Bodybuilding Classic Physique Division Offseason log

I think even if you don't go down the pro sports route, being athletic is better than being not athletic. Also being athletic (at least for males) is highly correlated with physical attractiveness, which has plenty of general life benefits.

When my kids were in the womb, I honestly didn't think or have any specific hopes about their future athleticism (I did hope very much that they would be wicked smaht). But if you had asked me if I preferred that my kid be athletic or not athletic, all else being equal, that would have been a no-brainer.

I've got no idea who you are and most of your posts in here are tldr and too dense and depressing to navigate but what I think you're apologising for being wrong and then saying is that I'm a better athlete, better at sports and probably more successful than you are. Thanks for that and I tend to agree with you / derail

yes. exactly the same way you'd rather they'd be smarter than not and better looking than not.

It's not about them becoming pros, it's all about revenge of the nerds.

I was ostracized as little kid for being a spelling champion, teachers pet, olympiad champion, etc etc. After going to district finals, the next year I misspelled on purpose to not go through that again. My teacher was heartbroken.

Little kids are mean. If I have kids, they need to dance and blast baseballs over the fence. Get a free ride to college from running 4:05 miles, etc etc. Exercise and sport for life, so athlete genes do want. Or if they turn out like my sister and assistant DA for department of justice, oh that's fine also. No facking video game playing losers though.

Hey loco! good seeing you again! You coulda been rob riches with some test, anavar, tren, masteron clen ez. Not even insulin or growth hormone. But too afraid of infertility. Do you know any pro bodybuilders who do NOT have kids? I only know of John Jewett and we can probably believe him when he says this is by choice. Ronnie's got like 8. So actually not too afraid of infertility, just too afraid of becoming too jacked and getting too many bitches and cumming too many times in them and dying of over-cumming. RIP. Good way to go but some peopel do want to live into their 80s. Perfectly understandable tbh, but let's be honest with ourselves no reason to make up excuses about feritility or heart atttacks for the sake of modesty so that other people don't feel bad.

Other discussion yeah w/e ok grunch continue its fine

I had a disaster workout yesterday. Deload was due to start monday but body says lmao no you're starting now. Last few weeks of a diet have always been like this. I'm ready to add some food back in.

Incline db press: up to 30sx20 paused

Great news was that I was able to incline db press to absolute failure and feel literally 0 discomfort as a result of the internal rotation mobbing I've been doing. Just comparing some basic tests like right hand behind my back or internally rotated with back on the floor I've made some seriously dramatic mobility improvements in the past 3 months. So even though I felt exhausted and straight up left the gym after this I consider it a huge win. Actually leaving the gym and not white-knuckling through a session itself was a huge win.

I've never been more ecstatic after a botched session because the prospect of being able to actually go hard as first lift dbs and probably even barbell incline bench is awesome. Maybe I'm even able to flat barbell bench after all this. I never felt flat bench a lot in my chest but it was a really great tricep and front delt movement for me. Working in some light cgbp with like 60-70kgx15-20 sounds pretty great.

I'm going to take the weekend off or just go to the gym and hang on the pullup bar and do some elbow and shoulder prehabs/mobs.

Monday is an exciitng day where me and the lads taking a 1 hour to journey to an even more specialzied bodybuilding gym that has a posing room and a chicken+rice restaurant. This type of gym barely exists in China.

My drying out with vodka experiment failed miserably possibly because my alcohol tolerance is so low that any major diuretic effect would have resulted in me being unhealthily drunk. I just felt sick and heartburn and didn't get dry. I hate alcohol, worst cope ever.

I took a HCTZ after googling the medication and realizing just how benign it is. People are taking this stuff literally as a daily medicine; it isn't a "hardcore" diuretic like a lasix. It worked magically; I dropped literally 5kg over night. I've been holding a lot more water and a lot less fat than I thought...Now I'm cursing myself for not using this stuff when I got on stage in 2018 and 2022. "You don't need a diuretic if you're truly in shape bro, most of the time it just flattens you out" is more bodybuilding virtue signalling. Same as "tren actually isn't a good muscle builder and should only be used in a cut. IT's a great muscle preserver but because of its negative effects on recovery you can actually end up worse than if you ddin't include it in your stack". The second one is partially true if you ramp up the dose so high you can't sleep, but 200-300mg/wk ofc you're going to build a fk ton of muscle and put on less fat than you otherwise would have... For many people it also won't really negatively affect bloodwork.

Didn't you have any nerd friends to hang out with?

Sure, everyone would prefer all the good genes, but if forced to choose between top 0.1% intellect and average athleticism or top 0.1% athleticism and average intelligence, I'd take the former and it's not even close.

Even an average person can take Monte* level discipline and be fine from a physique and health standpoint. You can't fix stupid, though.

*Don't mean to imply that Monte has average genetics wrt athleticism. IIRC, grandpa Monte was like a pro-football player or something, so he's probably above average in that dept.

Nah; just college in the 60s, and I don't think he was close to a standout. I'd say I'm squarely slightly above average for the population at large but definitely nothing special; with that said, consistency and hard work can get you pretty far (though you're still going to get smoked by the genetic elite almost no matter what you do).

I don't think genetics matter until we're talking about uber-elite professional level sports. Or rather, differences in genetics are fairly easy to overcome up until that turbo elite level.

Totally flat on 2nd day of no carbs. Woke up at 90.1 for an all time low after the HCTZ last night. Today I went to the gym to do some hangs, internal rotation, and posing. Normally can't pose b/c too many people but weekends are consistently empty.

I didn't get as lean as I wanted to and it was tempting at first to take a break and go straight back into a hard cut until those glutes are striated, but now I'm thinking we'll do a 16-20 week bulk followed by a 4-6 week aggressive minicut with clen, sub 250g carbs, and 30-45 minutes hard cardio post training. I plan to reset basically every 16-20 weeks of bulking; that was a mistake I made last time I did an extended offseason, never did any hard minicuts. Somebody like me will not be able to just bulk continuously the whole way through and maintain insulin sensivity and gastric motility. I have "enough" mass to win a pro card for sure but wgaf about winning a card if I can't realistically step on a pro stage shortly afterword. Add some more mass and win the card convincingly... Nov 2025, March 2026, and August 2026 are all options and there's no rush. Take it slow.

I feel like i had sorta good but not elite genetics for oly, dogshit bottom 20% genetics for pl, and very good top 5% genetics for bodybuilding but was consistently fed bad information and clinged to it dogmatically which prevented me from doing anything up until now. I'm on the right track after a lot of trial and error and already at the very good/near elite level among enhanced bbers.

I reallllyyy wish I'd hired Milos in 2018 after the first show. I had the money as he was only charging like 4k usd/yr at that point but my 28 year old self was ******ed and would have resisted a lot of the things he would have told me. By now I have things figured out enough to where I wouldn't benefit much from hiring anyone.

You are genuinely stupid so I'll be blunt and enumerate this for your benefit:

1) It is "apologize". They literally highlight the word for you when you spell it incorrectly on this site. Good luck with learning English.
2) The fact that you think being "good" at child sports is impressive to middle age men is... wild?
3) There is literally zero chance you're more successful than me at any sane metric of how society views people at any age above school child. Then again I would say most people in first world countries would be decidedly below me. I've been good and more importantly, very lucky.

You even somehow misconstrued this whole thing as an apology, which I think speaks volumes for your intellect. Wild.

In case I'm being misinterpreted let me be clear, sports are dope. Being extra good at them has no value. I think plenty of people should engage in competitive activities since this is literally gonna be all of their life. If you have an 80 IQ, maybe math team ain't your jam, but whether you place first or 10th in your national math comp... who cares? Bill Gates got outscored by Steve Ballmer. Then he ended up being his secretary.

Ain't all about winning in some arbitrary comp.

I actually did quite a bit of work in the vidya game field and am credited. It is a dope field.

But how in the world did you not find a bunch of friends from those activities? One of my earliest friends from the sports betting field ended up going pro in trivia. Doubt he would advise anyone to pursue to a pro trivia career, but we have several mutual friends who have competed professionally and quite good at this. But literally wtf? I'm like a card carrying nerd and never once felt this way.

Being smurt is by far the easiest super power. It makes everything way way easier. It is even weakly correlated to bizarre **** like "attractiveness". I guess not being very stupid helps with wearing clothes that fit and having a hair style that compliments your facial structure.

But seriously breeding smart waman >>>> tall athletic waman (everything else being equal). Being smurt is just so absurdly underrated.

This is absurd. There are people who legit struggle to ever do more than a 16kg KB squat despite elite level coaching (for this relevant subject). While they may be bottom 5-10%, you most certainly are not.

I have a buddy who can't run a 4hr marathon, but did an Iron Man. So yeah... hard work does halp too!

So on the Oly side... It feels weird to compare to Olytards. I was always decidedly the worst Olytard I've ever trained with on a regular basis. I also snatched like 1.1xBW which by almost every standard ranges from "p ****ing good" to "Based for an office worker who doesn't use drugs".

I think there are a lot of issues with comparing ourselves to what we perceive as "peers" and the "next rung up" without stepping back and realizing that most of us who put in any reasonable amount of time are actually v v good at the things we pursue. To the prior super slow jogger friend example, there are only a handful of people who will ever put in the time to complete an Iron Man, but obviously he is at the ass end of Iron Man times. Or in terms more relatable... You'll prob get a pro card, and also will never win anything of note. Does this mean that this goal isn't worth pursuing for you simply because you'll be a mediocre pro forever? (or realistically for 5-10y) I certainly don't think so, I think it is an awesome goal and while your career will easily be bottom quintile for card holders (assuming you get one) this is like being the shittiest F1 driver. Who ****ing cares?

I snatched bodyweight about a year after my first session doing the lift. I didn't realize that was actually pretty good at 90kgish. My big problem was listening to dumb Pendlay/Rip/Broz advice instead of Joe Mills/LSUS program/David Woodhouse.edit: Well, Broz advice was less dumb and it was more me being dumb. But PEndlay (RIP) had some very bad takes.

I didn't deadlift 500 until 2017 if i remember correctly. It took me a very long time despite good leverages.. just never had great slow strength.

I'd be absolutely delighted to be in the bottom quintile of classic physique pros and never win anything but be able to compete in multiple pro shows. It seems like all the best coaches come from elite amateur/low professional ranks. John Meadows, Andrew Vu, AJ Sims, Dave Palumbo, Chris Tuttle, Milos sorta as he only qualified for olympias by doing tons of shows not actually winnning them which you can't do in 2024, lots more. At this level the person usually has good enough genetics for the idea of pursuing professional bodybuilding to occur to them but not so good to where they can get to the elite level without super aspie optimization, so they make it by super aspie trial and error optimization.

I really want to get more deeply into coaching and move away from planning cycles/diets for powerlifters eventually. But I don't think my mental health would be very good if I was a full time online coach, even if I were extremely successful at it and made 4x my current income. So it will probably always be a side gig for extra income and enjoyment rather than a full time business.

Maybe I wasn't clear. Getting a pro card at all is a very dope feat. Much like becoming any sort of pro athlete is... or appearing on Jeopardy or any bullshit goal you set out to achieve. This is like being one of the worst guys riding in the Tour de France or something at that level. You ascended to the absolute pinnacle of your little silly sport where there is no real money to made. (Shouts Oly)

But this is what life is for. We try to set goals and achieve them.

Villagery pop in:

--I think it is pretty self obvious that generally as a kid being athletic and good at team sports (for males especially) has a lot of benefits, especially when it comes to socialization and self esteem.

And it is also seems pretty obvious that there is going to be some diminishing returns (and it can become -EV) if you are part of the 99.9% of people that wont be successful professional athletes and spend too much time/energy on sports and neglect other aspects of development.

That being said, if you take any metric measuring success or happiness and compare high school varsity athletes versus non athlete peers, I would guess the former group are going to measure higher (At least in USA#1 context).

I agree with this take. IDK if I'd select a partner along these criteria because I'm selfish and care more about how big my wife's tits are than our future son's self esteem from football. Plus with all the gear I'm using I'm going to have a daughter and we all know female is life on recruit difficulty anyway.

It depends on which peers you're comparing them to. If you go to any decent suburban high school in USA#1 and compared with respect to future happiness how the top 20 athletes did vs the top 20 students by GPA, I have no doubt the latter group will have better outcomes.

On the other hand, if you're comparing the top 20 athletes vs 20 intellect-matched non-athletes, then sure the athletes will probably be happier. It is obvious that being good at something is better than being good at nothing. As loco would say, tell me more.

Yeah, there is prob some value to being a superstar on you club soccer team at Harvard. But as a basket I'd balance this against the choice of a 17y old to pursue their "professional" dream and attend bumble**** Div 2 school on an athletic scholarship, then jackass overseas for a few years making less money than a plumber and restarting your career 5y later than your peers.

One of the bigger issues is that actually "making it as a pro" results in wages that are lower than college grads or trades (as a median), which for most pros, is amazingly fleeting. I've encountered more than a handful of folks who came over to make 30-50k a year playing sports, didn't like it and went home to be an adult. I guess it is cool when they're 50+ to say "I was a pro athlete", but it was such a great experience they stopped. And this is basketball/soccer. I know a handful more who are low end track and field pros who umm... Yeah. Gotta weight the entire basket of outcomes and consider them in totality since they are path dependent. If we're assuming teenagers aren't gonna make derpy decisions due to wishcasting, sure.

Take a peek at the wage levels for soccer teams where you have an academy process. This could help give some insight into how much "pros" are paid: https://www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/4... Granted this is a poor Norwegian second division team (last year), but working a second job then training for your pro sport is definitely not a great life. Even the top league has an average salary of ~120k (obv insanely top heavy).

Who's going to tell him?

Going to have to agree with NotThremp here.. oxendict for life

don't tap the tank

don't tap the tank.

Special gym 1hr away with the posing room

push
incline plate loaded machine: 3ppsx11, 2ppsx12, 11
Flat db press: 35kgx12, 10, 11
machine flies: 3 sets
Delt raises: 4 sets
Pushdowns: 5 sets
Curls: 3 sets

I've been told these photos look good. I'm still temporarily insane rn. During these photos I was having bad gastric distress and couldn't control my stomach. went home and had bad food poisoning or flu symptoms for the next ~16 hours and feeling a lot better as I post this now

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I am going to focus my coaching on the China market. Most westerners who would most greatly benefit from my coaching do not regard me as an authority due to the way I present myself. Somebody like N1H or ExpectedV would be archetypes of ideal clients, and I have a feeling that neither of these two nor their legions of equivalents would have much regard for anything I say. Western market is turbosaturated. I doubt I'd be able to convince ExpectedV to do a training program written by me or convince him that 5x5 partial rom db ohp is not valuable for hypertrophy training.

As I set up to pose literally every single girl in the gym gathererd around to film along with around 40% of the guys. This is a special bodybuilding gym where they're used to seeing bodybuilders. So even among people used to seeing this I stood out and attracted attention, most of it female. That's good.

Got a friend who's an IFBB pro in 212 dvision (Chinese guy) coached by Roelly Winklaar's coach in Netherlands. He's got a huge network and agreed to do a deal with me where he'll promote an online coaching business and give me kick-backs if I refer enhanced guys to him for the roids. He runs a steroid factory for a living. Smart guy. Not sure if I'll make it and actually successfully attract Chinese clients or just keep focusing on the foreigners in China micro-niche. It's not important to me right now; I am just focused on bodybuilding for myself and coaching is something I need to get more serious about in the next 18-36 months.

I also really like the idea of doing what CBfitness who's instagram I linked a few pages up does.. just posing coaching. I'm getting more and more into the art of posing tbh, but that's gruelingly hard work compared to writing diets, answering check-in emails, steroid cycles, and training programs. It requires nuance, actual detailed thinking, communication skills, and a visual sense for aesthetic beauty. I feel like I'm not very far into my posing mastery journey relative to everything else... but like I said, I've got a lot of time. I'm hiring 3 different posing coaches for individual sessions and I'll probably do weekly sessions with at least one long term just really trying to dial in and master it.

I wish I'd hired a mentor earlier for diet/training/PEDs but now I feel like I don't have much to gain.

I am at just the right amount of knowledge on posing where I'd benefit tremendously from finding a mentor for posing.

Oh, my diet is officially over. I'm reverse dieting out, taking out the stims, and reducing steps. IDGAF if I look a little bit less sharp at the photoshoot; photos above are basically good enough.

I'm so glad to have white rice back in my diet. I was very potatoed out. I need to find a way to keep it in next time... Basmati is less calorically dense and higher protein than Jasmine. Maybe i'll try that.

Plan now is to "bulk" (don't actively stuff yourself, just eat normal clean bodybuilding food until full) until around September and then start the whole process again. This time I will not add the clenbuterol until I'm 10-12 weeks out. As I've probably posted 203948 times, having that sitm effect wear off and desensitize just as the diet is starting to get super hard is a recipe for disaster. Am I possibly not adding as much stage weight as i could as if I bulked all the way through? Definitely. But this is not a stage weight contest and having an easier diet where I have more ability to get more conditioned from simply starting leaner as a result of doing long hard diets more frequently I think is the way to actually win competitions (and also look good for girls year-round). This is much more important to me than reacing arbitrary strength numbers or feeling huge in clothes and mogging people harder.

Tentative diet plan:
Upon rising: 6oz spirulina juice from Sam's club+athletic greens powder+shot of ACV mixed together

Meal 1
80g dry measure oats 250ml skim milk, 2 scoop whey, tbsp of almond butter, dab of honey, frozen raspberries+banana

Meal 2
175g chicken
"green beans"
220g rice
14g butter OR ghee OR no butter and replace chicken with filet or flank steak

Meal 3
Same as meal 2

Meal 4
175g chicken breast
220g rice
300g pineapple or mango
"green beans"

Peri-workout:
About ~20-30 minutes after meal 4, 50g carbs from gatorade, 2 packets of gummie bears (140g carb total), 10iu humalog

During workout: 50g carbs from gatorate, sum creatine

Meal 5 (post workout)
Repeat 4, 10iu of humalog

Meal 6
80g dry measure cream of rice, almond butter, 1.5 scoop whey, raspberries+banana, lil bit of honey

Occasionally substitute meal 6 for 2 air fryer pita bread pizzas. Using sauce that comes in a bottle, low fat parmasean+mozarella cheese, topped with my normal chicken breast approximately the same macros.

I realize this seems like an ungodly amount of food to you guys but for me this is far less than I was gaining on at the peak of last bulk. Very high fruits and decent amount of veggies; should be in a good spot with fiber, micronutrition, and gut health goodies.