The Offseason Approaches: The “Post Contest Window” and the Tortoise and the Hare

By Natural Pro Bodybuilder - Alberto Nunez 

I am not sure if the belief in the “post contest window” is merely an excuse to indulge on everything competitors were not able to during contest prep (ironically often with food they don’t even care for in the offseason!), but one thing is for sure many think this is the most optimal time to make gains. Yes this belief is still roaming around out there: that there is no time to grow like the weeks right after a show. To an extent, this is partially true. You can get bigger, but the majority of the size is going to be fat gain regardless of what the good bros at your gym tell you. I mean let’s look at the situation under the microscope. Metabolically you are not running on all cylinders, hormones are certainly not at full offseason levels, and you have been most likely training under these conditions for a few weeks (at least) now. This is not exactly as ideal as some have made it out to be; in fact most are pretty well burned out after a contest season.  How taxed you are varies from person to person; as a guy who lost 35lbs in 20 weeks will have experienced more trauma than one who lost 13lbs in the same amount of time.

My first year competing I blew up post show, about 10 lbs (but it felt like 40!) in about a months time. Which is a ton for me, but I learned my lesson.

Even after the most ideal of preps, this is still not the best time to make gains. However, it’s the best time to recover, gather your energy a bit and it’s a time to create a nice base from which to launch yourself into a productive offseason. As I have mentioned before, trajectory is so important when starting out your contest diet and this is no different when starting your offseason. From the moment the competitor walks off stage there should be a plan in place, and I am not just talking a list of what restaurants are still open because your show ended two hours later than the promoter promised.

Backstage picture taken in 2009, and while its funny, and cute. Some competitors are really setting themselves back post show.

Typically I give my competitors some guidelines for the post contest feast (yes I’m a party pooper) and if it’s their last show of that season I will give them guidelines for the next day as well. But, we will never have more than two days of overeating. Starting Monday we are back on track, and priority number one is building them back metabolically so we can make slow but steady progress for a prolonged period of time. Recovery time is going to differ from person to person; some people are up and running and nearly completely recovered in 4-6 weeks, while others might take 10-12 weeks to feel “normal” again. As mentioned above, so much of this has to do with how long and hard we had to diet. Approaches will also be very different based on a competitor’s future plan. A competitor who wants to be on stage again 10 months later will certainly have different setup compared to a guy who wants to take a long two-year offseason. Then we have to look at what the competitor can adhere to. I get a feel for my athletes as far as tolerance goes, and what keeps them motivated. It’s important that you set high expectations, but equally important that you are realistic. After this, we look at all the other variables so we can start setting up a route for the oncoming offseason.

Coach Eric Helms, and myself enjoying post show eats. A treat after a show isn’t a bad thing in most cases, but post show binges can set you back big time.

Weight Gain, Adding Food

Some individuals will require a small burst in weight gain right out the gates, and by that I don’t mean one of those classic I gained 15 lbs by Monday and I am a hot, sweaty, bloated mess kind of bursts. Contest shape, or rather true contest shape (the kind of conditioning only one or two guys have at most amateur shows) will affect people differently. For some “the wall” gets hit about 4-5lbs from contest shape, for others they start feeling rundown 10lbs from contest shape. Therefore, in some cases the first week we are looking for a nice 4-6lbs gain as a base to build from. While for others (the ones with genetically lower body fat set points), we actually start metabolic building from the true contest bodyweight. From this point we start adding food on a “need to have” not a “want to have” basis. Meaning we adjust based on the physiological response we get after each caloric bump not how hungry an athlete feels, and yes this is very individual. A nice and steady stream of ever increasing calories concurrent with scale weight moving up in a controlled fashion is what we are looking for. Now the first few days and weeks can be tough mentally, but you have to remind yourself that you are a bodybuilder first and a hungry person second. In a matter of weeks you will be thankful you did because it is so much better in the long run.

Why is it better?

One of the big arguments against this approach is that it would be easier to simply get back to offseason body fat levels in a quick “efficient manner”, reaching a body fat that the body feels comfortable at and go on with the offseason from there. Now my main beef with this approach is that you will likely reach your comfy offseason level of body fat before you actually set your hormones and metabolism back to normal. Also important, is that this approach leaves one with very little room to play with during the offseason. I still like to see some weight gain during the offseason, so if Competitor X’s upper desired limit of body fat occurs at 190lbs, and he gets there in just a few months, then he can’t really afford to gain any additional weight from that point on. So, he ends up stuck with just a few months of gaining muscle.

Assuming Competitor X competes at a bodyweight of 165lbs, let’s look at him under two hypothetical approaches on the graph below. I prefer the “slowly but surely model”, and once you step back and look at the graph you’ll see why it’s more effective long term. We will affectionately brand name these two approaches “the tortoise” and “the hare”, as I found them appropriate given the topic.  

So if this competitor took the “Hare Approach” coming out of the gates pounding the calories, plenty of instant gratification would take place and not just in terms of his pallet. Because yes, he would also see good gains as far as weight room progress goes. This is especially true after the first few weeks or so when he is less focused on eating and more focused on improving his physique (at some point you realize that takeout pizza is good, but after about five large pizzas it can get old). But joking aside and despite fast gains in the weight room, somewhere in late September he is close to 25 pounds over contest weight. Now, he is already as heavy as I would recommend someone who competes at 165 to ever get in most cases, and surely too heavy for someone who plans to compete again anytime soon.

With every 5lbs of fat gain you will have about a pound of Lean Body Mass gain. But, we are not talking muscle fiber here but LBM in the form of supportive structure that is not muscle or fat. Often we forget that we are not just muscle and fat and everything that is not fat gets labeled “LBM”. This is why when compared to other athletes; sumo wrestlers actually have the highest levels of LBM despite their appearance. While plenty of muscle was gained (or recovered), the bottom line is that this competitor is almost 25 pounds away from stage weight and dieting will be much more psychologically and physiologically painful than it needs to be.

The rate at which we grow actual muscle fiber is predetermined by genetics, how many years of training we have under our belt, and of course how motivated we are to improve. It is not primarily determined by how much of a caloric surplus we are in, and there is an upper limit. This is where the “get huge or die trying” approach loses much of its appeal. Sure you look like you have grown quite a bit and the weights being pushed in the gym second this notion, but how much are you really going to keep when you start dieting again?

Another concern is the whole “mini cut phase” which might seem like a good escape route for gaining too quickly, but to a degree it can add up overtime and become a bad habit that more closely resembles yo-yo dieting. An offseason full of mini cuts adds up to a lot of lost time you could have spent growing and getting better. The hare might have gotten out of the gates quickly, but with all the breaks from growing, the tortoise begins gaining ground.

I bet he can squat a bunch though.

Enter the tortoise, the more sensible, yet less often used approach. This is the approach that I would love to see Competitor X take because long term it’s what’s optimal. To begin this approach, right off the bat we have a few controlled treats. A nice meal after the show, but not plans to eat so much that you have to sleep sitting up! We’re talking something reasonable (but also indulgent and celebratory) like a nice cheeseburger (ah cheese!) with a few slices of bacon and a side of fries. Then the morning after maybe a nice breakfast (and not eating off other people’s plates!) and if he stays on track the rest of the day perhaps a nice meal with the significant other at their favorite dating place.

Come Monday morning and about 4-5lbs of weight gain later (mostly attributed to glycogen stores being more than full, water retention from sodium and a conga line in the GI track), we’re back to some sort of structure. Structure is exactly what a bodybuilder needs during this phase, because this time period is what I call the “danger zone” where hunger is high and metabolism is low. From here, we start laying down the foundation for the rest of the season, again trajectory is so important. The more gradually weight increases, the more growth time the offseason has, instead of fast weight gain halting progress and the competitor repeatedly turning back to undo damage every few weeks. If done properly it’s possible to spend well over a year “gaining” without having to put on the brakes to clean up our mess. 

On the left I am in my contest shape, and in the right it had been 7 months since my last show. A full ten pounds heavier, but unlike my first contest season I kept my gains slow and steady.

In the graph shown earlier Competitor X was looking to take a full year off from dieting, and then finally start his diet again for the next season. With a full year’s worth of gaining and no frequent stops, he finds himself about 15 pounds over stage weight with a 20 week diet in front of him. He will most likely be eating about 90% of what the heavier version of himself would have been (had he taken the hare route), so metabolically he is fine (since has been at a surplus for a year!). Also, thanks to staying leaner his nutrient portioning is that much better than it would have been with an extra 10lbs of fluff. This means he will be able to handle more carbs when he starts his diet, and that is so important when it comes to metabolic and muscle preservation. He will likely lose 4-5lbs the first 4 weeks or so, putting us 10lbs over with 16 weeks to go, and if all goes accordingly about 5-6lbs away from his prior stage weight at 10 weeks out. Not to mention that this time he will likely be bigger due to the less invasive dieting phase, the well plotted out offseason, and will be ready early actually bringing food up the final weeks rather than racing to get shredded in time. For these reasons he may even be heavier than 165lbs this go around, so as you can see it pays to have a post contest plan. One must realize, like anything else, what you do today will affect you tomorrow.

Turtle Power!

When it comes to natural bodybuilding, slow and steady always wins the race. When you’ve consciously made the decision to stay natural, you signed up for the long and slow approach. You have heard often that “natural bodybuilding is a marathon not a sprint” and it’s important to keep this perspective at all times (even as soon as you get off stage). Recall that the post contest window of opportunity stretches further than a few weeks; in fact it stretches out more than a few months. We are talking years here, and that to me is the most exciting part about being a natural bodybuilder. Knowing that I will have a better physique as I approach my 40’s compared to now at the age of 28 is a beautiful thing.

Plan accordingly, plan for the long term, and all those good decisions will accumulate over the long run. “Fast food solutions” are never really solutions, and in the weeks post contest neither is fast food. Give yourself time, be patient, and it will likely positively affect the kind of package you bring to the stage next time you compete.

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