Hi, everyone!

What follows is a full week of training, specifically designed to shape and tone the athletic female body, in preparation for competition. I used this training program with Miss Stephanie Perkins, one of my hard-working clients, who recently placed top 5 in two very competitive Southern California NPC Bikini contests. Stephanie stood on-stage against at least 25 other girls in each of her shows, and strutted her Swagger right into the final placings! Steph uses Body Octane and Figure Fuel to keep her strong, especially during the final phases of her nutritional prep. She also utilized Scorch and Vaporize, the Sex Appeal stack, for her fast weight loss supplement program.
Stephanie always trains hard, but we really stepped it up this fall, as she set her sights on her very first official NPC Bikini contest. In Southern California, the NPC competitions are no joke! (like most of the country) – So Steph knew she had to be on her A-game every workout! The supplementation program helped keep her energy up, her focus strong, and protected her body while fueling her muscles through some rigorous training sessions, designed to get her FIT and LEAN! The results? Judge for yourself!


Miss Stephanie Perkins, MAN Sports advocate and NPC Bikini competitor

Stephanie Perkins Bikini/Figure Circuit Training program #09, week of Oct. 4, 2010
Complete the following circuit by performing each exercise consecutively, without rest, except to change weights or move from one machine/station to the next. At the completion of the 6-exercise circuit, pause for 1 minute, drink water, and repeat. Perform 3 full cycles of each circuit. Work hard! Out there, somewhere, someone is training harder!

Machine leg press ( close stance): set1: 140lbs x 15;set2: 180lbs x 15;set3: 230lbs x 15 reps
With feet high on the plate, feet close together, the glute/hamstring tie-in region is the focus of this lower body blaster. Keep weights heavy, don’t be afraid to build shape and tone in this region!

Machine leg press ( wide stance): set1: 140lbs x 15;set2: 180lbs x 15;set3: 230lbs x 15 reps
The Wide-stance variation of this exercise, again with feet up high on the plate, will target inner thigh, shape the quad sweep and bring overall tone to the entire lower body.

Cable wide pull downs: set1: 5plates x 25;set2: 6plates x 20;set3: 7plates x 15 reps
Be sure to keep your torso up and tall, shoulders low and chest high, with elbows driving down toward the hips (rather than pointing back, behind your torso). This exercise builds that width to accentuate that hourglass “v-shape”, making the upper body wider and the waist appear narrower.

Walking lunges w/35lbs bar: set1-4: 35lbs x 15 steps each leg
Be careful with lunges to keep the knee from ever extending beyond the toes. Perform this exercise with slow, deliberate natural strides, and be sure to focus on complete, full range-of-motion, keeping strides deep by bending fully at the knees and hips. Slow, steady, squeeze quads and glutes with each stride.

Cable narrow pull downs: set1: 60lbs x 25;set2: 70lbs x 20;set3:80lbs x 15 reps
Perform these with a v-bar grip that allows your hands to face each other if possible. Changing the width of the grip brings the focus of this exercise down into the middle back area, and lower on the lats. This exercises emphasizes v-shape, but also focuses on toning the middle back region as well. Perform each rep slowly, and squeeze at the bottom to really feel the back burn! Keep chest up, shoulders low, and arch your back for maximum contraction.

Walking lunges w/35lbs bar military press: set1-3: 35lbs x 10 steps each leg
This tricky compound movement takes balance and some coordination, but it’s a killer for the core, stabilizers and to stimulate the deltoids while effectively targeting the lower body as well. A great finisher for a lower-body glute/hamstring focused circuit, perform this exercise slowly, carefully, as you’re likely to be fatigued from the 5 previous exercises.

There you have it! This circuit training program will focus on exactly the target areas most Bikini and Figure athletes need (and most of us women, in general!) – glutes, hamstrings, total lower body tightening and toning, and v-shape upper body to minimize the waistline and accentuate the hourglass curves. Try it for yourself, and remember –
Work Hard, Work Smart!

xoxo
Meriza

Meriza, MAN Sports sponsored athlete, is an IFBB Figure Professional, 2x Olympian competitor and a professional physique consultant and posing coach. Meriza is currently training for competition herself, with her sights set on the professional stage at several shows starting in the late spring of 2011!
“I’m always training, eating healthy and preparing for my next show. I’m also super proud of my girls, including Stephanie…the hard-working athletes around us that we’re blessed to share our time with keep me inspired as a professional to keep on pushing hard myself. Thank you to MAN Sports, and thanks everyone! See you next time!” xoxo Meriza

Being prepared is the key to success!

The Holidays are always a tough time for competitors to stick to their diets and training routines. There is always the family member or friend who doesn’t understand why you are not eating the seven layer cheese dip or the sugar glazed chicken. The antidote for such a thing is “Having a Plan” and staying focused. It is amazing what planning out your day or days can do. You can plan your holiday meals to include your food that you are already eating that way everyone is involved in eating healthy.

You can plan your cardio and workouts around your daily activities like taking a walk in the park, around the block or in our case at The Mecca Gold’s Gym Venice. I had the chance to spend my Christmas with my family and close friends Meriza, Pete and John and was able to stay focused by having a plan. We all are in a state of preparation and our advance planning made things easy, stress free and kept us focused on our goals. The food we prepared was all healthy, my workout was scheduled around our meals and everyone was involved. I took my supplements on time, (almost forgot my Figure Fuel and Body Octane on the counter as we ran out the door! lol)
When away from home I packed all of my meals along with my MAN Sports supplements and was able to enjoy the days worry free. In my preparation for shows or photo shoots I remember an old quote that helps to keep me on track;
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone.”
This is the way to success, this is the way Champions are produced, this my friends is the way of MAN Sports.
Enjoy the rest of your Holidays!

Khay
xoxo

We had a great Christmas this year.  Meriza and I got to spend the weekend celebrating with Khay and her husband – we also got  to spend time with both of our families too. And I had a killer leg workout too!

So we rolled out of bed this morning, the Sunday after Christmas, and had already committed ourselves to training this morning…Khay is less than 10 weeks out from the Arnold, Meriza’s got a few photo shoots around that time period, and I’m already deep into my off-season prep, so, there’s no letting up when you’re “Born 2 Perform!”  Right?  LOL…

Anyway, I invited a few friends to join me for a good leg thrashin’, since my usual leg day partner, IFBB Pro and Pound4Pound world’s strongest bodybuilder, Derik Farnsworth, was out of town on holiday.  And as it turns out, we end up tearin’ up the Mecca!  Our rendezvous at the Mecca, Gold’s Gym, Venice, a place that always provides me with inspiration, was another productive outing.

We tore up a brutal leg thrashing that would have terrorized the gyms of mere mortals  – so much so that we were told to “cut it out or you’ll have to leave”…can you believe that?!  Never in my entire career as a bodybuilder would I have imagined being asked to “quiet down” during an intense training session at a place that was, in truth, the birthplace of modern bodybuilding, if there ever was one.

I train with an aggression and a high level of intensity, and I train heavy.  I grunt loudly when I push heavy weight, but I do not scream or yell inappropriately.  And, I have respect for the equipment I use when I train.  I never bang or drop weights – hell, if a machine or dumbbell is broken, that means it won’t be available the next time I need it.  So we’ll say I train with a controlled aggression when I train – always have. Here’s some fun old footage as an example of a serious training session with some buddies in SD:
This is how we do it – delt training
So you can imagine, I was dumbfounded, when, on my 3rd heavy set of hacks, with 5 plates on each side, cranking through a heavy set of 15 reps, grunting and pushing like mad, with my training partners shouting encouraging words (or expletives and cuss words meant to be encouraging), we were actually approached by the gym staff, with a firm, “You’re going to have to cut that out.  You’re just way too loud.”

I struggled through and blasted up my 15th solid rep (I was actually going slowly, as I’m nursing a slightly strained left sartorius) and carefully racked the weight, as the gym staff member approached.  She had a look of disapproval on her face and seemed perturbed…gasping for air in my post high-rep-heavy-weight, oxygen-deprived state, and leaning on the hack squat machine for support, I politely removed my iPod headphones to hear her telling me and my training partners that we “just had to stop all that noise.”  As I listened to her chastise my training partners and me, I could think of no response (I don’t like to be rude, but the truth was we were no louder than any other hard-working athletes in the gym this morning), so I just started laughing!  Meanwhile, Hidetada Yamagishi, IFBB Pro and Jerome Ferguson, who were both also in the gym this morning, and both looked at us in surprise too.  Both know what it’s like to train hard, and both were also perplexed…ah well, what can be said about all that?

There was a time not too long ago, where bodybuilding was held in high regard by the masses for the beauty, the power, the intensity and the discipline needed to succeed…funny these days how more and more of mainstream masses turn away from the core values that put America on top of the world, and look to be taken care of, to be babysat and molly-coddled, foregoing any opportunity to exert effort or apply intensity and vigor to the world at large.  How quickly it seems we have forgotten that if we simply dig deep, and exert our will in a particular direction, things change!  The world will give way to the will of MAN if we simply push and work with passion! ( More on that as we continue to grow and develop this blog).  Well, anyway, we moved on to finish hacks, free weight squat, and then high rep AFS press…good day, overall for my post-contest leg thrashing!  And apologies to the girl running the front desk at the Mecca this past weekend.  We did not mean to offend or irritate anyone.  We certainly were not damaging equipment, and I do not think we were offending any members…we were simply training our hearts out…but I guess I’m from a different age, another generation…

Martin, IFBB Pro, Jerome, J-Dawg and Me…another leg day at the Mecca!

Pete’s post-Christmas leg program:

Leg Press:
warm up sets:
20 reps with 3, 4, 5, and 6 plates
working sets:
8 plates x 20 reps
9 plates x 20 reps
9 plates x 20 reps, drop to 6 plates for 10 reps

Hack Squats:
acclimation sets:
2 plates x 10 reps
3 plates x 10 reps
working sets:
4 plates x 15 reps
5 plates x 15 reps
5 plates x 15 reps

Squats:
2 plates x 10 reps
3 plates x 12 reps
3 plates x 12 reps

AFS Leg Press:
3 plates per side, 50 reps to failure

Hamstrings:
Lying Leg Curl:
110lbs x 12 reps
130lbs x 12 reps
150lbs x 12 reps(failure)
150lbs x 10 reps(failure)

Stiff leg deadlifts w/ dumbbells(toes inward slightly):
65lbs x 15 reps
70lbs x 12 reps
70lbs x 12 reps
70lbs x 12 reps

This workout program is a moderate weight / high volume program, designed to flood the legs with blood, both sides, and fully exhaust muscles and stimulate hypertrophy safely.  Keep the focus on the feel, posing and squeezing each and every single rep to avoid injury and etch the detail and separation into the quads.  It’s a killer, try it!

My pre-workout supplementation this morning consisted of:

4 Blueprint
¾ scoop Game Day
1 scoop Clout
2 scoops BCAA/amino acid blend

during/post workout:
2 scoops BCAA/amino blend
1 additional scoop of Clout.

The beauty of all of MAN Sports high-performance products is that, with them, you’re able to really bring your body to the brink, test the limits of your own genetic potential – and push beyond them. The formulations are all dosed appropriately; whether it be the anti-fatigue, volumizing, and recovery ingredients of Clout and Body Octane or the hormonal support and performance-boosting Primal Male, BluePrint or the new Prometheus Rising, or even the custom-formulated female performance product, Figure Fuel, all MAN Sports products were designed with effective doses of all ingredients, to deliver the goods, as promised!
With this protocol, I felt like I could train all day, and I know I went further than I thought possible, thanks to the anti-fatigue, anti-catabolic function of the combination of my pre-training protocol.  And the wheels of anabolism were set in motion, the growth processes were initiated before I even set foot in the gym!

Let me know how it goes!

Pete

Hey, Everyone!

Just a quick note of thanks and wish of blessings during this holiday season! I found out last week that there will be no Pro Figure component to the Flex Pro show in LA in February , so it looks like I won’t be getting on stage again until later this spring, likely the Cals again. But, I’m two weeks into my pre-contest mode, and I’ve got a few photo shoots lined up for Feb/March, so I’ve still got the incentive to keep on track. But for this weekend, I’ll enjoy the down-time just a bit.

Christmas is always a special time for me – I love the season, the love, family and friends…It’s my favorite time of year! So, this year, our family decided to join Ms. Khay Rosemond and her family for Christmas dinner. They live in the L.A. area and invited us to spend the weekend with them. Since we’re both in the beginning stages of our prep (she’s 10 weeks out this weekend for the Arnold Amateur Bikini event in Columbus) we made plans to make it a healthy Christmas dinner, as well as fun!

Our dinner included Turkey (a dieter’s staple!) roasted Salmon, a honey-baked ham (I had a small piece of this, after trimming all the fat…not a diet killer, even if not your typical “diet” food)…we had diced, baked butternut squash and a variety of whole-grain breads for our primary carb sources…and for dessert, Khay offered my favorite (red velvet cake) which I sampled a very tiny bit, along with a few sips of red wine. All in all, we had an amazing and flavorful dinner, and a small bit of our favorite “cheats”, but we didn’t over-indulge, and both of us were able to maintain focus on the bigger picture, a successful 2011! So, remember, keep your eyes on the prize, the real goal, and do everything in your power to achieve them! You can live life, enjoy every moment, and walk around Sexy-Strong, without suffering too much!

And, we just couldn’t stay away, so after we opened presents, ate our dinner, played some board games and socialized with the family and loved ones, we went to bed, and woke up smiling, and made the short trip up to Gold’s Venice, “the Mecca”, to get our cardio on, and a little bit of upper body for me, and Khay’s Bikini Circuit program we have for her…So there you have it! A happy, healthy holiday!

xoxo
Meriza