By Amy King
Most athletes regardless of their chosen sport will have a competing season, pre & post season transition phase and an off-season phase. The off-season is usually the time to make improvements to enhance your performance in the next competing season.
Bodybuilding is no different, however many fall short of their goals because of these 5 common misconceptions / mistakes.
Note: You may not be a bodybuilder, but if you are competitive athlete read on from #2, as this will likely apply to you!
Is building more muscle mass and density important?
Of course, I mean the name of the sport is straight forward (right?) and building more muscle is applicable divisions... yes even bikini…
1. It may take you several seasons to build up your body and you’ll need to prioritise certain areas over others…
Afterall it’s unlikely that you’ll put on 10kg of quality muscle in one off-season…. And even if you do that you get that quality muscle look that comes with muscle maturity.
You may need also need to focus on building your overall strength, conditioning, endurance and mobility first in order to activate and optimise your gains.
2. You may need to focus on building a solid frame before trying to bring up other areas of your physique.
If you want a bigger chest for example, building a solid back first may help you lift heavier loads.
3. Your overall shape, proportion and flow to your physique… simply putting on size without a keeping in mind your overall package results in physiques looking like a bunch of body parts Frankenstein-ed together.
Focusing on building shoulders without developing your upper chest for example will result in your body looking like your arms have been bolted onto your body.
4. Growing too much too quickly…
Yeah ok, so you built 22-inch biceps, but you look 17 months pregnant and put on 30kgs of mostly bodyfat…
Have fun trying to dial that in, getting the muscle conditioning… and getting rid of those stretch marks.
The off-season is the time of year a person makes 95% of their improvements to their physique. Without the energy and the fuel, via a surplus of healthy clean food, you cannot make the improvements you need.
Make sure that you are eating enough calories to enable you to make those improvements and show up better next time you step on stage. Though you might put on a little (note I said a little) body fat, the body fat will come off once you diet down for your next show.
Generally speaking, a surplus of 250-500 calories above maintenance calories is enough to facilitate muscle growth and limit fat gain.
What is the first thing you do after you step off the stage? You go directly to your favourite restaurant, or fast-food place, and EAT. Granted, it is fine to indulge in good food after the show is over. In fact, it’s probably necessary.
The trick is to ensure you do not let a fast-food frenzy spill into your off-season diet.
Now, above I talked about taking in enough calories so you can put on good size in the off-season. You might say, "fast food and junk food are calorie dense so why not have them once or twice a day so I can bump up my overall calories?"
While you want to have excess calories while bulking, the majority of those calories should be from clean healthy foods: lean cuts of meat, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats. The off-season is the time to put on size but the majority of it should be muscle, not fat. A diet riddled with junk food will result in little muscle gain and plenty of fat storage. Clean it up and you beef it up!
💡 Tip: You need to ensure you have food enough quality protein to fuel muscle growth.
Between 1.6-2.2g of protein per kilo of bodyweight is a good place to start.
You can still get too fat from eating clean food…
Make sure your caloric intake and macronutrient profile is increased and decreased moderately throughout the off-season to keep you at enough body fat to build and not so much that your system fails to perform optimally.
💡 Tip: Pay attention to your healthy fat intake, research suggests that optimal
Omega 3 intake bolters muscle growth response in middle aged men and women.
This is a common mistake made by the hard gainers. They are not hungry so they either push back the meal by an hour, or worse, just skip it all together. This is a big mistake. Practically speaking most hard gainers will need to consume meals every 2.5-3 hours so you can actually fit in the volume required.
There is additional science that athletes may need to consume protein every 2-3 hours to ensure your muscles can have a steady stream of available amino acids and to keep your body in a positive nitrogen balance. When your body doesn't have enough amino acids, it goes to your muscles to find them.
If you can't stomach a full meal or are short on time, then protein shakes can be a good substitute. In my experience consuming this is in a smoothie or bowl can also help you ensure you have a mixed macro meal.
Additionally, consuming Essential Amino Acids during your workout can also assist in your performance. Given the added unnecessary stuff often found in supplements, I do not tend to use them and rely on whole foods… however with some athletes this is a practical option when you consider their contextual circumstances (i.e. long shift work or other life commitments).
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By ancillary work I mean all the work that helps you move and perform better such as stretching, posing practice, mobility drills and vacuums.
This is my number one challenge. I have a full-time corporate career outside of bodybuilding, run a part-time coaching business and my training schedule alone involves 9 weight sessions over the week, plus cardio.
That means my stretching, posing and mobility drills are often sidelined (and dismissed). It now means I have to spend extra time to correct some of the issues it is causing me now (cue groan).
Often the poses on stage day require flexibility, an ability to flex and hold and mobility. If you neglect this work during the offseason you will struggle to show your muscles off in the best way… and that can be costly.
You see this now even on the Olympia stage, how many big bodybuilding guys these days get exposed during the posing. They are sweating profusely, shaking and unable to hold their stomachs in. Posing takes conditioning, and needs to be worked on all year round not just in the weeks leading up to a comp.
Your performance during training in the off season will also suffer if certain muscles aren’t activating optimally, or your movement is restricted.
Not getting enough rest and recovery is one of the biggest mass building inhibitors.
In the off-season, your major goal is to put on lean muscle mass. Often novice trainers don't realize that you do all your growing outside the gym. Even some experienced lifters find it hard to stay away from the gym in the off-season. They do everything right: eat clean, workout out hard, but forget to give their body's enough rest and recovery time between workouts so gains are negligible.
You break down the muscle tissue in the gym, given that you fuel your body with nutritious food. The final piece of the puzzle is time. You need to give your body time to recover. Without adequate time to recover, you will break down already broken-down muscle tissue.
Furthermore, the quicker you recover the quicker you build muscle. Think about it, are you going to lift heavier and with more intensity when your body is fatigued?
I don’t know about you, but my biggest challenge is getting enough sleep, between my life obligations and training commitments, my days are long, and I find it difficult to regulate my central nervous system.
You need to be as diligently organised about your rest and recovery regime as your training and diet.
Rest and recovery, just doesn’t involve sleep though, it can also involve:
This is a huge mistake that I see all the time and 99% of the time men fall victim to the no cardio approach in the off-season. They justify it by saying "I don't want to lose any size."
Well, I am here to tell you that 3 to 5 30-minute cardio sessions a week will do wonders for your bulking phase.
By incorporating a cardio routine into your workout program, your appetite will likely increase, making it a lot easier to eat clean healthy food. You also will improve your cardiovascular system and general health, which is critical when lifting heavy or for training performance.
A way to reframe cardio is to treat it as an active recovery item. Gentle walking for example can help circulate more blood to the muscles you have trained. Bring vital nutrients for growth and clearing away waste product. Thereby, creating optimal conditions for faster recovery and muscle growth.
Simply put your body cannot make improvements in muscle size and shape if you are expending too much energy with cardio.
Generally speaking, a moderate cardio program of 2.5-3.5 hours low intensity cardio per week in total will keep both your metabolism humming and help you maintain a healthy heart. This of course depends on your other life activities… if you spend 12 hours a day doing hard labour… cardio may not be needed.
In my experience, tapering your cardio throughout your off-season can also be useful. This way you can build in some flexibility and stop your body from adapting to a status quo with your cardiovascular fitness.
You also need to consider what baseline of cardio you want to start with for your next on-season prep. If your baseline cardio is too high, you have nowhere to go to reap the benefits and if you start too low, you’ll need to build up cardiovascular fitness before you can see the incremental benefits it provides for shredding.
This issue is for my competing athletes and starts immediately after your contest is over. Talk to the judges about your presentation to help you understand where you can improve and what your strong points are. Then, in the next week or so, sit down with your coaches and discuss how you are going to approach the off-season and make the improvements to your physique.
I see many competitors, pros, and amateurs alike, who show up every year looking the same. These individuals don't improve and don't win.
Judges take notice of competitors who improve on weak points, and they will reward you with a higher placing. So, in the beginning of the off-season, make some short- and long-term goals for yourself; this will help keep you focused on the improvements that you need to make between competitions.
I also see novice competitors expect to make too many changes from one season to the next. Focus on 1 to 3 areas of improvement and prioritise with your coaching team which areas of improvement you will focus on. To keep you focused, have non-bodybuilding mini goals, such as improving your strength for a big lift or endurance for a certain weight load under tension or number or reps. This will keep the journey more rewarding as well.
The off-season is a time to make improvements to your physique. Use this time as productively as possible by avoiding any of the mistakes discussed above.
Wasted time is wasted growth so if you find yourself falling into any of these pitfalls, then make a quick correction in your diet and/or workout programs. If you can do this, you will be well on your way to adding that desired inch to your physique.
Amy King is the founder of AKE Fitness & Nutrition. When she’s not serving her clients, she is pursuing her corporate career in mining, bodybuilding and spending time with loved ones. She calls Perth, Western Australia home.
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