Note: If you missed yesterdays post regarding bodybuilding diet and meal planning you can read it on the Facebook page here…   Bodybuilding Meal Plan

While prepping for bodybuilding competition I generally keep training very simple, as I am an advocate of fairly low-volume, high-intensity training. Throughout the entire prep, I would train back and shoulders on Monday; quads and hams on Wednesday; and chest, biceps and triceps on Friday. Occasionally, I would train calves and abs on the weekend, but for the most part, stuck only with major body parts throughout my prep, focusing on compound movements, good form, and strength increase.

During the first half of the prep, I essentially stuck to the DC training template, but split the days up a little different to save on time. During the second half of the prep, I went to a slightly more “traditional” bodybuilding split (same body part split, more exercises and more volume); the exact exercises would change somewhat from week to week, but would typically follow a pattern like this:

Note: One week start with back, one week start with shoulders.

Day 1: Back/Shoulders

* Wide Lat Pulldown: 4 add sets of 15,12,10,8 reps
* Barbell Rows: 4 add sets of 12,10,8,6 reps
* Cable Row or Machine Row: 4 add sets of 15,12,10,8 reps
* Butterfly: 3 sets of 20,15,12 reps
* Dumbbell Lateral Raise: 4 sets of 15,12,10,15 reps
* Smith or Dumbbell Overhead Press: 4 sets of 12,10,8,4-6 reps

One week start with quads, one week start with hamstrings.

Day 2: Rest

Day 3: Quads/Hamstrings

* Leg Extension (Pre-Exhaust): 4 add sets holding the peak contraction at the top for a 2-count for 12-15 reps
* Squats or Front Squats: 4 sets of 12,8,6,3-5 reps
* Hack Squats or Leg Press: 4 sets of 20,15,12,20 reps
* Seated Leg Curl: 1 warmup set of 12-15 reps, 2 working sets of 50-70 reps (blood volume)
* Romanian Deadlifts: 4 add sets of 15,12,8,4 reps
* Lunges or Lying Leg Curl: 3-4 sets of 12-15 reps

Day 4: Rest

Day 5: Chest/Biceps/Triceps

* Smith Machine Incline Press or Flat Bench Press: 4 sets of 12,8,4-5,8 reps
* Dumbbell Incline Press or Flat Bench Press: 3 sets of 10,8,6 reps
* Dumbbell Incline Flyes or Butterfly: 3 sets of 15,12,8 reps
* Alternate Dumbbell Curl or Barbell Curl: 3 sets of 12,10,6-8 reps
* Machine Curl: 2 drop sets of 15,12 reps
* Skull Crushers: 3 sets of 15,12,8
* Cable Pushdown: 2 drop sets of 15,12 reps

Days 6 and 7: Rest

Cardio:

Throughout the course of the diet, I slowly increased my cardio output, starting with fairly low-intensity walking, and increasing the frequency, the duration, and the intensity over the course of the 32 weeks.

During the first 4 weeks of the diet, I only performed 3 30-minute sessions per week, typically walking on the Treadmill around 3mph, working the incline higher over the course of the 30 minutes, usually to a peak of 11% (no holding on). I tried to increase my intensity slightly every two weeks, but tried to not take my heart rate much over 150BPM, on average, since I was doing cardio in a fasted state and wanted to avoid burning muscle tissue.

Having a treadmill at home, I used incline treadmill as my main cardio aparatus throughout most of my prep (usually about 4 days per week), but whenever possible, I would use the stair mill at the gym (usually 2-3 days per week), as it is my prefered and favorite method of cardio. (I think it actually helps you keep size in your legs, especially your glutes and quads).

The next 4 weeks of the diet, I increased cardio to 4 days per week, 40 minutes. Then two weeks of 5 days per week, 40 minutes. Then two weeks of 5 days per week, 50 minutes. Then up to 6 days per week, 60 minutes, which was my max cardio throughout the majority of my prep. I did 60 minutes every morning, fasted, throughout the majority of my prep.

During the last 6 weeks leading up to the Philly, and the 8 weeks in between the Philly and the Maryland, my conditioning had improved so much from all of the cardio that I had to start doing much harder intervals in order to increase heart rate. I am truly not a fan of running, so I would normally just keep the treadmill at a 15% incline, 3mph, for the whole session.

At this point, I tried doing the stairs whenever possible, and would normally start on level 4 to warm up, and interval up to roughly level 9 or 10 for 5 minute blocks, or until my legs gave out. I never truly attempted HIIT cardio, but towards the end of my prep, it was approaching that.

“A great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.”– Walter Bagehot

All my life, I’ve been terrible at taking direction, not for lack of intelligence, but lack of understanding why somebody would be interested in doing something simply because “that’s the way that things are done”. Right out of the womb, I had to figure things out the hard way, figure them out on my own, or I couldn’t figure them out at all. If there was a “wrong way” of doing things, I did it, just to see why it was the “wrong way”.

Wearing thermal underwear in the middle of 100-degree Chicago weather in July? I’m going to try it. And shorts in the dead of winter? Sign me up.

I like “learning the hard way”.

I never understood etiquette, or the function of etiquette, or why anybody would want to follow etiquette.

I don’t understand “rules”. I mean, I understand rules of the universe, like gravity, or cause and effect; but I never understood “the rules” that I was expected to play by, the “rules of man” so to speak. I like to view them more as suggestions, and then test them, and break them, with a condescending grin.

At the age of 8, I decided I wanted to grow my hair long because my passion was hard rock music, specifically Guns N’ Roses. My father told me I could do it, so long as I understood that I would have to work that much harder to prove my intelligence to those around me– that I would most likely be perceived as “different”, and possibly “worse”, for choosing something so outside the norm. It has become a cliché in our culture that “perception is reality”. Maybe this is true for those whose reality is dictated exclusively by the opinions of others. To those of independent spirit, reality is reality– or taking it a step further, reality is what you chose to make of it, what you will it to be, not what you chose to let others make of it for you.

When I arrived in Columbia, Maryland, and had to rebuild my personal training business from scratch, the “normal” thing to do would be to present one’s self as approachable and friendly so as to attract as much potential business as possible. And of course, what was my business concept? To grow out a Mohawk and long goatee so as to look as unapproachable as possible. Why? Because I wanted to take the harder path– or more importantly, because I wanted to prove that I could do what people said I could not, and should not, do. I wanted to show that it was irrelevant, that there were more important factors involved in rising to the top and being successful. Within less than a year’s time, I had the top sales record at Lifetime, Columbia, purported “bad attitude” and Mohawk included. All the “perceptions” out there proved to not really be an issue.

This year, I have decided to compete again in several bodybuilding competitions. Prepping for a competition is like a full-time job in and of itself. I have decided to prep, while running a very time-consuming business, and while having a new child at home. I was told several times last year from close friends and family that I might not be able to do it, that I might be stretching too much, that it might be unreasonable to try to accomplish all of these things at once. Being told I couldn’t do it was all the more reason to make it happen.

I am now 10 weeks out from the NPC Philadelphia show on June 26th, and feeling great about my chances at winning.

Indeed, a great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do.

The self-proclaimed Greatest of All Time:

-David A. Johnston

4/17/2010

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