Our athlete Rory Golden is going to compete this year and we have decided to follow his journey. A diary from start to finish, 18 weeks out until stepping on stage.
Rory Golden - The Prep files
Blog – 13 weeks out.
Reflecting back on this week I was very pleased with how it went.
My body took very well to the food drop and I dropped down to 82kg on check in day, also the pictures looked tighter than the week before. My performance in training was more intense for longer by drinking the carb powder during the sessions. (something which I have really missed)
At times during the week, I did notice being more tired due to the early 4am wake-up calls and late working finishes. Sadly it's just one of those things, bills still need to be paid and business still needs to be run.
I was watching a video of a bodybuilder I follow and he touched on turning pro/sponsorships and contracts. He made a point which hit home saying 'I didn't just walk into this sport and turn pro, get contracts and live the life I now do. My life was all over the place trying to make this happen and still work a full-time job at the same time. I made it work and then it happened after years of hard work.'
Sleep and recovery still needs to be improved. This is something I have really tried to focus on as I've always palmed it off. Even little things such as prepping all my meals for the week ahead, all weighted out in tubs saves me the time of weighing them out at night as normally everything was batched cooked. In terms of recovery, I'm foaming rolling every night before bed, and when I have gaps at work as well as doing 1 Pilates class a week. Core engagement is slowly improving along with flexibility.
Only problem that happened this week was my lower back seized up after deadlifts on Friday. The idea of deadlifts before leg day isn't the greatest and clearly showed when I had to pull the plug on Saturday's leg session due to severe lower back pain/tightness. I would never risk causing myself a long term injury during pep or anytime in a training plan, it's always very important to listen to your body and think long term...even when you don't want to.
48 hours later and I'm ready to kick start Monday's leg session as I've moved my training split around and physically/mentally ready to attack another week of training/cardio and diet.
