Jeromy Bryk – @Bryk_Squuaadd
As I write this we are in the home stretch, under 2 weeks out from the NPC Natural Ohio. My body is feeling beat down, hungry and tired. All the wonderful feelings you’d expect when preparing for a bodybuilding show. But overall I am excited with the changes I am seeing daily and very much looking forward to seeing what my final conditioning looks like on March 31st and I am feeling very confident in my chances to perform extremely well. My body weight is consistently around 179-181 give or take depending on sodium and water intakes each day which is the lightest I have been in years. So to say I’m feeling super lean is accurate!
After the first 6-7 weeks of prep had gone off smoothly without any major issues, I knew I was probably due for some adversity in the last stretch of training. Sure enough, the last couple of weeks have been interesting and life has thrown me some curveballs to challenge me physically and mentally to see how bad I really want this. That came in the form of a heavier than usual load at work, compounded with a tooth infection that required an emergency tooth removal in the middle of the final week in February. The tooth removal caused me to miss 3 days of lifting and a day of cardio while recovering, and, in the grand scheme of things, this is just a minor setback. I found it very difficult mentally to be away from my workouts this close to competition, knowing every meal and training session count now more than ever. However, I was able to make my way back into the gym the following Monday (surgery was on Thursday) and get back to full capacity without any major hits to my physique or getting a dry socket lol. Somehow I’m glad I went through a rough stretch during prep as it is going to make the overall reward that much sweeter for me knowing I’m able to overcome road bumps along the way. I’m embracing the grind and growing from it. With all that being said, here are some updates on what my training and diet are looking like under 2 weeks out!
Diet:
My diet has been pretty straight forward up to this point. My coach still has me eating 2300-2500 calories daily while keeping protein high, carbs moderate, and fats low and I see no major changes coming until peak week in a couple of weeks here. I have however, made incremental changes on my own including upping my daily sodium intake as I found myself getting flat early during some of my workouts lately. For those of you who may not know, sodium and water work together to achieve a maximum pump in the gym, and on stage, so adding in more of one or both can do wonders to keeping fullness while in a steep caloric deficit.
Training:
From a weight training standpoint I am taking the last few weeks of prep to continue to focus in and bring as much detail out of the muscle as possible. However, I do realize that lifting heavy has gotten me this far so I am not lightening up my weights and limping into the show by any means. I will still be performing my heavy compound movements (bench, squat and deadlift) up until the final days of training so that I am able to stimulate the body to maintain it’s strength and retain the hard earned muscle I have put on over the last couple of years.
The main major training adjustments I have made up to this point have been with my cardio: I have strategically added cardio in weekly over the last 10 weeks, week 1 I was at 35 min a day steady state cardio total to my current level of 60 min a day total, alternating between 30 min steady state and 30 min hiit training on the stairmaster or treadmill every other day and 30 min steady state on the stair master or treadmill daily for my afternoon session. This has allowed me to further burn fat without changing my weight training or diet very much at all and I am pleased with how my body has responded.
I have one hard week of training left before we change things up for peak week! I will be posting again next week to give a final preview of what my progress is like and the game plan heading into peak week for the show! Thanks for following along!
Jeromy
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