Do You Really Need Contest Prep Coach/Trainer?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
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Well, see here’s the thing–water is very individual. So it could work just the way you say or it might not be the greatest idea. I honestly feel uncomfortable giving you a solid recommendation on that not knowing your body, or what you’re planning to use to drop water weight, or exactly what you’ve done in the past. You’re getting into territory that a paid coach who had taken you through a prep or two would know best how to time things and that’s what I do with my athletes.

Trying to time it exactly with a stranger is a recipe for disaster no matter how well you know your chemistry. You said your body drops water fast, as 8-10 hours is a very short period. But with the weigh in that evening and having to make weight first, I’m not really sure. My best advice would be to try it 2 weeks out and check. A test run saves a lot of trouble and some wasted effort.

My intuition would be something along the lines of this:

Option A: Deplete glycogen ahead of time, monitor weight while fully hydrated against your weight class limit. If under the weight class limit while depleted and hydrated, stay mostly depleted with a limited carb up to come in right at the weight class. Then pound a carb up while dropping water immediately post weigh in. Go to bed, assess in the morning for the show. If over the class limit while glycogen depleted but still hydrated, start the water drop just before weigh in…just enough to make weight. Following that carb up while staying away from water.

Option B: Carb up fully before the weigh in, go dry well before the weigh in. Stay dry through weigh in and night, wake up and assess condition in the morning maintaining as needed or filling up with small amounts of carbs and such.

Option C: Deplete and stay dry through weigh ins. Following weigh ins, drink AND carb at the same time (not one then the other) conservatively. Wake up and adjust.

It all depends on your dry weight. You’re 208 right now, 10 lbs over. If you deplete glycogen effectively and hard, I think you might be able to make weight without drying out a lot (again, all depends on the test run). I would NOT carb up on the test run, I would simply do the drying out to see how you respond as the hours go and how much weight you end up losing.

It’s uncomfortable, but often times easier to maintain a condition than try to adjust up INTO condition.

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Down another 1.6 lbs today, things are slowly tightening up.

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Ok, well if you continue like this you might be able to pull off another 3 lb before the week of the contest. That would put you 203 without depletion or dehydration. You should be able to make the class relatively easily then.

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My low last week was 203.6 lbs I’m hoping to be 202.0 or less by this Sunday (7/24/16). I’ve been implementing a Sunday carb load (skipload) for the past 3 weekends to keep my metabolism running hot and my weight has been consistently dropping. Before doing these Skiploads my weight had stalled, I touched on this a few posts back. First weeks low following the load was 207.6 lbs, second weeks low 205.4 lbs (down 2.2 lbs), and this past weeks low was 203.6 lbs (down 1.8 lbs), if the trend holds true I should be under 202.0 when I wake up Sunday morning.

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Sorry to but in to your thread with a question @npcaldwell, but @Aragorn what dosages of the aforementioned supplements would you recommend? I was at Walmart with them in my hand, but they had several different strengths of each to choose from.

Thanks!

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Honestly, I’ve only seen the zinc and Mg in 1 dose. Usually zinc is in the neighborhood of 330% RD and Magnesium is something like 250 mg or maybe 500 mg. Either is fine. Melatonin usually comes in more dose forms–I prefer the 5 mg strength. I like to use as little melatonin is possible because I want my body to release it naturally, however the dose is whatever works. If you need to take more than 10 mg total melatonin you probably need to look at things in your habits or nutrition prior to bed.

Carb containing meals (within reason of course, not chipotle) can stimulate melatonin production by the body. Light exposure inhibits it, particularly blue light (TV/phone screens/computer) or sunlight (mood lamps, etc). Npcaldwell minimizes his screen time already to help.

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Sorry, miscommunication npc–I meant do not mimic the contest carb up when you do the test run. Your normal diet practices are obviously working so keep them, I meant just focus on the timeline for water and sodium in drying out rather than trying to mimic a stage run. You shouldn’t need any more than 1 day of low sodium–get it back up as soon as possible. Manipulating water for a day can cause ripples in weight for the next few days, but should be back to normal with a short disruption and a high sodium/water baseline like you have.

If you’re 202, then there really should not be any issue getting to your class limit I don’t think.

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Only just stumbled across this thread, some fantastic information here.
With regards to the waking in the night I believe this is to do with blood glucose levels dropping and it causing your body to ‘panic’. If I remember correctly Dorian Yates really struggled with it!
My pre bed protocol is a high dosage of magnesium through supplements OR an Epsom salt bath and around 30-40mg zinc and I do tend to sleep really well with this.
Looking forwards to seeing how the last few weeks go here!

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That’s interesting about the Epsom salt baths and low blood sugar levels. I’ve monitored my waking blood sugar levels here and there, my normal is 85-90 but I’ve woke up with it as low as 72 or as high as 121, having eaten 0 carbs the prior 12 hours, maybe I’m turning diabetic. I took an Epsom salt bath yesterday evening then ate some chicken and jasmine rice for dinner, then went and laid down on the couch and crashed for a couple hours (better blood sugar levels?). I then got up and had my super secret casein/whey/peanut butter powder pudding bedtime snack, followed by the magnesium, zinc, benadryl, and melatonin combo a half hour later. I think I’m going to try the bath right before I go to bed tonight to see if it helps. I fell asleep fairly quickly but was up every couple hours to go to the bathroom, I probably need to reduce my water in the afternoon a little earlier to help this situation. Last night was also my first night being off night shifts and probably affected my sleep somewhat as well.

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You absorb the magnesium from the Epsom salts very well through your skin so this should help sleeping, there are also recovery benefits. I do find them warming and relaxing before bed to.
Maybe get some bloods done at some point to rule out diabetes?
I have found melatonin helps knock me out but doesn’t really help me stay asleep.
Hope that works a little better for you having the bath before bed!
Carbs also raise serotonin levels as I’m sure you know and this promotes sleep so maybe a mixture of carbs and fats before bed to slow the digestion may help?

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Just a little update, I finally made the weight cutoff for light heavyweights, this morning I weighed 197.4, I was 215.2 four days ago after a practice carb load. I had to drop water last night at 1700, cut sodium 3 hours prior, and take two hot Epsom salt baths to get the water off, now I just have to hold it there until I weigh in tonight at 1800.
My plan is to weigh in then hop off the scale and immediately drink 1 liter of water, 1 scoop of gatorade powder, 500mg sea salt, and maybe even 30g of HBCD. Then wait until 2200-midnight to start loading dry carbs (no more water), I’ll be loading 300g of carbs every 2-3 hours until I fill out, probably 1500-1800g total carbs.
Sound like a good plan since I’ll be pretty dehydrated by the time I hit the scale? Figuring I should weigh roughly 205-207 on stage with the above carbs and water.

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That is some epic manipulation of the body right there, nice work! Looking forward to seeing some stage ready shots. I’m sure you’re looking diced at this point.

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So I missed your update because I was working, but here are my thoughts:

I would not have loaded carbs 4 days ago, I would have done the practice cut 14 days out, but otherwise good.

Yes I think so. Carbs load up with salt (hence the brosciencey “shitloading” strategy), so while keeping things dry that is something to consider–adding salt to your dry carbs in say 250mg amounts. I can’t give any 100% solid advice to you because I don’t know your body’s reactions well enough, but it may be that you can drink small amounts of water with your solid carbs (4 oz or so). If you do it correctly you will stay dry.

You know your own body best so you know whether you will be able to dry out before judging or stay dry, just things to consider. Salt and water are two things that once you put in, you can’t get out until nature runs its course (with or without help from diuretics). Salt intake improves carbohydrate uptake, but you don’t want to have too much because then you can’t drain any more water out.

If it were me, I’d probably follow your plan but add 250 mg salt to your first 2 solid carb meals.

If you still feel flat after you know you should be carbing up nicely it is probably missing water. There comes a point of dryness where no amount of carbs will will you out because carbs drag water into the cells with them and if you have no available water in your vascular system or skin you won’t be able to fill up.

Water is always the last thing to add (last resort)

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Made weight the night before the show at 197.0, then followed my plan above and weighed 205.0 for prejudging, and hit 211.0 for the night show without spilling. I was quite conservative I felt with my carb load 600g at 2100, 300g at 2330, 300g at 0200, and 300g more at 0530 in the morning. After that I just kinda grazed, nibbled on rice cakes throughout the day with a little almond butter grape jelly or honey, some frosted strawberry pop tarts, cinnamon rice chex, frosted flakes with a little vanilla protein powder and water, even had a few dry roasted peanuts here and there. It was rough limiting the water between shows but felt it helped me maintain my condition and fill out much more by night time. Wound up winning my class…

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Congrats! Any line up pics?

S

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