By: Dino Pierce

I arrived in Jackson at around 4:45pm, May 31, 2002, only fifteen minutes before the commencement of weigh-in. I quickly checked into my hotel room and made my way over to the weigh-in site. Surprisingly I was the first bodybuilder to weigh-in. I thought that a slew of competitors would be there trying to weigh-in early, I was wrong. I weighed in at very tight 129.6 lbs. After weigh-in my next objective was to finish off the tanning procedure. I had a total of about 5 coats of ProTan of which I obtained from the Bodybuilding.com web site. This gave me a great color and now all I needed to do was apply a light coat of dream tan right before prejudging to finish off the "look" that I wanted. I had a dark smooth finished look using these two products, which I was happy with.

I woke up at about 5:30am to put the final coat of Pro Tan on and eat my pre-pre-judging meal. I ate the usual, a little of each of the macronutrients. The meal consisted of grits, a little bit of a sausage, some apple pie filling, and scrambled eggs. I ate enough to curb my hunger but not enough to distend my stomach. The morning meeting began at 8:00am and was basically a general rules briefing. This is when we were given our numbers, I wore #44. I did not hit the stage until about 11:30am. To my surprise there were only two Bantams that had entered this show. The guy that I was up against was a new face to me; I had never seen him compete before. Before prejudging he walked up to me and said that he though that I would probably look five times bigger than he. He said that he weighed in at 131lbs. I did not tell him anything but that meant that he out weighed me by about 2 or so pounds. Was I in trouble?

We began pumping up and the room was very cold and I was not feeling like I was warming up so I opted to skip the pump up and go outside to work on my posing instead. He must have thought I was nuts not pumping up before the pre-judging. I became vascular as ever out in the hot Mississippi sun and my strategy worked well. We were called out to perform the mandatory rounds and all went well. I felt that I had him but unable to compare the two of us I was not sure. When I made my way back to the audience the quote that I remember someone saying to me was that "you were just superior to him". Others said that I had won hands down and that it was no competition. In my opponents defense he was no slouch, and he had a great physique. I felt relaxed for the rest of the day and I was looking forward to the overall. At the same time I was not counting my eggs before they hatched.

I ate a piece of chicken and about 1.5 cups of rice after the pre-judging. It was good. I went to my room to get off of my feet and rest a little. I dosed off for about 1 hour and begin to prep for the evening show. The competitor's meeting was to be held at 5:30pm sharp. The show began on time at 6:30pm and I hit the stage at about 9:45pm. As predicted I took home the Bantam Weight title. I was happy with my win. I went back stage to begin to prep for the overall comparison and basically used a heat lamp to bring my physique back to life.

The pose down was a blast as always. The feeling is exciting and the crowd is going crazy there is no feeling like it in the world. At the end of the pose down the emcee announced the middle weight as the overall winner. He looked phenomenal. He was huge, vascular, and shredded. He deserved to win.

I am the one on the far right.
Click to enlarge.

After the show I decided that I was going to do another show and I set my sites on the 2002 Mr. Louisiana. I know that this will be a tough competition and in order for me to take home the state title I must do 2 things. I must keep every bit of muscle that I have on my body and I must get nasty lean. At all costs these two goals are in mind.

To do this I must pull out all of the cards and time my diet, weight training sessions, and cardio sessions accordingly. I understand that at a predicted weight of 125-127 I will not be the biggest competitor on the stage. I can however, have the most symmetrical/shredded physique in my division. This is a must. If I am going to win this show conditioning and diet will do it for me. It just did it for me in Jackson. I will have a look that will be catching to the judge's eye.

I will continue to keep you informed on my progression into the Louisiana, but until then here are some definite changes that I have already made.

1. Bump up the cardio. I do 1hr of water aerobics 5 days a week. In addition to that I do 45 minutes of cardio on the treadmill, bike, or elliptical machine. On the weekends I will do a total of two hours of cardio in one form or another.

2. Dig a little deeper with the carbohydrates. I will go 4 days down using only about 20-30 fibrous carbs and no starches. I will come up one day timing my calculated carbohydrate intakes properly.

3. Keep my protein at 300 grams to assure muscle preservation.

With these new factors and 6 more weeks of contest preparation I will be about as good as I can get this year and afterward I will be looking forward to designing a powerful off-season strategy that will make me absolutely unstoppable. I feel that I am doing great this year but I am far from bullet proof. I am however enjoying the journey of becoming a future IFBB pro under Bodybuilding.com's sponsorship.

Dino Paul Pierce, CFT (III)
B.S. Dietetics
Natural Bodybuilder

littlekahuna69@hotmail.com

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