Page 110 - Demo

110 || FITNESS MAGAZINE || NOVEMBER 2ND EDITION 2015 was %u201cworthy%u201d of his teachings) I competed in the gladiator, coming in the biggest and fullest ever. I had brought a formidable physique to the stage, but unfortunately the judges saw otherwise. I ended up placing top five again. My father felt like I got robbed, but I had already gone too far to give up. So four months later, after making some tweaks and adjustments, I competed in the Maryland and East Coast again. I ended up in the top three, qualifying me for nationals which I will be going to in Miami in November.As far as my training regimen goes, after eight years of training, I tried many different routines and philosophies. The one routine that works best for me is the one my father always swore by. And that is Mike Mentzer%u2019s high intensity training perfected by Dorian Yates, doing the most amount of work in the least amount of time. Basically, it requires doing one body part a week, 2-3 exercises max per body part. The only disadvantage with this is that you have to have a training partner because we do a lot of negatives, forced reps, drop sets, super sets and rest pauses. As far discouraged, I wiped my tears feeling like I had failed my namesake and the honor of my father. However, when talking to my father after the show with tears in my eyes and a heart full of sorrow he told me one of the greatest lessons I needed to hear, and it stuck with me till this day. He said, %u201cson, in life, when you have bad experiences, you should be extremely grateful instead of discouraged, because from pain arises growth, and you cannot grow without immense pain.%u201d He also said, %u201cDon%u2019t say you%u2019re having a bad day, say you%u2019re having a character building day!%u201d So after feeling lost, in the dark, and defeated, I arose from the ashes once again, but even better and stronger. A year later I placed top five in the Maryland State and top five in the East Coast Classic. Not a victory, but not a defeat, but still not where I wanted to be. I was at least making some forward progress and realized that I wanted to continue training and competing despite being more interested in a modeling career at the time. So after another long hard year of excruciating, grueling training (this time my dad was training me because he now knew I