Skilled bodybuilders typically meticulously plan their pre-contest coaching routine throughout the low season. They make use of methods equivalent to cut up system exercises, rigorously calibrated units and reps, and a various array of focused workouts to maximise muscle progress and energy. Their major goal throughout this part is to put the groundwork for peaking when it comes to lifting heavier weights and growing exercise depth as they strategy contest time. Sometimes, within the last 12 weeks main as much as a contest, they implement a specialised contest food plan. This food plan focuses on shedding physique fats whereas aiming for a lean, outlined, and ripped physique that showcases their hard-earned muscle mass.
The truth that right this moment’s champions look so good is a testomony to how efficient these methods might be. Nevertheless, via years of statement, I’ve discerned an space inside pre-contest coaching that usually bears room for enchancment. Particularly, this considerations the apply of abstaining from heavy weight within the week main as much as the precise contest. Whereas this methodology is often employed, its potential affect on sustaining peak energy and muscle activation throughout the competitors is a facet worthy of deeper consideration.
Bodybuilders should practice heavy to construct huge muscular tissues. How heavy is determined by issues like genetics, particular person energy, and the physique half being labored. However the basic strategy is for bodybuilders to go lots lighter the week or so earlier than competing. For instance, no extra heavy reps beginning Tuesday or Wednesday earlier than a Saturday occasion. Typically, beginning even earlier. The issue is a muscle made huge and exhausting by intense coaching will begin to get smaller and softer when it’s not topic to that sort of resistance. Per week and even just some days may not end in a big distinction. However, there may very well be some minimal diploma of atrophy current.
Because the competitors approaches, it’s inevitable to expertise systemic fatigue—a cumulative results of intense coaching and the demanding pre-contest food plan. This twin onslaught typically interprets to lowered energy and diminished endurance, making a situation the place your bodily capabilities may not match your traditional peak efficiency. The definition of “heavy” when it comes to lifting weights shifts inside this context; what as soon as constituted a manageable load would possibly now pose a big problem.
The exercises that propelled you to the competitors, which had been efficient and essential in your preparation part, would possibly show extreme or overly taxing within the days main as much as the occasion. This disparity between your accustomed coaching routine and your current situation elevates the chance of sustaining accidents. Your physique, fatigued and doubtlessly weakened by the stringent pre-contest coaching, turns into extra inclined to strains and accidents below the pressure of high-intensity exercises. Therefore, a vital adjustment in exercise depth turns into crucial to mitigate the elevated vulnerability to accidents earlier than the competitors.
However to greatest hold your muscular tissues huge, full, and exhausting, my suggestion is a compromise: Maintain doing comparatively heavy reps, however fewer of them. Simply do a restricted variety of heavy bench presses or squats, or different two-joint, “energy” actions, however not many units, and focus on the right kind to keep away from any probability of injuring your self. Doing just some heavy reps “reminds” the muscle as to what it took to stimulate its growth and retains it from dissolving throughout that final brief interval earlier than the Saturday competitors.
As the height of competitors looms, the fragile stability between preserving muscle mass and avoiding fatigue-related setbacks turns into paramount. Whereas conventional knowledge suggests a cessation of heavy lifting within the last week, an alternate strategy emerges as a strategic compromise. It entails sustaining a reference to heavy weights however with calculated restraint. Limiting heavy, compound actions to a couple important units, making certain impeccable kind, serves as a reminder to the muscular tissues of their progress stimuli with out inviting undue pressure or fatigue.
This compromise safeguards in opposition to potential muscle softening or measurement discount throughout the essential pre-competition part. Complementing these transient heavy units with lighter, sculpting workouts and rigorous posing retains the coveted muscular definition with out sacrificing hard-earned features. Putting this stability permits for muscle preservation whereas mitigating harm danger, thereby optimizing the physique for that pivotal Saturday showcase.
