How to Successfully Set Up & Execute a Bodybuilding Competition Prep

Stepping up to the microphone, the founder of Blankslate Fitness in the host of the No Bull Podcast, and your guide for fitness, nutrition, and training. Caleb Blankenchip. All right. Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the No Bull Podcast. This week we have a fun one. I had some people who competed over the past weekend, and I thought we'd do a podcast on how to successfully set up and execute a bodybuilding prep. Everyone wants to step on stage shredded, but almost no one understands what it really takes to get there without destroying their hormones, their metabolism, or their mental health. Today, we're going to break down exactly how to set up the competition prep the right way, the science, the timing, the strategy, and the mistakes that ruin the seeks along the way every single year. Is this you? Do you know someone who this happened to? We've seen all the time people show up not in shape. They're not ready. They're not prepared. What goes wrong? What are some things we can do to alleviate those problems? So number one, we need to start with a goal of mine, right? What division are we prepping for? Each division has different conditioning for this muscularity needs. Those are things we need to think of, not just what division you want to do, but what division fits your physique well enough. Do you want to do wellness, which is going to be a decently muscular upper body, but a very disproportionate lower body where you're lower body. It's a way more muscular, bigger glutes, bigger legs, the inner meaning versus bikinis, kind of a balance. I mean, do you want to do wellness, but you just don't have the muscle for it. Maybe we need to stick with bikini. Or maybe your personality doesn't fit bikini and we need to do something else. And then we need to be honest at our starting point. What's our body fat like? What's our lifestyle like? What's our stress recovery? Are you willing to stick to a girlfriend? Different things like that that will all come into play here. But one thing I want to start with is when you shouldn't start a prep. I see this all the time. People come to me at their breakup. They want to start a prep. They come to me after a death in the family. They want to come to me after they lose their job. Essentially what they're doing is they're prolonging the emotional damage that they've just gone through by prepping for a show to put it out of their mind, box it up, and not deal with it. It's one of the worst things you could do. I don't advise it. I don't like it. You're putting off this damage for four or six months and then you get done, you crash out to the show and then all these emotions just hit you and it hits a very bad spot for you post-show. It can lead to a rapid weight gain. It could lead to you losing your love for the sport for prepping. There's definitely something that I want to do and then another thing I see is a lot of people, they start too late. They start 10 to 12 weeks too late. I see it all the time and they run out of time to get the body fat off because they're not honest with their assessment from where they're at when they need to start. With that, how do we set up a timeline and prep phases? We kind of need to reverse engineer the show date. How do you count down to a show? It's how many weeks out we are. Let's say we're 20 weeks out and you just now start counting. It's already too late. I have my clients. We start counting from 40. Why? We're not prepping for 40 weeks, but I need to know what our timeline looks like, what our body fat looks like, and where we're doing. If you have a good coach, they're not letting you get too fat in the all season. If I look at someone and you are, let's just say for easy math, you are 200 pounds and you are 15% body fat. That's 30 pounds of body fat on you realistically to get in a really shredded shape. We'll need to lose about 1T2 of that ish because we can't be 0% body fat. Our body will go so low. If we have 22 pounds to lose and we only have 20 weeks to do it, is it possible? Yes, but it doesn't set us up for the best case scenario. What I like to do is we want to average a half pound to a pound per week. We need to make sure we're setting our timelines ahead of time. If you have 40, 50 pounds to lose, 20 week prep is not going to work for you. We got to make sure we're staying in a really good spot. Some season competitors who say really lean year round, they can get away with 12 to 16 weeks, but that's very rare. Typically someone someone who is prepping, they're going to want at least 20 weeks. With that we can take our time, we can have die breaks, refes, different things like that. The phases to the prep are kind of like, we have a pre prep phase, which will probably take place anywhere from that 30 to 40 week range. You know, this is where we want to fix our habits. Are we drinking sometimes in the weekends? Are we not getting our sleep in? Are we having poor digestion? Is our sleep not good? How is our training intensity? Can these things pick up? This is a great time where we can start to bring body fat down a little bit, put us in better striking distance for our prep, and fix our bad habits, fix the things that are maybe kind of alien to us injuries, different things like that. Then we're going to have that loss phase. This is a slow controlled deficit with progressive adjustments. Meaning food will slowly taper down, cardio will slowly taper up. You will have fat burners that kind of come in, and those will kind of taper up a little things. A deficit can come from variety of things. We're looking at about a 500 calorie deficit to lose about a pound a week, but that doesn't all have to be through cardio. That can be through cardio. That can be through diet manipulations. That can be through fat burners. Maybe I'll only take about 250 calories from your diet, but I add 250 calories worth of cardio, and then we add some fat burners on top of that. We're probably looking at like a 600 to 700 calorie deficit. That will help us to start to really drop. Throughout this, you want to make sure that digestion and hormones are staying balanced, especially for natural athletes. We want to make sure of that. They don't have any help versus enhanced athletes. Our hormones are balanced through external hormones that we're injecting in our bodies through anabolic steroids and things like that. Finally, as you're in that fat loss phase and you're going through the entire prep, it probably takes place from 24 or 20 weeks only down to the last six to eight-week push. You can call that like your height of prep, your peak of prep, or you want to call it. That's when the details really matter. We need to, not that they don't matter before, but we need to make sure sleep is a priority. We need to make sure we're posing a lot. We need to make sure that we're mitigating stress as much as possible and that we're staying in close proximity, close contact with our coach. When I get people into this prep phase, they're probably updating me at two to three times a week, so I can make sure that we're staying on top of things as needed. Then you're going to get into peak week. If you're really ready, peak week should be easy. We don't need any magic potions. We don't need any crazy car bloats or water cuts. We want to just be ready and then mitigate stress and peak week is really about resting the body, feeding up a little bit and mitigating stress for that final look. So when it comes to losing, I've already talked about this, but we want to lose about a half pound to a pound a week and what this does is that we're not rushing the prep because when we rush a prep, it can lead to muscle loss at a flat look on stage. That can happen very easily. That's why I actually just had a client this past weekend. I took over 12 weeks out and we had to drop 40 pounds in 12 weeks so that it was not anywhere near what I normally like to do. We brought a really good look, but the look could have been better if we had a full prep together. If we were able to prepare better, but he came to me a little too late, you know, I told him I wasn't sure how I was going to go, but we'll give it hell and go from there. And we pulled some stuff off. But what did I have to do with two weeks out? Instead of pushing, I really had to back off because he was starting to look really flat, really stringy. You know, like muscle was kind of falling off and then we brought his food back up to baseline level. We had to really drop his cardio off and we got a lot more drop out of that last couple weeks just by bringing his food back up to normal and then the body press because we were pushing the body so hard that muscle was starting to fall off and I recognized that early enough that we were able to back off quickly and add in food and do things like that. So that's why it's so important to be honest with your starting point. You know, if you think you have 20 pounds to lose ad 10, make it 30. You know, if you think that's kind of what I live by. If you think you have however much fat you think you have, add more and however much muscle you think you have, take some away because typically those are things that will overestimate for ourselves over an underestimate because, you know, it's we can't always be biased towards ourselves. So as we get into like training for the prep, okay? My training strategy during prep is I don't change your training program at all. As far as like exercise, election, and things like that go. I want to keep the same movements in because that's a great way for us to judge how our strength is doing, judge how things are going. We're still focusing with progressive overload and trying to get stronger and keeping proper form while we're getting stronger. The biggest thing that I can emphasize here is to keep the execution tight. And then as we get deeper into the prep, we'll manage volume as the fatigue increases. So typically for me around that 10 to 12 week mark, I may make some volume adjustments. I may take a set here or a set there. And then typically around that six week mark is when I'll take some more sets away and decrease volume a little more to really help the body recover. At that point, it's six weeks out, eight weeks out. We're really not going to be gaining muscle. Our only goal is to maintain what we've already gained. And that way we don't lose it through stress. So we have to lower volume to make sure that we're mitigating stress as much as possible. Cardio, we're going to add cardio strategically, not emotionally, if you don't lose for two weeks, I'm not just going to ramp your cardio up. I'm going to look back over our last two, three, four weeks and look at the pictures, compare the pictures and see, hey, are we getting leaner here because maybe we're recomping? Are we not getting leaner? Are we getting worse? Maybe if you're looking at pictures, I think it's worse to be able to sign a stress and we need to get the body of break. But just because the weight doesn't budge, doesn't mean the body's not improving. I've been the same way, I'm not prepping, but I've been the same weight for three weeks in a row with my updates and you compare three weeks ago to now, they're drastically different, a good bit tighter, but the scale hasn't changed. So yeah, don't let the scale play tricks with your butt. We've already talked about how cutting the volume helps save on muscle. As far as mitigating stress, more cardio is always better. We need to make sure we're mitigating stress again. So sometimes we'll take cardio away, we'll give a break, we'll do different things like that. And that we were ensuring we're not looking small and flat, you know, different things like that. We want to be able to hang on to as much muscle as we possibly can. As far as setting up your baseline nutrition and things like that, there's gonna be our normal things that we're gonna set up properly. Protein, we're gonna be able to look about 0.5 to 0.1, maybe 1.2 grams per pound. And that's not per pound of body weight, that's per pound of lean body mass. So, you know, like for example, again, if you are 200 pounds and you're 15% body fat, we take all the body fat, all of you, that's gonna work out to 30 pounds. So our lean body mass is 170 pounds. So we could probably anywhere from 150 to 190 grams of protein would be a pretty good spot for you. Cards and fats are gonna be set up proportionally to just how chubby we are, how lean we are. And then the way I typically do it is I like to put a bowl list of those carved setups, pre and post workout, 'cause that's what we're gonna use the most. That's some people do better with fats, higher or some lower, that could be just a troubleshooting thing that you're going to kinda play with. And then as far as like adjusting the food, you know, there's not really a black and white hair tonic gray. So, you know, you need to adjust the food when it's needed is are we not dropping and we want to drop food? Okay, that's easy, you have to take a little food here, take a little food there. But be careful not to take too much too quick or you're gonna have none at the end of play with. Eventually, you're gonna get to a spot where the body isn't dropping. You're adding cardio, you're gaining weight and the body looks worse. And this is typically when you need to do a refeed or a diet break. If we are doing more cardio, we're dieting harder and we're gaining weight. That's just a sinus stress, the body's stressed out. So what we'll do is that's where we'll take a day or maybe two days off of cardio, give the body a big break and then we'll raise who back to a baseline level or maybe even higher. So for example, if you're doing 300 grams of carbs a day, you're doing six, 45 minute sessions of cardio a week. You know, I'll go, hey, let's do no cardio today and then I'll just send me a plan up to like three, 75, maybe 400 grams of carbs. And let's run this and check in with me tomorrow. Okay, cool, that works fantastic. The body weight stays the same. Let's check in again tomorrow and do the same thing again today. So when we start to feed the body back and we lower the cardio, the body will release some of that stress. We'll start to see the body improved. The client mentally won't improve because we'll see the fold has kind of come back to the muscle a little bit of day off of cardio, which is really nice when you're in the dog days of prep and I had to do cardio. And we'll start to see veins pop out and different things like that and it just mentally makes them want to train and push hard. That's why refes can be such a massive thing during prep and refes and cheat meals are different. You know, refeed is a plan calculated methodical approach versus the cheat meals and unplanned unmethodical approach, you know, because I don't know how many calories are in your burger fries that you get a five guys, but I know how many calories are in the meal plan that I gave you today. So that's one way that we need to kind of look at things and if we're pre-planning refeeds, we're actually doing ourselves a disservice because we need to make sure that our body's in a spot that we need to refeed because if the body doesn't need it, you're losing valuable fat for the time. So that's why we don't just want to hop in and do it whenever we feel like it. They need to be done accordingly to when the body needs to. When it comes to prep supplements specifically when people who take PEDs, the timings of the PEDs are kind of based on the experience, you know, what's your experience with PEDs? How much have you taken in the past? What had you taken, different things like that? Are you a female or a male? Have we monitored blood work? What are we doing here? So I don't like to blast, you know, PEDs right away. I like to slowly build them up over time. What that does is they kind of taper up as it gets harder. So it's helping us in fat burden and it's helping us retain muscle, it's helping us gain muscle. But also it's keeping toxicity levels down within the body. I mean, we take these PEDs for a long enough time, they can finally create toxicity within the body. So we want to limit that as much as possible. The last thing we want to do is blast heavy for 30 weeks of prep and then by the end of prep, we've been on drugs too long and our body is kind of like not shutting down but our body is stopped responding to what we're trying to do because it's too stressed out and we have to pull out the show. So I like to start roast low, taper up from there. Females, that's going to be even more so. When I have females who are on PEDs, we don't put them into a closer to show, like maybe eight to 10 weeks out just because the risk of side effects is so much higher with them. The risk of defamation is so much higher and that's something we just don't. I don't take lightly and we don't want to play with. You also need to make sure we're monitoring health martyrs, you know how sleep housings like that. Do we need to get blood work? Having the supplements put in for things like kidneys, liver, lipids, things that can take a hit during prep, anyways. But then they can take a bigger hit, more anti-PEDs at the other game. Meal timing is important. So wake up, see what you look like. If you're really watery, you know, the foolproof method is to get a glucometer. Check your glucose. If you wake up over 100, you know, you clearly don't need more food. So you would do a, maybe a liter of water, a higher protein and fat meal with a lot of salt. If you're really low, like 70s and you look a little flat, you can go eat a bigger meal like pancakes. I mean, I know I just said don't introduce things that are new, but typically something like a pancake is pretty safe. It's pretty easy to digest and at that point, give the body needs who we got to do to get to fill out. And if you're in a pretty good spot and just have, you know, like card meal, like fat, like protein, salt, a little bit of fluid, and just ride the show, ride the plane into the show. You don't need no reason to do anything drastic, just land the plane will be good to go. When you're backstage pumping up, I like to do a rice crispy treat with honey and a shit ton of salt, the sugar, the salt, everything like that helps with, helps with the pump, it helps with vacillarities and things like that. And then last, don't pump up too much. I see people they're pumping up for 30, 40 minutes and it makes you go flat. All you need is maybe some lateral raises, some pushups, some rows. You would never want to pump our legs. Now, unless you're a bikini or wellness athlete, you're right, then we want to pump our boots and stuff. But don't pump up. Just think of yourself as an older guy, the plan of fitness and you're just there hanging out, right? You do a set, chill, do a set, chill. Don't rush it, take your time and don't overdo it because at the end of the day, we overdo the pump now and it could be go flat, but we're going to be tired to get on stage and pose and then it's going to be harder to hit your shots. It's going to be harder to get in your shots if you have too much of a pump. So someone like me, like I don't really don't pump up at all, I just kind of do some lot of ways to push up something called a day. You know, and our last point is the post show protocol. This is where most people really fall apart. They get out of the stage, they binge, they gain 20 pounds a weekend. I've seen it. I've done it. You know what I mean? I've been the guy to do it. Your coach should have a reverse diet setup for you either that night or within a day or so. So you have something structured to go off of. I always give my clients the same the same spiel. You know, I mean, you whatever you want tonight, you whatever you want the morning, stay, you know, moderate to low carb all day and then you where you want to dinner, check in Monday and we'll get you set it. Set up. If I don't have them check in Monday, then I will just set them up a reverse diet the night of the show. I emphasize keeping hydration high because at this point, we are very dehydrated. So it's easy for the body to want to hold onto a lot of water, get a demon, the ankles and really stress out our kidneys. So hydration needs to be the forefront, electrolytes, things like that and enjoy food. Give it back to your family, that's watched you go through this. Your family's gone through it too. You know, you're not the only one that did it. Your girlfriend, your wife, your husband, they were right there with you. So go have a meal with them. We want to get hormones back on track if that's possible. You know, if you're prepping we're in your hands, we're probably going to drop all PDs except for some testosterone. If you're not enhanced, then we're going to get on some hormone optimizers right away. We're going to try to bring body fat levels back up to a decent level to help with recovery to help with hormone optimization and then train volume. We're going to keep low. Then the following week, we're going to keep everything about 80 to 95% and then we'll taper it up as we go. The biggest thing I want to do is I like to set meetings with people and talk about how the prick went, what they enjoy, what did it enjoy? Do they want to do it again? What are their goals? What's next? And as a team, we set goals for what's coming next. Maybe it's a show. Maybe it's what body parts need to come up. What needs to be improved upon because at the end of the day, the body puts all about getting better and being better than your previous. So we need to make a plan and put a goal in a plan in place so we're not just blindly following things. And lastly, just avoid the rebound that wrecks your mental health. It'll be the person that binges and within three weeks, you can't tell. They even did a prep because they've gained so much weight. I've seen guys do it. I've seen for reals do it. It's awful for your hormones, awful for your mental health. We just don't want to do it. We'll power it. We'll power after the show is a lot harder than we'll power before the show because when you want to cookie before the show, you think about, hey, I got to step on stage. I got to present. I got to do the best I can. But when you want to cookie out to the show, the stress is gone. There's no show in sight. No one's going to see you when you're into it. So it's okay. And that turns into one to two to three to a whole pack. Then that 30, 40, 50 pounds later, I've seen people even gain 70 pounds post show within six months. It can happen very fast, you know, have work with your coach and make sure you do everything you can and to not have that happen. So, you know, if you think about stepping on stage, just remember that prep isn't just a diet. It's a full scale lifestyle shift. You know, when you set it up correctly, you keep your muscle, protect your health and enjoy the process. You know, when you rush through it and you don't plan accordingly, things get ugly, you're not going to present the package that you want. You know, if you want help mapping out your full prep from timeline to what you should eat, training, posing even to post show, you know, shoot me a message, go to my website, blinksafitness.com, I'd love to help you out. You know, I coach competitors through every phase, so you can step on stage confident condition and proud of the seat that you built because at the end of the day, that's what it's about, right? We want to be proud of how we look. And I'm always there to present to help you every step of the way. I love to be the show at VVAC stage and do everything I can. So let's make your next prep the smoothest and most successful you ever had. Let me know what I can do for you. And yeah, thanks for tuning in today. Have a great week. And let's kill it. Thank you for listening to the No Bull podcast. For additional information regarding coaching, please visit blankslapefitness.com. A likeness subscribe goes a long way. Let's build our best selves together. [BLANK_AUDIO]