10 common mistakes made in contest prep!

[jack12345]

I am by no means saying i wrote this page or have anything to do with it.

I was going to post a thread here asking about the top mistakes people make and thought id take a look around first and i found this (not sure i you have seen it). Just wondering if you all agree/disagree ? and if there is anything you could add to that list from experience.

Top 10 things :-
I. Not dieting long enough

Now ask yourself this, did you put all that fat on in 12 weeks? Okay maybe some of you did, and that’s a whole other topic concerning post contest binging. But, the smart ones of the bunch (read here 50% or less meathead makeup) usually don’t put it all on at once and it accumulates over a 6 month or better offseason. So why in the world do you think you can take all that fat off and have glutes that could crack walnuts in 12 weeks? The answer is YOU CAN’T. I recommend you give yourself 1 week for every 1 lb of fat you need to lose and then add 3 weeks for the simple fact you will ultimately hit roadblocks where you are no longer losing fat. Be honest with yourself in this regard, hard to do sometimes, but you will be better off in the long run. This means many of you will need 16 plus weeks. I personally diet for 20 weeks, but that’s me. I find I can keep almost all my hard earned muscle this way and figure out what my body is doing the first four weeks without any pressure and enjoy the process without starvation dieting.

II. Too much cardio to fast

We are physique athletes and damn it, it’s our nature to overdo EVERYTHING and lack patience. So if 20 minutes of cardio works well, then you know 1 hr works better. This is somewhat true, but not when you are 15 weeks out. Cardio is a tool to shed fat and really you should aim to do as little as possible and still meet your weekly fat loss goals. Only if you don’t meet them should you add more. I have my athletes do two types of cardio moderate intensity steady state where their heart beat is around 120bpm and high intensity interval training where the heart rate is around 160bpm. The moderate cardio can be done upon rising or post workout to be most effective. HIIT is saved usually for off days to help process some glycogen.

III. Not choosing the proper diet for your body type

But, Mr Big Delts eats 500 grams of protein, 600 grams of carbs per day and 100 grams of fat and he is shredded and huge, I bet if I just use that model and modify it a bit it will work great for me. Wrong, I believe in dieting for one’s body type, it’s not a flawless approach, but it’s a great way to at least view the big picture. There are three body types, ectomorphs, endomorphs and mesomorphs. Ectos are usually small boned, small framed and don’t carry a lot of muscle without training, later in life they get the skinny-fat look. Endos are big boned, wide framed, usually wider waisted and add muscle easily but also add fat easily. Mesos are those genetic bastards with broad clavicles, low bodyfat, big full muscle bellies and add muscle easy and lose fat easy, but they generally add fat easier than an ecto would. Those are very general explanations and most people are a mix. Why do I even mention this? I believe if you understand your body type you can better design your diet. Ectos are going to need more carbs than the other two to begin with. Endos are going to need much less carbs than the other two, and mesos usually fall in the middle. I’d say in general an ecto macro split (P/C/F) may look like 30/50/20 to begin the diet, Mesos 40/40/20 and endos 50/20/30. If you have these basic understandings its easier to set up a diet that works with your body and not against it. You can usually find your maintenance by multiplying bodyweight x 15. Start there, if you don’t lose any weight, then begin to drop 250 calories until you are hitting your weekly goal.

IV. Not tracking your macros and caloric intake

In this day in age of online programs such as calorieking.com and fitday.com there is no excuse to not track your macros, other than laziness. I’m pretty technology challenged and I can even use these programs with no problems. I really don’t know how people diet without knowing their protein, carbohydrate and fat intake along with calories, but you see it all the time on the internet. Take your diet, plug it in, and I bet you may be over or under-eating some macro nutrient that you thought was spot on. Knowing your intake is valuable because if you stall out and you need to lose 1 lb per week you can better create the 500 calorie deficit you need to do so (helpful information: to burn 1 lb of body fat you need to burn 3500 calories in a weeks time). If you are going to spend all this time and money track your macros, weigh your food and actually show up with head turning conditioning.

V. Not weight training effectively

You would think this is pretty cut and dried. However, many people I work with come to me training 6 days per week. And when I ask how their training is going a lot of times they remark it’s okay, or it’s a bit stagnate or I feel a little run down. You don’t say! For naturals I recommend they train 4 days per week on a 2 on, 1 off, 2 on and 2 off rotation. If you are pushing yourself as hard as you should be that is all you will need while your calories are in a deficit. The three days off also make room for HIIT cardio. If you are an enhanced athlete I will allow them 5 days training, but even then, I would prefer 4 days. The goal of prep is to train heavy to preserve the lean muscle tissue, very few will be pulling a Levrone and growing 35 lbs into a show, natural or enhanced. Don’t over-train yourself and burn yourself out during prep by doing to many weight training sessions. More is not always better.

VI. Not continuing to train heavy

A VERY common misconception especially among beginners is that they think higher reps will cut them up. I hear guys talk about getting better quad definition if they lower the weight and do more reps. WRONG! The only thing that might do is lead to atrophy which will make getting cuts that much harder. The rule of thumb is this: Continue to train as heavy as you did to build the muscle tissue. I will concede that at some point we start to lose some strength. What I try to do is keep the weight the same and settle for lesser reps. The more dieted you get you don’t need all that volume anyways. Towards the end I may only weight train 4 days per week for 35 minutes heavy, the rest is posing, cardio and diet.

VII. Cheating on Your Meal Plan

Jason, can I drink on this plan, its just a few shots? Can we work a cheat meal in here somewhere, I don’t know if I can diet for 16 weeks without it? No AND No (find another sport if you need junk food). No one said dieting for a show was easy stuff. I absolutely do not advocate cheating on your meal plan, pretty simple idea right. But, people do it. In my opinion it’s a slippery slope and opens up the floodgates. Your brain tastes that sugar again and wants more and more of it. Think of it this way, the guy or gal next to you is working their butt off; they are dieting properly, not missing meals and not cheating. You need to do everything in your power that you can control to get the edge over that person. That said, if you are ahead of schedule or dieting very low carb there is a time and place for a junk meal, but it should be planned out and with a purpose, not just a momentary weakness to have junk food. I hope you can see the difference.

VIII. Lack of Meal Planning

This usually gets my new competitors. At some point I get an email that says well my husband and I were out shopping and I didn’t have my meals and I was starving so we stopped and I got something healthy from T.G.I.F’s or some other food chain. This makes me cringe, I should not have to tell you to pack your meals, but I end up saying it anyways. And I think its worth noting here with a general rule: If you are going to be away from your house for more than 2 hrs pack two meals, because it will probably turn into four hours.

IX. Not recognizing that our bodies change

I’ve had people come to me after doing a ketogenic diet one season and they are 10 weeks out now, and over the last 6 weeks they haven’t dropped much. They are baffled because last time this diet got them into great shape. Let me tell you, our bodies change with time, our hormone output changes, everything changes. The diet that got you ripped one year ago may not be the diet that will get you ripped this year. I don’t think I’ve ever had an identical prep EVER. Last year I personally had to go keto the last 5 weeks to get my glutes in, the year prior I dieted in on 250 carbs. You need to be flexible and have a working knowledge of the different diet approaches. One of the reasons I feel I’m successful as a diet coach is I don’t pigeon whole anyone into my diet philosophy, the only philosophy I have is Ill help you get shredded with whatever approach your body needs right now. And that’s the mentality you should have too. If something isn’t working fix it. If it’s rolling along don’t tinker with it.

X. Not practicing your posing

I’ve seen the best person on stage relegated to second place due to horrible posing. Bodybuilding and figure and bikini is about presentation of what you have worked so hard for. I’ve been amazed at some great physiques I’ve seen over the years that can’t even pose a simple lat spread. They pinch in when they are supposed to be spreading out. Did they not practice? Did no one point this out? Didn’t they ask? Do they not comprehend the word “spread”? I just can’t wrap my mind around it. The judges can only judge what you present, if you present a narrowed back due to bad posing well you will be judged on a narrow back. You may think you are a good poser, but chances are you aren’t that great or you have things you definitely need to work on. I recommend you start 10 weeks out posing at least 15 minutes per day and increase it as the show approaches. If done correctly it could sub for a cardio session. Try holding the front relaxed pose properly for 1 minute, then hold all the poses for 1 minute you will be sweating. It would take me to long to explain all the poses here, but if you want to email me at Jason@nattynutrition.com I have a Word document I’ve prepared for my clients that explains the poses and what you should be presenting in each and how to do it properly.

[Zaneseed]

awesome read, thanks bro

[Quelly]

http://www.3dmusclejourney.com/artic...p-mistakes.php

[Hopeunknown]

I agree with all these points, ESPECIALLY with the too much cardio too fast, I hope no one reading this thread makes this mistake again, it's easy to become numbers obsessed and wanting to create a large calorie deficit everyday!

I was doing 1300 calories per day on various cardio machines (at steady state) yet still carrying a little bit of belly fat, took me a while to realise that the weight-loss was mainly coming from muscle!

Go easy on cardio, and if you must try HIIT instead...

[Reznor91]

Definately agree with all of these, when i started BB i fell into some of those mistakes and once you do things properly you really notice the difference

[KingRico187]

Great read really going to come in handy for my up coming first show in April 2013

[wrkoutfrq]

strong 2 year old thread bump, but TBH it wasn't a bad one... a lot of people can still benefit from reading this stuff

[demonwareltd]

strong 2 year old thread bump, but TBH it wasn't a bad one... a lot of people can still benefit from reading this stuff

I was just going to say - threads like these should be bumped every 6 months or so, as they point out alot of good general guidelines.

[Willgetnice]

My biggest mistake this year was over complicating things. I'd cook ad hoc meals a lot of the time which, over the course of months and months of prep, took up a huge amount of time. I've now mastered the art of bulk cooking and have regained hours of free time to my week there's a learning curve like everything else and people's preferences will dictate what works best for them, I didn't really hit my rhythm in the cooking department until about 2-3 months ago.

[Treat03]

You see sooooooo many people starving there self. If you didn’t do the work starving yourself the last ten weeks is not how you win a show. I wasn’t eating enough for my first two shows, changed everything up in prep for next show (eating more) and I am bigger and leaner a week out than ever.

[ang3li]

Awesome post! I am starting my contest prep now and am 16 weeks out for my first bikini competition in Australia. Super excited and thanks for the info!