I've been in off-season mode for 24 weeks now, and have another 10 more to go before I start my next pre-contest diet.
The pre-contest diet will be 18 weeks long and will start on February 12th.
18 weeks is about how long I normally diet for a show - I prefer to take things nice and slow.
So far this year I've made quite a bit of progress, and in the next 10 weeks I think I might be able to add another pound or two of muscle if everything goes right.
The last time I competed I was about 190-191 pounds onstage and this year I expect to be 198, with even better condition. In fact, I will probably have to struggle a bit to get down to the class limit.
On another note, I was discussing arm training with John Meadows this weekend. Arms have always been a weak point for me, and they still are even though they've improved quite a bit this year.
For the next month or two, we're going to increase arm volume training even further, by adding additional bicep work after my back workout, and additional tricep work after my chest and shoulders workout.
So my weekly schedule will look like this now:
Monday: Calves and thighs
Wednesday: Chest, shoulders and triceps (6 sets of probably either dips or pushdowns.)
Friday: Calves, back, traps and biceps (6 sets of either ez-bar curls or dumbbell curls.)
Sunday: Arms (usually 9-10 sets each for biceps and triceps. But rep range, exercises, tempo, etc. all change weekly.)
Once we get into the new year John plans on ramping up my training intensity on ALL workouts even further, so we'll probably drop back the added arm stuff then.
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