Back and Glute Training for Women's Physique

I spend a lot of time training every single part of my body, but the back view is what will make or break a competitor. 

I realized today as I left the gym, that I have only four months to go until my Women's Physique debut, I am just feeling some twinges of nervousness. That subsided quickly, but then other thoughts started running through my head about the upcoming preparations.

I am training, and I never stop. People always ask (trying to be polite) "Are you in training now?"....The training never stops folks! Ever! I have been practicing my posing and it is so much more difficult than Figure ever was. Everything needs to be flexed and tight, everything, it is strenuous.  So not only will the back win the competition, but if it's a tie between the backs- then the best Poser wins!

What does change is the eating!!! That's the hard and the fun part.

Soon I will need to start a diet. It really won't be too bad, but it tends to go on and on and I just get tired of eating the same old thing without much variation. I think, I am like most people. If there is something that is "illegal, immoral, or not within my reach", I want it! So, when dieting I want big spoons of peanut butter and thick, rare cheeseburgers.

But I am jumping ahead, I haven't started my diet yet and I have a whole month before I need to really buckle under, and then January is a slight "ease into it" so I can enjoy a week in Mexico in February- then all shit hits the fan.

I will soon start to take weekly pictures in my suit, so I get a better idea of where I am. I will modify my training slightly, but I am not sure how yet, I have to wait and see how things "look"

In the past I would start training my back twice a week instead of the usual once; but I am not so sure I need to this time. I believe that all of my pull ups and chin ups in the last several months have really paid off. My lats are huge, and have reminded me almost everyday of how much I am pushing them. I frequently need assistance undressing due to the soreness. 

I think my back looks stellar and I haven't even started dieting! Maybe you are wondering why a back would look different with a diet? Most women tend to hold a great deal of fat in their upper backs, along with their glutes and hips. As you can see, I am fairly "fat free" in those areas, I hold it in the abdominal area, so that's my area to concentrate on and there is no amount of crunching or exercising that I can do for the fat in my abdomen, it's completely DIET!

The glutes look great too- the "smileys" (the folds of skin where the glute meets the hamstring) are not too pronounced, and that will indeed disappear when I diet down too. 

My glutes tend to recruit with all of my leg training, I suppose I am lucky there. Unfortunately it means my quads won't grow as large as I would like, but there are trade offs in every physique. If I had to choose, I would choose better glutes over bigger quads. A flat butt is just an absolute eyesore! I can see a wonderful physique but if they have flat glutes, it just ruins the entire thing.

So what's the plan? Keep training and eating the same for the next month, through January, then assess where I am. I plan to enjoy the rest of my time off as I have been. This means sticking to a clean diet most of the time, but enjoying "normal" food on occasion (a couple nights a week).

I am going to track down Mike the BodyFat Test Guy and have hydrostatic body fat testing, I am not really sure how much I need to lose, but I know where I need to get to! If I know my starting point, then I can plan my dieting accordingly. 

I am (the day these pictures were taken) at 129 pounds. I aimed for 120 at my last competition but dropped to 118 due to water dehydration. I don't think I need to lose that much this time, I have added some muscle, it has been 6 months after all!

Oh, yeah. I need to start doing the dreaded cardio next year too! I did buy a treadmill so that makes it easy to knock out 20 minutes while watching a movie on Netflix (please send some suggestions, I only watch TV when I do this, so I know nothing about what's good on streaming these days).

I will probably start running stairs again at work, after vacation, so that means the last week of February.

Guess I better plan some great food for the next few weeks!