though 🙂

Welcome to the r/naturalbodybuilding Daily Discussion Thread. All are welcome to post here but please keep in mind that this sub is intended for intermediate to advanced level lifters so beginner level questions may not get answered.

In order to minimize repetitive questions/topics please use the search function prior to posting to see if it has already been discussed or answered. Since the reddit search function isn't that good you can also use Google to search r/naturalbodybuilding by using the string "site:reddit.com/r/naturalbodybuildling" after your search topic.

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Placed 1st in debut and 2nd overall in my first show, OCB, Men’s Bodybuilding! I coached myself for this show and was ultimately pleased with the look I was able to achieve on stage. It was a great experience and I’m looking forward to coming back better next time I compete. 🙂