10 Things You Need to Know Before Competing – Part 1

3. Get Your Finances in Order… and Expect to Spend a Lot

Any competitive sport is expensive, any pageant is expensive, and bodybuilding is no exception.  Do not ask me why bodybuilders willing choose to pay an exorbitant amount of money for the privilege to stand up on stage for less than 60 seconds, cover themselves in a bucket load of tan, wear what is essentially sequined (albeit rather strategically placed) tooth floss, and then ask strangers to judge their bodies.

All I can tell you from my experience… is well I love it – all of it, so yeah, I’m going to keep dishing out dollar bills when it comes to prep like I’m a successful rapper.  That aside, you better have things in place to be able to afford competing.

For the show alone you can expect to pay thousands for things such as:

• Federation membership fees
• Competition registration fees
• Competition division fees
• Tanning
• Posing suit
• Stage photos & video footage
• Support crew entry fees

For women take the above and add:

• Posing shoes
• Hair & Make-up
• Costume jewellery
• Theme wear

Travel costs, most competitions require significant travel domestically and internationally so of course you also need money for:

• Flights
• Accommodation
• Transfers
• Food prep services
• Other travel requirements

Leading into comp you may also have:

• Posing classes / coach
• Prep coach
• Scans and tests for you to keep track of your physical markers
• Additional recovery sessions (sauna, ice baths, remedial massage, allied health services (i.e. physio), yoga, PNF stretching)
• Additional grooming appointments (skin and hair prep, nails, teeth whitening etc.)
• Additional vitamins and supplements (i.e. salt tablets, magnesium)
• Specific bottled water during peak week

4. Prepare Your Circle of Influence…

Ever heard the joke, “How do you know if someone is Vegan?  Don’t worry they’ll tell you…” Novice competitors are much the same, and they also expect everyone to support them, accommodate their low energy, their increased irritability, and to get out of their way.

But here’s the kicker NO ONE CARES.  Doing a comp or being a competitor isn’t a right of passage.  It’s not a superior lifestyle and it doesn’t abscond you from your usual obligations and responsibilities.  Any novice athlete, and even pro athletes across different fields often have to support their athletic endeavours along with their other life commitments.  Whilst you may see some athletes at the top of their field making money, the vast majority are self-funding what is effectively a passion project or hobby. 

Let me just be real clear here.  Yes, you do need to communicate and manage others’ expectations about how you may show up.  You’ll need to talk it over with your significant other if, and when, you are going to compete and how that may impact you both, especially if you are parents.  You’re going to have to balance your energy needs to perform at work.  In other words, you need to control what you can, manage expectations, set boundaries and also be adaptable and flexible with others where you can. 

You can also expect that others will actively (but not always intentionally) sabotage your prep.  Whether this is unsolicited advice, judgements, or attempting to guilt you into eating something you are forgoing for a short time, staying out later or any other distraction.  Just remember, you have decided to make a massive change to what you focus on, but others haven’t had the same opportunity to adjust to what you are doing and so will subconsciously respond to you from a place of fear as they process the change. 

By way of a rudimentary explanation of some complex concepts on human nature, this sabotaging behaviour stems from our inherent herd like nature, that is designed to keep us safe.  Essentially, any member of a social group that starts deviating from the unspoken set of normal behaviour will receive regulating actions from the rest of the group.  When we understand this, we can look beyond the skin-deep, “right versus wrong” stories such as “they’re just jealous” or “they just don’t get it” we tell ourselves to alleviate the pain, shame, frustration or guilt we are experiencing in response to potential rejection.

When we instead remain open to the idea that in most cases those around us are operating from a place of good intention, we are better enabled to maintain a level of connection and compassion for others during those moments in prep where the depletion and fatigue is at high intensity.  This period of the prep process is where we feel a little numb, robotic and disconnected from anything outside our immediate goal and hyper focused on our own experience.       

The good news is, and speaking from experience, that the resistance you receive from others around your athletic endeavours dissipates over time. In general, if you’re committed to something and consistently demonstrate work towards it, you will get support, or at least respect, from your loved ones and others.

5. Master the basics before adding complexity

One of the biggest mistakes I see novice competitors make is not having a good baseline of foundational fitness, nutrition and cognitive development habits in place. 

If you’re thinking of competing, you will be continuing to master the basics and then slowly adding in complexity to achieve nuanced results, but you can’t build upon a shaky foundation of poor skills, habits and practices.

There are at least 6 skill domains that you need to be proficient in before considering a competition prep.

I talk to these elements in more detail in my Comp 101 Training series, so for now let me just focus on the top 3 common mistakes that occur in the above skill domains.

1. Nutrition, if you’re doing any of these things for example:

- You’re not eating enough, or

- You’re obsessively trying to “game” your macros, or

- You’re too rigid with your eating all year round or

- Just eating a lot of whatever you can get your hands on because you’re “bulking” and love food.

Then you have some work to do.  These sorts of behaviours can indicate some deeper issues with your relationship to food and needs to be addressed head on before you undertake a comp prep, because if you do not, it will wreak havoc on your prep and potentially your overall wellbeing.

2. Training, if you’re doing these things, you’ve got work to do.

Either you’re not training enough, do not like weight training or are not open to training differently. 

In most cases (but not all), if you’re not consistently weight training 4 or more days a week then a prep may be struggle for you.  If you do not enjoy weight training, look I’ll be honest, this is probably not the sport for you.  There will be hours of mostly solo hours with nothing by iron and the hopes of shaping a physique. 

Similarly, if you have an imbalanced physique, but don’t want to deviate from your bro-split, straight set training style, then a prep may be a struggle for you, or you’ll do it and be miffed as to why you didn’t do well.

3. If you do not have a growth mindset and think a bodybuilding prep “isn’t rocket science” then again you’re going to miss the richness of the sport and the gifts within the process. 

Yes, of course bodybuilding isn’t rocket science.  But there is science in bodybuilding, there is art and there is whatever meaning or value you associate or derive from the experience.  The process of bodybuilding is essentially treating yourself like a controlled science experiment.  You’re holding a set of variables constant and looking to see how you respond mentally, physically, emotionally and so on.

You can’t possibly already know everything, because you cannot control the outcome, you can only use feedback, educated guesses and observations to influence a set of behaviours and actions that increase the probability that you’ll get a desired result.

Obviously, the more open you are to learning from yourself and others the more information you can translate into knowledge and enhance your preparation.

Stay tuned for part 2 of this article series where I cover 5 more things you need to know before competing.

P.S. Did you know that I’m creating a suite of resources including a COMP PREP 101 training series & 365 COMPETITOR Lifecycle Membership, which include useful materials to help you manage each stage of your prep, including post comp?  Think of budgets, a complete ultimate goal setting kit, post comp survival kit and so on.  Stay tuned as I reveal details of how you can get your hands on this. 

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