2009 NPC Midwest Ironman

November, 15 2009

The 2009 NPC Midwest Ironman took place on Saturday, November 7th, 2009 at the Gateway Theater in Chicago. NPC Illinois State Chairman Chuck Sanow and Ron Altieri put on another big show featuring over 120 competitors. The guest poser was 3-Time Mr. Olympia Jay Cutler who promised at this event last year to win the 2009 title. As we all know, Jay fulfilled his promise being the first Mr. Olympia to lose the title and then win it back.

Ironman Competitor Interviews

Firoslava Nelson looked fantastic winning the Overall for Masters Women Bodybuilders, and she also won her Lightweight Class in the Women’s Open division. She was very ripped and muscular and had a tremendous physique in only her second year of competing.

ABB - How old are you?

Firoslava - How old I am? I’m not going to tell you! Over 35, that’s all I’m going to say.

ABB - How many years have you been training?

Firoslava - I’ve been training 8 years. This is my second year competing.

ABB - What other shows have you done?

Firoslava - I was in the Continental and I won first place lightweight.

ABB - Tell us about your training routine. How many days a week do you work out?

Firoslava - I train Monday through Friday for about 2 ½ hours a day. I love to work out.

ABB - How do you split up your workouts?

Firoslava - Yes, I train legs on Monday and Friday, Tuesday I train chest and shoulders, Wednesday is back and Thursday is arms.

ABB - So you do legs twice a week?

Firoslava - Yes, I train legs twice a week.

ABB - Is that because you’re training to focus on that body part more?

Firoslava - Yes, I’m always trying to get bigger legs to match my upper body.

ABB - What are you doing in your workouts to bring your legs up?

Firoslava - I do a lot of extensions and squats and I love leg press. I also do lunges and deadlifts.

ABB - So you lift pretty heavy then to build your body?

Firoslava - Yes, I love to go heavy.

ABB - Do you do 6-8 reps?

Firoslava - Yes.

ABB - What type of diet do you follow?

Firoslava - Basically, I eat fish, chicken, brown rice and oatmeal.

ABB - Do you go up in weight in the off-season or are you pretty lean all the time?

Firoslava - I am lean all the time, I don’t like to be chunky. My normal weight is 110 and right now I am 98 pounds.

ABB - How long do you diet for a competition?

Firoslava - I diet for 12 weeks.

ABB - What are your future plans for competition?

Firoslava - I want to get my pro card in the IFBB.

ABB - How many shows have you done so far in your career?

Firoslava - This is only my second show. I did my first show at the 2008 NPC Continental USA where I took first place in the lightweight class.

ABB - How long do you think it will take you to turn pro?

Firoslava - As soon as possible!

Danny Stevens is a 22 year old bodybuilder who has been competing since 2007. He lives in Rockford, Illinois and he runs his own personal training studio while attending college. Danny took 4th place in the light heavyweight class of the Novice division.

ABB - Hey Dan, how many years have you been training?

Danny - My first bodybuilding show was in 2007, but I actually was an endurance cyclist prior to beginning lifting at 12 years old. I have been lifting weights off and on for 10 years.

ABB - How much progress have you made since you started lifting?

Danny - Well, when I was cycling at age 15, my competitive weight was about 140 pounds. The biggest I’ve ever been in bodybuilding was 258 pounds. Obviously, my age has played a factor but we’re looking at over 100 pounds gained since I started lifting. I think I was also a little bit shorter when I was younger so you have to factor that in too.

ABB - What was your heaviest body weight in the off-season?

Danny - The biggest I ever saw was a mid-day weight of 258 and I was holding about 245 steady.

ABB - What weight did you compete at?

Danny - I weighed in right at the top of the class, at 198 pounds.

ABB - What are your aspirations in bodybuilding? What goals do you have in the sport?

Danny - To see how far I can push it, if I can make it to the pro ranks. I still consider myself a “newbie” because I just started competing 2 years ago. I'd really like to make the fitness industry my career, building a business as well as my body.

ABB - It seems like you gained weight in the off-season and bulked up. Do you think that was a good way for you to make progress in your physique?

Danny - Yeah, because I actually competed 20 pounds heavier than my last show in 2008, and I was probably about 5-7 pounds harder. So, I think putting on 40-45 pounds in the off-season helped me. For the future, I’m going to stay within 20 pounds of my eventual stage weight. But, to really bring the size up, I needed to bulk up this time.

ABB - What’s your training routine like? How many days a week do you go to the gym and how was your contest training different than your off-season training?

Danny - I’ve always kept the school of thought that I don’t change my training much when I’m getting ready for a show. If my off-season training is what made me, why change that? I still try to train as intense and heavy as I can without sacrificing form or risking injury. The only thing I changed from the off-season was my cardio. I also started working legs with a little more frequency. Other than that, the way I split my workouts and what I trained on what days stayed the same. In the off-season, I usually train 5 days a week.

ABB - When you're preparing for a show, how much cardio do you do?

Danny - The most I got up to was 65 minutes a day. That was split between two sessions. I mostly used the treadmill on an incline but I also threw some elliptical work in there.

ABB - So, you were doing cardio every day?

Danny - Yeah, cardio was every day.

ABB - Were you doing the steady state cardio or were you doing more of the HIIT training?

Danny - My main session was in the morning on an empty stomach and then I was doing another 20-30 minutes at night before going to sleep.

ABB - Did you worry that doing too much cardio might affect your muscle tissue?

Danny - I really don’t think I lost much muscle mass going into this show. I didn’t see any difference in my strength until about two weeks out.

ABB - Now, in the off-season when you were trying to gain weight, were you watching what you were eating or were you eating anything you wanted?

Danny - I eat clean most of the time. I would say most of my meals are 95% clean. I do go out and eat sometimes but, for the most part, I will choose a steak, some type of good carb and a salad. I was eating about 2-3 cheat meals a week in the off-season. Eating six times a day, every day, that’s not that many cheat meals.

ABB - When you started dieting for the show, how did you change your diet?

Danny - I didn’t cheat, I didn’t have any “re-feeds”. I basically just started with high protein, moderate carbs and low fat. As I got closer, we changed the diet as needed. I should mention that I was working with Optimum Nutrition athlete and IFBB Pro George Farah with my diet for this contest.

ABB - How low did you have to take the carbs?

Danny - My carbs actually stayed at a pretty decent level most of the time. I only had two really, really low days prior to my carb-load. Other than that, I never dropped below 100 grams a day.

ABB - What about your future plans? Do you know what your next show will be and what's the game plan for that contest?

Danny - I’m going to take some time off. I think I'll feel more comfortable as a heavyweight competitor. It was a lot to cut down to 198 pounds. I think I would like to compete at 210-215 pounds. I know that in order to put on 10 pounds of solid muscle, it’s going to take at least a year. Right now, I’m looking at the 2011 NPC Collegiate Nationals. I will be finished with my undergraduate degree by then and will be well into my Masters degree studies.

ABB - So, we probably won’t see you onstage again until 2011?

Danny - Well, that’s always a maybe because I might get the itch to be back out there. I know where I want to be and, in terms of the changes I was able to make to my physique this last year, I know that time off is only going to help me, especially considering my age.

Maria Cruz was competing in her very first competition. She looked great and took a very close second place in both the Masters Figure and the Open Figure divisions. In fact, she placed second to the eventual overall winner in the Open Figure Division.

ABB - How many years have you been training, Maria?

Maria - Not very long, just under a year.

ABB - Really? Do you have an athletic background? Were you involved in other sports?

Maria - No, not really. I just enjoyed working out and decided to take it to another level.

ABB - So, you weren’t doing any weight training at all before a year ago?

Maria - I was just doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that. So, I decided to compete and I’m very excited about it.

ABB - When you are training for a Figure competition, do you use lighter weights in your workout or do you train heavier like a bodybuilder?

Maria - My philosophy is that women should train like women and not like men. I like that philosophy because that type of training is much easier on our joints. I like doing plyometrics, a lot of supersetting. Just a lot of anaerobic work, light weight and lots of reps. I’ll do supersets and giant sets.

ABB - How many reps do you do in your training?

Maria - For a heavy set, and it’s not that heavy, it might be 6 reps. On the light sets, it would be as many as 15 reps.

ABB - When you do your supersets, are you doing the supersets for the same muscle group or opposing muscle groups such as chest and back?

Maria - No, the same muscle group but I do exercises for different areas of the muscle. For example, front lateral raises supersetted with side lateral raises.

ABB - How much cardio do you do?

Maria - I did a lot of cardio. I did as much as 1 ½ hours to 2 hours a day. I was splitting up my cardio in the morning and then again at night.

ABB - Did you do the HIIT cardio or the steady state cardio?

Maria - It was HIIT, in both the morning and evening sessions.

ABB - Did your body weight change much from the off season to the contest or where you pretty lean all the time?

Maria - I was lean in the off-season but I needed to get even leaner for the competition.

ABB - What was your diet like?

Maria - My diet was great because I was NEVER hungry. I ate 8 meals a day. It was really, really good. It was a great diet to be on.

ABB - Was the diet low in carbs?

Maria - I wouldn’t say low carbs, but they were the right carbs. I would be eating oatmeal, salads, brown rice sometimes, sweet potatoes. He would mix it up all the time. A lot of veggies.

ABB - Was the diet more protein than carbs?

Maria - Yes, it was more protein than carbs.

ABB - This was your first competition, right?

Maria –Yes.

ABB - Congratulations on your great showing!

Maria - Thank you!

ABB - What is your next competition?

Maria - My next show is actually the Kevin Noble contest, the Natural Mid-States, next weekend in Rockford, Illinois.

ABB - What is your age?

Maria - I’m 35 years old. I have two children, 7 and 17 years old.

Francisco Fontanez is a veteran competitor, having won his class at the National level over 20 years ago. He still has an incredible physique at 58 years old and he easily won the Over 50 division at the NPC Midwest Ironman.

ABB - Francisco, you won the over 50 division at the NPC Midwest Ironman tonight. How many years have you been training now?

Francisco - I’ve been competing since 1984. I started weight training about 10 years before that when I was still in my teens.

ABB - What were some of the National level titles that you won in the 1980’s?

Francisco - I won the bantamweight class in the 1985 NPC Nationals. I also won the lightweight class at the NPC USA. I also won the NPC Midwest, locally. In 1998, I won the NPC Masters Nationals, Over 40.

ABB - Did you take a break from competing after winning the Masters Nationals?

Francisco -Yeah, I took a little time off but I kept training and competing here and there.

ABB - So now you’re 58 years old and you won the Over 50 category here tonight. Where are you going to go from here?

Francisco - I’m going to keep training for next year to do the Masters Nationals.

ABB - You should do great in that show. What is your weight when you compete?

Francisco - I weigh between 138-140 pounds at 5 feet tall.

ABB - How much does your weight go up in the off-season?

Francisco - I only go up to 150-155 pounds.

ABB - How has your training changed at 58 years old from when you were much younger?

Francisco - When I was younger, I tended to go kind of heavy. Now, I use light weight with more repetitions.

ABB - How many reps do you do?

Francisco - It depends. When I'm getting close to the contest and I want to get my muscles to show more, I might do as many as 100 reps.

ABB - How about in the off-season? How many reps do you do then?

Francisco - I do about 25 reps each set.

ABB - Do you have any injuries that you have to train around?

Francisco - Nope.

ABB - How about your diet because I noticed that, even being almost 60 years old, you’re always ripped. What type of diet do you follow?

Francisco - Well, like I said, I try to stay as lean as possible. When the contest is coming, I change over to hamburger meat with grapefruit.

ABB - Grapefruit?

Francisco - Yes, grapefruit is a very good fat burner.

ABB - So, you go really, really low carbs?

Francisco - Yes, low carbs, it’s all protein and fats.

ABB - How about in the off-season? Are you eating carbs then?

Francisco - Yes, I’ll eat carbs but not a lot of them. I limit myself to 200 grams of carbs a day.

ABB - Were you dieting that strict 20 years ago when you were competing?

Francisco - No!

ABB - So, you had to really cut back on the carbs as you got older?

Francisco - Yes.

ABB - How about cardio, do you do cardio when you are preparing to compete?

Francisco - Yes, I do cardio about 20 minutes a day, 4 days a week.

ABB - Do you do cardio in the off-season too?

Francisco - Yes, I do. The same thing, 20 minutes a day, four days a week. That I don’t change.

ABB - Do you do the HIIT cardio or just walking on the treadmill?

Francisco - No, I do the Precor for my cardio. I like doing that better than the treadmill.

ABB - Do you do that in the morning on an empty stomach or do you do it after your workout?

Francisco - In the morning.

ABB - So, you don’t use the interval training (very hard and then easy, very hard and then easy) for your cardio? You just do the steady state cardio, right?

Francisco - Yes, steady state cardio.

ABB - Are you going to compete any more this year?

Francisco - No, this is my last show for this year. I will be competing next at the NPC Masters Nationals in 2010.

ABB - Great! Good luck to you!