When I posted the champions from the 2009 NPC Nutrishop Texas Shredder Classic I only posted the overall champions.  As it turns out the women’s Open Overall Champion, Mary Moran Parker,  and the women’s Novice Overall Champion, Beverly Williams-Hawkins,  both won the 35+ and 50+ divisions respectively.  So, I didn’t post the Teen, Men’s Masters, Figure Masters, or Bikini Masters champions.  So, here they are:

August Dobelman  Teen Champ

Gerald Peil  Men’s Masters 40+ Champ

Gary Benkendorf  Men’s Masters 50+ Champ

Tammy Kemnitz Masters 35+ Figure Champ

Celia Cadena Masters 50+ Figure Champ

Alejandra Palacios Masters Bikini

First of all I want to give my recommendation on some great T-shirts by Built By Iron.  I’m not into designer T-shirts, but I really like the design on these shirts and the fabric is super-comfortable.  Not only that, but the price is very reasonable as well!  Check them out at www.builtbyiron.com

I can’t go so far as to say my training is going great, but under the circumstances it’s going fairly well.  I’ve been hampered by an inflammed triceps tendon and inflammation in my lower back.  However, I’ve been working around the injuries as best I can.  This week I only went to 185 lbs on the bench press, but I cranked out sets of 15-20 reps.  The tendon isn’t quite as painful doing incline presses, so I was able to go up to 185 lbs on that exercise as well.

Due to my back pain I didn’t wanted to go heavy on squats and leg presses.  This week I started with leg presses, keeping the weight light but I performed a set of 100 reps with 450 lbs.  My legs were really burning after that and I didn’t expect to be able to squat very well.  However, I was able to work up to a set of 10 with 275 lbs going well below parrallel.  I was going to finish squats with a set of 15-20 reps with 225, but 10 reps were all I had left.  Rebekah and I  finished with leg extensions, leg curls and calf raises and my legs were fried!    I did legs on Monday and my thighs and glutes are still extremely sore today!

Yesterday Mari and JoAnn joined me for my first “Shredder Walk” of the year.  JoAnn has been working very hard at cardio this year and kicked our butts…..finishing the 4 mile walk (plus 18 flights of stairs) a full 2 minutes ahead of me and Mari.  It was about 95 degrees yesterday and I was trashed for the rest of the day.

I seem to need more recovery than I thought!  I would swear that when I originally posted this blog I had written some text.  Whatever the case, I still haven’t fully recovered from the Texas Shredder Classic.  My bodyweight is still down,  my joints are really sore and my strength is lacking right now.

On May 2nd I lifted in the Hyde Park Gym Push/Pull Meet trying to defend my title from last year.  Unfortunately with the loss of weight the previous week (about 6 lbs) I was still weak and didn’t lift well.  I was able to deadlift a little more than last year (455 lbs), but I got buried by 295 in the bench press.  I was much stronger several weeks prior to the meet when I benched 285 lbs and deadlift 465 lbs in workouts.

Massive Ronald Strahan took the men’s title and the women’s champion was none other than my gorgeous training partner, Marivel Fortenberry!  Surprisingly both were lifting in their first competition ever!

The 2009 Nutrishop Austin NPC Texas Shredder Classic was the best Shredder Classic ever!

Pictured are the overall champions from top to bottom. Kene Chinweze, Open Champ (6′4″ 238 lbs!); Holly Barber, Figure Champ; Rebekah Gregory, Bikini Champ; Mary Moran-Parker Open Women’s Champ (2-time overall), Jake Oszcaiewitz, Novice Men’s Champ; and Beverly Williams-Hawkins, Novice Women’s Champ.

The show was absolutely amazing in every respect from the athlete turnout (over 150 total entries), to the audience turnout (sold out 900 seat auditorium, plus standing room only tickets), as well as great judging and not a single glitch at the night show! The depth and quality of the drug-free athletes was incredible! My contest staff and NPC staff did a superb job! And, the audience came through with lots of noise for all of the competitors! Thank you to everyone invovled with the 2009 Shredder Classic!!!

Wow!  It’s been a couple months since I’ve posted a blog!  Sorry, but this man has been freakin’ busy!!!  And, my daughter has pretty much taken over the laptop computer that I got for Christmas, so my only computer time is in my office.

So, what have I been up to???  Well, the NPC Texas Shredder Classic is just around the corner….a week from tomorrow!  Every year it sucks my life in like a black hole!!!  If I’m not training clients, working out, eating or sleeping, I’m working on stuff for the Shredder Classic.  I’m ready to get my life back!  But the ‘09 Shredder is looking great!!!  Right now I’ve got over 130 entries  and some awesome competitors returning from last years show.  Last year Novice midwt champ Craig Ritchie and Novice hvywt champ Kene Chinweze brought the house down in one of the best posedowns I’ve seen!  Craig ended up with the title, but Kene is back for another shot, and man…that guy is huge!!!!  ‘08 women’s overall champ Mary Moran-Parker is returning to defend her title and will get some stiff competition from Jorah Messbarger.  Both are in fantastic shape!  With over 40 women entered in Figure and another dozen in the new Bikini division we are sure to see some seriously hot bodies on stage!

You see how the Shredder Classic is sucking me in????

On to my life and times.  Well, the econ0my doesn’t seem to be affecting my personal training business at all.  I’m busier than ever!  Plus, beginning the first weekend of February I started holding weekly posing classes for Bodybuilding and Figure competitors every Saturday at Hyde Park Gym.  I’ve even worked quite a number of Sundays to fit in everybody that wants to work with me.  On March 7th my girlfriend, Diana, threw me a great 50th birthday party at The Broken Spoke.  My friend, Dale Watson was playing and he got me up onstage to do Folsom Prison Blues with him.  It was great!  So many of my good friends and family came out….it was an awesome party!

Then on March 21st I traveled to Eagle River, Alaska (near Anchorage) to conduct a posing clinic at CMC Personal Training.  Shawn and Cinzia Clapp are such wonderful people and so passionate about natural bodybuilding, figure and fitness that the weekend was an absolute blast!!!  The only drawback was that I had to cram all of my clients into 4 days that week, so I was working 7am to 10pm pretty much every day.  The travel to and from Alaska took me all day Friday and all day Monday.  I trained clients from early in the morning until late at night Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, then left again on Friday morning for my guest posing gig at the NPC West Texas Classic in Lubbock.  My friends Andrew and Kathleen Zamora did a masterful job on the show!  And, my daughter was competing in her first figure competition!  She looked fantastic placed 4th in a very tough class, which included my former training partner Abby Marie (winner), and my friend/client JoAnn Richey who placed second in her very first show!

I threw in a photo of my daughter Blythe from when she was about 14 months old…..already showing an interest in the weights!!!

So, it was a great time in Lubbock, but then it was back to work with lots to do and lots to catch up on!

But, my training is going great in spite of the lower back and tricep tendon issues that I’ve been battling.  I’m going to defend my Hyde Park Gym Push/Pull title on May 2nd (the week after the Shredder Classic).  Last year I benched 290 and deadlifted 450 in the meet.  This week I bench 280 and deadlifted 460…with 2 more weeks to prepare.  Right now I’m weighing about 177  and I pinched at 4.1% bodyfat today.  I’m pretty excited about how things are going!

I sure am having a hard time keeping this blog updated!  First it was that my home computer was down.  Diana was so sweet and gave me a laptop for Christmas.  Before I could get everything set up on it, it got a virus (disguised as an anti-virus and anti-spyware).  By the time I got up and running again I’d gotten just ridiculously busy with work….both personal training and preparing things for the 2009 Nutrishop NPC Texas Shredder Classic.  I’m having time to post this blog right now because one of my clients is MIA.

I was hoping to do some blogging from LA when I was there for the IFBB Ironman Pro XX/Fit Expo.  I had some time, unfortunately in order to log on through the hotel wireless internet connection you had to be either in the lobby, in the cafe, or in the bar.  I was thinking more in terms of sitting in bed and writing my blog, so that didn’t get to happen.  But, as usual the Pro Ironman/Fit Expo was an absolute blast.  I say it every year and I’ll say it again, the staff at Ironman Magazine is just a wonderful group of people, and it’s such a privelege and a treat to get to work with them!  To add to the fun we had Raven (my Jan 09 cover model partner), Christine Pomponio, and Camille (Feb 09 cover model) all in the Ironman Magazine booth.  We also had visits from Ironman Hardbodies Michelle Poulin and Tanji Johnson.  I had to sneak over to the Bodybuilding.com booth to get a quick photo with Hardbody Jamie Eason (can you believe the 2005 Texas Shredder Classic was her first show?).  Add to that we had appearances by Flex Wheeler, Chris Cormier and Bill Grant.  Tiny Meeker stopped by to shoot a photo with me before he headed to the bench press competition.  Afterward he stopped back by to let me know that he won.  I don’t remember the exact number, but I believe it was a 900+ bench press!!!  Then he did 10 reps with 600 lbs!!!

We had so many cool people stop by the booth!  It’s great to get to meet the fans and also great to see some of the same faces who attend every year and always come by the Ironman booth to say hi.  Raven was a slave-driver, forcing me to autograph copies of our Jan 09 issue rapid-fire.  We signed something like 500 copies in about 4 hours for appreciative fans on Saturday.

Also paying a visit to the Ironman booth was Crystal West who will be appearing in the Hardbody section in  an upcoming issue (I believe April 09).  Crystal reported that she is now doing over 1100 chinups in 2 hours.  Yes…you read that right!

Although I didn’t get to watch the prejudging, I thoroughly enjoyed the finals of the Ironma Pro XX.  Silivio Samuel was spectacular!!!  Silivio is so consistently ripped to shreds for every competition.  I knew it was just a matter of time before the took the Ironman title.

Unforunately for me, taking the trip to LA for the Ironman threw a little kink in my training schedule.  I worked out Monday through Thursday before leaving for LA.  But, I didn’t get home until 1:15 am on Monday morning and had to get up at 4:45am to be at the gym at 6am for my first Monday client.  I trained clients from 6am until 8:30pm.  I didn’t have any breaks long enough to get a workout done.  I got home at about 9:15pm then had to drive with Diana to Dallas.  Got to bed 1:30ish and then got up again at 5:45am.  I had planned to workout in Dallas on Tuesday, but I was so sleep-deprived that I was nauseated!  We got delayed getting out of Dallas on Wednesday morning by an ice storm.  By the time we got home on Wednesday afternoon I had to go straight to work and trained clients until 8:30pm.  So, finally on Thursday I got to work out again.  I couldn’t believe I went 7 days in a row without training.  I can’t remember the last time that happened!    Even when I had my hamstring surgery in 2007 I only went 4 days without training.  Needless to say, I was eager to get back after the weights!  My gorgeous training partner, Mari, was missing me really badly too!

I ‘m not going to make any promises, but tomorrow I hope to catch up with my workouts on the blog.