While still at school, my mom bought me a series of PT sessions and it all went from there. I started going to the gym regularly, watched other people, learned and tried out different ways of training for myself. Just found I loved it. I also trained as a tennis coach and made my living from this until I discovered other people wanted to know about my training philosophy and methods.
Diet definitely. I had trained as a chef for a short while but really didn’t know anything about what kind of foods I should eat to support a fitness regime. Took me a while to understand how to adapt my diet for desired results while keeping it clean – I hardly eat anything out of a packet and spend a lot of time cooking from scratch for best results and long term health and fitness.
Also not training hard enough… I think a lot of people do this, not realising just how hard you have to push yourself to achieve top results.
Have a plan and stick to it! Make sure its written down and there are clear goals at the end. That means training and diet. Focus on your own goals and only train with someone who has goals consistent with yours. Don’t get side-tracked.
Three of my favourites:
I think about making it count - the difference between completing the reps and not…I can't move on until I have done every rep I set out to do, just something I have to do mentally to make sure I feel I have achieved my goals for the day – even if it sometimes means using a rest pause.
Eating is a major priority and think about it constantly, so I always know where my next meal or snack is coming from. I cook and prepare everything in advance. Tupperware is king. I always take food out with me – I never get caught without access to my preferred foods. To me this is always the key as it's so easy to go off plan if you have to buy something on the run. I am never without my bag of almonds and a tupperware container with freshly cooked chicken and sweet potato.
How far I have come! From a teenager who lost his way and who led a far from healthy lifestyle weighing at about 130lbs (under 60Kg) to where I am now. If anyone had told me I would look like this, feel like this and be making a living from fitness and a healthy lifestyle I would never have believed it.
I rotate my own bulking and cutting regimes with rest periods and times of maintenance, depending on when I have shows, events or photo shoots. But winter – December through January - is my peak bulking time when I build as much mass as possible for cutting towards end of February. Once I have achieved my peak shredded condition I will maintain it through summer with breaks and vacation time.
I am a big fan of HIIT cardio and find this is a big part of shedding body fat. It's also great to feel like you have really pushed yourself at the end of a HIIT session – I usually try to do 20 minutes with additional warmup and cool down. When I’m bulking I’ll mainly do LISS for general fitness and cardiovascular health, using HIIT only as a tool to help control body fat gains if it becomes a problem.
Typical week of training: Workout here
I have developed my own carb-cycling regime which I can fine tune as needed to get into the condition I want for competitions, photo shoots, etc., and I include it in plans for all my clients wanting to cut. I only eat fresh foods and am a big believer in clean eating – this way I know exactly what I am putting in my body. I have also got to know what works for me by trying different things over the years – I have never used anyone else’s diet – always figured it out myself until I now know my body well enough to make the adjustments I need with confidence.
Greg Plitt was someone who I admired and apart from that it's mainly people who are willing to help and motivate others.
I keep my supplements fairly light but my staples I wouldn’t be without are whey protein and BCAAs from EHPLabs. I am also loving their pre-workout BUZZ which I have started using recently and find it energises me to really push myself in every training session.
Ross Dickerson
Born 1989 in London, England.
Height - 6’1”
Weight ranges from competition weight of 86Kg to off season 94Kg
Instagram: instagram.com/dickersonross
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Website: www.dickersonross.com