EPIC FAIL!!

You know those awesome training sessions you do every now and again, the type that absolutely annihilate you...not just a hard session, but one that renders you almost helpless for days (if it wasn't for that overwhelming willpower and determination us competitors get!!)
Well I did one of those yesterday. Big session. Delts, triceps, chest. My delts particularly are absolutely burning this morning.
Anyway I managed to do myself a mischeif while training.
I had just finished 12 sets on the delts, a PB in a couple of exercises I might just add quietly...so was starting to fatigue a fair bit. Onto triceps. Very high reps as trying not to let my arms get any bigger as trying to build shoulders to look in proportion with them. Did 3 sets of tricep presses. Onto skull crushers, with the EZ bar. Loaded it up. Sat on bench and went to flip the bar into position while laying down on the bench. Wrist gives way. Bar lands on guts. Massive winding. EPIC FAIL!!
So after recovering from that one, waiting to see if I was going to start spitting blood (OK so a little melodramatic but honestly that's how much it hurt), I had to dust off the old ego and continue my workout, pretending it didn't hurt *that* much. Finished off with chest, went and did half a class (it is a cycle/Tums-Hips-Thighs class and I just wanted to do the 30min cycle bit) and finished off the old cardio on the stepper. Am knackered today but it's Tuesday...track day. It's raining though and the stairs I go to are in bushland, and always covered in dirt, sticks, etc...so think it'll have to be the indoor session today. Jamie, the girl from work decided to join me again today so will have her doing some fun stuff :)
On that note better jet. Meals to make and workouts to do before work starts at 11.
Oh before I go, congratulations to all who competed on the weekend at the various shows, INBA Brissie / ANB South Coast / NABBA/WFF Melbourne / WNBF Sydney. From the pics I saw you all looked super hot and you should all be very proud of your achievements...the toughest part of the battle is actually making it to that stage so just getting up there is a feat in itself.

Til next time, train hard and be good.
Vic x

No more negativity

OK I just re-read last night's blog post and God, what a wet sponge!!

NO MORE NEGATIVITY. From here on end I will be turning all lemons into lemonade, just try stop me!

I have decided that I am def gonna do my own prep this season and see how I go with it. I can write diets, I can write programs, hell I do it for a living! So I am determined to prove (mostly to myself as I think it's time I started believing in myself a little more) to make this my best season to date. To come in bigger, better, harder and leaner than ever before. I want to qualify for Olympia more than anything this year and I will be damned if I am gonna let a negative, can't do attitude get in my way.

So this is it. I will still take my comparison/progress shots to make sure I am on track. Lovely Fern has offered for me to send them to her so that I am accountable to someone, God love her...so still deciding whether to do that...or whether I just keep them for me.

I am posting from work, it's a little quiet this morning, prob cos it looks so nice out today. I came in an hour and a half early this morning and got my weights, plus half an hour of cardio done before we opened, so feeling good. LOVE training in the morning, I feel so much better thru the day for it.

OK better be off now...plenty to be done round here :)

Vic x

Starting again

I haven't been posting cos have been feeling pretty shit about things in general lately. Comp prep (esp training) is going really well, my workouts are still smashing me...nutrition has been pretty good (have had a few cheats but they have been scheduled so am ok with that)...I took some update pics this morning and although I look a bit tighter than I did in the last pics 4 weeks ago, my weight has gone up 900g in that time?!? WTF??

Anyway whatever. Scales aren't the be-all and end-all, I am not a huge fan of them...I prefer to go on bf, measurements and pics as they don't lie.

I took one of the membership consultant girls from where I work with me yesterday to my outdoor track/plyo/stairs session (at her request mind you - she is 20 and starting to change shape a bit so getting panicky...wrote her a program a few weeks ago and she has been sticking to it well). She did some of what I do - got her to do some warm up jogs while I did my sprints, then while I was doing plyo's hit her with the stairs. She did pretty good, for someone who hasn't been training very consistently up til now, she managed to do 5 sets of 5 laps up and down, in a variety of ways...she wanted to quit at 3 sets but pushed her the extra 2...and she felt great afterwards (so she told me anyway lol). She said she is coming again with me on my Tuesday morning session and wants to do a little more. It was actually good for me to have the company while she was there, it didn't feel so long!!

Unfortunately but have been pretty down about other stuff. Have found that since working in the fitness industry full time I am really struggling to make ends meet. I think it would be different if I had a partner or someone to split bills with and whatever, but when it's all on my head to pay the mortgage, strata, rates, bills etc on my own - well the $$ in this industry isn't that great. And kick in the guts came today...went to do my last 2 years tax (yep I know, how bad am I...figured I better get in before EFY so I don't miss out on the lovin from K.RUDD) only to find that while I was working full time before in the corporate world and earning good money, my 2 part time jobs that I had over that time weren't taxing me enough, nor were they contributing to my HECS...so I now have a bill of about $4k. There goes my Rudd money. Pretty fucked but the only thing I can do is go back to what I was doing before - I just can't seem to get on top of things at the moment....so have been madly applying for jobs all day today. Am even thinking that I am gonna have to cancel my comp coach and do it on my own, which isn't such a bad idea anyway. I have done this enough to know what to eat, what not to eat, whether I am looking ok or not....hell I wrote my own diet for my first 3 comps and placed in 2 of them, without any experience, so surely I can do it.

Anyway enough of the whiney bullshit. I did a pretty kick ass training session tonight (must have been the frustration at the tax man), trained back and biceps, and hit a PB with my lat pulldowns and single arm dumbell rows for weight:set/reps. Topped it off with an extended RPM session (Friday night one goes for an hour instead of 45mins) and was sweating like a piglet afterwards :)

Working all day tomorrow then am going into the city for a friends' farewell party...she got married to a Scottish boy last September and they are moving to the UK for the next few years...teaching a double Spin class Sunday morning, then have a bunch of girls coming over for a tupperware party Sunday.

Hope you are all well in blogland.

For all the girls competing this weekend - I know a lot of you are - GOOD LUCK!! Just remember, all the hard work has been done now, so get up on that stage and have some fun.

Vic x

OMG I am in ice cream heaven!!

OK So I just discovered the blog of my dreams. Why has no-one told me about Abby's blog before??? For anyone else who is yet to be enlightened, Abby is an ice cream junkie (sounding very familiar to me...) who is on a mission to make healthy, high protein/low fat/low sugar delicious ice cream...and is currently on a 30 day challenge to make a different flavour every day. She has posted the recipe and a pic of her creations to date, and I gotta say, I am drooling just looking at them (not sure how...I had a cheat today and ate so much ice cream that I thought it was gonna come back up during my 2 hour training marathon SIX HOURS AFTER eating it!!)

In other news...well there isn't much other news.

Fern popped over today on her way thru, driving home from our nation's capital. Was great to catch up over a cuppa, and gotta tell you gals, she is looking great!! Massive change in the last 2 weeks since I saw her, I can't believe it!

Training has been pretty good still. I think I may have mentioned before that I have been sleeping really really well, and it's doing my body the world of good. I have never had this much rest time during comp prep and I am loving it....and my body is responding better than ever. I have packed on some serious size and am feeling harder now at 20 weeks out than I normally am at 4 weeks out - and I am putting it down to the rest I am getting - I used to average about 5 hours sleep a night and I am getting 8 hours most nights now. I still have a lot of leaning out to do but have plenty of time up my sleeve so have no doubt I will get there in time.

This week has flown, can't believe it's the weekend again already!! I am working tomorrow, which I don't mind. Saturday is a pretty cruisy day so all good :) Sunday I am having Mother's day lunch with my parents, grandmother, and one of my mum's brother's and his family. We are going to a club that originates from my mum's hometown in Italy - she is from the Veneto (Venice) region, and I love the food from there. Can't wait!!

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Til next time...train hard & be good,

Vic x

INBA Sydneys and other assorted bizzo

Hhmmmph what a week!

First thing's first.

Off I went to the INBA Sydney Titles on the weekend. As per last week's blog, I was scheduled to act as Backstage Bitch (and apparently that's the official title lol) but sadly my role didn't involve slapping dream tan onto the rock hard buns of the male competitors. My proper job was to make sure the competitors were ready to get on stage when required, so letting them know how long before they had to file downstairs (pump up area at Castle Hill RSL is upstairs in the backstage area) and then calling them down when they needed to go down and get ready to get up there and do their thing. A job that sounds easier that it is, I might add. Well I lie there - it's not that difficult, except when you come to some of the younger female competitors, who like to think the show should be run according to how long they want to take to get ready.

Anyway nonetheless it was a good show. INBA is definitely picking up in popularity here in NSW - the show had more competitors than last year, that's for sure.

I got an sms on the way there from a good friend of mine, Cathy 'Buddha' M'Gee, who I met when I first decided to compete. Cath hadn't been planning on competing this season, in her mind the next show she was going to do was going to be the All Females. She hasn't competed since the IFBB Australasians last year. Anyway a few weeks ago she thought maybe she might diet and see how she came up - but speaking with her late last week she had decided that she wouldn't be ready for this season and would just come along to watch. SMS on Sunday morning said otherwise - she decided to compete after all!! Two weeks of dieting....and she took out the Figure Open!! Haha what a bloody champ!!

Anyway the day was fun but very very busy - we didn't stop for pretty much 12 hours!! Sadly I didn't get to watch much of the show - but I did get to do one of the trophy presentations!! I was stoked when Rab (NSW Promoter) asked me if I would present one of the divisions!

On the training front, training is going really well. I am still loving the overhaul to my program...and most importantly the workouts are still smashing me. I am having a love/hate relationship with the track/plyometric/stairs workouts...the outdoor one is killer - I think any workout involving a combination of sprints, plyometric jumps, 4 variations of lunges and running up and down stairs 3 different ways for a total of 90 (yes - NINETY) return laps is enough to make the toughest person cringe!! hehe But what an awesome feeling to actually finish it!!

Food has been good, I didn't do the Nutella crepes on the weekend as on Friday I was having lunch with my cousin and thought it would be nice to share my cheat meal with her...so the cheat involved a kebab (not too bad - chicken kebab with no cheese) and a monaco bar for dessert. It's the first time I've had one since I was a kid and seriously - HOW GOOD ARE THOSE THINGS!!

Everything else is going well. Mum joined the gym last week (can't remember if I mentioned that) which I think is AWESOME, I am soooo excited to have her training and getting her health on track. I wrote her a program and showed her how to do it all and she has been in a few times without prompting, which made my day to hear :) She is meeting me there tomorrow morning after my legs workout to do cardio with me - I can't wait!! Will be nice to spend some time with her doing something so good for us.

Anyway better jet, it's bin night and haven't even taken it out yet let alone done the washing up or anything!

Ciao for now...til next time - train hard and be good.

Vic x

PS - leaving you with a few pics from Sunday...unfortunately I don't have many as was seriously too busy to take them!! First pic is some of the sportsmodels, second pic is the Overall Figure lineup (winner is the one on the far left of photo, Novice Figure winner Clodah), and the third is a new friend I made, teenage winner Hendri, who I befriended on Facebook last week and met at the show, champion in the making!

"normal" blog

Hi party peoples, just thought I would let you know that I have a 'normal' blog these days (as well as this one)...nothing to do with diet and training...just to keep me sane :)
It's very different from this stuff so if any of you feel like reading the crazy crap I contend with in my life feel free to head over to www.vix-stuff.blogspot.com for an insight into things other than figure madness :)

Vic x

I just wanna know....

....WHO TURNED THE AIR CONDITIONING ON?!?!?

:( The flannies didn't even cut it last night, I slept with my robe on too!!! I want the warm back :(

*BRRRRR*