Looking hyooge.

It's so unpredictable for enhanced bb. And it becomes more extreme for people that aren't gassing hard in the offseason but then kitchen-sink during contest prep/cutting. Justin Harris said in one of his 2007 preps he started his diet at 260 and ended at a shredded 266. The guys who lose a ton of scale weight in contest prep are either running tons of gear offseason already or just started super high bodyfat or some combination of both. I also added legit gh for the first time during this cut. So rather than "how much scale weight" will I drop, it's more "the cut is done when the glutes and hamstrings are showing clear hardness and definition", even if that results in me dieting another 11-13 weeks instead of 8. It could be at 88kg, it could be at 82kg. We'll find out.

I don't know shiet about BBing, but you look jacked AF. Couple of questions

1. To me it seems your physique is clearly better than everyone pictured. Correct?
2. Lots of non-Chinese bros in the pic. Where do the natives train?

1. yes obv

2. They train here. There is no "foreigner gym". We just invaded the place for one night. It's a small gym so they never have more than 10-15 people there. EVeryone in my foreigner social circle either works a higher level and more time consuming 55+ hour per week job like myself or has wife/kids or both, so we don't get a lot of opportunities to meet and socialize. Friday nights we usually meet at this gym 2-3x/mo.

BBing gym with ostensibly bbing equipment but to be frank most of the machines look cool and still ****ing suck. They are powerlifters except one of the guys with tons of tats (the non-bald one) also bodybuilds. He hasn't done a show yet and was around 87kg at 6'1.5 last cut and still had a few kgs to lose to be stage lean. In these pics he's 105kg. Still using that polish coach I didn't like working with. He's making crazy fast progress and works super hard and is probably no more than 2-3 years behind me rn. They're all doing a meet next weekend in our city which I'm obviously sitting out. Powerlifting is kinda stupid and I'm sad it was the dominant fitness modality here for years but glad it isn't anymore. I mean it doesn't have to be lame, but athletes and judges turned it into a lame sport. If it were atg high bar squats, no fancy belts/wraps/sleeves, no sumo, no turbo arching, and no fatness it'd be a cool sport tbh.

Legs last night

Hamstring curls: 47.5kgx17, 12, 9
Leg extensions: 4 sets of 20 various weights
Paused SLDL toes elevated: 120kgx12, 9, 7
high and wide leg press: 3ppsx25, 20, 15

I don't like the high+wide leg press; didn't feel it in my glutes and hamstrings like I wanted. Just felt like a shitty version of regular leg press. I'll try the front foot elevated split squats again; I think the weird ball pain was from pants I was wearing and maybe it'll feel fine with shorts.

I couldn't get my glutes as engaged on these SLDLs at this weight, felt lower back taking over and my lower back is sore today. My lower back never got sore when I was doing 100kg for super high reps. Maybe I just bump up to 102.5kg or 105kg and continue the very high reps. My erectors are really overdeveloped overall because my deadlift style was basically 0 glutes 70% erectors 30% hamstrings.

Push
Internal Rotation
Machine incline press: 62.5kgx15, 12, 14
Flat db press: 30kgx15, 11, 8
DB prone delt raises but on a higher incline than usual: 4 sets wow felt a lot more side and less rear delt
Pushdowns: stackx22, 3 sets myo rep matching
Between pushdowns sets, did cable curls 5 sets to failure wow omg now I see what everyone is talking about

Basically my forearms near the elbow have been chronically ****ed since my "no straps ever" experiment. Cable curls totally take the forearms+brachialis out and its like pure bicep peak. I'm not sure why I never connected with the exercise before; probably because I only very recently started actually trying to train the peak of the bicep. It's working btw and my biceps are visually less flat, even in the extended deficit. I've basically been dieting since November with about 3.5 weeks of ****ing off in Thailand. This has been a pretty long diet but I'm not having much trouble sustaining.

Mistakes were made in the offseason and I feel like I finally understand what to do with offseason eating now, so we're not going to get so fat and out of shape that we have this monster-diet to get all the fat off next time. Dieting for so long has also forced me to get into really good meal prep and cooking habits that I need to actually sustain through the offseason instead of herp derping and ordering shitty high dietary fat takeout 6-10x/wk.

Had a pretty god-tier pump but was still fairly watery from the high carbs.

oh I did ez curls 20kgx30, 2 more sets myo rep matching at the beginning of the day on leg day but forgot to log it.

Pull today and my hamstrings+low back are still sore so gonna take out barbell rows and do pullups, single arm pulldowns, single arm machine rows, pullovers. More unilateral work henceforth. I can probably be doing less for upper back/lower traps and more for lats for the time being.

Pull

Wide grip pronated pullups strapped and with a pause at the top and the bottom: bwx15, 11, 11 humbling, but pain free
unilateral pulldowns: 30kgx15, 9, 20kgx11
Unilateral machine rows: 62.5kgx16, 12, 9
Lat prayers with rope: 3 sets failure
EZ curls: 20kgx27, 3 more sets myo rep matching.

This pullup variation with straps really tight and barely applying any pressure with my grip seems to be treating my forearms and elbows very gently. I'll do this from now on. the machine rows I'm not so sure about... although it got that lower lat area perfectly, it just doesn't feel like a challenging enough exercise. Single arm lat pulldowns felt great though.

Gotta work late today and so that means I'll be at the gym late so I'm going to totally phone it in on my glutes+quads sessions tonight so that I can actually sleep afterword.

Cable curls from yesterday ****ed up my bicep/pec tie-in again. The main reason I did so little bicep peak work is because the majority of the exercises that target that area also mess up my bicep/pec tie-in. But the ez curls, leaning away single arm db supinate curls, single arm overhead cable curls, and single arm cable curls without a stretch all seem to work well. Concentration curls are okay too. Today I'll do sum hammers seated with light weights/high reps/no momentum to give that tendon a break.