7 things you can learn from competitive athletes.
Here's what you need to know...
- Competitive athletes use progressive changes to lose fat. They don't try to do too much at once to get lean.
- Bodybuilders and figure athletes are aware of their problem foods. They avoid them or plan them into their diet program.
- Competitive athletes are not distracted by the scales when evaluating their progress. They rely on changes in behavior and changes they see in the mirror - not arbitrary numbers.
- When bodybuilders and figure athletes fail in their efforts, they use their failures as tools to do better next time.
Maybe you never plan to step onto the competition stage as a bodybuilder or figure athlete. You may even think the whole idea of getting sprayed with tanning color and then flexing your muscles half-naked in front of a lineup of judges is a little weird. That's perfectly fine. But there are still 7 lessons you can learn from competitive athletes. A posing brief is not necessary for this.
1. you are the terminator and not a lucky bear
Most competitive athletes can flip a switch in their mind and become more machine than man. Adopting a little of this mechanical mentality would help a lot of non-competitive athletes shed their wishy-washy mindset and execute their training plans consistently.
Competitive athletes don't eat based on their emotions. They also don't let their emotions determine whether or not they go train. Therefore, phrases like "oh, why not" and "YOLO!" will never become reasons to mess up their diet, seek solace in ice cream tubs, get drunk with friends or watch TV instead of going to the gym.
And when they arrive at the gym, they don't stroll around or look for people to chat with. Most of them will put on their "get lost face", avoid eye contact and get through the workout. When they are at home, they don't snack or put off eating only to realize there is nothing healthy in the house for their dinner. They always know what their next meal will be and that meal is either already prepared or easy to prepare. There is no room for speculation either in the gym or in the kitchen. Here's what competitive athletes avoid:
- Getting too hungry
- Getting too tempted
- Eating for emotional relief or as an escape
- Not having healthy food in the house
- Pleasing yourself with spontaneous junk food
- Not planning ahead
- Going to the gym without a plan
- Skipping a planned workout session
- Letting feelings determine the execution
Action plan:
Do you have a goal in mind regarding your body development? Think like a machine, not an emotional wreck that needs to have constant permission and approval and a happy feeling to be consistent. Moods come and go. Motivation comes and goes. So exercise, eat well and prepare.
Set a goal and a plan before you go to the gym. This should challenge you enough to make you a little nervous. If your workout plan doesn't scare you, it probably won't significantly change your body either. Don't go to the gym without knowing exactly what you're going to do.
If you're not good at preparing meals in advance, at least have healthy foods in the house that are easy to prepare. The thing that messes people up the most is a lack of preparation and structure.
2. don't shoot all your powder at once
Competitive athletes start conservatively with fat loss. They don't overdo it with one fat loss strategy, and they don't use multiple fat loss strategies at the same time - at least not when they're just getting started with fat loss.
A smart competitive athlete will avoid going all out in cardio training months before the competition, cutting calories sharply, doing extra workouts, taking fat burners, eliminating carbs and manipulating water intake. Why? Because there is no benefit to doing so. Such an approach would be difficult to maintain and the body would adapt, causing progress to stagnate. Extreme short-term fat loss methods could also lead to muscle loss, ruining not only the metabolism but also the end product: a lean, muscular body to show off on stage.
Conservative fat loss adds up over time, and sometimes minimal doses don't even need to be increased to the max if the competitor achieves a look they're happy with as the deadline approaches. By saving the most grueling techniques for the end, you keep your body sensitive to change and only need to make temporary changes.
Action Plan:
Take a closer look at what you are doing with your diet and exercise. Estimate your food intake by writing down what you eat. Once you recognize the obvious nutritional pitfalls, slowly start to eliminate them.
Once you've taken care of the major blunders, it's time to develop a strategy. But remember, experienced bodybuilders and figure athletes don't use every fat loss strategy in their arsenal all at once. And neither should you. Here's a list of things you can do:
- Log everything you eat for a few days. See where you are with calories and macronutrients. Determine how you feel at that level. Write everything down and make sure it makes sense. Are you providing your body with enough energy around training sessions or are you eating too much in the evening? Are you getting enough protein? Do your carbohydrate sources make sense? Are you getting enough fat from the right sources? Competitive athletes are always aware of what they eat and why they eat it.
- Evaluate what you do in the gym and what you do when you're not in the gym. Competitive athletes don't want to look like they're sitting lazily on their butt most of the day, which is why they take countermeasures that prevent them from sitting on their butt most of the day. For many, this means a second workout. If you have to spend most of your day sitting, then make a conscious effort to move. Plan a walk or do some exercise that gets your heart rate up. Balance out the sitting.
- Use appropriate exercise nutrition even if you are trying to lose fat. Competitive athletes never sacrifice their training quality - they load up on energy, use appropriate supplements and never put up with poor training sessions just because they are dieting. Many will train hard even a few days before the competition. And think of fat burners and very low-carb strategies as temporary tools before a deadline or important event.
3. build muscle or protect your muscles
Competitive athletes never sacrifice muscle mass. Even when fat loss comes to the forefront, they do their best to minimize catabolism. Why? Because muscle is both beautiful and metabolically costly. Why would they want to destroy something that burns calories and makes their body appear harder, more toned and aesthetically pleasing?
Even if symmetry is at stake, a smart competitive athlete will continue to develop the areas that are lagging behind in their development and maintain the areas that are well developed. (Ladies, if you think your legs are too bulky, the dumbest thing you can do is let your whole lower body atrophy).
Competitive athletes also know that nutrition is a gigantic piece of the muscle building puzzle. You won't see many bodybuilders or figure athletes doing long-term ketogenic diets because a lack of carbs won't do much for hypertrophy. And you certainly won't see any competitive athletes following the official dietary recommendations, which call for less than 1 gram of protein per kilogram of body weight for adults. Competitive athletes simply know that you can't build muscle with inadequate amounts of protein.
Action plan:
When trying to lose weight, don't overdo it so much that you end up making yourself weak and scrawny and flabby at the same time. This is exactly what will happen if too much muscle mass is lost.
Train to build more muscle and not to lose fat. Fat loss will come easily and inevitably if you fanatically try to build muscle and try to be able to see that muscle.
Bodybuilders and figure athletes want visible muscle. They strive for both mass and definition (to a certain extent even competitors in the bikini class). Strength is important to them, but to achieve the right look, hypertrophy - muscle growth - is their biggest priority. Bodybuilders will use anything - powerlifting, Olympic weightlifting or CrossFit - if it helps them become more muscular or leaner. Unlike specialists in narrower strength or power sports, bodybuilders and figure athletes will use a wider range of sets, repetitions and techniques:
- If you always perform your repetitions in a slow and controlled manner, you should add more power exercises to your training and give yourself the opportunity to be explosive.
- If you always use a variation of power exercises, then add more time under tension to your training program. Focus on slow eccentric movements and control the weight through steady movements.
- Experiment with different repetition ranges. Don't be so obsessed with feeling muscle burn from countless repetitions that it keeps you from increasing the weights.
- Don't be so obsessed with increasing the weight and setting new personal bests that you never really feel the muscle working. Find your healthy middle ground.
4 Love the process and forget the scale
Experienced competitive athletes don't expect huge results overnight. They celebrate tiny changes in their appearance and their own behavioral changes. They enjoy the agony of the results they can see in the mirror little by little and they trust that the right behavior will give them the body they want. The numbers on the scales will never derail their efforts. And they shouldn't, because there are no scales on stage.
Experienced competitive athletes know how inaccurate a scale is when it comes to measuring overall progress. They know that the weight on the scale depends on a lot of other things going on in the body. They know that muscle cells shrink and bulge by depleting glycogen stores and filling glycogen stores, and they know that their body can retain extra water. For this reason, they don't freak out or get discouraged when the scale doesn't say what they want it to say.
However, many people do not have the ability to see further than the weight on the scale. In addition, they are so fixated on the results of training and nutrition that they do not recognize training and good nutrition as their own goals. And this fixation usually boils down to weighing less (or more) at all costs.
Chasing the numbers blinds people to all the progress they are making. It prevents them from enjoying the process and often discourages them so much that they don't continue. Many "mere mortals" would be happy to lose 5 kilos and see the weight on the scales drop. But a competitive athlete would not be so easily fooled. He would want to know what this weight consists of: glycogen, fat, water? And muscle loss would not be acceptable.
Action plan:
Building muscle through a steady supply of nutrients and training with weights is the best thing you can do for your body. But it will never be enjoyable if your only reason for doing this is to achieve a lower weight. If you're intent on building muscle, then you're sacrificing rapid weight loss for a higher metabolic rate and the kind of look you only get from muscle.
People who fixate on weight loss will often lose weight, but without maintaining their existing muscle mass or building muscle, they will reduce their metabolic rate and then gradually build back the lost weight until they eventually end up with a higher weight on the scale, less muscle mass than when they started losing fat, and a flabby, weak body.
Recognize that your weight depends on a variety of other things going on in your body. Don't freak out and don't get discouraged if the scale doesn't say exactly what you want it to say.
5. cheat intentionally or not at all
There are a number of schools of thought when it comes to cheat foods. Certain competitive athletes will always use regular pre-planned cheat days up until the week of your competition, while other competitive athletes will avoid junk food completely and still other competitive athletes will leave the hedonistic stuff in their daily diet as long as it fits their macronutrient intake and calorie intake.
All three methods work, but some are better suited to certain people. A self-professed sugar junkie knows not to eat sweets every day if it just makes them want more of them.
The things they all have in common? They use or avoid cheat foods with a purpose. They eat certain foods on purpose or intentionally abstain from them. There's no mindless munching or unintentional binge eating. These things don't happen with experienced competitive athletes.
Action Plan:
If you want to have it all, plan it. Eat what you eat with full intention. Sweets are always more of a treat when you plan for them and have them to look forward to. Why waste those calories on a spontaneous treat that you can't look forward to in advance?
So either skip cheat foods altogether, allow yourself these foods in planned amounts on a regular basis, or schedule them on a specific day of the week. Do this with determination.
6. recognize the signs and make adjustments
Mistakes happen. If a competitive athlete has a slip up and eats too much, or eats foods that were not part of the plan, this will not degenerate into a "now it doesn't matter" binge. A competitive athlete who is paying attention to the signals will know that multiple slip-ups mean that they are not eating enough, or that the timing of meals is off.
Constant cravings and lethargy several weeks before a competition are signs of malnutrition and also signs of a metabolism that is about to become sluggish. Intelligent competitive athletes will not intentionally put themselves in a state of malnutrition for too long because they know the consequences: A body that will cling to its fat despite plenty of training and fewer calories.
Chronic dieters have problems with this idea. For them, it goes against intuition. Instead of adjusting their food intake upward and allowing themselves more calories or days with more carbs, they become even more strict and neurotic about their diet, which will lead to even more slip-ups.
Action Plan:
Do you keep messing up your diet? Find out why: Interpret constant hunger or missed workouts as a sign that you need to change what you're doing. Of course, it's okay to feel under the weather from time to time. But don't try to make these feelings your default lifestyle. This will only turn out to be an own goal and lead to weight gain in the form of fat. Get to the bottom of it so that you can prevent it from happening again.
It may be that you need some lighter workouts here and there, more calories on a regular basis, or a day or two a week with extra carbs or more fat. There are a lot of things you can test out. Just pay attention to the cues your body gives you instead of ignoring them. Discipline and willpower are good - but not if they are used in the wrong areas.
7 Don't be discouraged. Get fired up
Self-confidence is a byproduct of the consistent hard work that puts a competitive athlete on stage. Yes, they want to win, but when it doesn't happen, they don't let it ruin their self-esteem or drive. They realize that aesthetics are subjective and judges have different opinions.
Confident bodybuilders and figure athletes enjoy every competition - even when they don't win, because they know their bodies are phenomenal regardless of the judging at the end of the day. Experienced competitive athletes wouldn't even dream of hanging their heads and sulking for days after losing a competition. No, they would celebrate all the hard work it took to get there.
Validation is always nice, but competitive athletes don't need it to keep training hard. They don't need validation to keep going. They know how amazing their bodies are and don't need a trophy for that. The hard work and the body that results is the biggest trophy for them.
Action Plan:
Build muscle with dedication. Become addicted to it. Not for the accolades, but because building muscle will make you more confident and give you more drive. Work hard. Fall in love with hard work and you'll know what an amazing body you have without needing anyone to tell you.
By Dani Shugart | 08/12/14
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/training/7-things-to-steal-from-competitors
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