👋 Hi! Tell us about yourself and your training
Hi, my name is Amine Aminov, I’m from Algeria and I’m 29 years old, single without children.
I’ve just moved from Algeria and I currently live in the USA (New York city), I’m working a salesman in a men clothes company, I work five days a week, usually from 11 am to 8 pm and I train four times a week.
I started sports early. When I was a child, I practiced Kung-fu for three years.
My first bodybuilding training was in 2007, when I was looking to gain more weight because I was skinny. My first experience was not too long (just for three months and then I left) and I returned in summer 2008 and I left again.
In 2010 I returned to the gym and I decided to not quit so I practiced bodybuilding for almost three years, I was a student in the college at that time, but unfortunately I left the gym after that for two years.
I returned again in 2015, after I finished my college studies. I consider that my real beginning was in 2015 because in that year I started to learn more about diet and workouts, and I had my first contest in December 2015 where I took the 7th place among 16 competitors; it was a national bodybuilding contest in Algeria.
After that I did another bodybuilding contest in 2017 where I took the 4th place, and that contest was the best one, because it let me know more about my body and my metabolism and it let me know more about bodybuilding and diet.
Currently I’m in my 4th year of bodybuilding and I find myself addicted to this sport. It lets me feel great in my body, improves my mood and it makes more confident. I’m really in love with this lifestyle.
⏱ Describe a typical day of training
Currently I train four times a week (legs calves, shoulders traps, back triceps and finally chest biceps) at Blink Fitness in New York City.
Usually my legs training takes about 75 minutes, and the other muscles take about 60 minutes.
I train: legs, back, chest with four exercises, five exercises for the shoulders, three exercises for biceps/triceps and two exercises for the calves, one exercise in the beginning of the training and the other one in the end.
As what I said above, I train in the Blink Fitness gym. This gym is one of the most beautiful gyms in New York City, I chose this one because it’s very clean with many locations in the city, with a good membership price, and it’s well-appointed.
I train alone there, because I don’t know anyone there. I set my own workouts programs and change them every two months, depending to my objectives (bulking or cutting).
On my training days I take in my bag a banana, my pre-workout in one shaker, my whey protein and creatine in the second one.
I usually buy the famous lab’s supplements like: Optimum Nutrition, Muscletech, Musclepharm and BSN, but my favorite one is Optimum Nutrition.
I take my ON pre-workout before training, and immediately after my training session I take a banana and a shake of whey protein and creatine.
In each of my training sessions, I do a specific exercises for each muscle with a specific number of sets and repetitions, and then I change them after two months, that’s why I don’t have a favorite exercises.
After my warm-up which takes about 10 minutes, I start my stopwatch and I hit the weights until I finish all my exercises according to my training program.
Currently I don’t have specific days for each muscle, I actually train randomly because of my work, but I try to hit each muscle at least one time a week.
I wish I had more time to do cardio training (jogging), which I don’t do currently.
👊 How do you keep going and push harder?
In the gym I’m always trying to improve myself and improve the quality of my workouts, you can always find me focused during the exercise, in order to get the best results and to achieve my goals.
I have a goal in my mind and I wish to reach 80 kg weight with 6 to 8% of body fat, and that’s what keeps me motivated everyday to do my best in the gym and push harder even in my slow motivation days.
In my first days after I came to the USA, the biggest challenge for me was how to keep all the hard work that I’ve done in Algeria. I didn’t want to lose all what I did there, so I tried to go fast and I returned to the gym after just one week.
🏆 How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
Nowadays, I’m looking forward to add another gym session, to reach 5 training days a week, which can let me do some cardio training that I don’t do currently.
I’m planning in the future to get a personnel trainer certificate in order to improve my skills and my knowledge in this discipline and to prepare myself for one of the bodybuilding contests in the USA.
I want to change my work to be a permanent personnel trainer.
🤕 How do you recover, rest and handle injuries?
I always look for a hotel equipped with a gym or a hotel near a gym
Before starting my training I do a warm-up for about 10 minutes to avoid injuries and fortunately I never had an injury in the gym, and I always try to be careful when I grab weights.
Currently I’ve two training days in the morning and two training days around 7 pm, and I go to the bed around 11:30 pm. That helps me to get about 7 to 8 hours of sleep even in my off days.
In a case of travel, I always look for a hotel equipped with a gym or a hotel near a gym and I always try to eat healthy and I take my supplements with me.
I usually travel after six months of hard training and take one week off without training to let my body recover.
🍎 How is your diet and what supplements do you use?
When we talk about diet, I prepare all my meals by myself. I take six meals a day, and each meal contains: protein, carbohydrate and fat except the post-workout meal which contains only protein and carbs.
I try always to vary my sources of my macro nutriments, for example, I eat: oats, sweet potato, macaroni, and rice… like a carbohydrate source.
I have almost the same diet in my bulking and cutting seasons, only the quantity of macro nutriments varies in each season. That’s why I used to calculate my calories and track the amount of each parameter.
In my bulking season, my calories intake varies between 3000 and 3800 kcal according to the progress of my weight, and in the cutting season, it varies between 1800 and 3000 kcal according to my body fat percentage.
I rarely take cheat meals, maybe once a month because I’m used to always live a healthy lifestyle and I don’t have any desire to pizza and stuff like that. My pleasure is when I eat that healthy food and I don’t drink alcohol, my only beverage is coffee.
In fasting time (Ramadan), where I have only about 8 hours to eat I try always to have at least four meals (I take a meal each two hours), and especially in that time I use casein powder.
I bought casein powder for the first time in the last Ramadan, it was Pro Supps casein (PS lab).
👍 What has inspired and motivated you?
My only source of motivation is me; it’s me when I look to myself in the mirror and say “yes I know that I can do better”, because I know that I didn’t get the shape that I want yet.
So that’s why I focus on my training in the gym and that’s why I don’t put music in my ears while training, because I always want to make that muscle-mind connection, to get the most profit of my training session.
✏️ Advice for other people who want to improve themselves?
The key of success is commitment
There is no magic in that, you should work hard, eat clean and learn, it will not be easy in the beginning but the results are worth it.
The key of success is commitment, don’t quit if you don’t get the results that you want.
If you are new in this discipline, try first to know how to do the exercises in the right way and then try to learn more about diet. You should start quitting your bad nutritional habits.
If you are intermediate and you have more than one year training, you must start to get attention to your macro nutriments, calories, training techniques, cardio, sleep…
In the gym, try to train smart. I see many people do illogical things, some of them stay about more than one hour working the same muscle doing more than 6 exercises for the same muscle, and some of them spend more time on the phone and the others do the exercises in the wrong way.
This discipline is not like the others sports, you should do the things in the right way or you’ll not get the best results and the shape that you want to have.
🤝 Are you taking on clients right now?
Despite that I have the necessary requirements and knowledge to train others, I currently don’t have any customers because I want to get my personal trainer certificate first. After that, I will be able to have some clients.
📝 Where can we learn more about you?
I’ve recently engaged in social media such as Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, my Facebook page has almost 5k member, because it’s the first thing that I’ve started working on.
On my Facebook page, I share all the things related with the fitness lifestyle and diet, but all my contents is in Arabic and on my Instagram profile, I share only in English.
I’ve just opened my YouTube channel to share my training videos, meal prep, vlogs and all the things that go along with my fitness lifestyle.
All my social media accounts have the name of: Aminov Fit-body.
