The Experiment: Phase 2 - Ramping Things Up

This is part 3 of an 8-post series. Continued from here.


We hit the 6-weeks-out mark on Memorial Day weekend.

I had been too crazy busy with my life in general to really stop to think about what was going on...but the Sunday of that particular weekend was slow at work and I had way too much time to think. I ended up with a full-blown case of anxiety and show jitters and being just plain overwhelmed about stepping for the first time into a world that was so very alien.

On Tuesday I got into the car to go to a session with Trainer at the crack of dawn with massive butterflies in my stomach. Not over the training session but over the show that was still over a month away.

"How are you?" Trainer asked brightly when I walked in the door at 6:00 am sharp.

"I have show jitters already and we're still 6 weeks out!" I blurted.

He stopped. "Yup, it's a little early to have that going on already." he said calmly. "Why are you nervous?"

I set my stuff down on one of the wooden boxes lined up against the wall and just looked at him. There were so many things that I couldn't even decide where to start. He waited.

"Am I where I should be at at this point in prep?" I started with that.
"You are," he said quietly. No pause, no hesitation, absolute certainty and completely matter-of-fact.
My anxiety suddenly vanished with the suddenness of hitting a calm while sailing out at sea.
"Oh..." My expression must have changed because he grinned and moved away to finish setting up equipment while I started warming up: I had nothing else to say right then.

I finished the warm-up five minutes later.
"Ready?" he asked. He had that mischievous smile. By that point I already recognized it: the one that meant he was going to make things more challenging.

"Sure," I said, question marks all over my face. What was he up to?

He had me start squatting with the barbell sans weight plates, alternating with bent over rows with a weighted barbell.

With each round he added more weight to the barbell I was using for squats. By the third round I was breathing hard with sweat trickling down my back. I was less than 10 minutes into the session.

"I should have had coffee," I grunted as I pushed back up into a standing position from a squat, the barbell on my shoulders. I think he had the weight racked up to 125 lbs including the bar itself.
"Didn't you have your pre-workout?" Pre-workouts have been getting me through early morning workouts for the last two years now: it's my one-and-only secret for waking up at 4:00 am functional.
"I did. But I should have had coffee too on top of that."
Trainer burst out laughing.

How they're supposed to make you feel, at least...

The barbell cage is in front of a wall of mirrors. I noted with interest that in my reflection my jugular vein was now visible during supreme efforts. "So cool!" I thought abstractedly.

We moved on into deadlifts alternating with one-arm dumbbell rows, lat pulldowns alternating with hamstring curls, and then standing lat pulldowns alternating with calf raises. 4 sets of 10 reps of each exercise, with Trainer playing with the weight to make it progressively more challenging.

Throughout this he prodded more about why I had been so worried.
"I keep stumbling onto articles about show prep. What is up with all the stuff you have to put on your skin? It's ridiculous. Yes, the spray tan...but you also have to do a pre-tan? And yes there's oil...but you also have to apply a glaze? Why? It sounds like you're...you're...shellacking yourself before walking on stage!"
I had a huge mental block with the whole spray tan experience. As in, I would have most likely tried all of this sooner if it weren't for the pretty much mandatory spray tan. The more I read about it, the more insanely and unnecessarily complicated the whole thing seemed.

He explained that he had done none of those things; just the spray tan itself.

I sighed in relief: it did make me feel better. I was still worried about other aspects of the tan: I wasn't going to go into stressing about makeup too, because that's beyond his realm of experience (the advantages of being a guy in this sport.) Like, how do you know what color foundation to buy if you don't know how dark you'll end up? How do you make your face match, period? There is such a thing as "ghost face" in the sport...pretty sure I don't have to explain  that one: it's when people's faces look several shades lighter than their bodies.  A lot of people pay out the whazoo to have professional makeup done at these shows...but I have a steady pulse, an eye for coordinating colors, the ability to shade and highlight to create certain effects and a bachelor's in art to prove my abilities!: of course I wanted to do my own makeup. But these were more things I was worried about.

As it would turn out, stressing so much about the tan would mean I would continue researching the crap out of it, so nothing of what ultimately happened caught me by surprise. And fretting about the makeup would also mean I was more than prepared in the end! Knowledge is power and all that.

I continued though, "And it's also hard to not second-guess yourself and wonder where you'll be at when you're watching all of these posing videos." I'd been watching NPC shows on YouTube to see how other people did it. I was trying to watch the novice divisions but kept running into videos where more experienced people were on stage.

"Well, who are you watching?"
"Uhhhh...Nicole Wilkins," I said sheepishly.
Trainer rolled his eyes with a grin.
"I know! I know!" I said, laughing, "She's a pro. I don't expect to look like that AT ALL!-"
"She's been training for YEARS!" Trainer blurted. But he was laughing too. Yeah, she's been training for her entire life: she started out as a gymnast as a kid!
"I know! But I like her posing and she gives fantastic tutorials!"

Nicole Wilkins won IFBB Figure Olympia championships 4 times...she has the most titles in history. She's a top-of-the-line figure athlete, trainer and fitness model. That's right up there with comparing your crossrail jumper skills with Beezie Madden. Or your Training level dressage with Charlotte Dujardin. That said, I'm a very visual person and like a lot of people out there, have been known to create new muscle memory just from watching pro rides: I do ride better after just paying attention to what a pro does. This was no different.

So this is Nicole Wilkins.
And I chose these photos so you guys can also see what I mean about the difference between show season and off-season for a figure athlete. Not even the pros look 24/7 the way they do on stage.

Trainer gave me insight into what he had done himself his first time out and how he had dealt with the mental aspect of stepping on a stage for the first time, and it was just good to hear his perspective.

I had other questions. The previous Friday he had asked me to not do HIIT for the first time and instead do steady-state cardio for an hour. Given the target heart rate I was given, this was the equivalent of walking at a moderate pace for me. Or using the elliptical at a low resistance. Or riding Gracie (gaited so no posting; yes, I checked my heart rate for it.) The thing was, I was confused. Some people will do higher-intensity prolonged cardio twice a day in addition to lifting when prepping for these things.

The confusion must have shown on my face when he clarified that this was a change for good: no more HIIT, only steady-state cardio 4x/week. Why the reduced intensity? He explained: "It's easier to keep the changes steady so you peak at the last minute than have you peak early and then have to maintain. Maintaining is hard: every day becomes a low-carb day with an hour of slow steady-state cardio up until the show date."

Oh. "Uh, yeah no." It wasn't even over the 'every day is a low carb day'...it was over only being allowed to do steady-state cardio with no lifting. One of the common trends in this sport is that most participants hate cardio. I wouldn't say I hate it, but I am picky about it: I like running, especially outdoors, and Spinning. And that's kind of it. Pass me the dumbbells now.

But it answered my real question: I figured he was seeing things in my progress that I was not.

And then we finished with abs, which was a first. I had been told at the beginning to not worry about working them; only once a week if anything. That was changing now too.

Trainer set up an incline bench and passed me a 20 lb dumbbell to hold to my chest while crunching up. I tried to not be smug about it as I crunched 10 reps without issue. Riding core strength ftw!

"Okay, that was WAY too easy," he said.

He passed me a larger dumbbell. 30 lbs this time. No problem there either.

"Try this." I was given a 40 lb dumbbell. This was heavy enough that when I leaned back towards the incline, the weight of the dumbbell nearly pushed me back flat against the bench and I burst out laughing in surprise.

"That's more like it," Trainer said with a satisfied grin.

Definitely more challenging, but still doable.

Dumbbells and bench were ditched after that set and I was switched to the TRX to do a couple more ab exercises. The suspended pike was my undoing. My abs were on fire!

In case you're wondering what a pike on the TRX is like...

As for what I looked like at this time, I am definitely slow on the uptake when it comes to my own appearance...as I think the majority of women are: we rarely see ourselves the way others see us.

This famous photo was taken 5 days later while practicing posing at home, and it's where I finally went, "OH! Maybe I do look like someone who could do this!" *face-palm* I took the pic to mark that moment of realization.

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The Workouts

Trainer sessions got exponentially harder during Phase 2. At one point I found myself squatting 175 lbs on the barbell. This would be my PR during prep which as Trainer pointed out, is not a good gauge: the carb cycling means you are actually not at your strongest. I was curious to find out how much heavier I could lift...

During Phase 1 I was allowed to continue doing my own thing on strength training days, which involved adding the exercises Trainer had been showing me throughout. During Phase 2, Trainer started out assigning specific body parts (Ex: chest, back, etc) worked, set and rep numbers he wanted me to work on specific days...and then began introducing me to more advanced training concepts like time under tension, drop sets, German volume training, monster sets, working on reaching my 5-rep and 1-rep max for specific exercises (O_o) and so on and so forth. Some of these were powerlifting exercises: they were functional for building strength, not just to create a certain look. I like functional.

#Truth

Workouts became more detailed and specific. In the process, this is when I found myself being able to ride Gracie sans saddle for 5 miles at a time and lifting 60 lb patients at work with the ease of animals half that size. I suddenly became known as "that really strong girl in the ICU."

The workout assignments were especially fun because he'd tell me the next one and what it was called, and I'd be excitedly waiting for it so I could run off to research the terms and see how it was supposed to fit in with my training. This was all very different from anything else I had read while looking up how other people prep, and it helped me understand why he didn't think my timeline was a huge deal. It would have taken me years to figure this out on my own and I probably would have never thought to try even a third of the things he was having me do. I loved the variety of exercises, the challenges, and just learning so much!

Side effect: it was really cool to now confidently walk into the bodybuilder's section of the gym, the section that used to intimidate the crap out of me, and have the guys step back and give me room.

The strength training schedule was changed to two days of shoulders and two days of legs, with everything else packed into an extra day or two. At least one rest day a week was mandatory...and thankfully I took advantage of that while I could, because unbeknownst to me that would also be changing in the near future.

I would become both of these!! Often times on the same day!!

Carb Cycling

My body became used to it just in time for Phase 2: during this two-week phase was the only time during this 3-month prep that I was truly able to identify a real, clear-cut, predictable pattern in how my body responded to the cycling of nutrients. This is the only time in this series of posts I am going to go into this much detail about how the carb cycle affected me both mentally and physically. It is very, very relevant for later because otherwise you won't understand the additional challenge that this presented as time went on, the workouts got harder, and the food choices became more restricted:

1. Low carb day #1: followed high carb day. I'd wake up ravenous and as the day progressed, the hunger would slowly disappear. As the hunger disappeared, so did the high visibility of my veins, which was fascinating to me.
2. Low carb day #2: the most mind-fucking day of the cycle. Your body visibly shrinks: muscles go flat, veins will barely surface even with exertion. I just looked skinny on these days, a look that I was not fond of. I often had to force myself to continue eating on the schedule in order to get the macros in because hunger would go away for the first half of the day or so. The worst part was feeling lethargic: my body would go into energy-saving mode and be like, "Imma just sleep now and conserve energy, mmkay? You wake me up when it's time to feed me carbs again." During this phase on this specific day in the cycle, I'd feel exhausted and like either a total Debbie Downer or cranky and short on patience, which I had to be careful with. Not a good place mentally, and it wasn't helped by the fact that towards the end of this second low carb day, I'd be ravenously hungry again no matter what or how much I ate. (Again, my calorie average on the low carb days was still around 2000/day, with meals every 2-3 hours!) I tried to make my rest day from exercise fall on this specific day of the cycle as much as I possibly could. (That would also change later.)

Hanger

But thankfully it was only 24 hours because then it was time for...
3. Moderate carb day: carbs would go down first thing in the morning, usually in the form of oatmeal and milk with a half cup of berries. Halfway through the day, hunger levels would spike even higher, veins would resurface, and I'd just feel glowing with life again.

Like the Pandora Forest in Avatar at night.

Such a cool feeling
#alwaysanerd

This was the easiest day because it involved eating the way I normally would have. I didn't have to think much in terms of planning.
4. High carb day: in my mind this day was a free-for-all because it meant I had to eat carbs at every single meal in order to reach the quota. Rice and fruit went into almost everything because they were the easiest carbs to get in, and usually in the form of a cup at a time. All food was still really "clean" and healthy: brown rice, quinoa, farro, gluten-free pasta (it's corn or chick pea-based) with marinara sauce, Caribbean-style beans, low fat real dairy (cow's milk is fairly high in carbs and so is any flavored dairy even when it's sugar-free), as much fruits and veggies of any kind as I could ever want (on these days I went for mangoes and bananas especially), butternut squash and sweet potatoes (I love both), tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. I'd make my food as colorful and varied as I possibly could. Side effect: halfway through the day I'd feel somewhat bloated and hunger would disappear, but I felt unstoppable. During Phase 1 I was running myself into the ground on high carb days because I had All the Energy: Strength train large muscle groups (legs, glutes, back) with heavy weights for an hour, HIIT for the allotted 20 minutes, ride both horses for at least 30-45 minutes each, and then go walking around town with Carlos or Shanna.

With Shanna at Alive @ Five, a series of summer concerts by local bands that occur every Thursday in downtown at 5:00 pm. We watched from the free side of the creek (the paying side offers beer for $5. I didn't want to even consider the temptation...No alcohol for 3 months.) The photo is by Carlos, who was finally off work and hanging out with us.

A hidden mural in an alleyway.
I freaking love this town. It is mine and there is no other like it.
Have I said it enough yet?

This mural went up a couple of weeks ago.
It features space dinosaurs in a restaurant and it's amazing.

This particular pic prompted a lot of "Damn, nice guns!" comments from guy friends on social media. :D Including my own brother, which is huge: he's the type of guy that will do 3 push-ups and all of a sudden he has pecs and deltoids. #envy

During Phase 2, I wasn't allowed to run around like a madwoman on a sugar high anymore (lol)...but then again, as time went on I didn't have quite as much energy on the high carb days as I did in the beginning, so I was fine with that.

And then back to Low carb day #1 again the next morning, and the cycle would repeat itself.

Again: at this point I was still eating anywhere from 1800 to 2500 calories per day. This was by no means a starvation diet, and at the time I was eating pretty much everything I already liked: it was food I enjoyed, enough so that I wasn't going through the mental craziness that a lot of competitors go through where they become obsessed with what they can and can't eat. There were things that were strictly off-limits, yes, but these off-limit foods were things that even on a normal day I only indulged in on occasion in moderation. My biggest end goal with all of this was to keep a normal mindset about appearance, food and activity. Most of you will think I have a very warped definition of "fun", but this really was fun for me.

Also #truth
And riding duh

I did bump up my magnesium to keep chocolate cravings at bay and it worked (there are studies showing that mad chocolate cravings are often due to a magnesium deficiency, which is as common a problem in people as it is horses. Magnesium supplementation can help avoid muscle cramps when you work out, helps with sleep, and also with anxiety). Being able to use a brand of protein powder that came in various flavors that tasted amazing allowed me to experiment with the concept of alternative desserts. I was more apt to crave a texture (soft serve ice cream, for example) than a flavor, and that was easy to manage with some creativity without breaking rules or cheating. Dairy alternatives were also super useful when trying to add variety to the protein shakes I was drinking in order to meet specific macros on specific days: unsweetened almond milk is low in carbs, fat and calories; Fairlife skim milk has zero fat but is high in protein and lower in carbs than regular dairy; Ripple milk (we call it Nipple...) is pea-protein based and their Original Unsweetened flavor became my best friend: it had zero carbs, 5 grams of fat, a decent amount of protein, the same consistency as 2% milk and a super mild "green" taste that was easy to mask with other flavors. I used it a LOT. <- All of this is what I mean about having fun with being creative with getting all the macros in in a varied way. I am a food label nerd and after growing up in a place that had nowhere near the food variety the mainland US has, the variety here never gets old. Like, you know, you could get Dannon and Yoplait yogurt on the island, for example. Here you can get Dannon and Yoplait...and also Fage, Brown Cow, Siggi's, Chobani, Oikos, Walabi, Noosa, Maple Hill, Stonyfield, Smari, etc, etc, etc; you can buy yogurt made from cow's milk, almond milk, goat's milk, sheep's milk, soy milk, coconut milk...I can go on forever. People take it for granted here. Eating healthy here is a whole different beast from trying to make it work back in PR: there is so much more to choose from!! Even after 13 years on the mainland, I still go gaga when I step into a new-to-me grocery store. Seriously guys: healthy food does not have to equal boring!

I'm Latina therefore I love food, mmkay? :D

Anyway. All of that said...on some days I still could have eaten a house, regardless of how much or how frequently I ate. That was just par for the course though, and it was about to get worse.

And another  #truth

Phase 2 only lasted two weeks and the overall changes in my body slowed down. After this 2-week phase, from here on out it felt like about 50% of the time my body would do whatever the hell it wanted when it wanted. And I'm saying that with a laugh, now that I'm writing after the fact. I think I more or less figured it out in the end, but it is just like initially trying to figure out Lily's ideal electrolyte protocol for endurance during our first year competing: more experimentation is required.

Up until this point I had been coasting along. This is supposed to be one of the toughest sports to condition and prep for because nutrition is as important as the workouts, but it still felt like a breeze. I was having enough fun with the challenges that I made the mistake of saying to Carlos out loud one day, "This isn't that hard! I wonder when it's going to get truly difficult?"

HA. Hahahahaha...

Famous last words. ;)

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Continued here

To be continued