ZacharyKane's March to Jr Nats...and Beyond

[NEMUSCLE90]

Big motivator as a middleweight myself. Looked great last year brother!


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[Love_to_Bodybuild]

Those leg presses are brutal. I do wide then narrow stance . Like today i held back. The week before I went to close to failure where I turn red, blood, face, head rush. Its intense. Good for the soul, sometimes.

 

[zacharykane]

Thanks man! Us middleweights get a bad rap being the 'little guy.' Opinions on that have changed lately as in my area between myself and couple other guys, middles have dominated the overalls the last couple of years

Big motivator as a middleweight myself. Looked great last year brother!


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[zacharykane]

15 Weeks Out - USA Prep

I was thinking of starting another thread, but figured I would just keep this one going. It's getting up there in age, I feel like I've contributed some OK information and training here, and I want to use it as a time capsule of my journey in this sport.


Sooooo, I'm officially in prep for the USAs again this year. 15 weeks and a day out right now. Gear is super simple right now, 100mg each of test prop/mast p/tren a EOD, 5ius GH 5 times a week upon waking, still taking 25mg of MK677 at night as the hunger sides are long gone and I sleep better on it. No orals as of yet or fat burners. I am using 3mLs of Synthetine and 1mL of Syntheselen preworkout though.

Diet is rapidly changing. The idea is to get me ready and then feed the hell out of me to fill back out and grow into the show a bit. My body hears the word "prep" and I start dropping fat. I hope that continues for years to come.

Training is a Push, Pull, Legs split right now. First leg workout in basically just a "priming" day, with the second one being the "my training partners and I try to murder each other" type session.

 

[tripleOT]

Oh definitely keep this thread going bro. I look forward to seeing new updates. Just when I think I know it all, I come in here and learn something from you.

Good luck with your prep brother. I'm sure you will give it your all.

 

[b-boy]

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[zacharykane]

Thank you Brad, I really appreciate that!

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[zacharykane]

Thanks Trip! I'm off to a really good start I feel like. I actually had a solid meal plan and training plan through my entire offseason and that made a huge difference. I'm 2lbs heavier than this same point exactly one year ago, but a good deal leaner I feel like. Some comparison pics to show. Big focus this last year was really bringing up my quads to match my hamstrings and just overall development everywhere else. The guy that writes my training said after Vegas last year "in that front relaxed I just want to see quads and lats." So that first impression sticks with the judges big time.

Oh definitely keep this thread going bro. I look forward to seeing new updates. Just when I think I know it all, I come in here and learn something from you.

Good luck with your prep brother. I'm sure you will give it your all.

 

[zacharykane]

Chest and Shoulders 4-16-19

Yesterday was the start of my new split and first block of my new training block. I had just trained chest Friday and was still a bit sore, but pushed hard as I know chest isn't exactly my strong point and shoulders can always be better.

Chest

Internal/External Rotations: 3 sets of 15 each
Lying Incline Bench Cable Flyes (facedown): 40x15, 80x15, 120x15, 160x15 (done as a warm up, went until it got a little heavy)
Reverse Banded Incline Barbell Bench: 135x12, 225x10, 275x8, 315x8, 355x6 (I messed up on how I put the band on so it was barely doing anything with the barbell on my chest, I'll take pictures next time to show how I should have set this up)
Cable Chest Press: 40x15, 60x12, 80x10, 100x15->80x8->50x10->40x8 w/ 30 second isohold on last rep at half locked out position
Slight Incline Dumbbell Press: 70x15, 80x15, 90x15

Shoulders

Lateral Raises/Bent Over Reverse Flyes/Thumb-Up Front Raise (Done as a tri-set): 10lbs for 10 reps on all motions, 3 sets (shoulders were already fried from my workout and previous push session, so these burned like hell)

 

[b-boy]

Thanks Trip! I'm off to a really good start I feel like. I actually had a solid meal plan and training plan through my entire offseason and that made a huge difference. I'm 2lbs heavier than this same point exactly one year ago, but a good deal leaner I feel like. Some comparison pics to show. Big focus this last year was really bringing up my quads to match my hamstrings and just overall development everywhere else. The guy that writes my training said after Vegas last year "in that front relaxed I just want to see quads and lats." So that first impression sticks with the judges big time.

View attachment 105623

Massive fucking improvements!!! Especially the front relaxed, legs, lats, chest....impressive!

 

[zacharykane]

Back Day - 4/17/19

Trained back yesterday. A solid combination of some isolation work and a heavy compound movement as well. Got a great pump and felt pretty good! Today was a rest day as I have legs tomorrow. Today would have been a leg priming workout day, but my training partners had some schedule shifts, so heavy leg day is tomorrow instead. So tanned and did some stretching and called it a day

Back

Chest Supported Dumbbell Row: 30x15, 40x15, 50x15, 50x15 (there were done with my pelvis on the pad and an arcing motion back to my hip, goal here was to warm up without struggling or feeling a burn)
Chest Supported T-Bar Row: 45x15, 90x15, 135x12, 225x8
Close Grip Pronated Mag Grip Seated Cable Rows: 50x15, 100x12, 140x10, 180x8->150x8->110x7->70x6 plus a 20 second isohold
Cable DY Row: 20x10, 50x15, 50x13 (last two sets were to positive failure, these were contracting hard and did not take long to fatigue on)
Straight-Bar Lat Pulldowns: 60x15, 100x15, 100x12

 

[zacharykane]

Leg Day 4/19/19

Yesterday was the brutal leg. Major quad focus and I was super spent by the end to the point of having that weird, monster "I have no glycogen left" type of headache, lol.

Hamstring work is not a huge priority, it's not often I say something like this, but my hams really over power my quads and grow pretty much no matter what, so yeah, this was more than enough stimulation for me.

Legs

Single Leg Curl: 50x10, 75x10, 100x10, 125x10, 150x10->125->8->100x8->75x7->50x6 (drop set at the end there, my hams were pumped the entire rest of the workout)
Leg Press: 90x10, 180x10, 270x10, 360x10, 450x5->360x5->270x5->180x5, 180x5->270x5->360x5->450x5 (drop set, then a loading set next, these are brutal. Very steep angle leg press, so not a whole bunch of weight is needed)
Hack Squat: 90x10, 180x10, 270x10, 360x10->180x10->90x8->45x10 Second Isohold (Again, a very steep machine, so not a bunch of weight needed)
Belt Squat: 180x10, 270x10

 

[zacharykane]

Chest and Shoulders 4/23

I missed a push and a pull workout on here. I'm having to do an insane exercise of trying to rebid a construction project that's already well underway and it's just a huge mess, so that's been sucking up any extra brain power I have.

Yesterday was the start of my split though, and it was a chest and shoulder session. Not a super great pump as I'm not on a ton of carbs right now, but still moved some decent weight and felt a solid mind-muscle connection.

After my workout was just 20 minutes of low intensity cardio on the treadmill. I'm not convinced I really ever need cardio with how I train, but I'm trying to do my best and follow the plan laid out by my coaches.

Chest

Internal/External Rotations: 4 sets of 15 each arm/side
Incline Facedown Cable Flys: 15x15, 25x15, 35x15, 45x12 (done as a warm up, not wanting to feel a burn or really struggle here)
Hammer Strength Flat Press: 90x10, 180x10, 230x10, 270x10 (I suck at flat presses apparently, but, that's good, means it's a weakness that can be improved upon)
Slight Incline Dumbbell Press/Fly Hybrid: 50x10, 70x10, 85x10, 100x10->80x8->60x8->40x10+15 second isohold in middle of last rep
Hammer Strength Incline Press: 90x15, 90x15, 90x15 (slow and controlled)

Shoulders

Overhead Face Pulls/Face Pull to Forehead/Meadows Hang & Swings: 3 rounds, rep scheme was 15/15/30

 

[zacharykane]

Back Day 4/24/19

The lack of carbs is definitely starting to hit, both mentally and physically. The pay off though is that my body is already starting to change day to day in a positive direction, so that makes the uncomfortableness of it much more bearable.

Yesterday was my first back session of the week. I felt really solid right up until the very end and just crashed hard, ended up going to bed a good hour early but that's not the end of the world.

Back

Chest Supported Dumbbell Rows: 40x10, 55x10, 70x10, 85x10
Hammer Strength Low Row: 90x10, 180x10, 360x10, 450x8 (positive failure was the goal on the last set, had to really grind to get 8)
Single Arm Cable Row: 40x10, 60x10, 80x10->60x10->40x10->20x10+10 second isohold on last rep
Underhand Hammer Lat Pulldown: 90x15, 180x15, 180x15
Rope Pressdowns: 40x25, 80x25, 80x25

 

[zacharykane]

Took a rest day yesterday, I don't know if I had some sort of 24 hour bug or what, but I just felt rough all day. Borderline migraine and like turning too quick might make me sick. Pretty sure it was allergy related, but holy hades was I feeling rough. Back to feeling good today though; loaded up on every allergy med I could find along with a 3cc shot of synthetine, which seems to really help my allergies as well as melting fat off.

Later today will be my second push session of the week. Looks like I'm in store for a little more volume today with work on machines along with some banded work. My best friend and training partner took over my programming after the USAs last year and it's made a big difference. Though I loved the powerbuilding type work I did last offseason, this has been a much more involved and detailed program working to strengthen my weaknesses and working around some of my issues.

 

[zacharykane]

Just a quick update!

Workouts have been solid, over the weekend got my push, pull and leg session in. Nothing real crazy with any of them. My push and pull sessions were my lighter "pump" days (really meaning more volume and less HIT type stuff) and my leg day was the heavy leg day. Strength was climbing but energy and endurance are crap. The prep trade off, lol.

Yesterday I tried out something new and went and saw a sports hypnotist. I went into the session with zero expectations besides "if it helps it helps, if not, it's an hour of my time I spent working on some visualization exercises." I left feeling pretty good. It wasn't like I was knocked out or anything like what you see on TV, but just relaxed and was more or less able to reach a headspace of feeling better about myself and prep and what I wanted to accomplish than the obsessing over what I wasn't able to do during my offseason due to being sick.

 

[tripleOT]

The sports hypnotist, I'm guessing he specializes in athlete only? I've never heard of that. Pretty cool you enjoyed it Z. I can see that being usefull while going through prep etc.

Is it something you will continue doing? Or is it a one and done scenario?

 

[zacharykane]

Athletes are her focus, she used to work for the Chicago Bears exclusively which is kind of cool as a life long bears fan. I may go again, so far I would say that I don't know if I was actually hypnotized so to speak, but I came out of it feeling pretty decent and have been sleeping better, so that has to count for something.

The sports hypnotist, I'm guessing he specializes in athlete only? I've never heard of that. Pretty cool you enjoyed it Z. I can see that being usefull while going through prep etc.

Is it something you will continue doing? Or is it a one and done scenario?

 

[zacharykane]

Chest and Shoulders 5/3/19

Yesterday was my heavy push day. Had a little ART work done before hand so kind of had to move fast before the pain really set in, lol. Overall had a really solid training session and felt really strong.

Chest

Internal/External Rotations: 4 sets of 15
Cable Chest Flyes: 4 sets of 12, just warming up the muscles
Floor Press: 50x15, 90x15, 140x15, 180x15, 230x15 (Did these on the hammer strength RDL machine, way easier to get into position than using dumbbells)
Reverse Band Incline Bench: 135x10, 225x10, 315x10, 405x9
Ladder Push-Ups: High Incline, Medium, Flat, 10 reps at each setting, 2 second eccentric. 3 rounds like this.

Shoulders

Cable Front Raise/Side Raise/Shortened Motion Front Raise: 7x10, 10x10, 13x10, 17x10 (10 reps for each movement, done back to back, 2 rounds)

 

[zacharykane]

5/4/19 - Pull Day & 5/5/19 Legs

Saturday and Sunday were my secondary pull day and then legs. Legs was kind of rough, I did something to my left glute/ham tie in and it was being all wonky. Like, not necessarily hurting but not tracking right and movements felt wrong.


Back - Pump Day

Hoist Pulldowns: 6 sets, 15 reps, working up one plate each set
Hammer Machine Rows: 5 sets, 15 reps, standing back and chest on the pad to get a deep stretch
Over-Hand Hoist Row: 5 sets, 15 reps, working up one plate each set, 2 second hold on each rep

Biceps

Standing Cable Curls: 8 sets of 8 reps, 40 seconds rest between sets


Legs

Lying Leg Curl: 40x15, 60x15, 80x12, 110x12, 140x10, 170x10
Leg Press (Heels off): 180x15, 270x15, 360x15, 450x10->360x10->270x10->180x10->90x10 + 15 second isohold at half range
Leg Extensions: 6 sets of 15 reps, moving up one plate each set