Interview
What was your reason for hiring us?
I’d tried dieting a few times before but couldn’t get lean enough. The internet is full of nonsense and shortcuts, which is obvious now that I look back on it, but I kept using whatever method was trending and this simply ended in me failing each time. That’s why I reached out for coaching. I wanted to get it right this time and enter my first competition.
What were your thoughts on the process?
I prepared myself for a little stress thinking that learning about macronutrients in foods would be hard, but after some getting used to it was a lot simpler than I thought. It was a nice break to have my training all planned out for me. I was surprised at how simple we were able to keep things.
How do you feel about the results?
I went from 83kg to 69kg at the time of the contest. My Tanita scale estimated me at 7% body fat, though I know these aren’t that accurate. I was called forward three times but I didn’t make the final posedown. It doesn’t matter to me that I didn’t get a placing, I didn’t even think I’d get into good enough condition to compete when I started, so I surprised myself. I got as lean as any of my other competitors, and a trainer friend commented, surprised at my conditioning level this time around, that it was a shame I wasn’t entering any other competitions this year. This felt great!
What are your thoughts looking forward?
After getting properly lean for the first time I’m finally able to see that these are my weak areas. Building my shoulders and back will be my main focus over the coming year.
I have a lot more control over my diet now. Also, I feel that I have a lot more energy for my training than I did prior to when I started dieting. One of the important parts of the coaching for me was that I knew it was all backed up by science, which put my mind at ease. Ths was a great experience, thank you.
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Training details:
- As with Kosuke, exercise selection followed the guidelines we covered for you in this article.
- A mix of linear progression, linear periodization, and double progression was used given that Hide had more experience than Kosuke. This will be familiar to those that have a copy of The Muscle and Strength Pyramid book.