14: Show Prep Fails - Part 2: When Peak Week Goes Wrong

What you do the final week before your competition can literally make or break how well your physique shows looks at your bodybuilding show.  The “fail” occurs when you make changes during this final week of show that have a irrepairable outcome...and in a bad way.

In part 2 of Show Prep Fails, I go into detail on some personal experiences I’ve had with some final week of show protocols.  I share the ugly truths on how things can go very, very wrong. I share some pointers on things to look out for so these instances don’t happen to you.  And I provide some suggestions on how to avoid your own peak week fails. 

Coming up there will be a part 3 to this sequence that I think you are going to love. 

In the meantime, let me know what resonates with you in our Facebook group called “The ‘Everything Else’ in Bodybuilding Podcast Insiders!”

Key Takeaways:
*What is “peak week” (3:15)
*My story about 8 months of prep down the drain (3:34)
*There is no one size fits all peak week protocol (9:18)
*My story about identical peak week protocols and drastically different outcomes (13:00)
*Some common sense thoughts about peak week (18:50)
*How and when to test your peak week protocol (20:09)
*What’s next! (21:04)

Additional Resources:
-Grab your free bikini, figure, or men’s physique posing tutorial at www.learntopose.com
-Discover The Proven Strategies to Winning a Bodybuilding Show That You Will Never Learn At Any Posing Class... Competitor Workshop... or Anywhere Else! (and… What to do about it) at www.posingwinsshows.com
-Grab your “My Own Motivation” tank top at shop.killitwithdrive.com 

 ——TRANSCRIPT——

The week before your bodybuilding competition is exciting. You will feel a flood of emotions.  You might feel a sense of accomplishment that all of your hard work has finally got you to the point of getting on stage. You made it.  You might also be a nervous Ned or a nervous Nelly and completely doubt yourself and whether you are ready. These are all fears and false beliefs of course.  I’ve had to talk sense into some posing clients in the past here or there who start pulling the only skin they have left on the sides of their waist and telling me to “look at this.”  Can you see my eyes rolling right now?  It’s the same look I give them.  I’m like, yes, you are contorting your body to MAKE skin squeezable.  Of course I’m being silly sarcastic to them like I always am, and I do stop joking and level with them.  I remind them of the road, where they started, where they are now… and that now is the time to put their game face on. It’s been a long road and now is not the time to take their eye off the ball.  

How do I know this?  Because I’ve been there done that many times myself and I have experienced a high like you will never believe when I got on stage and knew I nailed the look.  And then I’ve also got on stage and knew the opposite.  And walked off stage knowing I looked better a week before the show.  This is exactly what I’m going to talk about today.  I’m going to talk about some of my own experiences with peak week and share in detail how they can go very wrong.

If you don’t know what peak week is, it refers to the final week before a bodybuilding contest when many people make last minute tweaks to their nutrition and/or training to try get their body a little leaner or dryer.  The goal is to make their muscles display that much more prominent on show day.  Sounds exciting, right?  

One time I prepared 8 months for a show only for a peak week disaster to cause me to miss the mark with my physique on show day. 8 months. Of. Work. Think about that.  These shows are not like every weekend for most people. If you are constantly trying to improve your physique, it’s in your best interest that you NOT compete very often. So you have time to actually make the improvements.  If you are on PEDs you are a different breed.  That’s a topic for another day.  

In addition to the 8 months of work, there were financial costs that were wasted.  I had to fly for this show so there was flight, hotel, rental car, and of course the entry fees, tan, among other things that had to be factored in.  You’ll hear me say it many times, competing in bodybuilding is not an inexpensive sport.  I had no problem spending this money for something I loved, but to spend it and my physique look worse than it looked literally one week before is a tough one to swallow when I didn’t know how long it was going to be before I got back on stage. 

So what happened,

For the 8 months leading up to the show I was drinking two meal replacement shakes a day and found them easy on the stomach. Yhey gave me a lot of energy for my workouts too. Plus they had 36 grams of protein in them, plus essential vitamins, and enzymes to break down the shakes for better absorption so they were a powerhouse of nutrition. The shakes were the only changes I made to my nutrition.  I worked them into my macros and ate the same amount of meals a day, just swapped out two of them for the shakes.  Visibly my shoulders were growing like weeds, energy was great, and the biggest benefit I found was I had no problem staying lean throughout the year.  I didn’t have any cravings either. I had them in my nutrition all the way up to the final week of show.  Then peak week came around. I was advised to pull out my two shakes and swap them for solid food.  The theory was it would dry me out and I would come in looking leaner and my muscles more prominent at my show the following Saturday.  

You are probably guessing by now that this did not happen.

So let me tell you what DID happen.

At first, the thought of removing my shakes, I was like, ughhh, bummer everything has been going so well. Very quickly I switched my attitude to that of, “if this is what it is going to take to come in my best, then let’s do it.” 

I never back down from putting the work in to make me a champion.  Plus, I was making my pro debut on a new pro stage and I wanted to win.  This pro stage was different than other stages I had been on. From the posing, the judging, the stage walks, basically everything was different.  I think you all know by now I have three pro cards in three very different federations. Some people say they have two or three pro cards but often that is in the same federation. So for example, they might be a figure, bodybuilding, and physique pro, or a bikini and figure pro, but it’s all in the same federation or among similar federations.  But when you cross over to completely different federations with completely different judging, posing requirements, you are in completely new waters.  The overall experience will be completely new.

So here I was, getting ready for this new pro stage, excited for a new experience, and I’m one week out from the show.

I pull the shakes as recommended and swap the shake meals for solid proteins. 

At the end of day 1 my stomach felt full from all the solid food but I figured it would pass since I was also doing additional cardio.  I hoped the cardio would help me utilize the food better. 

By mid day, day 2, it became more difficult to get the food down. I wasn’t hungry and my stomach felt full all the way up to the spot underneath my breast bone.   I still got my food in though.  

By the evening of day 2 my stomach started to physically hurt.  

The morning of day 3 I was battling being able to eat at all.  

By lunchtime day 3, I could not eat any more solid food.  My stomach felt full to the brim, hurt quite a bit, and I felt like I was going to vomit if I ate anymore.  I struggled getting through my workouts too.  So I skipped a meal or two and ate a lighter meal at the end of the day with maybe about 3 ounces of protein and a tablespoon of some fat.

By day 4, which was the Thursday before the Saturday show, I added back in just a plain whey protein shake, not a meal replacement, to at least get some protein in. I did the same on Friday too. 

By Friday the pain had subsided, but I still wasn’t 100% well.  Plus, by now, the effect of the nutrition changes was visible…and not in a good way.  My body was stressed.  The cuts that were in my legs the weekend before were soft and I did not have the prominent muscular look that we hoped for.  The resulting changes to my physique were completely opposite of what was the goal of peak week.  So not only was it a miserable week being sick to my stomach, there was literally nothing I could do on show day to reverse the negative effects from the week.

But here’s the thing. There was no science that backed this peak week protocol.  And not only was the week of show memorable in not a good way, 8 months of hard work got thrown down the drain because I did not bring my best physique to the stage. What a waste. Kind of like when someone shows up unprepared with their hair, makeup, suit, or posing and stage presence skills and looks like a hot mess on stage when they could’ve avoided it.  Such a waste too.  At least with proper hair, makeup, and posing and stage presence preparation you can control looking prepared.  You can just redo your hair for example.  To me there is so much help in these areas  these days that there really is no excuse for being unprepared in any of these areas.

With peak week protocols, not so much.

Did you know that there is not one exact peak week protocol that works for everyone?  The person you are working with, no matter who they are, how many years they have been coaching, or how many degrees he or she has, is still testing their protocols on you to find out what works for you?  And don’t get me going on these contest prep coaches that literally have the only credential of winning a pro show next to their name now calling themselves expert coaches. Please.  Often there is zero science education behind him or her and most likely no real knowledge of human physiology at all.  I know top level coaches who resort to giving their bikini athletes specific PED protocols to minimize their room for error peaking you.

Look, if you are general wellness and lifestyle and not looking to do contest prep, by all means, work with the fancy named coaches.  When I owned my fitness facility I would give nutrition consults to the general public that came to my gym to work out.  Heck I even had an entire movement in my community called the Michele Approved movement where I designed healthy menu options at various restaurants and even took it as far as to have a grocery list at a super market with about 250 shelf tags throughout the store for shoppers to cross reference the grocery list.  Sales of the menu items and grocery list items skyrocketed for these businesses.  I never took a penny from them either. 

Instead I wanted people to know my fitness facility was unlike any other.  When I did 1 on 1 nutrition consults with gym members, I would look at what they were eating and I would make recommendations based on their goals, lifestyle, and always took into account their current nutrition regimes. I have found that a lot of nutrition is about psychology too so everything was customized to the person and what was doable to them.  All the little improvements did in fact help them improve.  I didn’t want to be that gym where everyone showed up looking the exact same month after month, year after year, especially when they worked with someone from my personal training staff.  You’ve probably seen this occur yourself in your own gym..  People spending thousands of dollars to work with a personal trainer only to look NO different.  Nope, didn’t want that for my gym members.

For this reason, anyone that incorporated my nutrition advice, transformed.  I knew from years of competing that nutrition was an integral part of making physique changes.  The exact nutrition changes are specific to the person and where they are in their journey.  But I currently draw the line at nutrition for contest prep.  Even with the nutrition certifications I have and continue to acquire, including the latest one I did called The Flex Diet Certification under Dr. Mike T. Nelson, one of the smartest people I know, I still won’t, as of today, do someone’s contest prep nutrition.  

I will be coming out with a program that is lifestyle related in the near future with my husband Vassilios that will address common pitfalls in nutrition and training, for nominal amount you guys, so nothing crazy.  I’ll share more about it when the time comes.  As for contest prep, as of right now I refer contest prep nutrition to the smartest people I know who understand its complexity from a science backed approach.  Instead, my focus is the Posing Wins Show program which is the gold standard in the industry with tools and strategies you won’t find anywhere else.  I can’t say enough about it obviously because it’s a passion of mine.  My point about nutrition for contest prep is that not everyone is qualified to be an expert in it. Tons of likes and followers, a trophy, or a pro win doesn’t make someone an expert. Especially when it comes to contest prep.

So I talked about how not one exact peak week protocol works for everyone but let me also ask you…

Did you also know that your body will not necessarily respond the same way to the protocol you did for the show you did prior?  

I can remember a show where I came in ON POINT.  The look was absolutely nailed and it was another pro debut.  I remember being on stage and being in, wait for it, LAST callout.  I was standing in the back of the stage under the lights with like 2 other people.  What you would consider the best in the group of women on the stage had already been called up to the front of the stage and compared amongst each other while the rest of us stood like potted plants at the back of the stage.  I remember that sinking feeling when it was down to like a couple of us and I hadn’t been called up yet.  I was like, well, no turning back now. When I was finally called up with those two other people, I did not let what I was feeling inside change my presentation.  It was time to perform, so step up.  This was pre-judging. I walked off the stage and was ok because I knew I brought my best package to the stage.  That was my win.  And no one could take that away from me. I didn’t wallow in my sorrow and kept my nutrition on point between pre judging and finals so I would continue to hold my conditioning and not lose the look that I worked so hard to achieve.  

So finals comes around. We are pros so the MC introduces us individually by our first and last names to the audience.   I come out, hit my signature power pose, flash a few more of my best poses, and get back in line. The MC then starts to do callouts again because the judges weren’t finished judging.  The first batch of people are called out.  Nope, not me in it.  As expected. Another few people are called up to stand with them.  Nope not me.  Still not surprised.  

Then all of a sudden, I hear my name.  I’m like, wow, that’s an improvement from being last. I try to contain my excitement, breathe, and walk up to the line with the rest of the women.  Here I am standing at the very end of the row.    There is a little bit of a pause in the judging.  I look over to the judging table and I see whispering going on.  We are all waiting for the next call.  To my surprise, I hear my name called, and I am asked to move all the way to the center of the stage next to last year’s Champion.  What a moment.  I walk over, get into my pose, and we go through another round of comparisons with me staying right there on stage.  It was such a drastic change of events that I’ll never forget.  You just never know you guys.  When you come in on point, you need to never fall off your game and present yourself your best. 

I absolutely nailed the look for this show.  It wasn’t easy and a couple days before the show my body dried out so much that my arms would suction at the elbow when I did a lat pull down.  My legs looked sick and the quad cuts were deep.  And nope, I never took a diuretic, in fact never have taken one.  This was literally accomplished ALL with nutrition.  It was literally the best I ever looked and the worst I ever felt.  It paid off and I walked off stage going from last callout to finishing with a 2nd place trophy behind the champion from the prior year who re-claimed her crown.  

So the following year, when it was time to get back up on that SAME stage, the idea was to NOT. Change. anything. 

So I followed the exact same protocol that I did the year before to a T. You know what happened?  Absolutely nothing.  No deep quad cuts, no crazy dryness.  That exact same protocol did NOT work.  I was still really lean, but I didn’t have that crispness and deep separation that I had the year before.

So again, my body did not respond the same way to the protocol I did for the prior show.  This wasn’t as obvious as a peak weak disaster as the one I told you about where the food was drastically changed. But this is still a fail.

I’ve speculated many times about the WHY on the cause of this fail.  I’m not a scientist, but I believe our bodies are constantly evolving.  So my body was literally not the same body it was at the year before.  Think about it, if you are constantly improving your physique, in theory, you should have an improved package in some way.  Maybe you have more muscle overall, like me, I had accomplished building more size in the year between shows.  

Or maybe if you took extra time off and you were successful in making a body composition change, meaning you added muscle to areas that are lacking and/or trim areas that are over dominant. So overall you ARE different.  

Or maybe it’s overall stress too.  I had torn a hamstring about 8 weeks prior to this show and trained through the pain.  

Let’s also add in the fact that when you are doing contest prep for a bodybuilding show, you are bringing your body fat levels down much further than just looking hot on the beach.  There will come a point when your body literally thinks it’s starving.  In addition, for women, this can mean a loss of your menstrual cycle because your body fat levels are too low for your body to focus on reproduction.  I remember for one show it took me 6 months to get my cycle back after a show.  6 months.  Crazy huh?  And I’ve never used any performance enhancing drugs, so this was purely a loss of menses from low body fat levels and the stress on the body that comes with the territory.  

Overall the scenario from the prior show to the current show I was doing wasn’t the same.

So the moral of this is to not think that there is a cookie cutter peak week protocol that is going to work for every show.  

Now if you have a coach that resorts to giving you PEDs like estrogen blockers, like nolvadex, to lean out your legs and glutes, then that’s a whole different scenario. 

So as you can see, contest prep is no easy feat. And what you do the final week before the show can literally throw out the window all that you did to prepare for the months leading up to the show.

In my opinion, from many lessons learned from 20 years of doing this, I do believe that no two show preps are the same, but there should be some common sense involved.  I do not believe anything drastic should be done the week of show at all.  I think that at the end of the day, if you aren’t lean enough and you are trying to do something quick to fix it, you are setting yourself up for disaster.  Your body is in a super sensitive condition and even small changes can have a drastic effect.  If you aren’t lean enough, you should push out the show.  There will always be another show.  Your stress levels have to be factored in and action should be taken to minimize them as well.  Your health and wellness should always be a priority. 

By the way, some contest prep coaches will not dial you into a show with protein shakes in your nutrition and will ask you to pull them out.  If you want to pull out protein shakes for whatever reason, in my opinion, I would not do it last minute.  I would slowly taper the shakes down over many weeks prior to your show to allow your body to adapt to changes in nutrition. 

I would also plan to be ready for a show weeks before the show, not torpedo like you’re sliding into home base head first to score the point.  I literally mean weeks before.  If you want to try any peak week protocols, let them be small changes, that you know will have a positive affect on you because you tested them….on YOU, not heard about them from a friend.  

So it’s with the testing that you find out which peak week protocol you should do for THIS upcoming show…and it is also the time you will find out whether the protocol you did for the prior show will even work this time. 

This testing should be done weeks prior to the show, so you have time to make adjustments should any tests not have a favorable outcome.  Again, be ready weeks before the show so you can test with a contest ready physique for more accurate results.  Even small changes like adjustments to your carbs or fats can make your muscles look flat or full.  I’ve come into shows with my physique on point and I’ve come into shows where I was flat as a pancake.  A lot of how to do this is backed by science so don’t waste your time with anyone that doesn’t have a science background or a solid understanding of the human body.  Peak week should be small changes, nothing drastic and you should prepare for this before the show, and not do any last minute tests right before you get on stage.  So no guessing the week of show.  

In fact, I’m going to be having a guest on the show in the near future who, along with four other people that are PHDs and scientists, who together published a paper recently that reviews the current pre-contest peaking protocols that are most commonly used by bodybuilders. This review provides evidence-based recommendations on safe and effective strategies for peak week protocols. 

We are also going to talk about the differences in peaking someone who only uses nutrition and training to prep for shows versus someone who uses PEDs to prepare for shows. These scenarios are completely different and I think a lot of people who start with coaches who automatically use PEDs with their clients don’t realize that this is not the only way to prep for shows. And that there is a science based approach to peak week that will optimize your chances of actually peaking when you are NOT on PEDs. Swapping out liquids to solids the week of show was a bro science protocol.  There is too much bro science in this industry and it’s time to elevate the science.  

I think you guys are going to love hearing exactly what people with actual scientific background have to say about peak week.  I will continue to bring you guys more truth talk from credible people and no bro science or fluff.  So stay tuned for the follow up to this episode. I’ve got a lot more coming.

In the mean time, if you are ready to do something completely awesome for yourself and leave no stone unturned in your show prep, then go to www.posingwinsshows.com and Discover The Proven Strategies to Winning a Bodybuilding Show That You Will Never Learn At Any Posing Class... Competitor Workshop... or Anywhere Else! (AND... WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT). Learn things you won’t learn anywhere else and go to posingwinsshows.com  Also, like I said before join the discussion in the Podcast Insiders group if you haven’t already.  I’ll see you on the next episode!