NPC San Jose Bodybuilding 2011 Contest Prep

It’s been too long since I’ve fired up Microsoft Word to put some thoughts to print- so here I go…
We’re a week out from the NPC 2011 San Jose Bodybuilding Show and I have a nice handful of competitors that I’ve either trained or dieted for this show- from first timers to vets, bodybuilders, figure and bikini girls.

Many of these folks have been dieting for nearly half the year; others just a few weeks, but to all, if you’ve made it this far, should be extremely proud of your progress and accomplishments. It certainly isn’t easy to eat in a highly restrictive manner for weeks or months on end. Those with the tunnel vision to understand that only with deprivation comes reward in this sport will be rewarded Saturday July 9th. Others, who’ve been less than honest with themselves (or their diet coach) regarding their prep, will learn a hard lesson that I learned many, many years ago- losing hurts worse than winning feels good. I once heard the infamous Craig Titus say that he worked his ass off during the pre-contest diet phase for the specific purpose of making the first call out. If you’ve ever missed that first group called forward, you should be highly motivated for that to NEVER happen again. If you “compete just because you like competing” and aren’t really concerned with your placing, you are either a liar with excuses or you are not a competitive person by nature and shouldn’t be competing in the first place. If either of those represent your view of competition, please don’t contact me to do your prep. I’m competitive to a fault and have a very high expectation of those I give my time to. If you “play to win” and want to come in razor sharp for your show, feel free to contact me and I’ll do my best Moses impersonation (by taking you to the promise land).
For me, there are 3 very specific phases of contest prep that must be in harmony for a competitor to be at their best onstage: adequate rest, an effective diet plan that you can maintain without straying for a prolonged period of time, and a dedicated training/cardio program. If any of these simple phases are missing, the contest prep will not yield the best possible results.
Adequate rest may seem like a simple thing, but for many of us it isn’t a reality. I know that for me to diet for a show I need at least 6-8 hours of sleep every night. If for some reason I get less sleep on a given night, I bump it up on a successive night to make up for the sleep deficit. Many of our realities don’t allow for adequate rest, be it- work, small children, stress (home life, financial stresses, etc.) all affect our abilities to sleep soundly. I don’t care how hard you train, how well you eat or how much this or that you take, if you aren’t sleeping, you aren’t recuperating.
As much as I honestly believe that 98% of dieting is the same for 98% of the population, I don’t see a 98% success rate competing on stage. At local/regional shows, at least half the people on that stage really should hire a prep coach (or pick a new hobby) because they aren’t in shape to contend for that first call out and I’m probably being nice by saying half. There are so many misconceptions when it comes to the why’s and what’s of dieting, but most people I know think they know how to diet. Well guess what folks, you probably don’t. If you don’t know what a macronutrient is, or how many calories are in a gram of carbohydrates, you should never write a diet or offer dieting advice to anyone who wants to make accountable progress. If you can’t account for it, you can’t predictably make it work either for or against you, you simply guess- and if the guess approach worked, casinos would be broke and their patrons filthy rich 
When it comes to training, anyone who’s ever talked to me or one of my real clients about our approach, realizes that we think outside of the box. Sets and reps are nonsense terms to the human body. The body knows intensity, the body knows time under tension, and if you train the way that we train, the body knows fatigue and failure. I like to say to my clients, the gym is the only place on planet earth where failure is a good thing! The flip side to that coin is that a body that utilizes high intensity training techniques begs for rest and recuperation. No one I train ever lifts more than 4 days a week, and the vast majority train only 3 days per week. The central nervous system recovers at a rate significantly slower than many body parts. For this reason, we super compensate rest between training sessions to the point that most of our workouts are one day on, followed by one day off.
Although most of you aren’t prepping to compete this summer, the weathers officially changed and hopefully the bug to wear a little less, maybe get out on the water, and just be in warm weather shape should’ve bit you by now. If it hasn’t or you are dragging your feet and haven’t hit your summer stride, stop by our retail store and pick up some goodies to jump start your nutrition. If you are ready for a change and need some training motivation, give our training studio a call to set up an appointment at 209-238-6200 and enjoy a free session courtesy of me  We are currently conducting 1-on-1, couples, small groups, group circuit HIT, Zumba, TRX, and Cardio Kickboxing. I’ll get a video up this weekend of our final posing practice. Time to remove the proverbial vail from my competitors- if you aren’t ready 1 week out, chances are………….