Bodybuilding Off-Season: How to Improve Between Shows

Phase 2: decide what this off-season is for

An off-season without a goal tends to become a long, aimless bulk. Before you add calories, decide:

• What needs to improve. Use your stage photos, any judges' feedback and progress photos in your division's poses. Pick the two or three body parts that held you back most.
• When you want to compete next. A show date, or at least a season, tells you how long you have to build and when the next prep has to start.
• How you will measure it. For a weak body part, that might be stronger lifts on the exercises that train it, a measurement, and side-by-side photos at the end.

The more experienced you are, the slower muscle comes, so a longer off-season gives you more to show for it.

Phase 3: eat in a small surplus

This site's lean bulk guide uses a surplus of about 5 to 10% above maintenance calories and these monthly targets:

Training experience	Target weight gain per month
Beginner (under about 1 year)	1 to 1.5% of body weight
Intermediate (about 1 to 3 years)	0.5 to 1% of body weight
Advanced (more than about 3 years)	Up to 0.5% of body weight

Most competitors are intermediate or advanced. For a 90 kg (198 lb) intermediate competitor, that is about 0.45 to 0.9 kg (1 to 2 lb) a month.

A 2019 review of off-season nutrition for natural bodybuilders by Iraki, Fitschen, Espinar and Helms, in the journal Sports, suggests a somewhat larger surplus of about 10 to 20% above maintenance and a gain of about 0.25 to 0.5% of body weight a week for novice and intermediate bodybuilders, which is faster than the targets above. It advises advanced bodybuilders to be more conservative. This site leans towards the slower targets because any extra fat you gain now has to come off in your next prep, which makes that prep longer or harder. If you are gaining more slowly than planned, raise the surplus a little at a time.

One exception: in the first weeks after a show, weight usually comes back quickly, and some of that is simply part of recovering from prep, as the studies above show. The slower targets apply once you are back at a healthy, sustainable weight.

The rest of the review's advice fits with this site's numbers:

• Protein: 1.6 to 2.2 g per kg of body weight a day, spread over 3 to 6 meals.
• Fat: about 0.5 to 1.5 g per kg a day.
• Carbohydrate: the remaining calories, ideally at least 3 to 5 g per kg a day to fuel training.

Phase 4: set a ceiling

Work backwards from your next prep before you start:

• In their 2014 recommendations for natural bodybuilders preparing for a contest, Helms and colleagues suggest losing about 0.5 to 1% of body weight a week.
• If you expect to need to lose 8 kg (17.6 lb) next prep and can sensibly lose about 0.6 kg (1.3 lb) a week, that is around 13 to 14 weeks of dieting, before you add any buffer weeks for stalls and illness.
• The free contest prep calculator works this out from your show date and weights.

Pick a simple ceiling, such as a waist measurement or a body weight you agree not to pass. If you reach it well before your next prep, a short, controlled fat-loss phase lets you keep building afterwards without a marathon diet later.

Phase 5: train for growth

The off-season is when you can train hardest, because you are eating enough to recover.

• Volume: about 10 to 20 hard sets per muscle group a week suits most people. Put weak points towards the top of that range and keep strong body parts nearer the bottom.
• Effort: take working sets to about 1 to 3 reps short of failure.
• Order: train weak points first in the session and earlier in the week, when you are freshest.
• Progression: log every session and aim to add reps or weight over time on the same exercises.
• Recovery: take a lighter week when performance drops across several lifts and does not bounce back.
• Posing: keep practising your routine through the off-season, so it does not have to be relearned in prep.

Keep some cardio and daily walking too. The UK Chief Medical Officers recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate activity a week for health, and fitness you keep now does not need rebuilding later.

Phase 6: track it like a prep

An off-season goes wrong quietly, so track it with the same care as a prep:

• Weekly average weight, compared against your monthly target.
• Waist measurement every couple of weeks, so you notice fat gain early.
• Photos every four weeks in the same light, using your division's poses.
• Your training log: if weight is rising but your lifts are not, the surplus is not being used well.

Review every two to three weeks and make small changes: a little more food if you are below target, a little less if the waist is climbing faster than your lifts.

How coaching helps

The off-season is the part of the year when nobody is watching, which makes it easy to drift. With one-to-one coaching from CoachAk, your training program and calorie, macro and step targets are set in a private app and adjusted as you go. You log every workout, with your personal bests and your coach's comments, and send form-check videos your coach replies to. Each week, a check-in that takes about three minutes covers your weight, training and nutrition adherence, steps, sleep, energy, hunger and stress, with optional photos and body measurements. Your coach replies with written feedback and changes the plan when the numbers say so. Read more about contest prep coaching, or apply for coaching.