SOMEBODY CALL FITZ

Turning my chair slightly away from the computer screen the poster on my wall falls into view. "2000 Welsh Bodybuilding Championships" it proudly proclaims and the memories still so fresh in my mind are re kindled and start nagging at me once again.
It has now been some 5 weeks since the show and the desire to start writing again has only just started to return which accounts for the long delay in getting anything worthwhile down on paper.
I wanted to record my thoughts about the contest, or more correctly the 13 weeks leading up to it. However I didn't want to simply come out with another "how to" guide for a number of, I hope, very good reasons. Firstly, the actual preparation regime used belongs to a certain Paul R Borresen, I was simply a passenger on the starship, and Paul is far more capable than me in putting across the strategy and the reasons behind it. Secondly, the whole regime was tailored to myself and adjusted depending upon the progress or lack of it that I was making. By simply trotting out calories, grams of protein and amount of cardio completed we could end up with a very distorted picture of what may be suitable for you. Lastly the overview and the thought processes involved in the bigger picture will hopefully produce a somewhat more interesting and informative piece of work, but only you and Paul will be the judge of that and if Paul disagrees you will never get to read this anyway.
So where do we start? The decision to do the show has been made and the first thing we need is someone to guide us through the whole process. I don't care how experienced you are or how many shows you may have done the next few months will play havoc with your mental processes and I think that it's almost impossible to remain rational and objective about the progress being made - you need help!
In choosing the person to assist there are really a couple of choices, someone who has worked with athletes before, (I have no problem with referring to competitive bodybuilders as athletes) has formulated a set of working practices on observation of trial and error experiments and arrived at a method that seems to work most of the time.
The second choice takes account of the first but also factors in an academic knowledge of nutrition, pharmacology, and physiology in order that the reasoning behind the decisions made is fully understood and adjustments can be made in the same rational way. Paul is the first name that obviously springs to mind here but others such as Dr. Dave Parry formerly of Chemical and now running a sports practice alongside his academic career out of Fort Galaxy Gym in Ilford, Essex have also achieved a degree of success.
Whoever you choose get to know the person first. There's little point getting to the half way stage in your preparation and deciding that the central person in your life is a complete arsehole. That is stress at the time you least need it and as any competitive bodybuilder knows precontest is stressful enough without stoking your own fire. Recommendations are fine and certainly a good place to start. If however you can actually spend some time with your guru of choice and work with them off season it will soon become apparent if any nasty personality problems or embarrassing social habits are likely to stand in the way of a harmonious relationship. There is always the remote possibility that they might not like you. Finding that out at 6 weeks in would be about as catabolic as finding that your wife was sleeping with your training partner so sort it out well in advance.
So, having established a marriage made in heaven my next suggestion on the checklist would be, if at all possible, work as part of a team. This is once again where I struck gold and it also provides the perfect lead in for me to thank a few people. PRB goes without saying but others who were always at the end of a 'phone or readily available when we got together were Gary Howell with whom I shared many a long 'phone call (the grapefruit saga will live with me for a long, long time - 'nuff said, you really had to be there). Gary always made me feel better, quite often because he seemed to be feeling worse than me. Lee Powell, the man with genetics and ability to die for was just as free with a word of advice and comfort (believe it Lee, you will be the best). Carole Borresen has no doubt heard enough bodybuilders whining about how they feel to last her a lifetime. She still remained the last word in discretion and always had a kind word when I was bleating on about my befuddled mental and physical processes during the dark carb depletion days.
Finally, Dean and Dave from Fort Galaxy were always eager to help pick up the pieces during workouts.
This is what was meant by the Brotherhood of Iron. It works like the ripples on a pond after a stone has just broken the surface. The ripples close to the point of entry are strong and well defined; those further out become weaker and gradually fade away. Your control and sphere of influence are with those close to you. Use and nurture that, it will repay you a thousand times.
All of these people made the whole thing not just bearable but fun, yup; you read that right, fun. I know this is being written some weeks after the show and selective memory can be a strange thing but I can honestly say that the majority of the 13 weeks was enjoyable. Most of the thanks for this goes to Paul, Gary and Lee and it's an experience working with and learning from these guys that I treasure and hope to repeat next year.
If you are lucky enough to become part of a similar team, or if you can pull one together you will find that you can enjoy more of the time than you think and as soon as you start to achieve that mental state all things become possible.
A stable and supportive home life will help achieve exactly the same ends. This can be somewhat more difficult however as the whole precontest process could almost have been designed to stretch a relationship to breaking point. I actually found the dieting time almost like a social experiment on how I reacted to the people around me and how their reactions changed towards me. However I must say that I couldn't have asked more from my wife Kim, she even did a lot of the cardio work with me and I believe we came out of the time with a stronger bond than before - just lucky I guess!
Trying to survive and thrive at this time on your own must be bloody hard and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. One of the most therapeutic things you can do with any problem is discuss it. By itself it sort of sits there and festers; out in the open it quite often seems nowhere near as bad. Remember also that you wont be thinking 100% clearly for the latter stages of the diet. Once again an objective view on things can be priceless.
If all of this is looking a bit slick and easy and you're thinking, "he couldn't have had it that light" you're absolutely right, I didn't, so stick around the gory bits come later.
That then was really dealing with the bigger picture, the macro view if you will. The nitty, gritty detail or the micro view will tend to revolve around diet, training, cardio and gear. Let's therefore look at each in turn.
Diet, just the word can turn the most sensible well-adjusted bodybuilder (not a contradiction in terms I hope) into some kind of mewling idiot. I understand that in some long-term penal institutions the graffiti "DYB" crops up from time to time. For those without the benefit of having spent time at her Majesties pleasure this, I understand, means "do your bird". In other words don't whine, just do it. We could quite easily convert this to "DYD" - Do your Diet - because at the end of the day it really comes down to you and your will power not to raid the freezer or biscuit barrel.
However there are things which I found helpful. First of all positive mental attitude, do not lose sight of your goal and what you are trying to achieve. You are remodeling your physique, let every new evidence of vascularity, every new sign of definition, every cut, every striation inspire you to keep to the path. Check regularly for progress and use the feedback from the mirror or your coach to fire you up for the next day or week or month. You will be making the most spectacular changes to your body you will ever achieve, wallow in this, soak it up and use the experience to club the demons of doubt back under the bed where they belong. Have no fear of being lighter, these are just figures on a set of scales, you are becoming quality, embrace and enjoy it.
I found keeping busy a great help, I worked up until the final week and just having something to occupy my thoughts apart from food was a great relief. There were many times when I checked the time to realise that I should have eaten 15 minutes ago. Far better this way I would argue than watching the hands slowly creep round to the allotted meal time.
Don't do your cardio when people are cooking dinner, I did it on a few occasions and by the time you were half way down the street you had identified what every housewife was cooking for the kids. An exercise in masochism I could well do without!
Get involved in the preparation of your own food, not for everyone I realise but it worked for me, there was some kind of Zen type calm that descended over me as I sliced turkey and chopped vegetables or salad. I'm not sure why but having complete control over everything I ate seemed to add to my enjoyment of the meals.
If you are having a salad or vegetable dish make it a big one, as long as you are not adding additional carbs or fats to your set quota pile it up. I think that by seeing a plate of food, even if the whole thing adds up to a calorific intake in single figures your brain still seems to register it as a lot of grub. Once you've got your hands on it take your time over eating. You may be as hungry as a bear after hibernation but by slowing down and making the meal last you will be slightly more satisfied at the end. It's only this edge that we are looking for, that extra 10% that makes it all a bit less traumatic.
Add variety to your meals, towards the end of the diet you will probably be down to a few basic food types but while you still have the ability to mix it up do so. Even different vegetables and salad plants add a bit of "oomph" and make the meals less bland and somewhat more palatable. At this stage the longer you can enjoy your food rather than it simply being a means to an end will mean that sanity will stick around a little longer.
The same goes for flavourings, try to find new things at your local supermarket, we are lucky these days that the shops stock things from all round the world and the choice becomes very wide indeed. Just make sure that you are not adding additional carbs or fats so always read the packets, which almost without exception will provide a nutrition summary.
The past master of this was Gary Howell who must have been on first name terms with all the staff at his local Safeway's and who reached heights of ecstasy with discoveries such as Rowntrees sugar free jelly. Which by the way makes up into a very passable trifle when mixed with Ravenger 5, grapefruit and water. Sounds pretty foul now but hey, any port in a storm.
I think that's about all I really want to say on diet so I'll move along to training. Not really too much to say on this to be honest. The phrase Paul used a lot was "what made a muscle will keep a muscle" so for most of the time I maintained my usual routine, same weights, same intensity. Forget all this bollocks about having to do light weights for hundreds of reps and sets to "bring out the cuts" that's what the diets for. It's only at the end when you are looking to deplete glycogen that things will change dramatically.
Over the period both your weights and intensity will start to drop as the diet really starts to take hold but in the early days I enjoyed some of my best ever workouts. I believe this was a product of feeling fitter with the cardio, dropping some fat and the energising effect of a completely clean diet.
You will need to be guided over the last few weeks of your training to achieve some of the more technical stuff and again this is where an objective view on your progress comes in handy.
Linked to, but entirely separate from training is cardio. The amount you require and the exact type will be a call that either you or your coach will make. However, there can be few more boring pursuits than walking on a treadmill or sitting on a stationary bike for ever increasing periods so I found that there were ways which helped me get through it.
First of all I tried to make as much of mine out doors as possible, walking through the forest or even along the streets is better than using gym equipment inside. Making the show, particularly if it is your first, a summer event means this is far easier. Getting up in the morning when it's not only dark but freezing cold and pouring with rain is not my idea of fun, you are also leaving yourself open to all sorts of infections which would be the kiss of death to your preparation.
I personally did most of my cardio simply walking, it's far easier to just get out and do it, there is less to go wrong, no chains to fall off or punctures to repair.
Whatever method you choose you still need to beat that monotony. The first choice of help is I think pretty obvious and that's music. It doesn't matter a damn what type you prefer to stick in your Walkman as long as it inspires and motivates you. Getting involved in a group of songs or piece of music can make the whole thing a lot more pleasant and if your choice is some form of dance or rock music you will tend to pick up on the tempo of the track and increase your own speed.
Doing the sessions with somebody else is just as good, if not better than plugging in the Walkman. If you can chat your way round and still keep up the desired heart rate the time should literally fly by.
By combining all of these I 'spouse that having sex while wearing a walkman would just about be the ideal form of cardio. If you can keep going non stop for 60 minutes however I want to hear about it as that's far beyond my humble capabilities!
Getting back to the walking even with the music you will still be left with a lot of "think time" and this is were I may start to get a little deep so please bear with me. You can make any discomfort you may be feeling during your session that much worse by concentrating on the reasons for that discomfort, you're wet, tired, hungry, cold, bored etc, etc. Try instead to concentrate on anything other than the process of putting one foot in front of the other. Enjoy the surroundings you are part of, watch the sun come up/go down, marvel at the beauties of the forest or wonder why that burnt out car hasn't been moved by the police. Alternatively, you can practice your posing routine in your mind, picture your self winning the title you are competing for, plan your meals for the day, work out problems you may have at work, write articles for the Governor web site. Anything to remove you from the tedium you may be feeling at that point.
Try and achieve a positive, competitive mind set. The longer you can visualise standing on stage with that trophy in your hands the closer you will be to actually doing it. The mind is the strongest muscle in your body and you now have the ideal opportunity to exercise it. Visualise your success; be positive, you can achieve more than you thought possible. Positive, motivating thoughts.
Do not be afraid to let your mind really take flight and stretch out. It was Aristotle who said "we must not listen to those who urge us to think human thoughts since we are human, and mortal thoughts since we are mortal". If you want to picture yourself winning the Olympia Title, crushing Ronnie Coleman with the quality of your mass and definition do it!
Let's now look briefly at the question of performance enhancement. The fact of the matter is that if you are not competing ANB and are looking to a national qualifier level show then you will need to be "juiced".
Over and above that I don't think there is any particular mind set to be adopted when approaching the show. My own feelings are that your health must come first and I would strongly suggest blood tests both pre contest preparation and certainly afterwards before you begin any serious off season regime. I also like to know exactly what any type of effect any food or supplement is likely to have on me, as I strongly believe that knowledge is power in this respect. You may therefore want to discuss with your advisers what upside and downside can be expected by the products and dosages being suggested.
Finally, one area I have not mentioned yet is what I call "the last 2 weeks syndrome". The actual time period is arbitrary, your last 2 weeks may in fact only be 1 or if you are unlucky it may be 4 or 5.
It is that period when everything gets very, very tough. You are living on minimal carbs, your cardio has just been increased you're not sure if the diet has worked well enough or if you are over dieted, you feel like crap and the overwhelming desire is just to let everything go and return to the human race once again.
There are very few mind tricks left by this stage and it really is a matter of simply doing it. You are so close that the real hard work has been done and you just need to survive. This where the pervious positive attitude will help pull you through. Just about every body will be going through the same thing so stay strong and focused.
You may need to take part of this period off work, and almost certainly the last week, in order to concentrate 100% on what you need to do. You will certainly be pretty useless to your colleagues at this time and you will probably be sick and tired of being told how ill you look.
By digging in over this period the day of the show will come round all to quickly and you will hopefully realise your ambitions.
Despite all of the hardships preparing for a show is a real achievement that can be looked upon with pride once it's all over. You're in the shape of your life, you placed in the show, you have made or reinforced friendships, you have discovered how you react under pressure and how other people react to you. Isn't that worth 10 - 13 weeks denial?