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Anthony Stickings

@stickingsanthony

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Natural Musician
Natural Bodybuilder
Natural Human
2022 & 2025 BNBF Mr Scotland 🥇

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Everything means nothing without you.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, this prep belongs to you.

You picked up my passion and shouldered the responsibility as your own, when you didn't have to.

Understood how much it meant to me and never once questioned what needed to be done to take me to where I needed to go and assured me we'd walk through the fire together.

You pulled me up when I was too weak to stand.

You made me believe when I was too fatigued to comprehend.

You looked in my eyes and told me you had me and I had you and that nothing else mattered when absolutely everything fell apart halfway through this prep.

You wouldn't let me give up on myself because you knew I could be more than I believed I could be.

You built me back up while I tore myself down.

You made me.

I belong to you. by @stickingsanthony

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6

a year ago

More to follow... Stage shots, appreciation post and whatnot.... But I did a thing today...

Became a TWO TIME BNBF Mr Scotland!!!! 2022 AND 2025... Came in bigger, better and more conditioned than last time... I spent the last three years as I always have: Dedicated to becoming a better bodybuilder and achieved just that.

Wonderful day, wonderfully run competition and a wonderful community of like minded people, each with their own raw and unadulterated vision of artistic perfection.

Well done to all my fellow competitors today. You ALL gave an incredible showing and displayed your art incredibly and awe-inspiringly!

My family and I are now chowing down in a fine sushi establishment and taking a collective sigh of relief and relaxation as a team. by @stickingsanthony

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a year ago

Yesterday was special.

We brought something that, 6 months ago, I thought was now entirely beyond what my 31 year old body was capable of after a few very tough years of training through injury.

As such this was an emotional one for me.

I have lived and breathed bodybuilding since I was 14 years old. It is my passion. My driving force. My art. My expression.

And to have thought over the last number of years that it may be over for me has been difficult.

The previous 6 months of prep and yesterday's comp has shown me that there are no caps in bodybuilding. No limits other than the ones you impose upon yourself. There is ALWAYS a way to make it work. Not only to make it work, but to thrive.

The icing on the cake is to have absolutely stomped on the 2022 version of myself. That was what I wanted, more than anything. To prove to myself that I'm not done! That I have more to give... I do.

I will be a bodybuilder until the day I die. It is not what I do, it is who I am. It is inside me and will never leave me.

@bnbf_official Thank you for putting on such a well run show and for giving all of us the platform to display our passion for all to see. This is a beautiful sport, a beautiful community and a beautiful ethos. Bodybuilding is for everyone and forever by @stickingsanthony

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a year ago

Could it be that I once again have to concede that everything my father told me about training back in 2008 was in fact correct?!

He told me that at 16 years old and in prime growing years, I had no business dieting down and should instead be wolfing down everything not nailed down.
HE WAS RIGHT

He told me that training 6 days a week was overkill and would lead to little more than overtraining and spinning my wheels.
HE WAS RIGHT

He also told me that eventually I would start to prefer a smith machine over a free bar for the majority of my lifts......... God damnit
HE WAS RIGHT AGAIN!!!

From now on, I'm just going to throw out everything I think I've learned over the last 19ish years of training and accept that my dad was right all along. And he was right because he had learned it all for himself, when the best source of information to hand in the early 80s was Arnold literally trolling the entirety of the bodybuilding world with "all de wrong... Advicez" by @stickingsanthony

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2 days ago

Stupid is as stupid does.

I'm sure that statement is typically intended as an insult... In strength training, less so.

The more you can simplify your training, generally speaking, the better. The less cluttered. The less confusing. The less to fuck up!

Chest training has never needed to be any more complex than an incline press, a flat press and a fly variation.

Pick repeatable exercises and squeeze every last drop of progress you can out of it until you stall, then pick a slightly different variation and do the same thing. Rinse and repeat. That's bodybuilding training and it's not complicated!

As for myself, I'm not sure that I'll ever reclaim my pre-injury pressing numbers.... But.... The fun is in the chase and I'm clawing back, slowly and, if not 'surely', then perhaps 'patiently'.

Also... Talk to yourself while you train... I'm only slightly joking here. You can truly talk yourself into getting what you want, or out of getting what you want... Choose the former by @stickingsanthony

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3 days ago

One of Mr Dylan's best written songs... And he didn't even officially release it... Madness!

Today it's Blind Willie McTell and the song itself is a masterpiece.

To me, it speaks of the stains that remain upon a country and the ghosts that loom over the beauty that a country may have to offer, if that country does not stand on the right side of history.

Now I don't mean to become topical/political in any sense because quite frankly I'm not educated enough to do so!... But that seems quite an appropriate topic in this current climate, even 43 years after this song was written.

The choices made today, the actions taken and particularly the blind eyes willfully turned will be written into history books to be judged by future generations. by @stickingsanthony

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17 days ago

Hung the old posing trunks up a year ago today.

I was willing to give it everything I had... And you better believe it took it too!

I have no plans to ever step on stage again. Bodybuilding itself, for me, started in 2007 and won't end until I'm either dead or no longer physically capable of training. The competitive part is a very small part of the whole story.

Don't get me wrong, I still train as if I have a competition to prepare for and I still eat the same foods as I would on prep, just slightly more of them. It truly is a way of life for me, whether I wish to compete or not.

As far as the competitive aspect of bodybuilding, I kinda got what I wanted from it, which really was only to find out what I was capable of. I've never been particularly competitive in any regard, prefering the challenge to come from how far I can go, rather than really being invested in how I stack up against anyone else.

That being said...

We did alright! by @stickingsanthony

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19 days ago

As always, seeing the Mr Olympia go down has me feeling nostalgia for my own time spent onstage.

There's a purity and clarity of purpose that comes any time you truly lock into the process and I've felt that myself any time I've been in the thick of a good prep. A singular focus and determination that demands all that you have to give.

It's difficult to quantify the amount of time and effort that goes into presenting a piece of work onstage that you have spent months and years and decade honing, and so having experienced my own little slice of that, albeit on a much smaller scale, I have a huge amount of respect for the people doing it at the elite level, taking this craft as far as it can go and pushing through into uncharted territory.

Bodybuilding is that strange intersection between sport and art and yet both mediums have always been about pushing boundaries, bumping up against the previous ceiling and smashing through onto new frontiers. Whether said new frontier be to your taste or not, one has to and admire the perfect storm of genetic talent, singularity of vision and sheer will power required to get there! by @stickingsanthony

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21 days ago

Final set of today's leg session.

A nice-ish 160kg for 10 in the books as a final exercise.

Standard leg day, as it has been for some time now. Claves first, a bunch of hamstring curls then into leg extensions, leg press and squats to finish.

Same old boring stuff as always. Cause that's what works. by @stickingsanthony

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23 days ago

BACK+CHEST

23/09/26

MAG Pulldown x2
Chest Supported Row x2
Lat Row x2
Incline Smith Press x2
Flat Machine Press x2
Seated Cable Fly x2
DB Pullover x2

Back to an antagonistic split for the time being, as I find that combining pushes and pulls into one session, as opposed to clustering all pushes on one day and all pulls on another seems to cause more issues of tendonitis and general wear and tear.

I'm sure it's voodoo and hokum and placebo-ing myself, but I strongly believe that combining the two in one session does wonders for my joint health.

If you believe something strongly enough, you can fool the universe into making it so! by @stickingsanthony

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24 days ago

Shifting some tin... As per

Full Leg Session:

Calf Press x4
Lying Leg Curl x2
Seated Leg Curl x2
Leg Extension x4
Leg Press x2
Front Squat x2
Belt Squat RDL x2 by @stickingsanthony

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1

a month ago

This day last year 7 months of prep was approaching its conclusion.

Looking back now it kind of feels like a bizzare fever dream.

What a strange thing to do. And yet... The freedom to do so is the thing of beauty. To be free to truly express one's self honestly is a privilege and one we all can be guilty of taking for granted.

The amount of time, effort and stubborn will power that went into a competition prep is quite frankly obscene and something I honestly grew to resent by the end of the process... But to have had such time and effort to give, I am incredibly grateful for. Not to mention a support network that truly went above and beyond in allowing me to live out my passion.

I didn't HAVE to put in the effort. I was privileged to be able to do so. by @stickingsanthony

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1

a month ago