Bodybuilding Classic Physique Division Offseason log

1. No sir, I am reformed. Emoken is gone. I killed him to give birth to just an ordinary guy who goes to the gym and doesn't think his way into un-necessary neuroticism and depression. Now we all good vibes.
2. Start date mid april. 1mg/wk retatrutide in one bolus dose. I can already tell you the production quality will be barebones, pathetic even. But I'm making social media in the format I would like to consume myself: Give me information and commentary, not fancy edits and flashy entertainment value.

You were asking for more info on GLP1s. The most recent Chase Irons livestream was very good talk on PEDs and GLPs (cliffs: Test is best, everything else is FPS. You can look really friggin good on literally nothing but test+ai not even growth hormone. Retatrutide is the best glp1 agonist and can be microdosed daily while bulking as well)

Well 1 out of 2 ain't bad. Thanks for the clip. I really hate watching vids, but I might make an exception in this case. I'll definitely make an exception for your retaturide saga.

You may have killed Emoken, but you're definitely not an "ordinary guy"

I'm with you there. Flashiness makes me less likely to watch. Hope no one scoops you between now and then.

Totally ordinary guy who works an 8-5 middle class college job and goes on holiday a few times a year. Just keeps punching the clock year after year at the gym.

Upper
Tried a buncha flies but didn't like any of them
machine press: 1ppsx15, 12, 13 wow this is hard. I'll post pic of this machine later.
medium incline db: 30kgx15, 12 not a pr but this was very easy and I could definitely have beaten my rep records doing this as 2nd lfit, but pec tendon is slowly feeling better and i don't want to disrupt the healing process
v pulldowns: ??? 15, 10, 11
hammer rows: 1.5ppsx13, 7, 9
cable pullovers: 3 sets
prone delt raises: 7.5kgx4 sets

I feel extremely sore and inflamed today. Still performed ok. This happens a lot after flying, even short 2.5 hour flights.

Arms+lower

cable curls: 17.5x24, 3 more sets to failure
pushdowns: ??x4 sets failure
hip height cable delt raises b/c I missed it yesterday

Leaning away db curls: 7.5kgx3 sets failure
db skullcrushers: 7.5kgx3 sets failure

Leg exnteions: plate and a 5kgx18, 15, 13
Ham curl: 25kgx19, 12, 10
Paused not toes elevated SLDL: 110kgx10, 8
single leg leg press: 2 sets of 10

I was shaking like crazy on the sldls and my hamstrings were still medium sore before I started training, but I felt forced to train sldls today because the gym is going to be closed for several days and then I'm flying back on the 4th so not sure when I can do the next sldl workout. I figured I'd just go light today and then start back up from 120kgx15, 12 when I get back home and settled in.

single leg leg press felt extremely good, much more glute+ham dominant squat pattern. I could probably stick it in at the end of the SLDL day time permitting. I can do these on selectorized machine instead of having to load and unload plates and all that.

i don't think I'll do seated ham curls anymore; just lying only. The seated ham curl machine i have just isn't that great compared to the one I had in chengdu which was amazing. I can't get my legs fully stretched because machines in Asia are all made for short limbed people.

Probable new split:

Saturday:
Flat machine press: 3 sets
high incline db press: 2-3 sets
Unilateral pulldowns: 3 sets
barbell underhand row:3 sets
pullovers: 3 sets
2 delt raise exercises

Sunday
arms 6-8 sets
leg extensions: 3 sets
ham curls: 3 sets
FFESS: 3 sets

Wednesday
Incline machine press: 3 sets
lower incline db press: 2-3 sets
another pulldown variation or chinups: 3 sets
machine rows: 3 sets
pullovers: 3 sets
2 delt raise exercises

Thursday
arms 6-8 sets
leg extensions: 3 sets
ham curls: 3 sets
SLDL: 2 sets

I like the 3x/wk, however those long leg days just end up ****ing up my whole week. It's not like it's tiring at the time, just it messes up my sleeping and peeing too much.

But I could easily just spread this split out over 3x/wk and just end up with less frequency overall.

Oh I almost forgot. I'm not emo anymore but I do sometimes suffer from low confidence in general. SEA is a small place and the bodybuilding culture people all sorta know each other eventually.

there's a middle aged jacked white guy who trains with a Thai IFBB bikini pro (she's done 4 olympias). I happend to see him on his phone on wechat and asked if he'd lived in China before. He told me he grew up in HK and only moved to Thailand 2 years ago. Fluent Cantonese speaker, HK born british back when it was part of Britain. Anyway, chatting with him and it turns out he's the co-founder of the organization i posted above that's hosting my show in August! He handles the SEA/HK shows and somebody else does the mainland china guangdong shows. I told him I plan to compete in the zhuhai show and asked if they had a 'regular' regional show before the pro qualifier and he said "yeah". I told him I'd probably just do that one and he said "go ahead and do the pro qualifier if you win your class. Somebody with your physique could totally win if its a weak field. I dont' think you'd look out of place at all on a pro qualifier stage".

That gave me a huge confidence boost. In October I paid a well known top open amateur who lives here in BKK (I will not name him) for a consult and posing advice. About 60% of the posing advice was stupid, 40% was gold and got me to finally figure out how to contract my hams. But then he spent 30 minutes basically insulting me and telling me things like "If you want any hope of getting in the first callouts at a local show you need to change your entire approach to bbing". I know he was only saying that because he wants me to sign up as a client to pay him a coaching fee, but I'm not going to lie and say it didn't hurt my feelings. I knew at the time it wasn't true, but it never feels good to be told you're dogshit at something by somebody more experienced than you. Basically he kept saying that I must be doing X Y an Z wrong and desperately need a coach. I mean, i already got first callouts at the two local shows I did but I dind't want to tell him that and make him look stupid. This same guy is around 6'0 255 on stage, so very freaking big. But he's failed 3 pro qualifiers in a row because his structure is just so bad and he has freakishly short arms+long torsoe and just looks like a mister potato head. He's constantly getting wrecked by people who have more bodyfat, way less muscle, but just much more aesthetically pleasing shape because his skeletal structure is legit bottom 10%. So maybe it was less a financial "get a client' motivation and more bitterness about somebody like me who's main strength is good skeletal structure where each lb of muscle added looks really good.

Well, this guy who does not do any coaching and doesn't want any money from me was much more flattering (or realistic) in his assessment and that made me feel more confident that I am not wasting my time with this bodybuilding stuff. He also agreed to have a look at my posing and give me feedback free of charge (I paid the other guy $150 for an hour)

I'm 8 months out and I've been super on top of things. Nothing except self sabotage or some succubus can really stop me from bringing professional level conditioning and posing/stage presence. I am sorta almost there on the pro level size, but that's mostly just a function of time under the iron+time on gh and not getting injured. The leanness, conditioning, posing, and stage presence are all completely under my control and I plan to do these things at the level of a very good professional bodybuilder while still an amateur. I've been practicing posing literally every day, but just like when I pass by the mirror in my house, post training, and Sat/Sunday morning formal check-in photos. I need to start a routine of going through the mandatory poses for ~20-30 minutes every single day in continous rounds as a form of cardio and to keep refining how my mandatory poses are looking. This is something I can optimize by just consistent practice over and over again every single day. I just did about 40 minutes at the gym before I came home to write this post.

The placing is irrelevant to me this time; shredded glutes and very smooth/professional looking posing. If I get first place and win a pro card but my glutes and hams are soft and my posing is awkward and not properly optimized then i have failed. We've got a measurable goal, a timeline, and a strategy to reach that goal. Now all that's left to do is put my head down, blinders on, and execute.

Once I start the prep I'm thinking of putting phone in airplane mode after I finish work every day, except when I need to call a taxi to go to the gym. After work time is for recovery, meal prep, posing, and getting in steps. Then I can just throw together any video footage on saturday or something. You have to control your diet in terms of food, but I think controlling your "media" diet can also be beneficial when you've got a really difficult task you're trying to accomplish and its just so easy to get distracted and end up misusing time. My friend Sid usually temporarily disables his instagram around 8 weeks out when he's in contest prep and does something similar with insulating yourself from the internet world to some degree and only existing in the physical world.

I think in general, learning who and what to listen to and shutting out who and what not to listen to, is a huge life skill. And it requires a lot of humility and self analysis because sometimes what you think is the right stuff to listen to, ends up not being so...which means you have to examine and amend your own gut/decision making process...which is a very challenging thing to do

I don't know much about you, but you do definitely have humility and the ability to analyse your own decision making process which is great

A seasoned competitor is possibly worth listening to, but if he's trying to sell you something you have to question things. A guy who's been judging bbing shows longer than I've been competing not trying to sell me anything is definitely more worth listening to.

I got slightly sick. Did an upper workout not worth logging. Took a few days off. Start 4x/wk tomorrow. I've been eating slightly above maintenence. Next 2 weeks I may cut or bulk, I actually haven't really decided.. After that, 10 full weeks of being in a surplus (!!!) and then start prep 20 weeks out on March 29. I decided to start early because I don't know what to expect from retatrutide and I'm hearing it can take a while to kick in for some people. I also want to be able to start lower to minimize the probability of side effects to give myself more time to build up. Depending on how much I get out of the retatrutide, I'll probably not start clenbuteroll until 12 weeks out. Just caffeine+yohimbine+retatrutide initially.

I fully expect to be ready very early.

I'm going to indulge in an emo post, but let's make it short.

I love Luigi not because I condone what he did, but he is a convenient data point on the "looks are all that matters (for men)" fact of life. The way your personality is perceived is largely a function of what you look like, not the actual behaviour you engage in. Obviously at the super extremes of behaviour this becomes less true, thankfully, but either way the crazy level of alteration of perception of a given behaviour based on the phyiscal attractiveness of a person is just on full display.

The two failed trump shooters... single white women are the most TDS afflicted demographic on the planet. They should be simpling for these guys super hard but they aren't. Why? Because they are both sub-five males. I don't even remember their names (crooks? cooks?) and you probably don't either.

So many people in the mental health system, MLYLT for instance, are there (almost) solely because the way they look leads to mistreatment, ostraciziation, and negative perceptions of their personalty based largely just on their visually unpleasant appearance. Human beings communicate so much through gesture, facial expression, and body language and it all happens involuntarily. When you get these sorts of very negative signals, even if there's no overt negative treatment (and there usually is) it's going to screw you up pretty bad. This problem is much worse for men because even a sub two female can easily find human connection in a romantic partner and having children at the very least. I feel very angry at the mental health system for not immediately seeing a patient like that young trump shooter and before he even utters a word saying "shut up, no mental illness. Low social status +completely locked out of dating and sex market b/c looks. Haircut, dental work, orthodontics, accutane, contacts or laser eye surgery, possible fillers/botox/facial surgery. now get the fk out of my office. Gym maybe, but bodily attractivevness wont do as much for a man as it will for a woman". But instead they're going to gaslight him into thinking he has some chemical imbalance, put him on meds which have severe side effects that destroy other parts of his life, and keep him wasting hours and hours of his life in a therapists chair retraumatizing himself over and over again. I don't mean him specifically, just the sort of archetypical sub-5 male in his teens or 20s struggling with his life and asking for help earnestly in the places he's told to ask and actually becoming worse off from that "help".

I'm still angry at the mental health system in the west and I used to attribute their motives to malice. Like they are parasitic and need to create repeat business rather than actually fix anyone's problems... But now I think its something else. They're scared of the truth. That human interaction and reactions to placements on a status hierarchy could be reduced down to something so simply and so obvious is actually just terrifying to them. They avoid the truth not for profit, but because the truth actually scares them and they themselves aren't prepared to exist in a reality where human nature is so predictably dark and simple.

But you know who's even worse than the mental health system? The portion of the internet men's red pill that talks about how "looks don't matter. You just gotta be masculine and hold frame/be alpha. It's all about GAME. Buy my course". You've all seen the types, Andrew Tate being the latest nauseating iteration. These guys aren't acting in the same innocent fragility of the mental health practioners who are mostly just ignorant but a large % of them really do want to help people they just don't understand how. They're not just wrong like therapists and psyhciatrists are wrong, they are the opposite of right. Basically they tell young men to adopt a series of anti-social behavioural "masculine" traits and say that this is more important than cultivating an appearance that generates involuntary arousal if you want success with the opposite sex. Hell, many of them deny the idea that a man's appearance could ever generate such involuntary arousal. They'll even actively discourage this behaviour and characterize it as 'feminine' and unappealing while ignoring the legions of women lining up to give guys who look like BTS/Stray Kids/Beiber but arne't famous oral sex. Richard Cooper, Rollo Tomossi, Tyler, AMS... I used to listen to the advice of these types clowns over a decade ago. That Rollo blog rationalmale I remember reading as early as 2011. Thank god I can see them for what they are now...

Luigi is a naracissitic little richboi twat chamgpagne socialist who doesn't care about fixing perceived (real) problems in society or the healthcare system. I have a low opinion of anyone who celebrates his actions, even if I implicitly celebrate his rise to fame for completely different reasons. You guys might also like to know that he's exceptionally viral in China where most western stories like this never make the news.

But at the same time i realize that whatever bitterness I still carry into this discussion makes people less receptive to the ideas of just how critically important looks are in aspects of a man's life including both romantic options and other areas, and ultimately I want people to be helped by this knowledge in the same way I was so I probably need to try to forgive and WWJD.

I had a 2300 baht steak dinner for my last night in BKK. It was honestly entirely unimpressive. El Toro Steakhouse. Every single expensive steak meal I've had I've always thought to myself 'I coulda done this better at my house on a cast iron...' but the sides are always absolutely ace. I also loved their slow roasted meats all you can eat thing rather than the a-la-carte steaks, that was actually fantastic and I could not have done better at home. Maybe I'm just not going expensive enough and need to be shelling literally $200 usd or something, but i had some of those back in 2013 when I was working in finance briefly at work dinners and being similar unimpressed.

Master's pro qualifier Sept 6 in HK and Pro show the day after. Should I just attempt the goal that I set for a 5-10 year time frame this year? I think my chances to win over 35 master's pro card are very very good even now since the demographics of BBing in China are way younger than in western countries.

I probably won't. I'd rather have an impressive pro debut in 3-4 years than a 'he barely won the pro card in the master's division and then showed to the pro show and got last callouts and everyone totally forgot about him'

slow down and enjoy the process. Despite the very negative tone of the above post, I haven't been happier with my life since the 2017-2018 school year when I was studying Chinese full time. I thought my life had peaked then and it was all downhill from there. 2024 ended up being comparably good or slightly better and the way things are going 2025 might set a new life satisfaction all time PR largely attributable to more self knowledge, figuring out who I am and what I like, and comitting fully to a bodybuilding lifestyle and mindset. I am still coaching for free/donations and honestly I enjoy the **** out of it when it's other physique/bodybuilidng athletes. Got 2 people on stage in 2024 and one more to follow in 2025 who looks really freakin good. I really derive a ton of satisfaction out of this and hope I can get a roster going of like 12-20 serious competitor guys. I kinda decided coaching the normie fitness population isn't for me. This is definitely where there is the most money to be made, but I would literally rather put a former fat unhealthy powerlifter on stage lean AF and fix his health for free than take somebody who has almost 0 fitness habits and build him up from scratch.

Untrained males no thanks. Untrained females maybe, my single experience with one went exceptionally well.

really interesting point on everyone loves luigi but the tds people don't gaf about either shooter

I watched the "I'm Tim" doc earlier and he uses the turn of phrase "complacent", which I usually interpret as "being happy with what is". Many people describe this in relationships as being happy with "vanilla", sex, days, etc. There is something to be said about enjoying the little things.

So on the prior point with dudes giving you advice... As much as I hate aphorism and Taleb, he has a point with contradicting advice "Trust your doctor"/"Get a second opinion". You need to come up with a basic framework and evaluate the advice. Your framework seems quite sound, so I won't belabor this.

On the weird rich kid. Yeah... So its both. The alpha stuff totally works! I totally bully people into doing things I want since I'm at the point in life that if you want to ask me for a thing in person and its the middle of winter with over a foot of snow falling a day, you can walk, I won't walk. And if you don't want to do that, you can wait till I'm free again, or you can send an e-mail. But this doesn't get the bitches. Being rather good looking helps! But there are plenty of really weird, good looking dudes who would be lucky to bang my bottom 10 (mostly cause they don't bang literally anyone)... but why do they have so low self-esteem... is it because they are actually massive ****ing losers who have never accomplished much of anything in their lives? As a rich very smart person, I routinely meet people who are rich and very smart. They almost always live full and fulfilled lives and full of self-exploration, self-improvement, and self discovery (the good kind). Most are pretty good looking dudes, but why is that? We know looks and intelligence are correlated. (Less so than dark skin and intelligence, but w/e.) But am I the victim of self-selection? Do people like me self-select for other winners?

MLYLT is honestly very seriously insane. The whole "I sat by the side of the road with a knife wanting to kill myself" segment was obviously fake and deeply troubling. Something is very very wrong with her.

Also, I find it kinda funny we use champagne socialism as a term since Marx was literally a sugarbaby. It is deeply rooted in the movement. The idle intellectual class thinks the folks who make **** happen should subsidize their idleness and rouse up the masses, while simultaneously creating a system that only they get elevated from. (BLM, etc)

The only places I've heard are worthwhile for steaks (never been to any) are top tier places that get to select their own beef and age it. I've had this discussion with El D innumerable times, and we've come to agreement on this one. You will never beat Peter Luger's guy to the farm and choose better. Nor will you be better at aging it. If you're not doing this, just stop wasting time and buy an angus choice and be done with it. That being said, since I'm absent a reasonable grading system, I plan to buy a meat locker (dual sided cause who doesn't wanna age their own hams) to indulge my own autism. One of my bigger struggles is making inroads with the local yokel farmers since I'm only aware of the breeder farms and not the actual production ones. But that is an easily surmountable problem. Just need to figure out what I do with a rib primal other than make my dogger a very happy boi.

i've considered this and after realizing how much is wasted via trim, how nasty it is to do the trim, etc i think my spartan tastes will be better served with grabbing the occasional ribeye off the shelf that has good marbling

Unfortunately there is no ribeye off the shelf in this country. Gotta order online and sometimes you get something that doesn't look like the picture. I've been very lucky with ribeyes, but some of the sirloins I've bought have been very sus. I am dead srs when I say Chinese are allergic to good food. HK and Macau people aren't. Decades of famine destroyed food culture here.

I did more movements trying to figure out and finalize what movements I will do when I "Actually" start. This whole 2 weeks holiday 2 weeks working 3 weeks holiday thing is actually pretty annoying but w/e it's 5 facking weeks of time off can't complain. Just its disruptive to be switching gyms and foods.

Upper
Machine incline press: 30kgx15, 14
unlateral selectorized pulldowns: 50kgx15, 15, 15
flat machine press: 61kgx12, 47kgx11
high incline db: 30kgx17, 10
machine low rows: 1.75ppsx12, 10
plate loaded unilateral pulldown: 2ppx15, 12, 10
cable side raise: 5 sets failure

Taking things super easy on pressing motions I think we're ready to set some big all time PRs. I regained a good bit of weight the 2nd week in Thailand even if I was totally on point first week.

I pretty much know what I'm gonna do for my arms+lower workouts, but chest+delt+back workouts are gonna be chaos as I figure out which movements I like doing. The only thing I'm sure about is that I won't be doing barbell rows on the day before SLDLs as my hams are usually slightly sore after barbell rows.

Actually it seems to be a pretty nasty sustained bacterial infection. I might end up taking today (Tuesday) off as well and just train Sunday/Wednesday/Friday this week. Saturday is a working day where we have some sort of charity run thing and then a work dinner, so gonna definitely binge out a bit. My appetite has been wrecked getting back on stims, not training very much, and starting amoxicillin so that's good.

I'm annoyed at how much training momentum I've lost the past ~8 days, but it's alright prep doesn't need to start until last week of March to have a good long 20 week cut and come in peeled.

with the structured way of your meals, workouts, & recovery - what leeway do you have in life for "he let's get dinner tonight" etc

comp prep 0
offseason whatever

this is a weird question.

why do you think it was a weird question?

that's mostly what i think about when reading your posts, wondering where you find time for anything outside your program

i didn't mean any offense by that and apologize if it came off that way

nah it's alright

frankly I came out of my last cut too fat and gained months worth of fat in around 2 weeks. I probably would have had more freedom to randomly go out to dinner if i'd played my cards right. I was experimenting with the milos protocol for rebound. It sucks, doesn't work for me. Keep food low and go up very gradually.

No amount of PEDs will "keep you lean". If you want to maintain good body composition while bulking (which you do as a competitive bodybuilder) you need to control your intake. taking tren will not suddenly raise your BMR to 5000.

Frankly, being with that Thai woman as I was doing that cut and coming out of it sabotaged me hard. I mean sure I still got super lean, but didn't do the show largely becuase she was visiting and i didn't rebound properly because she was there as I was coming out of the cut. Lesson learned; it's not like it ruined my bodybuilding career.

That whole post-diet phase is probably literally harder to not get fat than even the actual precontest diet. The precontest diet eventually your hunger hormone signalling kinda shuts down anyway. It's once you reintroduce food that it starts to get wild with the hunger and your body is desperate to store fat at that point. You end up adding food and feeling hungrier, but just gotta take it slow.

I realize everything I write about competitive bodybuilding in this log is basically like giving MsC level lectures to 6th graders.

Most of my readers are not even regularly prepping their meals or have any idea approximate what macros they ate yesterday.

What’s a macro again?

Pretty sure there definitely are quite a few PEDs that are used in BBing that will "keep you lean". Downside: You will die if you overdo it. 5000 definitely sounds like a number where you'd die far short of that goal unless you're built like Brian Shaw.

legit lol (but yeah in my case at least that's 100% dead on, there's a lot of this stuff that's way over my head but i enjoy reading it nonetheless)

I've logged every meal on MFP since 10 April 2019. My weight over that period has fluctuated between 139 and 146 pounds, which strikes me as reasonable consistency.

Yesterday was 1,836 calories; 138g protein; 115g carbs; 92g fat. It was lower in carbs and higher in fat than normal, mainly due to some cashew nuts in my evening meal.