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 – 7 weeks out.
Another week which has flown by! I feel like these blogs are getting written quicker and quicker as the days to the show are fastly approaching. This week was another smooth week with no problems. At times I am feeling tired but that’s expected, this mainly comes towards the back end of the day after a full day of working and training. The hunger levels have also risen dramatically – I am not necessarily craving junk food just more volume of food that I’m currently eating. Sunday night re-feed defiantly filled me up though! I was given double rice with my last meal of the day which is rice / mince (also halving the mince as usual) with an extra 120g of oats.
Monday morning I woke a little heavier due to the re-feed the night before, this is always expected due to the increase of carbohydrates and the volume of food. Mondays are always a long working day with fasted cardio in the morning, an afternoon leg session with 30 minutes post workout cardio so I knew the carbs from the night before will come in handy! I always enjoy my morning cardio as I feel it sets me up for the day and I feel having a good Monday is a great platform for having a productive week ahead! After cardio my mind then shifted to my first session of the week which was legs. Legs are always a tough session but it mainly comes down to mind over matter, I just focus on one exercise at a time (unless supersetting) and make sure during that set I empty the tank and leave nothing. I have a plan when it comes to legs but I also like to feel the session and go with the flow. The main focus is always to give 100%, empty the tank and start the week off right!
Tuesday morning I weighed in at 76.7kg which was lowest all prep. Little moments like this always put a small smile on my face. I know the scales are not a true measurement of body composition in stages like this but I can visually see a difference and the scales confirm that. Tuesday afternoon was another successful posing session at body limit gym. This week we have done a few rounds making things smoother but the main focus was on the routine and making some more changes from last year. It was handy thinking back to last year how a few poses didn’t work as well on the day as I thought so as reference made some suitable changes. This was followed by a successful arm session (much better than last weeks tired sloppy session).
After another long day Tuesday Wednesday morning I weighed in with another all time low on prep at 76.3kg along with some serious hamstring and lower back tightness from posing the day before! I spent most of the day foam rolling and stretching before heading off to Hemel for the mid week travel training session which was a push day. Again this session followed the pattern of the previous two by being very successful, the connection was spot on and was rewarded with a re-feed that night. The re-feed was the usual halved mince and doubled rice with an extra 100g of oats. One thing I did notice on Wednesday was my hunger spiked due to boredom from being at home and not at work. Even though working all day is a tiring it does keep me busy and stops me thinking about hunger and dieting. Being at home I would eat a meal and just watch the clock go round until the next meal time. This is where the mental side of prepping and hunger comes into play. Although knowing a re-feed was due that night this helped with just focusing on depleting myself during my push session and enjoying the extra carbs.
Thursday/Friday was another two good days with a back session completed Thursday and glutes/hams on Friday. Mindset was strong as I made sure even though it was creeping towards the back end of the week my training standard didn’t drop! Of course, I would never want it to drop on purpose but sometimes due to tiredness this happens without me knowing until I look back and feel some execution on certain exercises could have been performed better during the sessions. This week I made sure that wasn’t even a question! Just focused on each rep in each set and took each session as it came – TICKING THEM BOXES!
Saturday morning was check-in day as from the normal Sunday. I was very happy with the progress made from the previous week and this showed in the check-in picture and also the lowest weight again all prep for the third time this week weighing in at 76.1kg. The coach was very happy and I was give 3 rice cakes with jam before my Saturday upper body session and will then await changes for the upcoming week!
Overall the week was very successful and I am very pleased with how it went. I will try to better this next week and keep improving right up until show day. The excitement of the show is outweighing the tiredness and hunger. Enjoy the process!
