Bodybuilding Competitions for Beginners

The first competition for any bodybuilder is a landmark event in their life. It marks a turning point from being just a gym rat bodybuilder into becoming an actual contestant. And no matter how you place, the courage to take this step is admirable.

For the first competition you want to find an event where you are legitimately competitive. That is, you don’t want to get blown out of the water. Match your training philosophy with the contest. Are you a natural bodybuilder? Go with a natural contest. There are several natural bodybuilding organizations nationwide which offer contests at different times and locations during the year.

Getting your preparation right is crucial. Bottom line - you want to come in with the best mix of muscle and leanness possible. This isn’t always easy to do and you will get better the more contests you enter. Don’t enter a contest unless you have built a good base of bulk to work with.

Once you have that bulk you want to trim off body fat while keeping as much muscle mass as possible. Don’t make the mistake of dropping the heavy training as heavy weight training is the best tool to strip body fat off. Instead, keep doing the heavy duty grind. Add in some cardio work, and use your diet as the main dial to decrease body fat.

Getting your nutrition right is perhaps the biggest element in contest preparation. It is smart to use some bodybuilding software to zero in on your target goal for the contest date. You can step into the contest range diet by an incremental manner, going lower and lower as the contest date draws near. One technique is to finish up our dieting down a day or two before the contest and allow yourself a bit more carbs and fat to fill out the muscles right before the contest. You will want to have your posing routine down well, which means practicing it multiple times. In conjunction with that, know which poses will be used for the comparison call-outs, and what poses the judges want to see. You will also need to set your music up to flow with your posing and make that as smooth as possible. And you will need to get a pair of posing trunks for the big show.

Skin care is also part of contest prep, including a tan, posing oil, and getting rid of body hair. Try out your tanning oil well ahead of time so that you look as natural as possible.

Prepare a training bag to have along at the competition, including a cable system to pump up with, extra posing and tanning oil, and a drink to stay hydrated.

View the first competition as a learning experience and you can pick up a lot of ground for any following competitions.

For more information checkout Stage Ready Nutriton & Training