craigd34’s BodyBlog

It’s been a while since I posted, so I thought I’d drop a line to let everyone know what has been up. After the show in April, I gained 11 pounds back overnight and 12 more by the next weekend. So in all, I gained 23 pounds back in a week, of the 29 I had originally lost. I ate for 3 days straight. Anyway, I have been hitting the gym hard and have decided to do another show. I am a little lighter than I was for the end end of my first bulk, but I think my body fat is a little lower as well. I’m looking forward to entering the INBF Alamo Showdown in San Antonio, TX on October 4th. If I can pull this off, I will get my WNBF Pro Card. That would be cool. I start my 6 week diet this Saturday (in 2 days). I will take some pre-cutting photos and post them soon. Then, like before, I’ll post the weekly progress pics as the time goes by. Thanks for everyone’s support and positive comments. Stay Tuned and Follow Along as the show gets closer.

I did a fairly heavy Quad workout this morning. I started off with some light two leg extensions to warm up, then moved over to the Smith Machine and did 2 warmup sets of 195 for 15 and then 3 sets of with 285 for 10. I moved over to the Barbell Squat rack and did 3 sets of 225 for 15. The leg press was occupied so I did some adduction and abduction until the leg press became open. I moved over to the leg press and did 6 sets starting with 620 for 15, 710 for 15, 800 for 12, 890 for 10, 1000 for 10 and 1100 for 6. Then I did some two leg extensions starting with 210 for 10, 230 for 10, 250 for 10, 270 for 10 and the rack (290) for 10. I finished off with trying some quad occlusion on leg extensions doing 170 for 15, 12 and 12. All in all, a pretty good Quad day, took me an hour and 45.

Novice Men’s competition was spread across three classes.

Bradford Foulds dominated in the lightweight division, followed by Sam Felts and Rocky Botello, respectively second and third places. Joshua Taylor and Curt Curtis rounded competition out in fourth and fifth places.

Austin Police Officer Craig Ritchie reigned supreme in the middleweight class, followed by Paul Castellano in second, Corbie Holcomb as third, Theo Thurston fourth, and Jim Nettles in fifth.

Men’s Heavyweight class was won by the flawless posing of Amechi Chinweze was followed by Jimmy Aleman, second, Christopher Baugh, third, and James Thomas finishing fourth.

Novice Men’s overall winner Craig Ritchie may well prove to be one of those mystery men whose first contest is a stunning victory, and then seemingly pass off in the sunset never to be heard from again.

Coming in as an unknown, his combination of densely developed muscle, incredible overall balance, and cut appearance gained immediate attention.

His win, while closely battled with Amechi Chinweze, met audience wild audience approval. In the wake of his victory, hearing him say this would be not only his first but also last contest came as astonishing.

Apparently he wanted to give it a try by putting everything into it and the rest is history. No doubt valiant efforts will be made to convince him to move forward in the future. The man has a gift.

I guess that’s kind of a rhetorical headline, because if I had won before, I wouldn’t be able to compete in Novice again, but it looks cool. Anyways, as many of my followers and fans already know, I won my class, Novice Middle Weight. I got a nice sword for my hard work. Then they called me out again to go for the overall against the Light Weight winner and the Heavy Weight winner. Well, I won that posedown as well. Overall, it was a GREAT day on stage for me, and an awesome experience. I really enjoyed the whole ordeal.

I ended up losing enough weight last night, after chewing sour gum and spitting saliva, to make Middle Weight. Got up early and headed out to the auditorium for Pre-Judging. Got all pumped up and gave it a go. I had great compliments from everyone, audience and fellow competitors alike. What a great group of guys. Everyone is real supportive. Was able to snap a few on stage pics from this morning and Finals are coming up tonight. Stay tuned.

Well, I’m finishing up the bulk this weekend. It went well for my first one. All on my own, no trainer, no partner. Just some helpful people with great tidbits of info along the way. I have managed to break all but two Personal Best lifts in the month of January alone. This weekend I will begin the Cutting Phase and experiment with a new diet. I have become accustomed to eating egg whites and oatmeal. I was still able to lose .8% Body Fat during the bulk. I hope it doesn’t drop that easy during the diet. That’ll make for a rough 3 months. I’ve posted some new pics before my diet begins. Until Next Time.

Just a blog to post my progress. I am a little over two months into my bulking and I have achieved my heaviest weight ever!!! All of my lifting stats are up along with my body weight. I am still around 8-9% BF I would guess. I am fluctuating between 212 and even hit 215 a couple of times. I’ll be bulking a few more weeks before the diet begins the first of February. If anyone has had experience on what to start with and when to change the cardio and food intake let me know. All responses would be greatly appreciated.

Yesterday, Nov 3rd, I began my 6 months out high protein high carbs diet. I hope to gain a few pounds in the next three months before it’s time to begin cutting for the Shredder on May 3, 2008. It consists of 6 meals a day, and about 300 grams of protein. I am still working out heavy trying to put the protein in the places it belongs, in the muscles. Stay tuned for updates and check out my progress pics as time goes by. Thanks for reading and thanks for all the support I have received from all the GREAT people on this site.

This was a buddy of mine back when I was at Ft Hood. Back in the late 90’s he got married and went off to Germany. I have been looking for him ever since. I even went as far as joining his high school alumni in hopes of gettting him to recognize my name and regain contact. After that didn’t work, I went out on a limb and emailed a few people that graduted around him. One of them sent me a link that his wife started. So if anyone needs any motivation to support the men and women of the Armed Forces, look no further. PLEASE SUPPORT THE TROOPS. Caring Bridge.org

I have read a few people’s comments mentioning being addicted to working out. Here is my real life workout disease I went through back in 2003-2004. I was activated to guard an Air Force base in Webster, TX. When I got there, I was lucky to be paired with another workout buff to share an apartment. I later found out this individual consumed some performance enhancing supplements, alot like the baseball controversy right now. But that was fine with me, I was not going to take them and never would. We lived about 3 miles from the gym and would drive every day we worked and then go straight to work. I was around alot of young Army guys that were away from their families, all they wanted to do was stay up late or go out somewhere and drink. I was invited often, but I would decline because "I needed to get up in the morning and go to the gym" and did not like the hangover feeling. I would get this feeling even if I drank one beer, so I elected to not drink any. So, we worked for ten hours a day, not including prep time and coming home time, so all time included was closer to 13. We would wake up early, get our lunches ready, go to the gym, then shower and go to work, come home and do it all over again. On my days off I would ride my bike to and from the 3 mile trek and workout twice a day. Everything I did revolved around working out. This was a given. If someone asked what I was doing tomorrow, working out would come first, then i had to think what "else" I was doing. I made it up to 210 pounds with 5% bodyfat. I was going tanning, and shaving my entire body. This was when I mentioned elsewhere, that the 3 people asked me about competing. I had random people at the gym asking me about personal training. I was an addict and I was loving it. I recall one day doing legs, we were on the leg press and my "Balco partner" was loading up the plates and I was keeping up. He grabbed two more plates and said, "Oh your pissing me off now", I was like, "Why? Cause I keeping up with you and I’m clean?". It kept us both pushing hard and constantly improving ourselves. He would push me to my limits and not let me slack off. This time was actually the first time was actually the first time I had ever inclined pressed over 225, deadlifted over 400 and squatted 495. After our tour was up, we moved on to our previous jobs and I learned that my partner had comitted suicide.