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How did you get started with bodybuilding?

When I finished high school, I weighed 125 pounds soaking wet. I worked out on and off the first two years of college but didn’t really know what I was doing. I started reading up more about the ideas and principles behind weightlifting, and in July of 2007 I started to really get serious with lifting. Somewhere around November of that year I met up with a friend of mine who had competed before, and he started bugging me to sign up for a competition he was doing in the spring. I finally agreed and after that, I was hooked. The first cut cycle was really tough, but as I’ve progressed in the sport I found that the diet has just become a part of my life. I don’t really change what I eat from cutting to the off-season, just the quantity. I enjoy having the discipline to keep it clean. Now I am that person among my family that everyone comes to for fitness or diet advice.

Where does your motivation come from?

It’s hard to say. I never really thought of motivation as being a problem because I absolutely love the sport. Having the support and encouragement from my wife and family absolutely helps. But I am very driven to keep improving, now more than ever. I no longer look at dieting as a burden or a challenge, and I can’t wait to get to the gym everyday. But to those of you who don’t have this motivation yet and want to get serious, you have GOT to make it part of your routine. Don’t think of the gym as an option, make it something you have to do everyday, just like eating meals or going to work. After you do that for a while it just becomes part of your day and you don’t think about it as being in the way, you look forward to it.

What is your training philosophy?

My philosophy when it comes to training is that if you aren’t improving, you’re getting worse. Why would you want to come to the gym and do the exact same thing you did last week? I make sure that I am improving in some capacity every workout. If I lift more weight than I could last week, now I’ve got a new number I want to beat. I love that there really is no limit for improvement. I keep a workout log every time I’m in the gym so I don’t have to guess which weight I should start with at the beginning of an exercise. I also know what I have to beat by looking at what weight I used last time. I change up the workouts I do all the time as to prevent hitting a plateau, but the basic breakdown I do each week stays the same. I do low rep power days on Monday and Tuesday, cardio on Wednesday, and I do high volume hypertrophy days on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Then cardio on Sunday, rinse and repeat.

If you have to pick only 3 exercises, what would they be and why?

Deadlift would be my easy first choice. Not only does it involve more muscles than any other exercise, but they are the absolute determinant of one’s power. It is literally the amount of weight you can pick up off the floor. The deadlift is the one number exercise that I keep the closest eye on, and the one I make sure to challenge myself with every time I go in for my lower body power day. The other two exercises are tougher to pick, but I would have to say squats and bench press. If you’re only going to have three exercises, go for the big ones! Squats will wear you out more than any other exercise, and again they are a great power exercise. And bench press is probably the best overall upper body power movement. It’s the one exercise I have the most trouble with, as I’ve got an inverted sternum so it is very difficult for me to increase my chest strength, but that just makes me work harder at it. And I’m talking full bench press, not the quarter reps you see so often out there.

When trying to cut down do you prefer to use HIIT or just normal cardio?

When I’m cutting, I generally start off with only two days of cardio a week, just like in my off-season. I do HIIT on Wednesday and Sunday, my off days for lifting. They also happen to both be right after leg days, and I’ve found that it helps me from getting too sore. I keep those two days the same during contest prep, 30 minutes each day, and as I get closer to competition I will do cardio on the other days as well. But I only do HIIT twice a week. The rest of the days I’ll do uphill walking at moderate intensity. Cardio is the hardest thing for me to motivate myself to do, but I always feel great after I finish. I bring my ipod when I do cardio and if I am doing the uphill walking I watch a video so I don’t get bored, and if I’m doing HIIT I listen to music to try and distract myself from how hard it is.

What is your philosophy on nutrition?

I’ll be honest. The first six months that I was really into lifting I did not care about nutrition. I knew that I should get a decent amount of protein but that was it. Cutting for the first competition did a decent job of waking me up to proper nutrition, but I did my first prep pretty much on my own and it wasn’t that great. I did end up doing pretty well, but it was because the level of competition wasn’t that high. It was after this last competition that I really had my eyes opened to the importance of proper nutrition. I hired Layne Norton to do the prep for my latest competition, and I learned a great deal. I now keep my nutrition very clean, making sure I hit my numbers everyday. I now truly believe that it will be nearly impossible for an experienced person in this sport to improve without maintaining proper nutrition, and that it is probably about 90% of bodybuilding.

Novice Overall Posedown

What are your favorite meals and foods?

My favorite meal of all is my pre-workout meal. I mix oatmeal with chocolate whey protein and casein protein, and just enough water to make it all clump together. If I’m in my off-season I will add a little bit of sugar-free chocolate pudding mix as well. My main protein source is chicken. I usually go to Costco and buy around 30 pounds of chicken at a time, freeze most of it and grill up 6 pounds at a time. I don’t season it when I grill it, just get it cooked and in the refrigerator. That way I can use it however I want over the next week or two. I generally either make a barbeque sauce sandwich (wheat bread with nonfat cheese and lettuce), or use some buffalo sauce. I use tuna during my prep, but I get so sick of it that I don’t generally eat it during my off-season. I also actually really like oat bran as a carb source, and I use a lot of egg whites.

Favorite cheat food?

I don’t really cheat that often, and never do during prep. But if I do in the off-season, I usually go for pizza.

What supplements do you use that give you great results? How do you use them?

I stick to the basics when it comes to supplements, mainly because I don’t have the funds to get that lucrative. So I use whey protein, casein protein, waxy maize, multivitamin, fish oil, and a few amino acids. My favorite company would have to be Scivation, as I use three of their products. I use Sesamin for the healthy fats, and Xtend for the branch chained amino acids. I have lately started using Vasocharge, and I would never have thought that a pre-workout drink would have this kind of effect, but since I started using it my workouts have been through the roof. And no, I am not payed to promote this company! They just produce quality products that I have had great results with. I use most of the products as recommended, but I sip Xtend throughout the day (between meals and around my workouts).

Favourite Bodybuilders?

I admire the natural guys like Doug Miller, Layne Norton, and Jim Cordova. But I also like some of the big IFBB guys, especially Shawn Ray.

Favorite Quote?

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

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