First-Time Bikini Competitor: Everything You Need To Know (Part 3)

 

Hi Guys, welcome to Part 3 of our most read and discussed topic “Everything you need to know as a First-Time Bikini Competitor”. In the previous blogs (which you can read First-Time Bikini Competitor: Everything You Need To Know and First-Time Bikini Competitor: Everything You Need To Know (Part 2)), we talked about two of the five key areas, which was “Choosing A Show” and “When To Compete”. Today we are going to talk about the third important key area which is “Prepping”

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The Prep

In our previous blogs we touched briefly on why it’s important to get a coach to help you with your Bikini Bodybuilding journey, regardless of your level or expertise. I personally do not think that doing Prep without a Coach is a good idea in any way. This is especially true if it’s your first show. You need someone who knows more than you, you need someone who knows how to prep somebody.

I would recommend getting someone who has competed before and who have prepped people like you before i.e. focusing more on first-time competitors rather than advanced IFBB Pro Athletes.

This is probably going to sound a little blunt (borderline a rude awakening), but if you’re not willing to invest in a coach for your prep then you probably shouldn’t prep (which means you probably shouldn’t compete either). Competing is Hard, and Prep is super hard. There’s a lot that you have to invest in - a lot of time and a lot of effort. You’ll miss social activities, you’ll probably distance yourself from a few friends, maybe even family. If you’re not willing to invest in the cost of a coach then there’s no way you’ll be able to make it through Prep intact, and be ready for stage.

Get a coach, period. Get them to make you a plan, track your progress with you, keep you accountable and keep you going no matter what. Because when the going gets tough, if there’s nobody to motivate you or tell you what to do in case something goes wrong then everything that you’ve worked for derails.

During Prep, you will need to send in your weekly Check-Ins to your Coach to assess your progress!

Prep Length

One of the main things to identify is your Prep length. This is determined by how much body fat you have to lose and also how aggressive an approach you want to take. A typical competition prep is between 12-16 weeks.

For first-time bikini competitors, we recommend sticking with the 16 weeks plan. 16 weeks is short enough that you can always kind of see the end goal in sight. I think that is a very important perspective aspect to have - a mental grasp on what you’re working towards.

16 weeks is long enough to reduce body fat in a gradual way to get to the competitive leanness required for Bikini Competitions On your next preps (and we guarantee you will stick aroundpo for more competitions) you will learn a lot from this experience (like how carb tolerant you are,  k,i what foods you react well to), and be able to know better how your body reacts to the prep process.

The first prep, even if you have the best coach in the world, is still a trial and error process, so stick with the 16 weeks to allow yourself enough time to prepare and understand your body during this process.

However, again, the best person who will be able to judge your prep time is your Coach. They will be able to assess and adjust your prep based on your progress pictures, your measurements, your training history and tweak your prep accordingly.

Things to Consider

The other main things to consider during competition prep are:

1. Cardio - the more fat you have to lose the more cardio you will have to do.

2. Macros - depending on how much body fat you have to lose, and how carb tolerant you are, what your diet was before you started the prep process, will all factor into the Macro breakdown you will use.

3. Check-Ins - Most first-timer Bikini Bodybuilding competitors will opt for online coaches, so you will send them weekly updates which include photos of your body shape, measurements, so you can see what progress you’ve made, if you’re on track to make your stage weight and what changes you need to tweak to get to that desired outcome.

4. Posing - This is something that a lot of people forget about, I think, that when you’re prepping for a show, you’re also practicing your posing all the time! You want to nail that routing on stage, so I would recommend getting a posing coach. You need to develop good coordination to be able to contour your body shape to look its best on stage.
   
   Depending on the federation or division you’re competing in, there will be certain mandatory poses that you’ll have to pose for on stage, so make sure to keep this in mind and practice practice practice the right pose!

5. Dedication - This is the number one ingredient for a successful prep. You cannot waiver from your diet plan for a number of reasons, not just because if you have a piece of candy it’s going to make you fat -  that’s not the point.
   
   Competition prep is so finely tuned with strict macro protocols, that if you stray from them then you don’t really know if those macros are working for you or not. You need to be 100% dedicated and do exactly what your coach tells you while retaining an open communication with them. If you do go off track with your diet, or miss your cardio then you need to inform your coach.
   
   Because if you don’t and the coach thinks you’ve been doing everything as told, and there is no progress in your weekly check-ins then obviously they will change your prep process, without fully discovering the root cause of the issue, resulting in a net loss for the both of you.

Your coach is your best friend on Prep! They want to see you succeed and will be the first one to cheer you on, so trust them with the process and have an open and clear communication during your prep process!

We hope you enjoyed this blog and have a more comprehensive idea of how to Prep. Our next blog will be about getting ready for your Show Day so stay tuned!