The stage is upon you as you begin your peak week water and sodium manipulation protocol in preparation of your next Bodybuilding Show. Stop me if you have heard this before…
Trust the Process
2 weeks out from your bodybuilding show, your physique looks fantastic. Conditioning is on point, you’re dry and look like you belong on stage as peak week approaches. Doesn’t matter if you’re in a Bikini class or a bodybuilder…still applies.
Around 7-14 days out the water and sodium manipulation begins. At some point, water was greatly increased and maybe sodium as well. This may even continue while going through your Peak Week “depletion” workout…but your physique changes are not positive. You question what is going on and your coach tells you to just “Trust the process. This is how it’s always been done and how you peak on stage.”
2-3 days out you start cutting your water and sodium drastically. Maybe take a diuretic and/or load up on potassium while consuming large amounts of carbohydrates. Your physique is looking “ok”, but remember…this is just part of the Peak Week process to get you to “Peak” at the right time.
You just missed your peak
Now it’s the day of your bodybuilding show…you’re just a couple of hours out, but your physique doesn’t look quite right. You’re softer, flatter, conditioning has blurred. You start to try and get your pump on and/or eat more carbs to fill out…yet nothing works, may not even be able to get a pump at all.
Showtime comes and goes, yet still…nothing changes. Feeling defeated and disappointed because you “missed your peak”, you go out that night and have a large meal, a lot of drinks then go to bed wondering.
Next morning you wake up your physique is full, vascular, hard, dry and just walking around gives you a pump. Veins are all over the place like a road map.
WTF?!?! Now you realize, or have been told, you just missed your peak. You coach proceeds to tell you the solution is to carb-up a little earlier during Peak Week for your next bodybuilding show, and to just “trust the process” again.
Next time comes and goes, same or similar results.
Peak Week Reality Check
Here’s what really happened. You didn’t miss your peak…you screwed it up. All the water and sodium manipulation during Peak Week was counter productive and completely unnecessary. So….when you did finally eat food with a lot of sodium and got some fluids in you, the carbs you’ve ingested had a catalyst to take them to your muscle cells to finally fill out. Had you not screwed with your water and sodium and kept it consistent like it was 2 weeks out before Peak Week began (remember how you looked then…no manipulation and you looked great) you would have come in looking well conditioned, assuming you were lean in the first place of course.
Can this process actually work? Yeah, it can. But EVERYTHING has to be timed perfectly. There is no room for the slightest error. Even then, its still not the best way to “peak” and certainly not optimal so why risk it in the first place?
learn about the effects of water and sodium manipulation and how does it affect your look on show day.
