Making Gains in the Off Season -by Maribel Burgos

It seems as if I have been dieting all year. Well, actually it has only been seven months. I want to make some serious gains for next year! This means that I have to devote the next few months to hard core training in order to be at my best when I step on stage again.

Dieting, reducing calories and incorporating cardio is the key to leaning out and being stage ready. However, I cannot make the necessary gains when I am dieting and doing cardio twice a day as I have been doing. Now that I have increased my calorie intake I can begin to lift heavy again and make the gains that I would like.

I absolutely LOVE MRI’s Hemo Surge. Hemo Surge gives me the intense pump that I need to be able to tackle the heavy workouts. Especially on leg days… those are my toughest work outs!!!! I have to make sure I pack on the size I want on my tiny legs!  🙂

In bikini, it is all about the legs and the glutes, which is why I train them twice a week. Training legs and glutes twice a week is really hard on your body. I use MRI’s RED Repair to help with the rebuilding of muscles.

After all my workouts, especially after a grueling leg work out, I make sure that I feed my muscles with MRI’s ProNOS protein. I always carry it around with me wherever I go!!!

I am extremely motivated and anxious to step on stage once again!!!

Nick Bolton Discusses RED Repair

One of my favorite MRI supplements right now is the RED Repair.  I know that sleep is incredibly important to my muscles for recovery and growth.  When I’m not at the fire station, I sometimes have trouble getting enough quality sleep.  I know I need to get a deeper, more rejuvenating sleep.

RED Repair helps improves sleep efficiency and reduces muscle breakdown.  It also has antioxidants to help with the preservation of my hard earned muscle.  RED Repair helps with reducing muscle soreness and increases my recovery times by reducing muscle stress and damage.  With my RED Repair, I keep what I fight for every day in the gym!

Nick Bolton Recaps Fitness Universe in Miami

This past weekend was Musclemania’s Fitness Universe in Miami.  In a tough field of more than 60 top international fitness models, I took home the 5th place trophy. I was happy to do so well against such a great field of models but the competitor in me isn’t satisfied until I hold the first place spot.

After a competition, I step back and analyze what areas I can improve on – muscle groups that need to be more or less developed, posing and presentation, and conditioning. I create a game plan based on the date of my next competition.  I take about a week off the weights and normal supplement regimen to let my body rest and heal.  I’ve made adjustments to my supplements and nutrition in order to grow while staying relatively lean.  My high carbohydrate meals are consumed for breakfast and immediately after my workouts so I can utilyze them for muscle growth.  I’m back on MRIs Pro-NOS, Crea7ine, Hemo Surge, NO2 RED, and RED Repair for the building process. I’m also extremely excited about a few new products that MRI will be unveiling soon.

After this brief time off, I’m refocused and back at hitting the weights hard.  All of this will help me bring a better package to stage.

Emily Nicholson Talks Junior Nationals

The NPC 2012 Jr Nationals competition is held this weekend in Chicago.  This is one of the 6 national level shows available to competitors throughout the year.

I competed in it three times before earning my Pro Card.  This weekend athletes from all over the country will come to Chicago to try and win this show and their Pro Cards.

I’m excited for my clients and friends who are competing in this show! With the help of the MRI stack and some intense training, I believe my team is coming home with some trophies this weekend!!  Daily MRI stack now includes NO2 RED, Hemo Surge, Crea7ine, RED Repair and ProNOS protein powder before and after workouts.

I will definitely be in attendance! It’s inspiring to see all these unbelievable bodies walk across the stage.  It will definitely get me motivated and excited about preparing for my next competition and diet!   I would recommend anyone who’s thinking about competing in fitness, figure, or bikini to check out a local show and see what it’s all about!

Weight Training & Cardio for Figure Competitors -by Emily Nicholson

To compete in Figure you have to build muscle.  Your muscles shouldn’t be as developed as a bodybuilder’s, but you will need rounded capped shoulders and shapely proportioned muscle. Figure competitors should not be as lean as a bodybuilder.

Usually women don’t have to worry about building too much muscle when they lift weights. I’ve been lifting heavy weights for almost twenty years and I still step on stage around 112 lbs.  Women have to lift heavy to build the muscle they will need for Figure.

Don’t be afraid of getting “too big” because it won’t happen overnight.  Once you are at the size you want to be as a Figure competitor, you can maintain it.   Once you stop working out, the muscle size will disappear quickly.  Doing excessive cardio is another way to “burn off” the muscle.

To build and maintain the body I want to compete, I weight train each body part once a week and do 10-12 cardio sessions a week.  Here is how I break it down:

Monday – Legs.  Tuesday – Shoulders.  Wednesday – Back.  Thursday – Arms.  Friday – Chest

Daily MRI stack now includes NO2 RED, Hemo Surge, ProNOS protein powder before and after work out, RED Crea7ine, and RED Repair

Monday through Friday I do one cardio session after my weight training and one session in the evening for about 30-40 minutes each.

Saturdays I either do one or two cardio sessions. Sunday I rest.

This is my schedule while getting ready for a competition.  The only thing that changes in the ‘off season” is cardio, which is reduced to only 3 sessions per week. The weight training never stops!

Maribel Burgos Preparing for Team Universe

My competition season started off in April with the 2012 NPC Texas Shredder Classic in Austin, Texas.  I won 1^st place in both divisions: Bikini Open and Bikini Masters and the Overall Bikini Championship. The Shredder Classic allowed me to qualify to compete at Team Universe in New Jersey on July 6-7^th, which is an IFBB Pro qualifying show.

As of right now I am 7 weeks out. What does that mean? It means it’s time practice my “PRN Swagga”, train, train, train and stay FOCUSED! However, as of this week I am having a little “hiccup”. Living in Texas, this is the worst time of the year for those with severe allergies.

I was on my way home after my second cardio session of the day and I thought I was going to pass out. I could not understand why all of a sudden I was dizzy and nauseous. I assumed it had to do with my lack of carbs that day. Nope!!!! That was not the case! The culprit? Allergies!!! I recall having the same symptoms last year and it was due to an ear infection. Now, it is time to take my medication and do my best to stay focused.

Even with this slight little hiccup my ultimate goal is giving it all at Team Universe. Right now I know my body needs to rest but knowing me… that’s NOT going to happen.  This is definitely the time that MRI’s Red Repair will be my best friend. Red Repair will give my muscles the fuel they need while I sleep like a baby J .

Alison Burgess Talks RED Repair

Sleep is such a tricky thing sometimes, especially for athletes.  It’s vital to muscle recovery and growth, and therefore burning fat, but it is also a long stretch of hours where you are not eating, so that empty stomach you wake up to is a signal that your body is in catabolic state (your body is eating itself!  Ack!).  So what can you do?  Sleep less?  NO.  Get up in the middle of the night and make a cameo in the kitchen for an extra 1:00 a.m. protein shake?  Who wants to do that??  Not me, once I’m snuggled in bed, I’m staying there until the last millisecond I have to get up!

Most athletes know we are supposed to end our day with a protein shake so our bodies have something to digest and therefore stave off the muscle-wasting state that sets in while we sleep, but because protein powders aren’t specifically designed for night time recovery, they just don’t do enough.  And as a pint-sized bikini competitor who’s body just doesn’t want to hold on to muscle like I want it to, I need help!  ESPECIALLY in the weeks leading up to a competition, where muscle-sparing carbs are low and muscle-eating cardio is high.  I do NOT want to look like Olive Oil in a bikini on stage!  So I started adding RED Repair to my nighttime routine, and I honestly tell you that within 2 days I noticed a difference!  My muscle fatigue was much less, soreness was decreased, I even slept better, and the increased cardio didn’t flatten out my muscles!

On that note, a golden rule of fitness modeling is not to do cardio on days you have photo shoots because it’ll flatten out your muscles.  But in the weeks leading up to a competition, I’m shooting much more and cannot miss a single minute of my cardio, so I have no choice.  Because RED Repair is specifically designed to combat night time muscle wasting, you wake up more refreshed because you ARE more refreshed.  And definitely photo-ready!  This picture was taken on my 4th day using RED Repair, and I’d done an entire hour of cardio that morning.  Nothing flat going on in that picture, and I promise you, without RED Repair, it totally would have been.

I’m very excited to keep RED Repair in my competition prep, especially in the last two weeks where I’m cardio-ing myself into the wall and licking crumbs off my plate when no one is looking because I’m so hungry (true story).  I’m pREDicting a much less painful final two weeks, and hopefully another 1st place trophy!  Stay tuned!

Alison Burgess Prepping for Culver City

Surprise surprise, I’m getting ready to compete!  But this time it’s different than any of the others – I am cutting it close!!  …and therefore may totally regret announcing it like this if my body doesn’t respond fast enough.  But….oh well! I’m telling you anyway!!

I’m definitely bound for the USA’s at the end of July (IFBB here I come!) but have this sudden insatiable itch to compete before then!  I was on the fence about it until one week ago, therefore have been kiiinda following my diet (no, that was not me you saw at Panda Express a few weeks ago).  But I’ve been super on top of my workouts, plus my recent addition to my supplement schedule of MRI’s Red Repair (new love – my muscles are NOT wasting!) has made my body healthier and fitter FASTER than it has been in a long time, so I’m going to keep it up and give May 26th in Culver City my best shot.

I have the best of the best coaches, Kim Oddo, who gave me the green light last weekend, but told me I have no time to waste!  So May is officially going to be a month of PERFECT eating, PERFECT training, PERFECT sleeping, and hopefully PERFECT results!  It’ll be hard, but I absolutely love the challenge.  The prep for competing is really half the fun – you are challenging yourself 24/7 with every workout, every meal, your bedtime, and your support system – no negative people allowed!  Ever, for that matter!

I will say this though, in the spirit of keeping it real:  If for some reason my body doesn’t respond fast enough (that DOES happen, that’s why we can’t be so hard on ourselves!) and isn’t in tip-top shape for the 26th, I’m marching straight to Mrs. Field’s (you’re invited!).   And then getting right back on track for USA’s starting the next day.  Actually, I’m going to Mrs. Field’s afterward if I compete too (gotta reward myself!!).  ….Hopefully Kim isn’t reading this?? 🙂

That mirror pic was taken exactly 17 days away from competition day (wow even typing that makes me think I should be up and doing cardio NOW!! yikes!), and the stage pic is the shape I need to be in on the 26th.

So what do you think??  Let me know, I’ll be on the treadmill!

Glute Training with Alison Burgess

My favorite workout?  Pleeeeeeeeease!  I’m a bikini competitor: GLUTES.  (duh)

Several years ago, when I was teaching between 6 and 10 spin classes per week (and therefore burning off soooo much muscle), I did fitness photo shoot that turned out great. Want to know why it turned out so great??  Because the photographer had to PHOTOSHOP A BOOTY onto me.  That’s right – I had no junk in the trunk.  Panic button!!

So I promptly marched to the gym and went through every possible exercise I could think of to find a way to isolate and add some size to my glutes without making my quads massive in the process.  And it worked!  Check it out:

Exercise 1:

Hip Abductor Machine:

100lbs, 6 sets of 25

Push as far out as possible using slow and controlled reps.  Do not let the weight touch until the set is over!

(yes,pain!)

Exercise 2:

Leg press:

Both feet up

Legs at a 90 degree angle

130lbs:  push through 4 sets of 20 – always always always driving with your heels!  If you use your toes, you will recruit more quad muscle than glute, and your results will be the opposite of what you are going for.

Exercise 3:

Walking Lunges:

15lb dumbbell in each hand

4 sets of 30 lunges, walking across the length of the gym, very very important not to put your feet together in between each lunge, just KEEP WALKING.  That way you aren’t giving your glutes a complete break and you will have to recruit your core for balance too!

So now, twice a week, I abduct, press, and lunge myself into what is now a round behind that I am totally proud to stick WAY out in that line-up on stage!

Side note:  This will really tear into your muscles, be sure you promptly recover with some MRI ProNOS protein, and RED Repair!  Additional glutamine and BCAA’s are also helpful in making a complete recovery.  Make the workout worth it!