Armzilla82’s BodyBlog

Well we’re a little over halfway through the bulking stage, and we’re also a little over halfway to my target weight, so right on schedule.  I got stuck right around 200 for about a week and a half, but eating 64 oz of porterhouse in two days followed by a giant 22 oz Bub’s burger + fries + cookies & creme shake on Sunday seemed to bust through that particular plateau.

Training is going very well.  Lately I feel like tossing weight around is easy.  It’s hard to believe that a month and a half ago I couldn’t get 10 reps at 225 for benchpress, and now that feels like a warm-up.  Just yesterday I did sets at 275 and it felt pretty good.  I’m pretty happy with progress on legs, too.  A month ago I could barely do 140 on ham curls for sets, and now I can do the whole stack (200).  I was also finally able to do a set of 8 reps x 225 lbs for lunges last week, which I thought was pretty good.  Legs hurt for 3 days after that but hey, sometimes you gotta shock ‘em.

It seems to me like you can be in pretty good shape and nobody really notices, but then you hit a certain size and all of a sudden EVERYONE notices.  Nobody had said anything about my size until about two weeks ago, and then I got four random comments in two days.  It’s encouraging to have complete strangers comment about it.  I like being big, but I’m starting to get really antsy about cutting.  Can’t wait to see what I’ve built underneath!

Looking at my photos from this week, I can definitely tell that my chest has gotten bigger.  The separation seems to go all the way up to my clavicles.  Before it just kinda washed out about halfway up.  It’s good to finally see some progress… upper chest is one of the hardest places for me to build.  Arms finally made it to 18", and back is definitely starting to have some noticeable shape, even when at rest.  Like I said, I’m just gonna keep rockin’ the heavy weights and looking forward to slimming down in two short months!

Well I missed a few weeks in there due to traveling and general busy-ness, but now I finally got some new photos uploaded and have time to make a new blog entry.  Currently I’m up to 199.6 lbs and hoping to break the 200 barrier within the next week.  Overall I’m pretty happy with how things are going.  I’m seeing some definite increases in the size of my legs and back and it doesn’t look like much of the weight I’ve gained is bodyfat, so continuing at the current pace seems like a good idea.

As far as the workouts go, the biggest things I’m trying to do is hit the legs and back twice a week to try to get as evened out as possible.  One leg day I’ll concentrate on quads and the next I’ll focus more on hamstrings (while still hitting both).  For back I spend one day working on thickness, doing mostly deadlifts and heavy rows, then the next time I’ll do a lot of wide grip pulldowns and rows to try and widen out as much as possible.

I also started taking ZMA, tribulus, and GABA about a week ago.  It’s a bit early to tell if they’re doing anything for me, but the ZMA and GABA do seem to help with the sleeping quite a bit.  I find myself waking up after only 6 1/2 to 7 hrs feeling totally refreshed and ready to go, so that’s freakin’ sweet.  Really weird and vivid dreams though…

Well, that pretty much wraps it up for this week.

Well I figure if I’m going to try to go all out for my first competition, I might as well do the whole shebang and write a blog as well.  I figure it will help me learn and also provide an accurate record of my progress that I can analyze later and look for areas to improve.
Currently it’s week 3 of my contest prep for the 2009 Indiana State Naturals which is on Oct. 3rd.  I’m trying to pack on as much mass as I can over the next 3 months or so before starting to cut down for competition.  So far, things are going splendidly.  I started at 187 lbs and gained 5 pounds in the first week!  (This is probably mostly due to water retention from creatine loading).  At the beginning of week two I was up to 192.4, and I hope to gain two pounds per week until I finally start cutting down again.  Week two was remarkably accurate, as I weighed myself at 194.4 lbs today - exactly on target.  I doubt we’ll maintain that level of accuracy over the coming weeks, but it’s a good start!

I also uploaded my second set of progress pics today for comparison.  I’m trying to take the pics in the same location with the same lighting so they really can be adequate comparisons.  I must say things are looking a bit beefier already.  Very pleased.