05: How To Survive Long Term In Bodybuilding

Welcome back everyone! In this episode, I want to hammer one point home: Not everyone in bodybuilding has your best interest in mind and that can and will affect your longevity (and success) in the sport.  Plus, I will touch on the power of influence coaches have over competitors. I will tell some stories about personal encounters with clients whose coaches undermined their best interest. I also share my own secrets to longevity in bodybuilding and some things you can do to avoid common pitfalls.  Ready for some real talk?  Tune in today and download 5 Tips Every Bodybuilder and Fitness Competitors Needs To Know Before Before Preparing For A Show!

Key Takeaways:

• Did you know coaches can become possessive (2:10)
• There is a process to competing both pre AND post show (3:35)
• Competing is...a hobby (5:17)
• A true story about how fast a competitor’s confidence was deflated the day before a show (5:50)
• Who were you before the world told you who to be (10:56)
• Why bodybuilding is far from dead (13:27)
• How I survive in an industry where most people come and go in a short amount of time…and how you can too (14:25)

Additional Resources:

Download the 5 Secrets Every Bodybuilder and Fitness Competitor Needs To Know Before Preparing For A Show at http://www.eeinbb.com 

So if you want to learn about all the “other” things in bodybuilding, be sure to subscribe and tune in for new episodes!

--TRANSCRIPT--

What’s goin on everyone. Hey thank you so much for listening to the ee in  bb show. Got a cool story for you guys today. It actually happens quite frequently. 

I think there is so much ego in this industry with coaches who are win and pro card collectors that are also geniuses at marketing themselves as THE coach to work with if you want to win.. so sometimes it’s hard to know if you are making the right decision for yourself. Unveiling the nonsense is a major drive for me and why I am doing this show.

I have to laugh for a moment because …. Did you know that coaches can become possessive?  I had a coach that wouldn’t let her clients work with me without knowing when all their appointments were and had to approve them ahead of time. I would get inquiries from her people and out of respect I would let them know their coaches’ wishes to be notified before working with me. Oddly enough I never heard from one of those clients again after that. Not one.

This was such an eye opener for me how controlling coaches are …. And how easily influenced competitors are by their coaches.  

Most of the time competitors come work with me after they are already working with a coach on the nutrition and training portion of their contest prep and have already picked a show. Most of the time trainers will give their clients their blessing out the gate to “allow” their athletes to work with me. The ones that actually have their clients best interest at heart.  But then again sometimes my opinion differs from their other coaches’ opinion and that can be challenging for a competitor. I believe that at the end of the day the decision is up to the competitor. When I think of high level sports like football for example there is the head coach and then there are separate coaches for different specialties. These specialists are trusted to do their job and do it well. Conflicting messages from coaches not only undermines the confidence of the competitor in the coach, but the competitor’s overall confidence.

Competing means a lot to us. The dedication that it takes to do what we do to get to stage, the last thing we want to feel is that a stone was left unturned somewhere. No one wants to find out that 12, 16, even 20+ weeks of prep was affected by ANYTHING that could have been easily avoided.

For most of us we can’t just get back on stage weekly.  There is a process to competing. You dial into the show and bring your body fat levels down to uncomfortable levels. Then you just as carefully dial out of a show to give your body a break from being on poverty calories and to also have enough time to grow and improve muscle. And if you are on PEDs you have to go through an additional process of post cycle therapy to allow your body to go back to some sort of hormonal balance. I haven’t gone through this process myself since I’ve never taken PEDs but I know people that have and I will be bringing on experts in a future show to shed some light on this taboo topic that gets swept under the rug.  My point in talking about the process of competing pre and post show is to say that there is so much time preparing for a show and in between shows. The last thing you want is to have to wait another 6 months or a year to get another chance on stage to correct something you should’ve known about. 

It always amazes me how influential coaches are over their athletes.   

Something to think about…ask yourself…has your coach asked you what YOU want to do? What YOUR goals are and how THEY can help YOU achieve them? 

I hope one thing you take away from this podcast is that competing is a hobby. Hobbies are supposed to be fun. Hobbies are supposed to be fulfilling as well. I deep dive more on this in the pdf ebook that I wrote. It’s the one I mention in the intro and outro of this podcast.. I really give you some things to make you go hmmmmm.  You are spending a lot of money for this hobby. It should be about you and what your best interests are.  Keep this in the back of your head and go grab the ebook to hear some more of my real talk advice. 

One time I was working with a competitor on her posing for a fitness universe competition.  She had competed before but wanted to up her game and get a pro card.  She was planning to do one of the biggest shows of the year in Las Vegas that attracts hundreds of competitors. Doing the show meant paying for multiple days of hotels, flight, food prep for travel, on top of all the usual show expenses.

And here’s the kicker.  Doing a fitness universe show is very different than doing shows in npc, wnbf, ocb, or even wbff shows. What makes this federation different is you are scored on your individual presentation. You are not scored against other athletes while standing in a row on a designated line across the stage. Instead, you walk out by yourself and your presentation along with your physique is scored then.  No matter which division. From male model, to female model, to figure, you are scored individually.  

So I worked with her for many weeks on a routine that made her look great and feel confident. I played with her angles to accentuate her best features and hide flaws.. She had an incredible transformation and she was excited to get to Vegas and show all of her hard work!  I remember being on our last video call before the show and how excited we both were!  

Then I get a message from her the day before the show that she was told by another coach to not do what we practiced and to do what SHE says for her performance instead.  And remember, her performance is critical in order to score well in this federation! I told her I think she should do what we practiced since, here’s the thing, At the end of the day, it mattered less what she was doing; it mattered more HOW she was doing it! Getting up on stage and looking like you feel like a million bucks will convey enthusiasm, positivity, likability, and attractiveness. For a federation that is looking for exactly these things, it is critical that you feel confident and not be a timid Tiffany on stage or a total bore.   Well, she didn’t do what we practiced ….or stand out because this coach inflicted doubt in her head. In fact, it was like someone stuck a pin in her balloon of confidence. Leading up to the show she was confident and excited because she felt prepared. The message the day before the show to not do what we practiced deflated her confidence because she no longer felt prepared. What an epic fail. 

After the show she decided to try again and this time do what she practiced. She not only lit up the stage, she captured the judges’ attention and took home a first place trophy and a pro card that day.   

So why do I Bring this up? It’s one of the strategies I teach in my free pdf at eeinbb.com if you go to eeinbb.com there is a pdf called 5 tips every bodybuilder and fitness competitor needs to know before preparing for a show.  It’s going to give you unbiased, real talk, advice no matter what level you are on and it’s 21 pages. What I did was grab 5 of the most common mistakes competitors make when en route on their competition journey.  

Before the prep goggles go on, I suggest you read it and keep all 5 key points in the back of your head so you can better look out for yourself in an industry that is unregulated and much like the Wild West.

By the way I recommend you listen to this podcast from the very beginning too. Each of these episodes do build on each other. Just fyi there. Start at episode 1. These are extremely thought out podcasts. What I’m trying to do is guide you guys through a series of ahas starting from a 30,000 foot view and will guide you into more specific topics as we continue forward. So anyways, start at episode 1. 

If you are listening to this right now and thinking …. well, I’ve got my show picked and I feel good about who I am working with as a coach. Awesome. But let me ask you a question that I hope sticks with you throughout your entire competition journey not just one show. I want you to ask yourself, 

Who were you before the world told you who to be?

There is one thing to ask for advice, counsel, seek out professionals, and trust the advice of the dr, lawyer, carpenter, plumber, etc. But also know that there are professions within professions too. I recently went to the orthopedic for my shoulder. I had dislocated it a few years ago when re-racking a barbell and missed the latch on the left side. Recently over the last year, completely unrelated, I have tendonosis in my elbows. I had to go and see a different orthopedic for my elbows than the doctor I saw for my shoulder. Both orthopedics, different specialties. 

There is so much to know in the sport of bodybuilding. The more I competed the more I realized that there is a lot of people who are not specialists who get away with coaching people because, let’s face it, if you restrict calories, most people will lose weight. If you throw Bob on a treadmill for an hour a day after his only previous exercise was walking to get French fries at his lunch break, Bob might lose some weight for a while until his body adapts to the stimulus and it no longer works…and then he needs MORE stimulus to see changes. Such coach then cuts more calories to save the day.   

But really guys, competing shouldn’t suck that bad when you are new. The further you are from your genetic potential, the faster you will see results out the gate…..no matter what you do!  

So the #1 goal of this episode is to help you to see and think for yourself.  I want you to feel empowered.  I want you to say no when it’s not the right fit, seek out everything and anything to be your best and gain a competitive edge. The men out there, you don’t have to work with men to gain a competitive edge. Women, you don’t have to work with just men or women.  

Again….who were you before the world told you who to be?  

You are driven, You are focused, you are motivated to make change. And you want to look, feel, and be your best in the process.  No one should ever have the power to take that away from you for their own self gain.  No coach should disallow you to work with a posing coach when he or she isn’t a specialist themselves.  No coach should have the power to babysit a grown adult on his or her appointments with a specialist.  And no one should have the power to burst your balloon of confidence the day before show by undermining another coach’s months of work with you to bring out the best in you.  Go grab my pdf, read the strategies and real talk I share in it, and never stop thinking for yourself.

There is one more thing I want to touch on.  People say bodybuilding is dead and not like the golden days. Not true at all. There are more divisions that are achievable for people where you don’t need to spend 10 years building the physique to be competitive in them. Things are not going to get back to the way they were. We aren’t going back. standards are higher. Especially with more peds. The bodies are bigger, harder, and the high conditioning levels are now the expectation. More categories keep getting added too so there is something for every body type. Like wellness, that’s new in the npc/ifbb and it’s being talked about being added in other federations like ocb which is a drug tested federation. And add in the men and women 35+ Masters divisions getting more and more populated too. In fact, I saw that there is a world championships for the masters divisions being added to the IFBB in 2022. 

People have asked me… how do you survive in an industry where most people come and go in a short amount of time? I would say because I evolved with the changing environment, never stopped setting personal goals, and kept my health a priority.

Bodybuilding doesn’t have to be short lived for you do the same.  Never stop evolving, learning, setting both short term and Long term personal goals, and seeking out the specialists to help you fine tune all aspects of your show prep so you can become your best over years of time, and not just over a few months of prep.

Go to eeinbb.com and read it. Want you to see bodybuilding from a 30,000 foot view.  You have more control than you think.  Do you, boo.

Alright guys that’s all I got for you today. Go check out that pdf at  eeinbb.com pdf and I’ll see you guys in the next episode. Please please please help me convince iTunes that I’m awesome and go give me a sweet review if you don’t mind. even if it’s not sweet, give me an honest review. Whatever it is that you want.  

And I’ll see you on the next episode