The bodybuilding cutting phase

Expectation vs reality

The prep for my first bodybuilding show has taken about 3 times longer than I had originally expected. Ha...the curse of expectation which I'm slowly learning to bin. My body is going to do what it wants to do - it has it's own agenda and rate of change!

I am now going into what I hope will be my last and final 12 week prep. I'm going into it relatively healthy, flu free, with a good fitness foundation, so that is a positive. The goal is to maintain muscle mass and reduce body fat (cutting) to allow me to tick the boxes that mean I can compete in physique category. This essentially means a low fat physique with a good degree of muscularity, good conditioning and nice full muscles. Creating this is tricky, it's a very precise combination of cardio, diet, training and probably drugs. In truth, this is where smart dosing of good quality anabolics like Anavar (Oxondrolone) and Winstrol (Stanozolol) probably make a big difference to the quality of conditioning. They allow preservation of muscle mass whilst reducing body fat which is hard to do in women.

I have been unbelievably resistant to successful "cutting" and I was previously blaming it on my body, but actually in all honesty I believe it's because I don't really want to do it. My desire to be 6-8% body fat in truth, is just not very strong. It's also the one sport, where the closer you get to competition, the weaker and less fit you get (calorie deficit will do that!).

I come from a non-aesthetic performance based sporting background, so partaking in an aesthetic sport creates all sorts of mental obstacles. In truth it's going to be very hard to change my values and my core beliefs, but you can create a strategy that is more or less in line with what you do believe. Just as there are things that conflict with my nature doing this sport, there are lots of things about doing a bodybuilding competition that are in line with my values. It is a sport at the end of the day and requires precision training, nutrition and absolute dedication and so it is just a question of tapping into the things that fuel that.

The challenge for me was to see if I could train myself for my first show; to enjoy, learn and grow from the process, both physically and mentally. I had huge help for the first 3 months with program design but then decided to go it alone, as that was more in line with my particular goal of learning about training and nutrition. Having spoken to a number of competitors, I think motivation and desire for doing this sport are so varied, individual and deeply personal.

Motivation and Sport

These two words are so well intertwined. To me, motivation is key to doing things well. You can have the best programs in the world for training but if they are not executed with full attention and intention, it is wasted. So, what ever it is you need to do to create that motivation is a part of optimal training. Some people are very self motivated and train alone and others need a training partner or training group. It's all highly personal what you need to get the best out of yourself. Identifying what it is and being able to create motivation from nothing, when you really don't want to do something is also essential, because often it is beyond the skill of a coach or friend to do that.

Let go of resistance - "fasted" cardio and muscular endurance

I have found unfortunately that the very thing I do not want to do, is usually the thing that is going to make all the difference. For me, that nemesis is 1) "fasted" cardio, first thing in the morning and 2) muscular endurance training (reps of 15+). I literally want to cry at the thought of both these things and I have tried avoiding these, with substitutions of all permutations of late afternoon HITT training (because I like it) but with no real result. Last week out of desperation, I made the conscious decision that I was going to do both these things that I detest, for a 4 week training block. For endurance training this was going to be trisets of +15 reps for a body part, with no rest - 1 min rest between sets.
Leg training might look something like; back squats, walking lunges and dumbbell deadlift as a single triset.

It is really not a pretty sight, watching me try and tie my shoe laces at some absurd hour in the morning. Luckily the only witness to this is my beloved blind and deaf labrador. It is a usual ritual of tripping over on my face before finally facing the park for some early morning running. Actually running is being way too generous of a description...it is more a walk - trot - jog.

The really interesting thing about facing a real internal conflict with not wanting to do something, is once you realise that you are in fact going to do it, you might as well enjoy it. You let go of that resistance and although you may not want to be there, you are "ok" with being there and you just allow it to happen, rather than force it to happen. So, I put on some motivating music or an audiobook and enjoy the ride. Reassessing goals is part of the process here too. The objective is not performance (running fast), as it would have been previously - it is just to keep heart rate at a low- moderate rate for 45-60 mins to aid fat metabolism.
This has actually been an epiphany, not just for training but for things in everyday life, because I tend to fight reality sometimes - wishing I was someplace rather than where I am. I suppose it is a practical way of practicing mindfulness - a useful skill in sport.

So, although resistance training is a great idea, resistance of situations is a really bad idea. It makes everything very very hard. Coping with being in a situation you don't really want to be in is really about just being "ok" with it - being present so to speak and it is never as bad as you think. A week in and I actually quite enjoy my "foodless, sleepless" runs and the beauty of it is, I am starting to see the benefit in a little bit more muscle definition. I don't like this physique or not like it any better but it allows me to tick the boxes I need to for this show.
I was recently speaking to another female competitor. She faced the same battles with struggling to cut weight and revealed she feels so stressed and in conflict with her body. I can't offer scientific explanations for what is going on physiologically but it does seem to be a theme, that struggle, striving and resistance don't work very well for getting results.

Become familiar with what truly motivates

Everybody will experience different challenges in a contest prep and those challenges will be different in each prep. The body and the mind won't always respond the same way and how we want them to, but for me...letting go of expectation has proved immensely valuable because creating calm and enjoyment for me increases motivation.  For others, perhaps it is the opposite. Increasing the pressure and expectation may work better but it is undoubtably a question of finding what taps into creating one's own and ever changing motivation.