7 Ways to Crush Your Bodybuilding Competition

I can’t stress it enough; posing wins shows. 

I’ve seen guys shaking like Bambi on ice during show day and it’s not a good look. You can have the best body in the world, but if you don’t know how to pose you can kiss first place goodbye. Posing is a way to display your talents and hide your weak points. You should begin posing everyday for 15 minutes once you start training for your competition. You want to exude confidence and an easy way to do that is by practicing every pose and holding each pose for up to one minute. If your muscles shake while in a pose, you’re not ready. Learn to out-pose your competition, Arnold was famous for this. He would pay attention to his rivals. For example, when competing in the 1975 Mr. Olympia against Franco Columbo, Arnold would alternate poses to counter Columbo’s attempts to outshine him. When Columbo would hit an ab shot (he knew Arnold abs were not as sharp as his), Arnold would quickly transition from a front pose to a back double bicep pose to hide his weakpoints.

Conditioning often outperforms mass. The best way to make it look like you’ve gained 10lbs of muscle is to lose 10lbs of fat. The more conditioned you are, the more muscularity you will see. You can appear more muscular than someone who is 10-20lbs heavier than you. You never want to rush your contest diet. Usually diets that are 12 weeks or less are more calorically severe, meaning they will require you to be in a much bigger caloric deficit for a longer time causing you to lose more muscle. Someone who takes upward of 25 weeks to prepare for a contest has plenty of time to get lean and they will not have to be in such a big deficit. In fact these individuals who take their time dieting can be stage ready weeks in advance, then they can begin adding carbs and food back in. This helps the athlete to fill out and actually gain back some muscle fullness going into a show. When you rush dieting you run the risk of losing a lot of your hard earned muscle and you can end up looking stringy and flat on show day.

The first thing I want you to keep in mind with your high intensity interval training is that cardio is catabolic. Cardio does not promote muscle building in any way and is counterproductive for your muscle building needs. HIIT burns more calories for a longer period of time than normal low-intensity cardio. Utilizing HIIT cardio during your prep will allow you to burn more calories in less time while actually retaining a lot more muscle size. Let’s compare the different types of cardio athletes. You have long distance runners and short duration sprinters. Which one appears more muscular? The sprinter! The sprinter has a bigger more muscular physique while the long-distance runner has long stringy flat appearance. The goal for your bodybuilding show is to appear as big and as muscular as possible, so it makes sense to utilize this type of cardio to improve your metabolic capacity.

Have all your meals prepped and ready to go at the beginning of each week. Preparing your meals for the week can save you time and energy. Not having to think about cooking can leave you free to practice you’re posing or give you more time to perform some more HIIT cardio work. The more prepared you are for your day the better off you will be. You will be less likely to cheat knowing you have all your meals cooked and ready to go.

Rest is utterly important, especially during contest prep. Our bodies will be depleted and in that state, they aren’t going to recover as well as usual. Make it a point to get a good amount of sleep every night so your body can recover. With proper recovery in place you’ll have more energy to train, do cardio, pose, and burn ample amounts of body fat.

There are so many last minute voodoo techniques that are supposed to make you more ripped and more conditioned. The fact of the matter is this, you are one week out of a contest, and if you drastically alter your nutrition or training protocols you are setting yourself up for failure. I have seen guys look absolutely amazing one week out of show day but then blow it by trying to alter everything. The first key is to be lean enough to where you are show ready one week before your contest. When you are show ready you do not have to worry about doing anything to get you there. Show day should be treated just like a normal workout day. I have found manipulating sodium and potassium levels do not give you any advantage in fact you may even lose placings because of it. Stick to what has been working for you and do not make a drastic change so close to a contest.

Planning your offseason can be fun—it also relieves stress. You’ve found your weaknesses and can start honing in on them to make your next showing that much better. As Aristotle said, success is a habit not an act. Planning ahead will keep you focused but it’s also a dangerous time. Competitors can gain back almost all the body fat they lost, but this happens because they don’t plan. In addition, most competitors don’t slowly reverse their calories back up to maintenance. By slowly adding the calories back in (or reverse dieting) you have the ability to repair your metabolism and add quality weight while keeping the bodyfat gain minimal. Post-contest rebound is often overlooked but can have huge payoffs in your bodybuilding future.