In the last post, I have briefly discussed the need for a sensible off-season diet to achieve your fitness goals. In this article, I will explain on what a pre-contest diet is. A pre-contest diet is usually used to alter your body weight through dieting for a particular sport. A pre-contest diet is an effective tool in decreasing body fat and showing off those muscles built during the off-season.
Pre-contest diets are not only used by body-builders, but also by various athletes from different sporting disciples, such as boxing, MMA, soccer, football, etc. Although they wouldn't ideally call it pre-contest diets, it still requires them to reduce their daily calorie intake in order to achieve their specific fitness goals. This is either guided through a sports science coach or a sports nutritionist.
A pre-contest diet is the bread and butter of any competitive bodybuilder. This is where a bodybuilder makes his mark. Pre-contest diets usually take several months depending on how much body fat the bodybuilder is holding. This can vary from 10weeks to 24weeks. Either way, the pre-contest diet has to be done. An individual must also give ample time for his pre-contest diet to become effective. Therefore if he/she crash diets, they risk either losing too much muscle mass or even severely becoming ill as the body goes into a sudden shock from the massive reduction in calories.
So how can an individual know when to start dieting for a comp. Chris Aceto, the famous American pre-contest guru, had stated the following:
Males: If you are under 10% body fat- 10weeks
If you are anywhere from 12 to 15% than allow for 14weeks
If you are anywhere from 15 to 17% than allow for 16weeks
If you are over 17% than allow 20weeks or more.
Females: If you are 13% and under allow 10weeks
If you are 13 to 16% allow for at least 14weeks
If you are 17% to 20% allow at least 16 weeks
If you are 20% allow more than 20weeks.
For guys and girls who are reading this, please don't fool yourself by thinking that you are under the 10 or 12% BF range. From my experience, I have heard from a lot of guys stating that they are 10% or 12% but still have a spare tyre around their waist and not a single vein running through their arms. If your 10% or 12%, you should have clear and visible abs and vascularity should be prominent. So please don't fool yourself, because the only person you are fooling is you!!
Finally, pre-contest diets also comes in various forms. They range from low carb diet, Keto diet, carb cycling diet, intermittent fasting diet, paleo diet, etc. Each diet has it's own pros and cons, but at the end of the day, you must be able to stick to a diet which works well with your body, For example, I've always been a fan of low carb and ketosis based diets. But for someone like a friend of mine, the carb based diet works well for him. Both of us came in equally lean and both of us did well in our comps. So is one diet better than the other? The answer is NO. Simply because, I believe that no one knows your body except for yourself. Unless you have a professional contest prep guru like Chris Aceto or Hany Rambod working with you. I would find it really hard to follow a "bro science" contest prep diet. Get advice from bodybuilders who competed several times and placed well. Listen to their advice on contest prep and finally make your own modifications if you have to. Remember no thumb print is ever the same, so why should it be any different to a human body?? And finally, if you do use a diet based on their advice, PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE THEM! and don't try to pass it off as your own diet! Give them the credit they deserve.
In part III, of pre-contest diets. I will write about a few diets which you might find useful in dropping some body fat. Thank you for reading and stay safe.
I would also like to reference Chris Aceto's Instruction Book for bodybuilding "Championship Bodybuilding" 2nd Ed Published in 04/2010 by Morris Publishing Inc.
I would also like to thank my pops Goodwin Marshall, in showing me the new horizons in pre-contest dieting. This article is dedicated to him!
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