The IFBB and NPC contest seasons are spooling up for the 2014 season. Many of you are ready to hit the stage hard and are in full contest prep. I understand this completely and am fully aware of where your head is at the moment. What I want to caution you about, before it’s too late, is the post-contest letdown and consequential common contest rebound. Many people think that holidays are the culprit responsible for weight gain. The holiday season can be a part of the typical end of the competition season but keep your eyes open mid-season as well. We can suffer from rebound at any time of the year if we don’t keep our eating habits in check and adjust our training styles immediately post contest.
When coming off a contest, we can employ the principle of reverse dieting in which we SLOWLY add carbs and extra calories back into our daily regimen. The problem lies in the utter lack of control which many competitors dive into, indulging in multiple cheat meals which can often extend for days or weeks on end. This is why you may see a competitor put on 15, 20, or 30 pounds immediately post contest.
It is important to remember that when you restrict calories for an extended period of time during contest prep, your body is primed to hold onto fat. If you dump tons of extra calories and fat into your body repeatedly after a competition, your body will store it more readily as fat. Why undo everything you have worked so hard for?
If you are committed to the lifestyle, it makes far more sense to return to clean eating habits similar to what you practiced in the weeks leading up to the contest instead of allowing everything to unravel by shoveling junk into your body. What’s more, such eating habits will prime your body to release more cortisol, guaranteeing that your hard earned conditioning will go into deep hibernation.
We are all familiar with what happens the day after we compete, when we have filled our bellies with a calorie laden meal filled with delectable carbohydrates and fat. These carbs replenish the glycogen stores in muscle, explaining why competitors often look better one day post-contest. But because the body is so insulin sensitive, further carb-heavy meals will result in deposition of fat, causing our super lean contest abs to go into hiding very quickly.
In order to minimize your chances of transforming into the Goodyear Blimp right after a contest, make sure to keep your carbohydrate intake at a reasonable level, and only add an additional 100 to 300 calories to your daily meal regimen. Bear in mind that you will carry extra water weight after a contest, but this should dissipate fairly quickly if you keep your carb intake in check.
Also, though you may want to hit the weights like a beast right after stepping off the stage, try to ease up on the intensity for a few days. In addition, you should engage in shorter cardio sessions of moderate intensity to guard against a spike in cortisol production. Give your body a bit of time to recover from the severe depletion of contest prep and keep your meals clean.
Subscribe to RxMuscle on Youtube
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
|||
