Contest Prep: What the Weeks Before a Show Look Like

Diet: the rate matters most

A widely cited 2014 review by Helms, Aragon and Fitschen, Evidence-based recommendations for natural bodybuilding contest preparation, in the Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, gives practical targets that most evidence-based coaches still work from:

• Rate of loss: about 0.5 to 1% of body weight a week, to maximise muscle retention.
• Protein: about 2.3 to 3.1 g per kg of lean body mass a day, higher than normal, because the leaner you get the more you risk losing muscle.
• Fat: about 15 to 30% of calories.
• Carbohydrate: the remainder, to fuel training.

In practice, calories come down in small steps over the prep, and so does the rate of loss as you get leaner. Your daily step count usually goes up gradually as well. Big, sudden changes are a sign the prep started too late.

For more on how to lose fat while keeping muscle, see how to lose fat without losing muscle.

Training: keep it heavy

The goal of training in prep is to keep the muscle you built in the off-season. That means:

• Keep lifting heavy and close to failure. Switching to light, high-rep "toning" work removes the signal your body needs to keep muscle.
• Aim to hold your strength. Some loss late in prep is normal, but big drops are a warning sign.
• Manage volume. As calories fall, recovery gets harder. Many competitors reduce sets in the later weeks while keeping intensity high. See how many sets per week to build muscle.
• Practise posing regularly. It is a skill, and it is also surprisingly tiring.

Tracking: more than the scale

In prep, small changes matter, and the scale alone is not enough:

• Daily morning weigh-ins, judged as weekly averages. See how to read the scale.
• Progress photos every week, in the same light and poses, relaxed and flexed. See how to take progress photos.
• Strength, hunger, sleep, energy and mood, which tell you how hard the diet is hitting you.

Photos become more important than weight as the show gets closer, because conditioning shows up visually before it shows up on the scale.

Peak week

Peak week is the final week before the show, and it gets more attention than it deserves. The aim is simple: to look as full and as lean as possible on the day.

A 2021 review by Escalante and colleagues, Peak week recommendations for bodybuilders, in BMC Sports Science, Medicine and Rehabilitation, found that the evidence for many popular peak week tricks is limited. Its practical advice favours:

• Moderate carbohydrate adjustments to fill out the muscles, ideally practised before the real show.
• Avoiding drastic water and sodium manipulation, which carries health risks and can make you look worse, not better.
• Changing as little as possible. The work of the last 16 weeks decides how you look, not the last 4 days.

If you arrive at peak week already in shape, it is a fine-tuning exercise. If you are not, no protocol will fix it.

After the show

Many competitors put everything into the weeks before the show and nothing into the weeks after. That is when rebound weight gain, low mood and a difficult relationship with food tend to hit.

A healthy post-show plan:

• Brings calories back up in a planned way. See reverse dieting.
• Expects weight to come back up. Stage condition is not meant to be held, and it would not be healthy to hold it.
• Gives your body time to recover. Energy, hormones, mood and performance can take weeks to months to return to normal after a very lean prep.
• Sets the next goal, whether that is an off-season of building or a return to normal life.

Is contest prep for you?

Prep is demanding physically and mentally. It is a good fit if you have a solid base of muscle and training experience, the time and support to commit for several months, and a healthy relationship with food. If you have a history of disordered eating, speak to a medical professional before starting a prep.

How contest prep coaching works with CoachAk

CoachAk has coached lifters from their first session in the gym to the competition stage. With one-to-one contest prep coaching:

• Your training program and nutrition targets are written for you and updated as the prep progresses.
• Each week you send a check-in with your weight, training and nutrition adherence, steps, sleep, energy, hunger, stress and progress photos (front, side and back, relaxed and flexed).
• Your coach reviews it, replies with written feedback and adjusts your plan.
• You can message your coach at any time, including photos.

If you are planning a show, apply for coaching, or read more about contest prep coaching.