Last hurah before retirement at 40 years of age. No more hardcore bodybuilding due to moderate mitral valve regurgitation (valvular heart disease). Cardiologists say heavy lifting will worsen the condition. I suspect that the condition was both due to clen use and genetic predisposition. For this reason I'd urge the young folks to avoid clen or any type of thermogenic that raises blood pressure. The risks heavily outweigh the benefits. Getting lean is about cardio, diet and time.
About the pics: Although I feel my upper body was better then ever, my legs were definetely less then steller due to pain in my right hip that I suspect is arthritic in nature. I had to work around this and I did so by supersetting isolation and compound movements with little time between sets. My range of motion was limited as well (I did quarter range of motion for heavier compound movements and half range of motion for lighter compound movements for 15 to 20 reps. For upper body I did plenty of sets and reps with every conceivable excersize from every possible angle never doing the same workout twice. I was all about blood volume training and this was time consuming. I spent 3 to 5 hours daily in the gym. I'd go 2-3 times a day.
I prioritized training weak areas. With pecs, for example, I always emphasized upper inner chest and upper chest in general. Cycle was simple: I used test prop 150 mg every other day. Diet was ketogenic with one high carb day. Six meals a day, 40-60 gms of protien per meal, whey protein was half my meals and chicken, eggs or salmon was the rest. I would cheat with natural peanut butter and nothing else. Supps were minimal. I used fish oil, whey, multimineral vitamin and magnesium. I drank 1 to 2 gallons of water a day and did about 1.5 hours of farklet style cardio daily split between 2-3 session. This basic routine did the trick and I lost 35 pounds as I was really out of shape at the start.
I posted some pictures for comparison. The picture where I look like crap and I'm unshaven was taken in Aug of 09' compared to the other pics which was taken in Jan '10. What a difference losing bodyfat makes. In august pic I weighed about 190 pounds. In the January pic (5 months later) I weighed 175 pounds. In one pic, I'm fully clothed to give you an idea of how I looked in clothes (you can barely tell I'm a bodybuilder). That's something they used to say about 80's bodybuilders - how small they looked in clothes the day of the competition. Back then they used steroids only and it was more about aesthetics over the mass monsters of today.
The end of the Line
About three days after these pictures were taken, I felt what I thought was an anxiety attack coming on and I collapsed and had a seizure. I was in and out of consciousness and thought I was having a heart attack. I thought that I messed up with my electrolytes (I increased my sodium a little as I was carbing up) and I appologised to my wife and told her that I loved her. I really thought that was about to die and felt at peace with that. I was admitted to the emergency room with profound bradyarrythmia and they shot me up with atropine and I recovered. I was in intensive care for three days. They don't know the cause but I have my own theory (can't tell you due to posting rules). I'll miss hardcore bodybuilding. It was beautiful.
I really loved the process. Glory days! They'll pass you by! If any of the beginners have any questions I'd be happy to respond. There's definately some informed folks on this board but I'd say that there's many more who are confidently deluded as that is common with people in general (look up Dunning-Krueger effect on wiki).
Here's some links from pics I've posted in the past:
(1) http://forums.steroid.com/showthread...ng.&highlight=
(2) http://forums.steroid.com/showthread...CK!&highlight=
(3) http://forums.steroid.com/showthread...ape&highlight=
(4) http://forums.steroid.com/showthread...ed.&highlight=
(5) http://forums.steroid.com/showthread...g-)&highlight=
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Originally Posted by Mike Dura
