04 Apr Tucker Loken – Contest prep – 4 weeks out

[wa-wps]

Okay, so the last you guys heard from me was a couple weeks ago when I said I might do a show if I feel well enough. Well it didn’t happen that week, I still had left over swelling and fatigue, so instead of having 5 weeks to prep I had 4 weeks to prep. I was almost not going to do it at all, and my throat even now still has some swelling off and on in the lymph nodes, but it still seems to be getting marginally better each day, and I’m not crushing it super hard in the gym, I’m just getting in there, getting a pump, burning up some calories and eating clean. I should be able to turn up the intensity this next week since I’ll only have 2.5 to 3 weeks left, but either way I’m in a good state of mind about the whole thing. I’m actually very happy that I was dealt these cards and that I can approach a show knowing that I wasn’t able to put my all into it, that things came up, and that I can still look decent with only 4 weeks to go. I’ve always put a lot of pressure on any kind of activity I’ve done in the past, whether it was sports in high school or bodybuilding shows after that. It’s nice to go in pretty low stress and just have fun with it, and let this be the time where I go from the lowest/smallest/weakest I’ve been in a long time and start building from there. It’s a very nice blank slate feel and I’m ready to have some fun with it.

Left is after a couple workouts back from not lifting for 2 months, right is 6 days later. bodyweight is right around 201 in both pics. The changes aren't huge but you can see little differences in the fullness of my arms, size and muscularity of my legs etc. Something I've had to learn the hard way is that results don't often come as fast as you fantasize about, but if you pay attention and track progress, they still happen pretty quickly as long as you're consistent. Crossing my fingers I don't have to start from square one again and drop down to 200 lbs anytime soon, but it's been a great learning tool. #bodybuilding #powerlifting #powerbuilding #1020powerbuilding #1020life #powerrackstrength #teamprs #teamtucker #cleaneating #diet #fitness #fitnessaddict #fitspo #fitfam #健美 #举重 #锻炼身体 #减肥 #肌肉

A post shared by Tucker Loken (@tuckerloken) on Apr 6, 2017 at 9:28am PDT

Nothing complex with diet, just 50 grams of carbs per meal and 50 grams of protein per meal  for my first 5-6 meals during the day, and protein only before bed. No fats, no fancy stuff, and just good old fashioned whole food besides a post workout whey shake with some grits or rice on the side.

As far as workouts, I’m doing strictly bodybuilding type stuff getting ready for this. I don’t want to risk stressing out my CNS and getting re-sick by doing big bar movements, so I’m either omitting them on some days or saving them until I’ve been pre exhausted doing other exercises. I’m keeping my rest periods very short, only about 30 seconds and doing a big split with only a couple exercises per body part so that I can hit the body part more frequently up to the show. Since I’ve been out for a couple months I’d rather have 6-8 chest workouts in 4 weeks than 4 chest workouts in 4 weeks before the show so that I can at least get some good blood flow and a good pump in the muscle more often than if I did one body part per day. I’m doing something a little bit different each workout (which I normally don’t recommend), but since it’s a chest/shoulder/triceps, back/rear delts/biceps, legs/calves split I don’t wat to do the exact same thing almost twice per week for 4 weeks. I’ll alternate one machine for another sometimes and play around with it like that, but a decent sample chest day is below.

Ex –

Chest/Shoulder/Triceps

Warm up with core and light machine pec flies

Hammer strength incline chest press

Flat DB or BB press (whichever I feel like)

Cable pec flies

Hammer strength Shoulder press

DB side raises

Skull crushers

Triceps rope pushdown

I’m usually sticking to my standard 3 sets after warming up with the exercise of 12,10,8, or 15,12,10 but it’s hard to gauge since my endurance is still coming back, so sometimes I’ll only end up getting 8 reps on a given machine and weight, but if it doesn’t actually feel that heavy, I’ll stick there. I do an extra set here and there too if I’m feeling it, it all just depends on how I feel that day.