Biggest Natural Bodybuilding & Athletic Event in the Mid West!!

This August 1st, the Evansville based INBF/WNBF Mid-America Pro/Am is returning to Indiana. Only this year a few things have changed.

Instead of just being a WNBF Pro-Qualifying event, it has gain "Advance Qualifier" status, this is the only show of its type in the INBF/WNBF.

This means that instead of just the overall winner in each division receiving their pro card, the TOP TWO overall winners will!!

Additionally, due to last year success with the show, new events have been added to the days activities. These include:

- Powerlifting Strength Challenge (kids division as well)
- 5K Road Race (kids fun run included)
- All day Health expo with tons of great vendors

Not to mention the Pro and Am divisions of one of the biggest natural bodybuilding events in the country.

There is something for everyone!

Tix are now available. All seats for the finals are assigned, and VIP Packages are available as well. Contact Sean McCauley @
sean@thedietdoc.com
or
812.868.8710

Additional information regarding the show, and a highlight reel from last year can be found here:
http://www.midamericaproam.com

This show is head promoted by Dr. Joe Klemczewski, you can listen to Dr. Joe's interview with John Hansen from earlier this year @
http://naturalbodybuildingradio.com/bodybu...joe-klemczewski

What keep me motivated...

This is easy…competition. There is no better motivator in my mind than competition, good and healthy competition, not cutthroat competition. I know that when it comes to stepping on stage, especially now that I am a pro, there is no room for error, and that is a pretty big motivator. What some people may not realize is that a bodybuilding competition victory starts years in advance. You can’t expect to get serious about a show 2-3 months out and be the victor. As such the motivation of competition extends deep into the off-season when you are going after those big gains. It continues and perhaps amplifies once the contest diet begins (even though the off season diet should be controlled as well), and crescendos all the way up to the day of the show.

It is not uncommon for me to think about a competitor whose physique I admire as I am getting ready to perform a big lift. Thinking that they are likely doing the same thing or perhaps more tends to light a fire under my ass, if I don’t push myself outside of my comfort zone, then I know with certainty that I will be disappointed come the day of the show. It is mandatory for me to leave zero doubt in my mind that there was anything else I could have done to prepare better for a competition.

At times the competitor that drives me under that bar is a familiar one. I am my own toughest critic; I am constantly striving for some level of improvement in the gym and with my physique. So when getting under that squat bar, or strapping in and preparing for a big deadlift, I will often times take a long look at myself and commit to something more than I had done on the previous lift.

Life is about striving for improvement, pushing yourself past that point where you feel comfortable, and achieving something that you may have thought was unattainable, and doing so without any doubt of success. That notion itself can be a pretty powerful motivator.

Two leg workouts...Two different styles

Last weekend while I was in Buffalo to help some friends compete, I managed to squeeze in a pretty sweet leg workout that I haven't posted up on here yet. Yesterday, a week later, I did another leg workout. Both were awesome, as I am typing this I can feel the soreness throughout the entirety of my legs and glutes. Both however where different from the other in style. The workout in Buffalo was a higher volume workout focused mainly on muscle hypertrophy, whereas the workout I did yesterday was focused on increasing strength. Both have their place in the bodybuilders training regime, the key is to know when to incorporate the different types of workouts.

High Volume Workout.
Warm up - 3 sets of squats with increasing weight (reps kept at 20 per set)

Giant Set
- Squat 225 x 20
- Lunge 40 lb Dumbbells x 10 steps each leg
- Prone Leg Curl 100 x 10
- Lunge 40 lb Dumbbells x 6 steps each leg
- Hack Squat 45 lb plate each side x 15 reps

Repeat that rotation 4 times
This should cause your heart to race as though you just sprinted a 5K!!

Superset
- Leg Extension heavy x 15 reps
- Leg Curl heavy x 12-15 reps

Repeat this rotation 4 times

Granted as far as "high volume" leg workouts go, this isnt the most volumous (is that even a word!!??), but after the first giant set I think you will find that you are toast. In the past I had done workouts consisting of 3-4 sets of 225 for 20 reps on the squat and was spent, now try adding all the rest of that onto it with no rest! The key is to pick weights that will make you have to dig deep. I found that by the second set of 225 for 20 on the squat that I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make the full 20 reps. So you can imagine how I felt on the 3rd and 4th set!


Strength Workout
Warm up - 3 sets squats

Exercise 1
Squat - 7 sets total after warm up
225 x 15
275 x 12
315 x 6
365 x 5
385 x 5
405 x 3
405 x 3
315 x 12

Exercise 2
Dumbbell Walking Lunges
60 lb DBs x 10 steps each leg
70 lb DBs x 8 steps each leg
80 lb DBs x 6 steps each leg
80 lb DBs x 6 steps each leg
85 lb DBs x 5 steps each leg
85 lb DBs x 5 steps each leg

SuperSet 1
Leg Extension ss Prone Leg curl
3 total sets increasing weight each time.
reps kept between 6-10 on each.
All sets to failure.

Competition Recap

This past weekend I traveled to Buffalo NY to help a good friend compete in the INBF Northern States Super Natural. In addition to Sean, there were a few other Team Klemczewski members there competing, and for many of them it was their first show. Team K pulled in 6 top 5 place finishes out of the 5 competitors we had there, among them, there were 2 1st place finishes, a second place finish, and one Pro Card! It was a landmark day for a couple of the girls competing under the coaching of Dr. Joe Klemczewski, as Jennifer Morakis picked up the ever sought after WNBF pro card, and looked amazing doing it!

There was also newcomer to the sport of extreme physiques, Melissa Broderick, who at her competitive debut finished 1st in the novice class, and took a very respectable 2nd in the open figure to the Overall winner and new WNBF Pro Jennifer Morakis.

Both girls looked great on stage, Jennifer will make a fine addition to the very competitve stable of figure pros that the WNBF boasts, and Melissa has proven herself a natural in this sport and will have a very bright future in it for as long as she wants to.

My good friend Sean McCauley, finished 4th in what was a tough class, and another newcomer to the sport Claudia Gold took home top 5 trophies in both the bikini class as well as in the novice figure.

I dont know what the competitive plans are for the entire team, but I would expect to see at least a couple of these stars in the near term at various shows around the country.

I am so proud of the entire team, we represented ourselves well this past weekend, and I think that we all grew closer as friends, and made some new ones, this is one of the best perks of this sport...it is chalk full of awesome people!!

Jennifer Morakis




Melissa Broderick



Sean McCauley

A Friends Pro Card Attempt & a Sweet Back Workout

I have a good friend by the name of Sean McCauley, he is the Online Training Program Director for the very successful Diet Doc Contest Prep & General Population Nutrition Experts ( www.thedietdoc.com www.perfectpeaking.com ). Sean has been competing for some time now, always finishing in the top 2-3 in his class. There is no doubt in my mind that Sean is an extreme physique, and an amazing competitor, and this weekend he is going to make that known to all as he makes a run for his pro card at the WNBF Pro Qualifying show in Buffalo NY. I will be leaving tomorrow morning to meet Sean out in NY to help him as he preps for the stage. This is an exciting day, as it is the culmination of a 2 year off season, where Sean let his weight get up to about 220 if I am not mistaken, in an effort to add some additional mass. I have to say, I am very excited, Sean is looking better than ever, he is fully ripped! No question, one of the leanest dudes I have ever seen.
I will be taking plenty of stage shots, so stay tuned for some pics to be posted in the coming days.

On Monday Judy and I did a solid high volume back workout. It went like this:

Warm-up: seated cable row - 3 sets
Superset 1:
heavy cable rows (failing in the 5-8 range) SS with Lat pull down (10-15 reps)
4 sets of this getting progressively heavier

Superset 2:
Heavy Lat pull down (failing in the 8-10 range) SS with Sumo Deadlift (15-20 reps)
4 sets of this

Superset 3:
Heavy Deadlift (failing in the 8-10 range) SS with DB pull over (Failing 8-10 reps)
3 sets of this.

My back was smoked. The key here is in the reps to failure...picking a weight that is heavy enough, and still allows you to TRULY FAIL at the set ranges.

Enjoy.

Contest Prep Seminar

Yesterday I traveled down to Oxford Mass and help Nancy Andrews (4x Women's World Bodybuilding Champion) hold a contest prep seminar. We had 4 WNBF Pros on hand, of course Nancy Andrews was there, along with WNBF Figure Pro and 2008 World figure 2nd runner up Melissa Kelley, WNBF Female Pro Bodybuilder Bonnie LeFrak, and WNBF Pro yours truly.
The camp consisted of an overview of everything you need to do during a contest prep, from training, nutrition, and tanning, to suit selection, posing, and how to maintain balance in your life during this time. We spent a couple of hours talking, and then went right into the posing practice. As any competitor knows, you can NEVER practices posing enough, but you can certainly practice too little.
We had a great group of attendees covering a wide range of experience. Based on the conversations that we had after the seminar was over, I feel like everyone was able to take something positive away from the afternoon. I really enjoy working with athletes new to this sport. To me, having your first experience with something be a good one is very important, and I enjoy trying to provide people with that first enjoyable experience specifically when it comes to Bodybuilding.
Aside from the camp, Judy (my fiance) and I had a pretty solid leg workout the day before (Friday). I subscribe to a form of periodization in my training, and keeping that in mind, Friday was my heavy/core lift leg day. So Judy and I performed some adequate warm ups under the squat bar, and then proceeded to get into it. We performed 6 working sets. For my final two sets I was only able to get up to 385lbs for 3 and 4 reps respectively. This was more than likely due to performing a max lift on the deadlift 4 days earlier (I got 425 for a single on monday), and not being fully recovered from it. We then moved on to the hack squat, where we did 4 sets total. I maxed out with 335 for 5 deep reps. We wrapped the workout up with 3 supersets of prone leg curls and leg extensions. We went heavy here as well keeping the reps between 6-10 on each.
That was it, the core lift days in my mind are easier than the high volume workouts, those knock me right on my butt, but I love them too!

Nancy Andrews


Melissa Kelley


Bonnie LeFrak


Jordan Chabinsky

Attending the 2009 Arnold Sports Festival

Never have I been witness to such a dense concentration of muscle and...um...silicone...than at the 2009 Arnold Sports Festival. I have been wanting to attend this benchmark event for years, but due to various conflicts I haven't been able to make it there until now. Granted this time there was an ulterior motive; to make contacts and secure sponsors for the 2009 WNBF Mid America Bodybuilding and Figure Championships ( www.midamericaproam.com ). I still managed to find plenty of time to enjoy myself and watch a bit of the show.

I showed up mid morning on Friday, at this point the festival had already begun, amatuer womans figure had hit the stage the night before, and the expo had started at 9 am (I believe) Friday morning, so when I walked through the doors of the expo hall everything was already in full swing. I couldn't believe the lines that had already formed at certain booths, the bodybuilding.com booth in particular, I would have to estimate that there was at least a 30 min wait just to get whatever freebie they were offering there. Each direction I turned there was a pretty evenly mixed sea of muscle tees, and tightly stretched sports bras. I was however rather surprided at the amount of patrons there that quite clearly have never lifting a weight or ran a mile a day in their life. I always attributed the bodybuilding world to one that was very niche, a subculture even. But that was the beauty about this competition, it was not limited to that of the boydbuilding portion. There were events ranging from powerlifting, to table tennis, and everything in between, all surrounded by the ever famous Fitness Expo, which was simply AWESOME!!. This was literally like a mini-Olympics, and if you have been keeping up with my blog (unlike I have been lol), you would know that I whole-heartedly believe that the sport of Natural Bodybuilding should be inclulded in the Olympics.There was so much transpiring at this event, that it literally took me at least an hour of walking the whole expo just to recover from the scatter-brained state that triggered in me before I could compose myself to speak with any intellegence to a vendor about sponsoring the show I am helping to promote. Once I did though, it proved to be the ideal place for networking!
Unfortunately, I was not able to stay for all three days of the Festival, I left mid day on saturday, so I missed the pro finals, the after party, and the rest of the expo on sunday, with the remainder of the events, but I do not feel as though I missed out in the slightest! I will definitely be making a trip back to the Arnold every year that I can, and I will also be planning to add the Olympia to my schedule later this year.
What an experience!!

I would recommend it to any and all that are passionate about fitness.