I love this article because it is the same approach that I have about my fitness. I continually teach my clients the benefit of strength that is often better gained outside of the conventional gym.
Balance is so key. I just recently stopped calculating all of my calories and nutrition because I realized it was taking SO much time out of my day. I was basically just doing it because I have obsessive tendencies and thought it was something I had to do if I wanted to be healthy. Mental health is equally as important as physical health. Thanks for this article! I stumbled across your blog today when I made the decision to step away from competition in the bikini division.
I have been competing for 2 and a half yrs straight with no offseason or a break and it was getting to the point that I wasnt enjoying my workouts and I certainly dont like my food.
I deleted myfitnesspal took the batteries out of my food scale and tucked my bodyweight scale away. Im a personal trainer who preaches balance, and never would I put my clients through what I put myself through. Thanks for your article. So helpful. I just finished a fitness model competition but decided last minute not to pursue bodybuilding and because of the same reasons.
Just confirmed my reasons. Thank you so much for finally putting what I feel into words. I feel very alone with my ideas against competing. I know it takes dedication and hard work for the competitions, there is no denying that. But I feel like you can work as hard as you want for yourself.
I personally think it should be a very personal experience achieving your goals and working on your health without having to compete. I think it is a lot more inspiring to be a better you then a better someone else on stage.
I guess I just have a bad taste in my mouth because a good friend of mine did a show for all the wrong reasons. Hi Andrea, yes, people may have very different reasons why they compete. Some of us are ready to sacrifice more than others.. Whatever makes people happy, right! Great article there. The only desire is to get a perfect and healthy physique. For me Bodybuilding has become a world of steroids for faster results with so much worst that can happen to your body later.
This was a great article, fitness models always seem to be a huge focus nowadays and I think it is totally unrealistic. However, most fitness models make competing look so glamorous and do not state the overall health issues that may result from it. It can be a bit of a roller coaster during prep and although there is nothing like that high of getting on that stage especially when you place! Every body reacts differently to certain diets, some people have more of a carb tolerance than others.
As long as you have a good coach and a good attitude there is nothing wrong with competing. No way! They are addicted to the wrong things in life. Best of luck. When you have daughters you want to be careful what body image you portrait. After having overcome bulimia I know how hard it is to find a healthy body image. We live in times when body fat has become the enemy. This society has problems to find a balance between a healthy body image and weight.
We have forgotten to see our bodies as a gift and many of us have lost the ability to listen to our bodies. I am a long distance runner and have really fallen in love with yoga. I wish many in the fitness industry would adopt the concept of wellness over this obsession about looks.
Let us start loving our bodies and we may find that we are a lot more beautiful than we thought. Why would someone want to compete in a bodybuilding competition? Before we go into the topic of talking about competition, lets go into a little more detail about bodybuilders and bodybuilding as a general aspect.
We bodybuilders go day by day having to lift a ton of weights rep after rep, set after set. We eat enough to feed your entire family for an entire day. We get stuck in a routine and never break it for anyone or anything. We would sacrifice anything, to gain an extra pound of muscle. This my friend is the life of the bodybuilder. Something so strict and boring that it creates a sense of satisfaction within our feeble bodies.
A sick sense of power and status achieved every time you gain that inch around the chest or that 10 pounds to your squats. And if we are lucky enough to win a major competition despite all the politics involved, you may then be sponsored by a few companies. And while they make tons of money off you, all you get is a miserable sum which is just enough to pay for that one room hell hole that you live in and your food.
But still we press on and do what has to be done. To set one thing straight, we aren't in this for the money. The only thing that is keeping us going is purely, passion.
Just the thought of standing up on a stage in front of an audience wearing nothing but your tiny trunks, posing in unison to the music, is more than enough to send you into a spiral of self doubt and confusion of whether this was such a good idea after all. Reasons For Competing. As mentioned above, bodybuilders are not in it for the money, even so why would we put ourselves through the uncomfortable feeling to water draining just for a small trophy that not worth a dime on ebay.
We are afraid that after all the hard work and sacrificed that you made will somehow be demolished by some other dude's physique that seems almost unattainable. That is why most people comfort themselves in a self deceiving lie that the reason that they do not compete. They don't feel the need to expose themselves, and never ever dare entertain the thought of competing again. But for the few brave ones that are willing to step up to the challenge, they get ready to do battle.
A frantic search begins for information on the internet for pre contest guides and bugging any bodybuilder at your gym that would be willing to give you some advice on competing. You want it to be perfect. You want to win that first prize and there is nothing that would stand in your way of your very first victory.
Competing at a bodybuilding meet is much more than a couple of guys standing in their trunks and posing. It takes dedication and nerves of steel to reach there. They fear being rejected or made fun of, so they hide away their confidence. But the real way to get rid of that fear is to stare it straight in the eye. So by standing up on that stage, you are guaranteeing a huge boost to your confidence.
I cannot explain enough how much confidence will help you. But having a boost in this section of your life can only do you good. But when entering the arena where the other competitors are, you take a look at the bodies and the previous thoughts of destroying all competition to win the first prize turn to dust. Although you are still not convinced that you will lose for sure, you know that you have a chance of winning this. And that puts you in your place. So competing makes you confident but humble at the same time.
So without the proper discipline, you will definitely not be able to achieve this. Especially during the cutting stage before a competition where a cheat meal is simply out of the question, only the truly disciplined will be able to go through it.
So joining a competition forces you to be discipline and naturally in all aspects of your life will also be very organized and disciplined. So if the above facts are not enough to convince you to compete, let me give you another reason to compete.
Competing gives you a chance to make the people around you, which have been condemning the things you do for ages, to finally understand and accept you for the way you are.
One such example would be me. When I initially started to do bodybuilding, my friends and parents would constantly nag me. But when I won the state championship, I finally got the respect that I wanted.
They accepted me for who I was and although I put myself through so much pain and sacrifice, they now understood that it is not just some side hobby that I took up. Although there are many enticing plus points, like any other issues, there is bound to be a negative side of things. Negative Reasons. Although later in life, people will catch up to them, for the mean time their egos will be at an all time high.
And a person with an extremely high ego is dangerous to himself and the people around. He starts to become a bully and gets himself into fights and creates problems. But since no one is up to his size. He can do as he wishes. You will not be able to spend as much time with your buddies doing dumb stuff like making prank calls or setting shit on fire on someone else's doorstep. This can all go back to normal after the competition.
But until then your social life will be at an all time low. Personal Reasons For Competing. Bonus Question. I wouldn't be surprised that some competitors back out just because they don't know what to. I had to listen very closely to my name being called and tried to stay pumped. I had to request they play the music again after I regain my sense of reality after 5 seconds.
All went well, until I had to turn from my front posing to back posing. I almost loss my balance due to the tremendous loss of water in my body. But I was lucky enough to remain balanced.
I actually wasn't even thinking of doing this show. But my trainer knew I was ready and made me a challenge. Although it wasn't the money that made me do it, it was however the final straw in getting me to join. Although I had a few problems here and there during the competition such as dizziness and weakness, it was definitely an awesome experience that I would never forget. I will definitely do it over and over again if I have the chance.
One great piece of knowledge that I brought home with me from the competition is the old saying, "No pain no gain". I was literally pumping the muscle till I could feel the blood flow inside about to explode. The dieting, training, cardio and years of consistency required to compete in a bodybuilding competition definitely makes it one of the hardest things a human can put their bodies through.
In evolutionary terms, the competitive bodybuilder attempts to undo thousands of years of adaptation and destroy the body's natural tendency to remain in a comfortable homeostasis by forcing it to become big and lean. The human body detests being at a low body-fat level, because body fat was needed to survive famine periods long before the invention of advanced farming methods and supermarkets.
It is in the process of wrestling with our own bodies adaptive mechanisms which we can gain new insight into our character, mentality, and truly appreciate how wonderful the body is. As I have alluded to, the prize for competing certainly is not limited to the small trophy reserved for the winner. The benefits of competing come not through winning, but in the process of getting to a point where competing is feasible.
The benefits are many. Most people lack the dedication and will to even regularly exercise let alone go through the stretches eating phenomenal amounts of food and then miniscule amounts of food which a bodybuilding lifestyle demands.
It is because most people can't do it which is precisely why we should do it. Normality in a day and age where your average person is obese and unfit is certainly not something that I want to be. I want to be abnormal; that is fit, healthy, big and lean. Entering a bodybuilding competition requires doing things which most people refuse to do, the pain, sweat, blood and tears makes the end result all the more enjoyable; at the end you look fantastic!
Time and time again it has been shown that people who enter bodybuilding competitions make better progress than their non-competitive counterparts. This could be because they started out as the ones who had a better capacity to bodybuild; however that is only part of the equation. Having a goal makes you more focused on your daily routine, and decreases the likelihood of sloppy eating, or skipping gym sessions.
If you know that you're going to strip down to a tiny thong in front of potentially hundreds of people, you'll think twice about the bowl of ice-cream, fried chips or pizza!
Having the goal of competing on a certain date keeps you focused and dedicated on the important aspects of your regime like diet, training and rest. The dedication required to eat either so much you're full all the time, or so little you're starving rubs off in other areas of your life.
The willpower to refuse alcohol when offered; refuse snacks and sugary drinks, and to train balls-to-the-wall hard days a week transfers to your daily life and meaningfully builds strength of character. Knowing that you can successfully mold your highly resistant body into an aesthetically appealing form lets you approach other obstacles and tasks with a positive can-do attitude.
Encouraging Someone To Compete. I would definitely encourage them to compete. Competition for the above reasons makes you a better person and more importantly a better bodybuilder. It confines you to a time period which forces you to get the most out of each meal, each weights session, each cardio session.
It acts as the ultimate driving force to allow you to put yourself through the mental and physical anguish which accompany getting down to contest ready shape. The fear of looking normal, smooth, small on stage, and the determination to look big, freaky and lean cannot be overstated in terms of driving forces of motivation in the gym.
It allows you to see weaknesses in your physique, and ensures that those weaknesses are worked on. Competing is the ultimate way for a bodybuilder to quickly become 'real' about their training, and forces them to assess the why's and how's of their training and diet regimen. What Are The Negatives? People sometimes don't understand the reasons behind your desire to compete and try to talk you out of it. Worse still they make it sound like an easy thing to do, and under-appreciate the time and sacrifice it takes to get to a competition-ready state.
Things like 'oh, I don't want to do weights I don't want to get big' will frustrate, but ultimately it doesn't matter. The difficulty in competing against your evolutionary body is a hard, painful and a slow process, but ultimately one of the most rewarding endeavors man can pursue.
Topic of the Week gives forum members the chance to share their knowledge with the world! The Question: Competing in a bodybuilding contest is one of the hardest things a person can do. Show off your knowledge to the world! The Winners: 1. Jox View Profile Prizes: 1st place - 75 in store credit. Convincing Others Like I said, competing will give you a lot of benefits. First off it will be loads of fun. If you don't have anything to loose, there's tons of things to gain.
The feeling of changing your body and being in control is unbelievable. Excitement: It will be exciting and challenging at the same time. Trust me, I have not met anyone that ever competed and then regretted it. There are some that will never do it again, but they do not regret competing in the first place. An Art Form: Bodybuilding is an art form. By competing you are showing off your body and telling the world that you work hard and that you cherish every sweat, tear and blood drop that comes out of you.
Self Expression: Bodybuilding is a form of expression and by competing you are taking it to the next step. You are going public. You will gain tons of discipline and wisdom out of competing. You will be able to see how hard bodybuilders actually work. Positive Benefits Of Competing By now you are asking yourself what are the positive benefits of competing.
And now here are some positive benefits: Gaining Discipline By competing you will gain tons of discipline. The discipline that shapes your character as a person.
The discipline that stops you from eating the pie on your table. The discipline that sets you apart from the average joe. That's right, everyone has pride and self-esteem, but sometimes it is very low. Sure you can be cocky sometimes, but cockiness won't help you get almost naked on stage for people to look at you, judge you, and for judges to criticize your weak point. Adrenaline Rush There is nothing on earth like stepping on stage almost naked and showing off to the world.
It takes guts, and it takes courage. The result is an awesome adrenaline rush that many people are 'addicted' to. No your bench won't go up by 20 lbs. You will get strong in your mind. You will be able to set goals and accomplish them easier and you would be able to focus to achieve those goals. Much More There are a lot more things you can gain.
Feeling good about yourself might not seem so special, but after a contest, feeling good might change your life. More consistency, more intensity and harder lifting might result. Negative Benefits Of Competing Now with everything good, there will always be something bad. All the cardio and weight training that you don't have energy for. Since your food intake will get lower, so you can burn fat, you will increase your cardio.
Social Life Don't expect many parties while you are preparing for a contest. Most likely you will feel like sleeping and won't go anywhere. A lot of your friends will ask you what's going on, and most will not understand. Well these are some of the negative benefits. Sure some might be bad or not so bad depending on your perspective, but the positives outweigh the negatives.
Sure you might miss a few parties or loose a few friends but in the end you will learn about yourself and gain a lot more. Bonus Question For Competitors: What was it like competing in your first show? Why People Enter Bodybuilding Contests Competition There's nothing better for the soul than some friendly competition. Competition actually reduces the tension between 2 people. It's natural for someone to want to compete for something. It's been going on since the beginning of time.
Self-Satisfaction Another reason why people enter a bodybuilding contest is for self-satisfaction. They want compensation for all the hard work they put in the weight room. There's no better feeling than making all your hard work pay off. It's just nature taking its course. No one wants to be a loser. The feeling of victory is like no other. You can't win without competing. Mediocre motivation produces lackluster results.
There is nothing wrong with pushing yourself, chasing a dream, or daring to try—as long as you are doing it for yourself. Preparing for a competition is a full-time commitment that will devour your resources. All of them. Before you commit to training for a show, ask yourself if you have the necessary amount of these:. Not having enough of any one of those can cause one, or several, of the others to unravel. Don't have a babysitter for your kids? You'll probably need one.
Are you already stretched thin financially? Maybe stick to lifting casually until you're not. Keep in mind that this is a question for your partner as well. Many a spouse has found themselves a "gym widow" from the hours and hours of training it takes their loved one to prepare for competition. Initial support may run high, but family and friends will quickly tire of your long workouts , constant meal prep , and increasing irritability.
You may even find yourself buckling under the mental and emotional strain that this kind of competitive sport imposes on you. I've even seen athletes lose their hair under the strain of competition.
Know that there is no substitute for experience when it comes to contest prep. Judges can spot poor posing, improper diet, and lousy homemade suits a mile away. If you can't properly and thoroughly prepare for a competition, this probably isn't the sport for you.
If you're like the vast majority of people who compete, you're not there to finish in the middle of the pack—you're there to win.
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