Justin is a 27 year old builder who has weight trained for the past five years.  His weight training schedule involves high intensity workouts to build power, strength and increase muscle mass.
 

Fitness Goals:

 Justin's goals include weighing 210 lbs with a single figure percentage of bodyfat; achieving 330 lbs on the bench press, 551 lbs on the squats and 661 lbs on the deadlift.  Justin wants to become as strong as possible with a good level of fitness. 
 

Other Physical Activities or Sporting Disciplines:  

 Justin jogs to keep fit and performs bag work for warm-ups and trains in Ju-Jitsu. 
 

Nutrition:

 I have a varied diet and try to keep it as healthy and natural as possible, but do not restrict myself from eating anything.   If I fancy pizza, chips, alcohol or chocolate for example, I will just eat it, but I don't make a habit of it.  I eat about 6 - 10 times a day depending on hunger. I don't count calories or fat but do make sure that I set out time in the day to eat enough food. Being a builder and constantly working hard all day, I could easily go all day forgetting to eat. Rice and pasta is the staple food of my diet accompanied by all meats and fishes, salads, vegetables, potatoes, fruit, dairy, fruit juices etc.  I make my own special muesli which contains lots of different nuts, oats, bran flakes, crunchy oats, dried fruit, etc. I combine this with a protein shake every morning to start me off for the day.
 

Supplementation:  

Whey Protein Powder.

Hobbies and Special Interests:  

see profile below.

Reason for Participating in the Study:

"I have read a lot of information on the subject of nutrition and know the positive affects that EFA's have on our health. I am very interested in having an insight into how it can affect performance."
 

Weightlifting: 

"I used to train three times a week using a split routine. After reading a number of good books by natural bodybuilders, I now train a full body workout every three to four days. I train for approx. 1 hour.  I change the rep range every two sessions. I perform low reps, then high reps and back to low reps: - low reps (3-5) for two sessions (8 days) and then high reps (10-15) for two sessions, and then start again at low reps."

Exercise

Narrow Stance Back Squats

Bench Press

Chins (weighted belt)

Dumbbell Military Press

EZ Bar Preacher Curl

Neck and Grip Work

Deadlifts (no belt)

Wide Stance Squats

Standing Barbell Military Press

Dips (weighted belt)

Standing Barbell Curl

Standing Barbell Calf Raise

Neck and Grip Work

I have boxed since a schoolboy and have had in excess of 80 amateur fights. I have won regional vests, national competitions etc. more times than I can remember and won a silver medal at the Commonwealth games.
I found that when I hung my gloves up, I missed the competition, and needed to fill a void the boxing had left. I met an old friend and he mentioned how he trained in Ju-Jitsu and invited me along. I loved it. I enjoyed the grappling the most and found the competition was different to anything I had encountered before, but seemed to fill the need for me to compete. It would be nice to say I was a black belt or similar but I’m afraid that would be blatant lie.  I have not once trained to be able to perform any exercises, movements etc, for the belt classifications, because to be honest I am not really interested.   I just train once a week at a special session dedicated entirely on grappling.

I used to be very strict with my diet and always in control of my weight to enable me to make certain weight categories. I now enjoy the less restrictive dietary/calorie practices but on the same note follow a good healthy diet with an abundance of calories. I am at a fat % now that I can eat what and as much as I like without gaining anymore fat. I know it sounds silly but it’s true. If I was to diet down to a lower fat %, like I do every summer, I would struggle to gain properly in the gym without gaining some fat.

I first started to become interested in sports science and nutrition at around 16 years of age. I had been boxing for years with great success, using a routine training schedule and a sloppy diet. My boxing trainer in his sixties, a retired professional boxer had lots of positive input, with the boxing principles and practices but didn’t have much to offer me when it comes to nutrition and weight training to accompany my already existing training. Even though the gym had a multitude of free weights, power racks and machines, he still believed that weight training would add unnecessary bulk to my frame, slow me down and make me less flexible, I would have been eating raw eggs and training like ‘Rocky if he had his way.

So I set out like the robot ‘Johnny 5’ in the film ‘Short Circuit’, in seek of as much information as I could get my hands on. I would buy a book on nutrition or training principles and not put it down until I had raped and pillaged every bit of information I could from it, more often that not re-reading the book to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.

I was so interested, and because of this I found I was learning about quite complex processes, and it was all sinking in. Before I knew it I had become quite knowledgeable in the field and started to put it to practice, re-working my diet and training routine. I incorporated weight training and found I had a good natural strength, and I could lift more weight walking in as a novice than people who had been training for years. I soon started to build on this, within a few months I made leaps and bounds with my personal bests and this then reflected in my boxing.

I had put on weight and did go up weight categories, but I had retained all my flexibility and could now punch harder and had a more solid base which allowed me to absorb harder blows. I had more K.O’s in post weight training fights than I ever had before, that was it, I was convinced, I was doing it right…!!!

While I was boxing I trained with weights 1 – 2 times a week to go around my mostly cardio training, but when I hung up my gloves I thought it would be more beneficial to do more. How wrong could I be..!!, before I new it I was overtraining and progress slowed and the enjoyment faded somewhat. “What was I doing wrong?” I would say to myself, choosing to ignore the obvious, “I couldn’t be training to much because they all train like this in the gym and in the magazines”. Well people in the gym were in the same boat as me and the water babies (steroid abusers) you see in these magazines can handle the extra training as the amount of AAS, GH, Insulin, IGF-1 etc. makes it hard to be in a catabolic state without starving themselves. My saving grace was books I read by natural bodybuilders, who advocated that less is more. You don’t need to add all this volume just keep the intensity high with basic compound movements, eat a good diet (90% of the battle in bodybuilding) and allow ample time to recover and you can’t go far wrong.

This is why I now train a full body workout every 3 - 4 days. My workouts are hard and intense without the huge volumes I used to perform. I concentrate on compound movements and find that I’m stronger than ever.

My goal is to be as strong as I can possibly be with a good level of fitness.

I now train young hopefuls at the boxing gym and try and spare as much time as possible, to also pass on experiences I have with diet and training as well as boxing style.
 

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