The past two weeks have flown by and my progress has been nice and steady. I just keep reminding myself to take each day as they come and to not over analyze things. I really want to keep this process as simple as possible that way I can thoroughly enjoy myself without any added or unwanted pressure.

Current State
As of today, I weighed in at 188.4lbs which is about 2lbs lighter since my last blog, but I feel more than likely tomorrow will be even lower. I have seen a low of 187.6lbs late last ...

First off…I want to say Happy Valentine’s Day to my wife Jhanna! I love you very much!

Where Have I been?
It has been a month since my last blog. Some may have been wandering why I have not been blogging lately? Let’s just say life has been kicking my a** lately. There have been many stressful issues other than my contest preparation that have surfaced in my life which needed my attention. Without a doubt there has to be balance in one’s life in order to put forth 100% effort into conte...

Week 5 did not go as planned as I lost my focus on a few occasions and I missed all of my cardio sessions. I was off on my nutrition target numbers on 3 out of the seven days. Also, my lower back has really been bothering me as of late and I skipped another leg workout earlier in the week. Deadlifts and free weight squats are out of the question for now.  It was one of those weeks where nothing seemed to go right. I have re-focused for Week 6 and mentally I am ready to have a great week! Ther...

Reflecting Back on a Frustrating Offseason
This past offseason was by far the hardest I have ever experienced. It was difficult due to the fact I had to deal with so many nagging injuries. I pretty much battled every upper body workout this offseason because of shoulder pain. The pain limited my ability to lift heavy at times and mentally it has been frustrating because it makes you feel like progress is not what it should be. About a month ago, I did some research regarding shoulder pain on ...

This week did not go according as planned. I attempted to have a hardcore week with HIT, but instead I had to go with lower intensity and higher volume training. For the past few weeks I have been talking about my bad shoulders and to be quite honest I am tired of talking about it. They simply hurt and I just have to deal with it. I have a strained lat and it hurts too, but it is what it is! I need to stop stressing over it and just keep my focus. Instead of trying to game plan around these s...

I had some bad news this week…my video camera died on me! I was not able to film any training sessions this week. I have to look into getting another one and then I can start filming again.

Training Update - Deload Week
This past week I went into the gym with a scheduled deload to help me recover from the previous two weeks of high intensity training. On Monday night I had leg day and I did some free weight squats, stiff legged deadlifts, standing toe press on the smith machine and then ...

This blog is dedicated to Zhdanko, my friend in Russia who requested more video. So with that in mind, I decided to fill this week's blog with video. Enjoy!

David Bradford Comes to Town!
On Friday of last week my brother-in-law to be, David Bradford, ventured up from Southern California for the weekend and we got in two awesome workouts. David is looking to enter is first ever competition next season and I feel he will hit the stage looking really good. Since he started hitting the gym back i...

Last week I shared my latest plans for my training and that was to switch back to HIT (High Intensity Training) for the remainder of my offseason which is up until November. This type of training has been pretty much been my main training staple since 1992 and I feel it has done an excellent job of packing on the muscle I have attained over the years.  My HIT workouts are generally performed with an emphasis on heavy weights executed with super strict and controlled form, so I can focus on su...