Hello everyone, please excuse my newness to the forums if this question has already come around a bunch. I am wondering if there is someone that can help me with perfecting my stage hour. I recently competed in mens physique, 9 days ago in Calgary in 2 classes, Masters and open A. I did well, 2nd in Masters and 3rd in A, and dont get me wrong I am very pleased with that. Pro stage pics and next day photo shoot, along with some “being depleted” on stage sides (muscle cramping, mild dizziness, ringing in ears…prob low sodium and mag) tell the story for me tho.
I feel I went on flat and look way better next morning. I understand the lighting is different, but all things considered, I look fuller and more vascular the next am. Wondering if there is someone that knows the science of the carb load and how electrolytes play a role in stage presence.
Nutrition stage day included fatty small portion am steak, then every 2 hours 1 rice cake with natural peanut butter, stage was 4 hours later. No candy /simple sugars or wine just prior to stage. Only sips of water. Left side in pic is on stage, right side is next day about 18 hours later.
Thank in advance for the comments/advice.
Not sure why the image didnt load the first time, so here it is.
Looks to me like you did everything right, except your timing was off. For your next contest, why not prep the same way, EXCEPT shift everything up by one day? That should put you stepping onstage in the condition you display in the ‘day after’ pic above. In addition to looking better, it sounds like you would feel better as well.
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you look the same man… only the light is different. You need to find what kind of food can do the job for you… for me, I’ve never used peanut butter at the day of the show. When you are depleated, almost no water in the sistem, you cannot go wrong with carbs like rice, potato, sweet potato… depending on how you look one or two days before the show, you can make some changes, but at the day of the show, you need to eat those carbs, every 2 hours at least… sometimes you don’t need to do something too crasy with food, just because of the Mens P. judges, they want to see a great V, dry, but not looking like a monster… I think you did it right, and you look the same at the two pics, the only diff is the light. You look very good, dry, etc… congrats…
Why don’t you try to carb up with rice and forget the peanut butter? With rice, you cannot go wrong… and put on something sweet, salty right before the stage?
Things I’ve learned with my mistakes:
1 - You need to look great at the day of the show. No need to do crazy things before the stage, you need to be already great (Dry and Full)…
2 - Keep eating those carbs! When you are depleted (no water) you cannot mess up your physique, carbs will make you look better and better…
3 - Take care of water, don’t take away too much water. Sometimes you’ll be carbloaded but you are going to look small, no pump, just because you took of too much water.
