NATHANIEL HECKLES secured a dominant victory in the first show of the season yesterday by winning the overall title at the 2Bros Kingdom Classic.
Heckles came in "bursting full", according to coach Joe Jeffery. And he believes they now have the perfect peak-week formula for their shot at an IFBB pro card.
Jeffery said: "I believe, maybe putting coach's bias to one side as we did hear similar yesterday [Saturday], that it was his best stage look to date. That is great news given this is his first show of the season and we're going to be pressing with everything we have for the pro card.
"We have managed to land him bursting full on stage loads of times. That is where he looks his best. It allows him to show his best attributes. But it has been a difficult balance bringing him in bursting full and having him dry at the same time. Not edging him into being too dry that he starts to flatten out a little bit.
"Judges last season did ask him to come in harder, which we did for the final look of the season. But he was a little bit dwindled down in pushing for that dryness. Nath didn't like the look – I thought the look was great. He placed just as well as he had done all season but that full, bursting, shrink-wrapped look was missing.
"So we put a couple of tweaks on his peak-week structure for this first show, which was a test to see if we could balance that a bit better. And thankfully it came off 100 per cent. He was absolutely peeled and dry and bursting full when he needed to be. So thank God we have the formula for the pro qualifiers.
"It was also a considerable amount of stage weight added considering he only had three or four months off-season."
Heckles will get his first shot at that IFBB pro card when he competes in the 2Bros Ben Weider Classic on April 6.
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