IFBB Flex Pro 2012 Prep – 66 days

Hi  Everyone –

My addiction to competing continues. This time around, I am excited to travel to California for the IFBB Flex pro in Santa Monica, CA.  It is the first fitness pro show of the year on the 18th of February 2012.  This time I will be doing a combination of a written blog, and video blog (vlog) this year.  Technology keeps advancing and it is about time I caught up.

This week it is about 66 days until I leave for the show – gives me a little less than 10 weeks to get ready. I could also tell you that would be about 1591 hours but I am just being a math geek if I do that.  I have done diets in as little as 34 days,however, this time or this year I should say, I would rather not stress about whether I am going to ‘make it’ for show day or not, so am giving myself plenty of time to get ready.  That means, yes, I will be dieting over the holidays.    I am pretty motivated right now as I took a break over the last 6 months. I went to Italy in November during the time of the Fort Lauderdale pro.  I think the rest was good for me, and now back to getting into show mode with a refreshed spirit.

I am developing a new routine, and have music in mind.  My inspiration for a routine comes from many places. The music needs to speak to me, and usually the routine just designs itself. Whenever I try to pull a routine out of piece of music, it never seems to come together as smoothly as when it comes from a place of inspiration.

Over the off season, I have tried to add more size to my upper body as I am just a small girl to begin with, and then against all the other girls I look really small.   My biggest issue is eating enough.  I am sure that I eat enough, but just not enough for muscle growth.

In the off season, I was either on a 4 or 5 day program.  No cardio.

This past week, I have with a 4 day per week training, and one routine practice day.  The routine practice day is more a refresher days to get my body used to the pounding on the hardwood again.  The first couple of days in the aerobic room hurt.  My goal is to get the routine developed and solidified over the next 2 weeks. I choose not to use a gymnastics floor as I find the timing is different on mats vs a floor.  So I might learn new tricks on mats, but once I am confident enough them, I move right to the hard floor.

No cardio right now, as I just started cleaning up my diet, so need to see if that works first. Plus the first few time I practice the routine skills really wipes out my body that it is hard to move the next day.  Since I left teaching I actually thought I moved quite a bit with that job – it is very physically active, however, being a trainer it seems my movement is parallel or sometimes increased.

Here is the start point.

There is a mistake in these photos.   When you take pictures in order to prep for a show make sure you should have a competition suit on.  I did not have one in the house at the moment (or else I cannot find them) but will be more prepared for next week.   For a start point the outfit is ok, but if you are competing (me) or you are sending pictures to your coach needs to see your body in a competition suit as they need to see what the judges will be seeing.

I have to admit that looking at these photos, even thought things are not lean, I feel very comfortable in my own skin.  In the off season,  I don’t feel that I need to maintain a certain amount of leanness.  I don’t feel this to be normal. Sure I bring my food everywhere, and do all these little neurotic things we competitors do in season, but just not to the same degree.   I do have goals, and make sure that I am eating well, but just not 100% all the time.

Until Wednesday,

A.