Transcription
All right. I was about to say phase one, session one of an hour of cardio on the seated recumbent bike in the basement already complete. Kind of pulled that instant wake up to pedal method where by way of I mean really just getting up pretty quick slamming a scoop of pre, just a just a bum essential, you know. I don't need a full-on superavage for cardio, but I do want some caffeine. Plus, the cardio is a workout still, you know. I kind of want the extra blood flow effects of the uh, the pump ingredients too. So sometimes I'll just go for like a 3D, like do just an energy drink essentially, just, you know, using the 200 milligrams of caffeine as like the primary ingredient. But, you know, sometimes a scoop to half scoop of pre-precadio kind of does the trick, you know. And with that kind of added energy just from being caffeinated plus everything else, it does make the hour go by a bit quicker.
But today, I finally feel like I'm not bloated anymore. And by bloated, I don't mean like stomach bloated, uh, like indigestion. I just mean from the last show, including all the kind of travel back and forth to Canada, cuz we just did a little Gym Shark shoot up there. Um, you just, you kind of just hold on to water, man. And I like a freaking sponge. Uh, the days before the show, I'm very peculiar or very particular with my water intake and not getting a ton of sodium and, you know, making sure I can kind of dry out a little bit before going up on stage and carving up. But after that, you're kind of in this state of, I mean, essentially mild dehydration. You know, not like severe or anything, but your body's like, "All right, we're going to hold on to some fluids now." So, yeah, it took a a few days longer than expected, just including all the traveling around, but yeah, I'm kind of back to feeling dry. Like I can, I can even just see like in my hands, like my knuckles feel a little sharper and the this skin layer between uh, well, you know, muscle and skin is thinning out, just like how I want it. So that's a good feeling, right? If you're walking around shorts and you look at yourself in the mirror and you can hit a little bit of a quad, not a stomp, but kind of a quad separating flex where you, I guess it's kind of hard to describe, but you basically just separate your teardrop and your outer quad and your medial quad and you just get to see how they kind of spread out. That's cool. So that's telling me that this cardio deficit is continuing to work, as it will have to for the next 10 or so days.
But plan for today's lift is going to be some shoulders. We're going to get some uh, I mean, basically just the same as normal, but we'll be kind of recording some behind the scenes sort of like BTS style training for RAW too at the same time. And a shoulder pump. The stakes are kind of low. The stakes are low with a shoulder pump, especially in a dieting phase. I mean, obviously a chest pump. Okay, we're bringing it. Shoulders. I mean, you can get a shoulder pump without even trying, you know. Like if you're cleaning up uh the house or like moving stuff in the garage or taking in bins or something, or if you ever, if you ever have to move like in or out of an apartment or anything, just walking around carrying [ __ ] your delts are going to get pumped to no end. So, you put me in front of the dumbbells, maybe some cables for some single arm side laterals, you know, fiveish, maybe six sets of rear delts, six sets of side delts, probably even less, maybe more like four or five. And I'm going to be feeling like I've got two cannon balls on my freaking uh, you know, on either side of my head. Part of that also helps that my shoulders are overdeveloped relative to my arms. Not by like an egregious degree, but if my arms grew an inch around or my shoulders grew an inch around, like just in terms of their overall circumference, my shoulders would look much more out of place, whereas my arms would just look bigger because that's um, I don't remember where I heard it said, but it was essentially just kind of aiming for this proportionality of like when you, especially in a back double bicep, being able to see, okay, how round is the shoulder? How round is the bicep and tricep kind of combination. All right, how's that ratio? And the closer those can get together, the cooler your arms look, you know? So, if you can tell your arms are overpowering your shoulders, maybe slam a bit more side delts. Vice versa, maybe chill out on shoulders. You don't have to hit them as frequently as everything else. Uh, for me, I don't really hit my shoulders very often in the offseason. Basically, never. You know, I'll throw them in uh maybe if I feel like doing a rest day or if the targeted muscle I had planned was, you know, I don't know, maybe injured or underreover, excuse me. Then that might be kind of a placeholder for me to get a little bit of a delt. But yeah, it's been a little while. Delts are certainly not a lagging body part for me. So, I think nothing else to say. How about we just get started? To uh slam some side delts, slam some rear delts. See what we looked pumped up and a little bit drier. Actually, kind of a good layer of or a normal layer of basically like subcutaneous water retention and then get ready for some more cardio afterward.
I'm going to try, I'm going to finish my cardio early today. I've been doing like um workout cardio and then another session of cardio later, which has kind of left me at like that first workout cardio phase being done around maybe noon or 11:00 and then doing that second session of cardio at like 6 or so. But I think that's probably eating into my sleep a little bit because if I'm caffeinated for that cardio, not to mention doing the cardio and like physically just, you know, getting your heart racing like, okay, you're you're up, you're awake, you're doing [ __ ] it's probably making it a little harder to get into a deeper sleep. If I'm doing that, you know, sometimes basically right before bed, like I'm coming up, showering, getting my freaking pajamas on, and then just passing the freak out, you know? So, something to think about. I feel like I've been sleeping pretty well. Uh, the only thing that wakes me up is if I drink a ton of water before bed and then I just got to go pee. But in terms of my actual like, you know, deepest sleep, let's say I didn't drink a ton of water. I've been sleeping good. I haven't, I haven't had the craziest dreams. I feel like last prep, uh, especially this deep into dieting, like I don't know what was different, but I was dreaming hard. Like I, I would wake up and I'm like, whoa. Like, you know, full-on alternate reality. Have not been having that so much, which not complaining about, but it is kind of cool. Waking up from like a really crazy dream. You get this few second period of like, is that real? What really sucks, and this will be my last thing before we get started, is when you dreamt that you did a leg workout, which would be the plan for the workout for tomorrow, and maybe it was like a, you got a heavy lift. In your dream, you do it and then you wake up, you're like, "Oh [ __ ] I still got to do legs." You know? I haven't felt that. Uh, I haven't felt like that dread for legs for a long time. But when I first started squatting heavy, like when I first got into that five plate range for reps, dude, squats would make me nervous. Like just rolling up to the gym knowing I've got this insane set of squats ahead of me. I mean, it just, it's kind of just freaks you out, you know. And I want to chase that feeling again. Like coming into this next uh, I was about to say diet, this next off season, I want to get that same like antsiness of just like, you know, heart bursting through your chest like holy [ __ ] that's a lot of freaking weight like not even having any music playing just knowing that the set was coming and like looking at the rack. Oh man, I don't know. My heart rate probably had to get up to easily 150, maybe 160 just from that preset like excitement, you know, knowing that it was going to happen. You don't really get that for shoulders very much. You know, I'm not getting that feeling for uh five sets of reverse pec deck or like three sets of face pulls. Not that I'm going easy on my shoulders, but it's uh there's just something special about legs. I think we can kind of put it like that.
But yeah, nothing else to say. A bunch of this is like a two-lane road that merges into one and a bunch of cars and like a a big ass truck are trying to skip the line. Can't really hate on them though. I do that too sometimes. Like if you're ever on the highway and there's just a like two miles straight of guys waiting in that exit lane, but then the middle and the left lanes are completely open. It's like, you know, what are we doing here? There's I think it's contextual, you know. Like when you skip the line like that and you kind of cut ahead, sometimes you're the [ __ ] but I think sometimes you're just being a little bit more efficient, you know? Plus, what if you got somewhere to be, right? Then you're going to get a little uh you're going to get a little less picky and you're going to say, "All right, well, [ __ ] I'm jumping ahead of the line." But yeah, nothing else to say here. This [ __ ] truck's trying to do the same thing to me. I'm trying to block the middle lane. Oh my god, look at him. He's probably got somewhere to go. But let's stop yapping about it. Try not to have anybody crash into me and and get this lift started.
>> Yeah, for like texture shots and B-roll, I can see it being fine. Yeah. But yeah, probably just like three of these honestly. Okay. Yeah. Two more of those. Does not take much. You know, your rear delts are not like your quads. You just got to burn them out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, three more of those. Dude, two more of those. I mean, yeah. All right. Don't be afraid of some heft here. You know, your rear delts are small, but they're still pretty strong. So, do some bent over lateral raises with the 50s. And it's kind of tricky because like your biceps are pretty basic. Everyone gets the gist of this. But with your rear delts, trying to like pull your arm backwards sometimes can take a second to get the gist of just, it's a feel thing. So try not to use your traps. Like I'm not doing a row, but I am trying to move some weight around and put a lot of tension in my rear delts. So that's what I'm focusing on. Let's get two of these and [ __ ] I think we'll be close to done. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Okay, that's good. All right, there we go. Yeah, a little pose down. Let's see how we're looking. So, this is what, 11? Yeah, this is 11 days out. March 16th. So, I should look a little bit drier than the last few days, which is what I want. So, just from maintaining my cardio and the deficit and my, you know, not eating anything crazy super salty, we're kind of coming back to a little bit of a thinner skin, Sam. So, there's kind of like two things that are fluctuating. For one is just like, you know, how much body fat is in between my skin layer and my muscle layer underneath, but also how much water and fluids you have sitting in there blocking that look, you know? Let me crank this down just a little more. Yeah. Let's see how we're looking. Even just holding the back to a bip pose was getting my shoulders freaking burning. But yeah, that's pretty much all there is to it. So, let's freaking roll.
And of course, right after I say I'm enjoying the warm weather, 32° outside and it's freaking snowing. This isn't like snow that's going to stick. But what the hell, man? I mean, yeah, this you'd think March almost coming into April, we'd be starting to warm up a little bit, you know. Like you'd think it would be starting to kind of come out of it and the sun would be shining. Not exactly. Not freaking exactly, apparently. So, let me see. Today is the, yeah, the 16th. So that means I've got five more days at the crib and then five days over in the UK and that is going to be, well, kind of it's going to feel kind of plain, you know, because it's really just going to be hang out in the hotel, eat my food, practice posing in the mirror, make sure I know my music to every pose, and I'm definitely going to add a little something or other to the routine. For the Arnold Columbus, I had a little bit of like, you know, kind of a gotcha moment where I had the music pause and then kind of have like a DJ buildup sound effect before it played again. I'm not just going to do the exact same thing, but I'll, I want to add a little something. You know, it's more fun if the routine is fun. There's a video of a guy and people are kind of clowning on it, but honestly, he killed it. He's hitting this uh like 80s style song with his routine and like he's just straight up dancing. Like he's mixing in like kind of some hip-hop style, just uh, you know, footwork with the poses. And I mean, that's fun. You know, I don't know if I'm going to, I'm going to bust out a default Fortnite dance or anything, but it is kind of fun when guys actually enjoy their routine. You know, they really know what they're doing. Obviously, it's crazy seeing guys like uh, like Terrence Ruffin or like Andrea or Andrea or Andre Mamole because their posing is just so smooth and they've got that flow, you know. They're really kind of bringing out the the Frank Zane, you know, whoever else kind of old school kind of style. But yeah, the posing routine, the way that I look at it, the posing routine is your chance to be a little bit different than everybody else, you know? So if everybody else is going to hit the same pose of lat spread and, you know, Arnold or whatever and do a little something different, you know, don't that's kind of the whole point, you know. That really is your uh, I guess if you're an amateur, you get a minute, but I get, I'm going to try to make use of a longer routine for the Arnold UK. So I'm going to do 2 minutes. That routine was about a minute and a half. So a little bit on the shorter side, but those are your two minutes, man. Nobody else is up there. It's just you. So, yeah, that's kind of fun. So, whatever it is, you know, that routine's not done yet in my mind. I've still got to kind of piece it together. But once you've got it set, all you really do is, you know, kind of download your music file um onto your phone or like have it in a video form and just sit, hit play. Obviously, you got to do it in person, like look at yourself in the mirror hitting everything so you actually know what it like feels like to do your little transitions and stuff, but you get to a point where you just listen to the song and then in your head you're envisioning what the poses are that you're going to be doing like with the beat. And then you kind of get this visualization practice of sure, maybe you haven't sat there and hit every pose like a million times in a row, but you have memorized the flow of it because you've run through it in your head so much, you know.
So that's um, you know, does that apply so much to the bodybuilding training? I definitely think so. Um, like if you have a strong visualization of doing the curls and actually like really squeezing and contracting your quads and the leg extension or I mean even just kind of like flexing your butt and pulling your hamstrings to to move your feet while you're doing uh, you know, the treadmill and cardio, like the more you can kind of focus on what you're doing, why you're doing it, it just makes you do it that much better, you know? So that kind of feels like a chore. It's like, okay, every set needs your undivided complete attention. But the more you do it, the easier that it gets to do it like that. And then, I mean, I kind of get into a groove where I can kind of just like flip a switch from, you know, if I'm in a gym or if we're hitting a workout with some of the Gym Shark guys or the raw dudes, we're doing a shoot or whatever. It's like, you know, we can have a little banter back and forth, but it's like, all right, I'm going to hit my set, get my music playing, boom, the set is all that I'm thinking about. If somehow I could um, you know, neural link into my own brain, whatever I'm thinking during a set. Honestly, I'm probably like as zen as possible. At least in terms of distractions, like nothing else is getting to me. All I'm thinking is the reps that I'm doing, the targeted muscle, like pulling. Even today, just pulling my hands outward with my side delts. Try not to use my traps or anything like that, you know. Like just these little kind of details that I really think add up and it's the things that you don't really think about, you know. Like little things that can get kind of thrown to the wayside often are kind of like the most valuable, you know. So, it's like just these little things where if your focus is on point and your prep is on point. Um, well, obviously if your prep is on point, but like if your sleep and your hydration, your diet, and then probably more important than we'd think, even just our headspace, you know. It's like how are you feeling? Are you kind of feeling anxious or nervous or you've been putting some things off which is making you kind of like antsy? Like if you can get all that in check and essentially, let's just say kind of have your house in order in terms of all the things that you know you need to be working on, well then when you come to the gym, it doesn't feel like a chore. It doesn't feel like something that you are like dying to be done with or like you're just watching the clock thinking, "Okay, I got three more sets. Let's just get these done and I can leave." Like I, it is very rare that I ever think a thought like that. I definitely have before. Um, I couldn't really tell you when. It's been quite a while, but I've definitely had that thought before. And normally I can catch myself having the thought and think, "What the hell am I even talking about? That's not how I roll. That's not how I roll. I should do another extra set." Uh, I, I've done this before where I've came in and uh, you know, maybe usually for a leg day. Usually legs might take a little extra minutes to get yourself really grooved with. But I'll do a set of hamstrings or a set of quads, whatever the day is. And you know, rack the weight after the first set. Maybe it wasn't total failure, you know. I mean, when I start legs, my hamstring and quad training. Uh, the first set kind of sometimes is a little bit more warm-upish, like just light weight, squeezing, activating, getting my either quads or hamstrings ready for the next set or the next movement that'll be a little bit heavier. But sometimes I'll do that first set, rack it and it's like, what the hell was that? That was, I, what am I even doing? Like, sure, maybe that set didn't need to go to failure, but I can just kind of have this mental grading scale of like, what the hell? My head was not in it on that set. And then I don't even count it. Like, in my mind, that set just ends up counting as um, you know, like just a warm-up and then the next set is really the first one. I'm like, okay, yeah, let's forget that first set even happened. The workout starts now, you know. So, if you can kind of get into that sort of mentality, I think it'll do you freaking good. You know, like the uh, I haven't said this before, but the enlightened lifter. Yeah, it's been a while since I busted out that phrase. He can basically take any external circumstance or situation or shortcoming or, you know, response or feedback and no matter what it is, positive or negative, somehow it's always going to come out positive after it gets funneled through his head, you know. So somebody's hyping you up, dude, you've been working out, you're looking pretty good, man. It's like, whoa, wait, maybe you're carrying something heavy. Guy's like, holy crap, heavy lifter over. All right. Little ego boost. Your grandma says, "Holy crap, I don't even recognize you. What did you do with my grandson?" Basic ass ego boost. Obviously, that's going to get you going. Or if you had a really serious fat loss transformation, your feedback will be slightly different, but it's like, "Dude, I didn't even recognize you." You know. And some people will be nice about it. Uh, I mean, I, I get bulked for sure. So, I haven't seen a couple, a couple of guys for like a few months at a time. Then they see me dieted down, trimmed her face, and it's like, whoa, Sammy, you look so different. And they mean it well, but really what they're saying is, dude, last time I saw you, you were bulked to [ __ ] man. You're finally peeled. Like, whoa. You know, that's just how big a difference is going from like 260 down to 230. But that's pretty basic, obviously. If people are gassing you up, it's easy to get gassed up and use that as motivation. But even if things aren't going your way, you know, you feel like you're just freaking down on your luck, you uh kind of self-deprecating, which is a is a self-soothing that I wouldn't recommend. You know, like if [ __ ]'s going down, maybe you, it was something in your control and you regret it. Maybe it's something completely out of your control and you just got to deal with it. It doesn't help to stew. You know, obviously much easier said than done depending on the severity of the [ __ ] going on in your life. But at what point do you have to say, "All right, I got to stop crying about this spilled milk and I just got to deal with it." You know? So, the sooner you can kind of say, "Fuck, man. You know what? Whatever. I'm hitting this [ __ ] anyway." You know, it doesn't matter that this, that, or the other, this guy said whatever. It's like, I'm going to freaking bring it. Doesn't even matter, you know. So, that's what I want to be able to do. I want to be able to take any external circumstance or feedback or response, positive or negative, and have it go through the SAM brain calculator and come out positive, hopefully positive, multiplied by a few levels, you know. So, that's kind of how I like to think about it. And that's my end goal really. Like if I had to pinpoint Sam, how do you want to feel every day? How do you want to feel going to all to all these workouts and doing all your cardio and looking at yourself in the gym and, you know, even just just walking around being Sam in life and I want to feel good. I want to feel like I'm working on something. And I want to feel like I'm making progress, you know. And it's not as though that progress in and of itself brings you or at least brings me like a ton of value. Like the value of my life is not tenfold just because my, you know, my chest is a little bigger or I'm just overall bigger from a bulk, but it's just how it feeds into everything else, you know. So, obviously I'm a nutcase about it. So, the gym is like, I mean, [ __ ] if it's not what my life orbits around, it's my life and the gym are in this parallel orbit where we're both in like this dual planetary solar system going around itself. Uh, I don't think everybody has to be that serious about it. It's my thing, so I just really like it. But it's um, you know, it's just a good outlet, right? So, no matter what kind of circumstance or uh, or not circumstance, but what kind of outcome I get or like even with these competitions or anything else, what really gets me excited is uh, I mean, just to put it simply, scrolling through my camera reel and looking at how far I've come. You know, scrolling back a few months. Scrolling back a few years. Scrolling back five years, seven years, back to uh, back to early Sam, uh, like, you know, just high school, 160 lbs, benching 200 for like a few in, uh, in the basement. Like, dude, it's seeing those videos puts things into like such a crazy freaking perspective. And it just makes me so much more excited about what's next and what's beyond the horizon because there's a lot of time left, you know? Like there's a, there's certainly a get your ass in gear mentality when you think of just the, let's just call it the finitude of life. Like this ain't this [ __ ] ain't infinite. But there's also this kind of motivation optimistic or this motivation like optimism that comes along with knowing like, you know, five years might not seem like a lot of time. Uh, to some, five years might pass like a blink, but it really is a lot. You know, you can do a, you can make some really substantial changes in even just a few months' time. So getting into the scale of years, I mean, to say the sky is the limit is a freaking understatement, you know.
So all that kind of boils down to me saying I'm feeling like a happy camper. I'm going to keep this diet up for a bit longer. See how we can show out in the UK. It's going to be crazy cuz I know that the Arnold UK is going to be jumping just as hard as the one in Columbus. Plus, it's going to be a bit more international because over in Europe, it's like a little easier for guys to, you know, come from different neighboring countries instead of just coming from, you know, all over the states, which size-wise kind of balances out, but it, it's just going to be really freaking cool, you know. So, to say I'm excited would be to put it lightly. But plan now is go home. I got a can of chicken with my name on it. But actually, I might wait a little while to eat that. It's already 2:40 and I have consumed, you know, don't look at your phone when you're driving, but I've consumed 1,300 calories. So, means I've only got like 1,200 left for the day, and I need to make those stretch. If I had a 1,200 calorie meal right now at, you know, at three o'clock and then I tried to eat nothing else until I went to bed, that would be pretty difficult. But if I have a really small meal and maybe a few more subsequently small meals on my way to bedtime and maybe I save a good chunk of uh, you know, calories for right before bed so I can go to bed with a full stomach, that's a bit more manageable, you know. So obviously dieting wise, you've got to bring it like you just, you kind of just have to deal with it. You're going to be hungry. It's part of the deal, you know. But you can make it easier on yourself by spreading your meals out more evenly. At least that's what works for me. But some guys might say uh they just eat a huge breakfast and then they don't have a problem eating like nothing for the rest of the day. Or they do like a one meal a day approach where they just have a really huge dinner and fast for the rest of the day. Um, I think a middle ground is probably your best bet. Evenly distributed. Maybe have your first meal at 10 so that you can kind of spread it out over more in the late game of the day instead of earlier. But it's, I mean, as long as your macro uh macro intake is where you want it to be and the scale is reflecting that, if what you're doing is working, oh, then keep freaking doing it. You know, that's kind of the entire freaking point.
But now I'm just rambling. So, I'm going to hope it clears up and gets a little bit warmer today, but I don't have to go outside again. I get, I'm just going to do my cardio in the basement. Get it uh probably watch a movie. If you have a movie recommendation, I would uh I would certainly like it. I'll be scanning the comments because I'm not going to do cardio for probably a few hours. So, something that I definitely have not seen would be perfect. But yeah, nothing else to say. That puts me at 11 days out, 10 more to go, and then nine more to go, and then eight more to go, and then before we know it, it's going to be show day again. So, man, this is just freaking sweet. But yeah, nothing else to say. I'll see you tomorrow.