The year can be full of events in our social lives: weddings, birthdays, Easter, Christmas: and, before you know it, the year has flown by. As a competitive athlete, I need to structure my diet, training, and competition (if I’m competing that year), around these events and peak when it’s necessary; this is called periodisation. In my opinion, you should not let a week or month go by without doing your best to improve; be that improving effort in the gym, the kitchen, or expanding your knowledge.

Let’s assume you have had a year off competing to bring up some less amazing body parts and, as it’s gone well, you’re eyeing up a bodybuilding contest. How do you decide on what show to do? It’s best to find one close to home; it’s less stressful that way – you can concentrate on your body prep and worry less about journeys and accommodation. You should also base the choice of show on how much fat you need to lose to bring your best-package to the stage. Say you need to lose 10kg to bring your best to the stage; in that instance, you would pick a show about 20 weeks away, at the least. It’s far better to be ready early than too late! In my experience, in this circumstance, 20 weeks should allow you to have a nice slow diet where you can lose half a kilo per week. By doing this, you will have a much more productive prep and be able to look your best.

Scott likes his squats.

So, we have the show date set and we know how much weight we have to lose, what happens next? First, calculate your maintenance calories; if you know the amount of calories that keeps your weight the same, then, it’s mathematically pretty easy to lose weight: you drop some calories (reduce energy input) and/ or increase energy expenditure with further exercise: bringing about an energy deficit. A good start to prep is to cut out any treats you were having in your off-season. Most of us enjoy a nice meal or two at the weekend in the off-season, or even go out on the town with our mates for a drink. An easy cut of calories is to remove these empty calories from the weekend. As the diet goes on and weight loss plateaus, you will have to cut further calories and probably add-in cardio to some degree. Always allow room for progression with your endeavour.

Show day, you present a good package and thoroughly enjoy the contest. Where do you go from this point? Inevitably, you will have a bit of a post-show binge and enjoy the foods that you were not eating during your prep. It’s best to limit this to a week or so; maybe have a holiday and, then, get back on a good structured off-season, so you can provide your body with all the important nutrients to fuel your quest to bring something better next time. I like to have a structured eating plan for the majority of time [refer to article: Don’t Spoil the Broth! Food Prep Made Easy], which allows me a good amount of freedom to enjoy some treats at the weekend or at family gatherings.

Working harder than the competition.

What about training, how do I change this during the year? I don’t massively change my training. I keep my training focused on compound movements and add-in isolation as I see fit. In the lead up to a show, the only real difference is that I will “up” the pace of workouts and add-in more intensity techniques as the diet goes on. As you get leaner, you won’t be as strong, so the intensity techniques and increased pace of workouts keeps workouts stimulating.

Bodybuilding is not something you can dip into when you feel like going to the gym; it’s a change of lifestyle! No more cruising through training sessions you don’t like: your opposition is working hard and you must work harder!

Scott

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