With just 4 weeks to go until my new contest journey, I have been making sure I am enjoying the off season. I have been training hard and eating good! Last night I went to a TEAM 3DMJ meeting and we had healthy pizza! I had a personal pizza made out of dough from Trader Joe's, Bobili sauce, string cheese, fresh mushrooms, fresh basil, pizza seasoning and crushed red pepper. This was the creation from TEAM 3DMJ coach Alberto Nunez and it was super delicious! The pizza had 100 grams of carbs, 30 grams of protein and only 5 grams of fat! I will definitely be making these more often instead of eating pizza from other restaurants which contain some serious amounts of fat.

This past Monday my mother-in-law came to visit and to my surprise she gave me an old vintage magazine (Muscle Builder) with Jack Lalanne (Mr. America and the Juiceman) from March 1954. My sis-in-law and her boyfriend, David, also gave me an old vintage magazine (Strength) from March 1952. These magazines are awesome and I feel this era in bodybuilding is what real bodybuilders should look like. They were very symmetrical with great muscularity. For me this look is more desirable than what we currently see on magazine stands. I am thankful for getting these magazines and they will be going on my wall in my gym for inspiration! I wanted to share the magazines with everyone for inspiration!

Muscle Builder from 1954


Strength Magazine from 1952


My mother-in-law, Nadia, sis-in-law, Tiffany and her boyfriend, David, have been very supportive of me with my bodybuilding career and 3DMUSCLEJOURNEY. I really appreciate them and just wanted to thank them and say love you guys!

TRAINING
This week training has been very good. My strength keeps going up and my stamina has as well. I have been keeping the volume fairly high for my standards and have been using a pyramid technique in my training. I try and increase the poundage with each successive set on most exercises. As long as I am continuing to make progress I will stick with this style until it no longer gives me the results I am looking for. With 4 weeks to go until I start my contest prep I feel good about my progress thus far in my off season. I will continue to push hard in the gym!! The powerlifting meet in February is starting to look like a reality as my strength in the 3 required lifts are improving. I will make a final decision on the powerlifting meet sometime in early February. My goal is to be able to have a total of 1,000 lbs lifted. We will see where I am at in early February. Here is my last two weeks of training in the three lifts required:

Bench Press (not my strong suit due to shoulder pain)
Nov. 24th - 235lbs for 3, 4, 5, 4
Dec. 2 - 225 for 5, 230 for 5, 235 for 4, 240 for 3, 245 for 3, 250 for 1

Squats
Nov. 19 - 275 for 7, 295 for 6, 315 for 5, 325 for 4
Nov. 30 - 315 for 5, 335 for 5, 345 for 3, 355 for 1 ( I started to get fatigued after my second set, need to acquire more endurance on this lift)

Dead Lifts
Nov. 24 - 325 for 5, 335 for 5, 345 for 5, 355 for 5
Dec. 4 - 365 for 5, 385 for 5, 395 for 5 ( did not do a 4th set, too fatigued)

I am really excited about the progress I have made so far and I am really looking forward to see where I am in the next couple of weeks.
 
Miscellaneous For Fun!
For those of you who do not know, I started to workout back in 1986 and in that era mullets (yes mullets!) were in style and cool!! Here is a picture of my cool style back in 1988!! I cant believe I am sharing this, but we all have a bad era in us!!

Not bad for a 17 year old, but the hair was extremely bad!! I thought I was Rambo! lol.