I started my journey into bodybuilding about 12 years ago as I was a really skinny guy , I’m 6ft tall and weighed around 10 stone ringing wet !! I have always played way too much sports and as an ectomorph I have always struggled to put muscle mass on. As like most people I started going to the gym 3 times a week just moving weights not really having any idea what I’m really doing. Absolute no idea about food or diet. I kept this up for around 5 years gaining little bits of knowledge from watching people or asking. This was until one day I met my good friend , training partner and mentor Chris unitt who took me under his wing and introduced me to the world of bodybuilding and competing. For years I trained with Chris eating as he said training correctly and slowly watched my weight rise and rise. I have travelled all over the country watching Chris compete and win some incredible shows. It was attending these shows and seeing the amazing physiques some of the men and women obtain that got me hooked and I knew I wanted to compete.
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I entered IBFA Midlands championship in may and placed 1st in athletic tall class which gave me an invite to the British finals 3 weeks later, I placed 4th in the British finals in the largest class of the day with 17 competitors.
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Current training split.
Training at the moment is spread over 5 days a week , push , pull , legs , upper body blast , legs ..
The diet
As an ectomorph I really struggle getting the food in. I can eat at breakfast and my body will not tell me it needs food till late at night, I’ve had to overcome the food issue and start learning to eat forcing myself to get used to eating when I really don’t want to. Once I got the food going in I started to grow. It took around 2 years of pushing myself to eat at times that my body really didn’t want to.
Again due to my body type we kept my calories quite high, over 6 meals spaced through the day , I gave myself 16 weeks to prepare for the IBFA prepare for glory 2 , and was like a robot I did not cheat at all just kept my head in check and pushed through. We increased cardio gradually over the weeks until the last 5 weeks cardio was at 35 mins HIIT and 10 mins steady state fasted am . Then half hour post training steady state. I was ready for the show around 2 weeks early so we could adjust things accordingly due to it being my first prep.
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During prep I have to be honest and say that I was pretty selfish. I talked with my partner Kay before prep started and we talked through how I may act and that it is something I really wanted to do, Kay is very understanding and was amazing through my prep , helping with my meals and avoiding me when I had hunger anger ! I also have a 2 year old daughter Emmy and a 19 year old daughter Courtney. Family life is important and during prep how close you are is tested , I still attended family nights out and special events but I was that Tupperware tosser, Most of my relatives don’t understand why and what I’m doing it for but supported me nevertheless.
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Prep for me wasn’t that much of an issue as stated before my calories were still quite high so plenty of food was going in.
Breakfast – 85 grams of oats , 1 scoop of isolate
8 egg whites with mixed peppers
Meal 2 – 175 grams cooked chicken breast
100 grams green beans/asparagus
Meal 3 – 2 scoops of isolate
20 grams of almond butter
Meal 4 – pre workout meal
60 grams of ground rice
2 scoops of isolate
85 grams of pineapple
Intro workout –
50 grams of carbs from vita ego
20 grams of BCAA
Meal 5 – 225 grams of cooked white fish
200 grams of white rice
100 grams of green beans/ asparagus
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The most difficult part of prep at first was trying to force myself to eat all the food and try and get it in around my job. I work shifts 2 earlies, 2 lates and 2 nights so my body clock is always out and the food still has to go in. I found it really difficult on nights as I’m awake for nearly 24 hours and still only have the 6 meals so spreading them out was hard , the hunger really set in hard on nights.
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As my category is athletic tall / classic physique I have to come under a certain weight – it’s your height in cm so 6ft is 182cm , minus 100 then plus 4 so my heaviest would be 86kg . I stepped on stage at 78kg , so next prep can afford to keep the food a little higher and keep more size I have 6kg to play with so next year hopefully come in with more muscle in the same condition.
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