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Some Thoughts on Your Competition Diet – Part 3

04 August 2021

7 Min

Die heiße Phase der Wettkampfdiät: Objektivität und Vertrauen, richtiges Timing, die Peak-Week mit Carb-Loading und warum Nachsorge nach dem Wettkampf zählt.

Wettkampfdiät im Bodybuilding We’ve already covered two extremely informative posts offering deep insights into my thoughts on competition dieting. Congratulations to everyone who’s ready to dive into Part 3 today, because today we’re tackling the truly critical phase of any competition diet. The final 8 weeks lie ahead of us, and right now it’s getting really exciting to learn what changes need to be made—both nutritionally and psychologically—to be in absolute top form on D-Day.

Let’s dive right in!

The Final 8 Weeks Before the Competition

On Stress, Objectivity, and Confidence

The further along the diet progresses, the less athletes are able to view themselves with the objectivity that’s actually necessary. Experienced athletes are surely familiar with this scenario:

In the morning, you feel great
At noon, you feel too skinny
Toward evening, you feel too fat

While this may sound funny and is something you can look back on and chuckle about, it’s actually a clear warning sign of an eating disorder. Anyone with an eating disorder loses objectivity toward themselves. This realization calls for a few necessary steps. The most important of all is probably to provide athletes with weekly feedback, especially during this final phase, and to be there for them whenever a minor “self-inflicted fitness crisis” begins to take shape. Believe me, I know exactly what I’m talking about, because I, too, have had to be talked some sense into by people close to me during this time. ? In addition to completely derailed eating habits, stress (also known as “brain fuzz”) is a major problem. A phrase that many competitive athletes have had to hear from me is:

“If your head isn’t in the game, then we can eat and train however we want!”—and that’s EXACTLY how it is!

So the clear task in the final weeks of preparation is to always give athletes precise and concrete instructions regarding nutrition and training. All mental stress resulting from planning nutrition and training must be lifted off the athlete’s shoulders! If you then have an athlete who is able to PERFORM, the diet will go exceptionally well at this point. Athletes who can’t let go and trust the process will face increasing difficulties.

AN ABSOLUTE NO-GO
It’s not uncommon for a competition coach to receive emails from athletes under the care of other coaches who are seeking a second, third, or perhaps even fourth opinion. For me, that’s an absolute no-go! Especially when, during the conversation, statements like “I trust my coach… BUT” come up. An “but” at this stage of the competition regimen is a deal-breaker—mark my words—which is why here’s another piece of wisdom from me: “Too many cooks spoil the broth”—YOU are the broth!

Conclusion

The most important rules for this phase of the competition diet are:
• More intensive guidance•
Specific guidelines•
Trust

Wettkampfdiät im Bodybuilding

What? You’re already done?

In my view, even experienced figures in the scene make major mistakes when it comes to diet planning. With the rise of Facebook, Instagram, and the like, many athletes feel compelled to regularly report on their progress. Everyone seems to have an opinion on it. What strikes me time and again are posts featuring athletes who are actually already “stage-ready” as early as 4 or 6 weeks before their first championship.

A particularly great achievement? – NO – particularly poorly timed, I’d say!

The goal of a competition diet isn’t to be the first among all your Facebook friends to be in shape, but to maintain all the lean mass and form you’ve worked so hard to achieve on D-Day AND BEYOND. With the exception of smaller associations, which may only hold one national competition per season, larger associations offer numerous opportunities to compete throughout the season. Often, you even have to qualify for subsequent competitions at the regional level. The bottom line is that a competition season lasts a good 6 to 8 weeks from the first to the last competition. These 6 to 8 weeks mean additional weeks of dieting under absolutely exceptional conditions for the athlete—and 6 to 8 weeks during which the risk of losing muscle mass steadily increases (31).

Good timing, therefore, doesn’t mean being “ready” as quickly as possible, but rather being ready “at just the right moment.” On the other hand, what I’ve described naturally applies to being “too late” as well. Anyone who gets the timing wrong and thinks they can rest on their initial good progress may eventually find themselves at the point where there’s “too little time for too much fat” left. The result: extreme dieting efforts, extreme cardio requirements, and thus, once again, a huge risk of losing muscle mass in the kilogram range (31).

Conclusion

TIMING is the magic word for any competition diet. Especially in the final phase of preparation, the focus is increasingly on maintaining lean body mass. This is achieved by ensuring that, as an athlete, you’re neither “too early” nor “too late.”

The Final Week—D-Day

Anyone who still needs to work on their body fat percentage this week has missed the boat! The final week before Day X is for fine-tuning and making those last minor adjustments to give athletes the finishing touches. PEAK WEEK—that’s what the final week before the competition is called. Interestingly, there’s very little evidence available regarding this complex interplay of dehydration, carb-loading, and sodium management—and even less that supports the idea that a PEAK-WEEK has significant effects. In my view, this is completely understandable, since it’s impossible in good conscience to make universal claims about what constitutes an effective PEAK WEEK (even though forums and blogs repeatedly try to attract readers and expand their reach with such plans).
The task for the coach and athlete is to first test the effectiveness of hydration and dehydration on an individual basis. I’ve experienced both—on the one hand, truly excellent changes, but on the other, disappointing results that make you wonder whether it was right to have the athlete drink 10, 11, or more liters of water, which is certainly very taxing—A PURELY INDIVIDUAL DECISION

Especially in categories where the goal is to have muscles that look as full as possible, carb-loading plays a major role. Bodybuilding doesn’t misappropriate this approach—which actually originates from endurance sports—to boost performance, but rather to present muscles that look as full as possible on stage. Ultimately, there is no shortage of methods and approaches here either. Studies have shown that a complete supraphysiological replenishment of glycogen stores is possible within just 24 hours, followed by a depletion phase (28). The amount required for this ranges from 10 to 12 grams of carbohydrates per kilogram of body weight (29). Although Pedersen et al. used high doses, the researchers also demonstrated in their study that carb-loading can be further enhanced through the use of caffeine (30). The extent to which carb loading is spread out over 2 or even 3 days before the competition depends on the individual case, particularly on tolerance and thus on the condition of the digestive tract. In any case, entire “high-carb” weeks are certainly just as unnecessary as the carbs that athletes still consume in large quantities right on the day of the competition—TIMING MISTAKE! Check out my video on this topic!

Finally, here’s a piece of advice I’ve given many times before to all active athletes—as well as coaches: Focus on post-competition nutrition! I covered this topic in detail in my article from the June 2016 issue of FLEX. If you have the chance, give it a read (available online in the German edition of FLEX). By then, at the very latest, you’ll understand how important post-competition recovery is!

Conclusion

PEAK WEEK is the most personalized part of any competition diet. One-size-fits-all plans that you’ve received from someone else belong in the trash. The big challenge is finding YOUR path!

Summary

Ideally, you’ve now internalized all three parts and are ready to get to work with renewed motivation and new knowledge. Competitive bodybuilding is a interplay of, on the one hand, rock-solid science on nutrition, but also far more psychology than one might expect. In this article, I’ve tried to bring both together and hope that I’ve succeeded in doing so in a clear and convincing way.
Have a great and successful time!

Blogger Holger Gugg Best regards