Adelfo Cerame: Viva Las Vegas! Or, How to Get Shoot Ready, When You are Caught Red-Handed on a Bulk ;-)

Image 1: These are (from left to right) Tommy Reynolds, Adelfo Cerame, Francine Sablan and, of course, Myotropics Physique Nutrition CEO Vince Andrich. While this photo shows the three of them, when Adelfo signed his sponsorship contract, you can meet all three of them, as well as David "Lambo" Lamb, Raymond Querido and Ian Lauer, fellow Myotropics Physique Athlete's at the company booth at the USA Championships in LA, on the coming weekend. So, if you are in the area, don't hesitate to drop by and say hello, shake hands and maybe get one or another product sample or workout tip - sounds good?

I don't know if you know those gut feelings, those days when you sense that a certain oftentimes unpleasant thing is going to happen? Well, exactly that happened to me earlier today. I opened my email inbox this morning and found... no email from Adelfo! Actually nothing out of the ordinary, as when I crawl out of the bed over here in Germany, Adelfo is usually just sitting in front of his laptop working on his Thursday blogpost, but in view of the fact that he had emailed me only a couple of days before that he had "almost forgotten" that he has an upcoming photo shoot and what I would think would be the best "last minute measures" to take to get shoot-ready, something in the back of my head kept telling me that there was the remote possibility that he could have forgotten about his blogpost, as well. So, I decided to write a brief email, suggesting that in the almost unthinkable circumstance that he had forgotten about his weekly blogpost, I would suggest that he wrote about the revelation he had had earlier this week and the way he decided to "prep" for the shoot. It cannot have been more than 30 seconds, after I had hit the "send"-button that I heard that notorious *ring* and an email from Adelfo landed in my inbox - attached to the mail, you guessed it, his weekly write-up! And as you will see, he had picked the exact same topic I had been thinking about...

Vegas Bound + Quick Bulk Update

It's usually not my nature to apologize in advance, but I got to try to make this a pretty brief update today, since I have a long day of traveling right ahead "Traveling? I thought the Wheelchair Championships were Adelfo's last competition for this year?" (click here to read about my prep for the WC'12), is probably what you are thinking now and I got to say, you are right!

The Championships were my last competition for 2012, but there is more than rolling around on stage to being a professional bodybuilder (even when you don't have your procard yet); and for me that means I will be traveling to Las Vegas tomorrow to represent my Sponsor, Myotropics Physique Nutrition, at teh USA's and to support my fellow Myotropics Physique Athletes Tommy Reynolds, Francine Sablan, Ian Lauer, Raymond Querido and David Lamb, all of whom are about to try to win their IFBB pro cards this weekend... and let me tell you this: I truly believe that each one of them has an incredible shot of earning this small piece of paper - so much so that I wouldn’t be surprised at all is all five of them earned their well-deserved credentials this weekend.

Caught red-handed... well, sort of ;-)

Image 2: Although I did avoid the post-contest binges and consequent weight and more importantly fat rebound after the Wheelchair Championships the impeding photoshoot cought me red-handed and I had to resort to a very strict Gironda-esque protein + fat + veggie only regimen to get shoot-ready in time. No crazy tricks and last minute extreme tactics with which you never know what you will get out of them

For me personally, the show really came as a surprise. I was just getting confident with the idea of not having a 100% cut six-pack, when I suddenly realized that I have a photo shoot this coming Sunday… it did, figuratively speaking, catch me red-handed (or should I say chocolate-mouthed - not what you are thinking, though!), while I was indulging my post-workout cake *lol*

Anyway, I put my bulk phase at a halt this week, and tried to attack the few days I had left as a "mini-cut". It stands to reason that I was not going to be losing a couple pounds within this short timespan, but by just flushing out as much water as possible you can already go a long way towards looking shoot-ready - even within 7 days!

Looking back at the week before I was even more greatful that the intermittent fasting and the satiating effects of Physique 2.0, Thermicarb and a whole lot of protein-laden real-foods meals had allowed me to control my post-contest binge cravings, so that I didn’t blow up as much as I did on previous post-contest eating-sprees. Still, the plan of attack for this week, is pretty strict: Low carb, high protein, and lots of water!

I know what you are probably asking yourselves now: "No secret supplements or intricate meal timing? No sodium laoding or depletion? No water pills or sweating in the Sauna?" And the answer to this is, believe it or not: "No, none of these tactics!" 

I have learned from past mistakes, including those I made in the days before the Wheelchair Championships which may well have cost me my pro-card: If you don't work with your body, it won't work for you and instead of taking the chance to squeeze out the last 1% that I may be missing to look the best I can on Sunday with this tried and proven, yet certainly not very exciting protocol, I'll rather stick with 99%, this time.

The USA's and what else?

Image 3: Whatever you feel is most impressive about Cutler's back, I bet it ain't his "wings", right?

Apropos 99%, I have as of late really become addicted to trying to improve my back. Back in the day (pun intended ;-), I didn't really care - probably like most trainees because the improvements as well as the weaknesses in your back are not so visible to you as those in the muscle you see, whenever you stand in front of a mirror. Accordingly, the obligatory lat pulls were basically the only exercise I did - and to be honest, my main reason to do them was, because they are said to help you grow those "wings"; but let's be honest, if you take a look at Jay Cutler's back in the photo on the right, you will have to admit that those "wings" are at least in my mind the least impressive parts of his enormously muscled posterior view; and that's probably part of the reason he has defended his title time and again before the small mishap in the days or weeks leading up to the 2011 Olympia.

From the picture below you can see that I still have a long way to go, but with my newfound enthusiasm for backtraining, which has become my favorite training day in the course of the past weeks (that has always been shoulders & chest, before) I am pretty confident that the results will show...

Image 4: Not yet as muscular and no longer as ripped as I want to be on my next contest, but I guess you got to live with a couple of weeks of being "in between" if you want to make serous progress.

...if I can manage to gain some muscle while keeping the fat gains at bay during the mass gain phase I have just begun. Up to now, I feel everything is working quite fine. Yeah, I am holding some water in my lower abdomen area, but I am used to that... it's funny how this it as always the first to come and often the last to go, but I have never had a problem to rid myself of those mini lovehandles when I was approaching the next contest and given the fact that the first weeks after a show is usually the time, when you are really blowing up, I am still fairly lean. I can still see the outlines of my rib cage, obliques and abdominals and most importantly (and probably also as a result of an increase in muscularity), my back is not just holding its definition, but also looking a lot thicker.

Call me crazy or biased, but I feel that the combination of intermittent fasting and my current supplement regimen, most prominently the Physique 2.0 + Thermicarb combo is actually helping with that - it's not that I was losing fat on a bulk; I mean, come on, you cannot really expect that, but the way it kept the cravings at bay was phenomenal.

We want YOU! At our booth ;-)

"Phenomenal", is by the way also the right word to describe what I expect the upcoming weekend at the USA's in Vegas to be... well, as long as my hotel room doesn't get robbed this time around! *lol* (click here to read the whole story about how I got robbed in Vegas last year) Ah, and before I forget about it: All of you, my dear SuppVersity readers who are going to be in the Vegas area this weekend, make sure you stop by and say hi to me and the rest of the Myotropics Crew at our booth at the 2012 USA Bodybuilding Championships.

I guess I'll see you in Vegas, then! And in the unfortunate case that you cannot make it to our booth, there will of course be the next installment of my weekly SuppVersity with more info on Mr. C. my new client whose "Rookie Workout" I outlined in the last installment.