If you have been following along with me on here you know that on March 31 i competed in the NPC Natural Ohio in Cleveland, in the Classic Physique Division! This was my first time stepping on stage in nearly 4 years, with the majority of my training being focused around Powerlifting in the meantime. I first off have to say that the challenge in converting my body from a “powerlifter” to a “bodybuilder” far exceeded my expectations and I have nothing but a newfound respect for people who train for bodybuilding exclusively. Hats off to you!
In this post I want to recap the peak week leading up to the show and the show itself:
Peak week:
The week leading up to the show was by far the most challenging week of the entire prep.
On Sunday I woke up at 179 lbs, needing to weigh 175 lbs by Friday night to make the cutoff for my weight/height class. With normal training intensity cut to about 75% for the remainder of the week, the scale still hadnt moved as of Tuesday morning and I was weighing 180 lbs. It was at this point that my coach and I decided to drop my sodium 50% (I had been taking in roughly 5,000,mg up to this point daily) and begin water loading with 2.5 gallons of distilled water to flush my system. I also added in a water pill starting mid day on Tuesday.
By Wednesday morning the scale had only dropped to 179. On this day we decided to drop all added sodium from my diet and continue water loading and adding in a water pill. I also decided it was time to lower my carbohydrate intake to see if this would help dry me out even further. I dropped my carbs from the usual 270g per day that I was accustomed to down to roughly 90g on Wednesday.
The scale dropped to 178 lbs by Thursday morning following a day with water loading and no added salt. Thursday I cut carbs to zero and water to 1 gallon and went with just my usual protein and veggie meals throughout the remainder of the day while taking 2 servings of my water pill.
As of Friday morning all training had stopped, and my weight was down to 175.2. On Friday throughout the day I had egg whites for breakfast and went about my day drinking black coffee and taking sips of water with my water pills up until check in time, this was absolutely miserable but it’s what i needed to do to make weight. I ended up making weight at 173.6 lbs well under my mark! After that it was time to get my tan on and fill out with a big sirloin steak and potato from Outback! After that it was time to go home and try and get some sleep before Saturday…
Show day!
As for show day itself, I woke up, in my opinion, on the money. I texted my coach Michael Anderson that morning and said “we nailed it”. I felt extremely confident heading into prejudging knowing I brought a Physique that could potentially win the show if I played my cards right.
After a couple of hours of waiting around we finally made it up on stage. After the first mandatory comparison round, where athletes are called out in numerical order and compared against one another, I was brought back out in the first callout of secondary comparisons! If you’re familiar with bodybuilding you know that this is a very good sign that you have a chance to place in the competition. There was not a whole lot of moving around and it appeared that I would take 2nd or 3rd.
After we took our drug tests, I went home and took a nap before coming back to finals and tried to fight my nerves about where I had placed.
At finals, we got to perform our individual posing routines which was by far the most nerve wracking part of the day for me lol. I used “Til I Collapse” by eminem for my posing routine music, and anyone who knows me knows how much that song means to me. It can get me hype at anytime, or any place haha. For a very introverted person it was challenging for me to go out and perform a posing routine by myself in a pair of posing trunks. I felt pretty out of place during this if I’m honest, but it went off without a hitch and I enjoyed the 60 seconds I had to showcase the work I had done the last 12 weeks.
After the posing routines were over, the top 5 competitors came back onto to the stage to receive our awards. Just as I predicted, I ended up third. Third place is a significant achievement as it means I am officially “nationally qualified” as top 3 in each division are eligible for NPC Nationals.
Overall, I am happy with my performance although I have to admit that it hasn’t sunk in yet nearly a week later. I’m very excited with the way my Physique turned out and am happy knowing I passed the physical and mental test that this prep put me through, and am much more confident in my ability to be uncomfortable which I know will pay off in other endeavors in my life.
Thank you for reading and following along throughout this prep, and I definitely plan to share even more of what I learned through this process in the very near future.