So You Want To Know If You Have What It Takes? Part IIb - The Tactical Game
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Build your scaffolding: Lock in stress management, habits, and an environment that has your back before prep even begins.
Don’t fly solo: A good coach keeps you honest when hunger, fatigue, and ego mess with your judgment.
Comp season isn’t forever: The extreme phase is meant to peak — not last. Plan your return to baseline.
Control the controllables: Focus on effort, adherence, and mindset; let go of the rest.
Time to roll up the sleeves.
Hmmm, back for more eh? **insert Mr Miyagi nodding-head GIF here**
Alrighty. So, you’ve done the work inside your head — now it’s time to put that mindset to the test.
The moment you commit to stepping on stage, the game changes. Prep stops being an idea and becomes a daily grind of choices, trade-offs, and discipline. This is where the Tactical Game begins: the tangible actions, structures, and systems that turn your mental drive into real-world results.
And contrary to fitness-industry standards, there's no hype here. No fluff. No secret supplement or training method. Just timeless, evidence based processes that deliver championship results.
There are several elements that make up the tactical side of preparation:
Building the scaffolding - which encompasses stress management, setting your environment up for success and identifying the daily habits required to retain optimal performance whilst under severe physical and psychological duress;
Get an objective set of eyes - this outlines the value of getting a good coach on your side;
Understand that the competition side of the game isn't sustainable - we'll talk about why it's not meant to be, and what to do about it. And lastly;
Accept what is not within your control; focus on what is - this is about hardening your resolve amidst the chaos of a sport where there is so much outside of your control, and redirecting your efforts to the one thing you always retain control over: how you respond.
Whilst this will be looked at through the lens of natural competitive Bodybuilding, it's worth noting that these are the "broad strokes" of what goes into intensely chasing a particular goal for any period of time, and so can be applied across multiple arenas of life.
Let’s dive in.
1. BUILD THE SCAFFOLDING
Gone are the days when the standard contest diet lasted only 12 weeks. Thanks to coaches and competitors like Brandon Kempter (my own coach), conditioning standards on natural stages these days are simply jaw-dropping. Essentially, if you don’t have lines in your glutes and striations in your earlobes, don’t bother showing up.
Achieving that level of leanness while holding every precious gram of muscle — without pharmaceuticals — is a fine art, and it starts well ahead of the 30 odd weeks of pure contest prep. And - like any creative pursuit or transformation - success will largely be predicated on the foundations that were laid ahead of time, and the "scaffolding" that it can use to support itself to fruition.
““No matter how much you hurry, you cannot pick the fig before its time. Let it ripen first, then enjoy it.””
Let's unpack the different elements of before-mentioned scaffolding.
STRESS MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES
In case you missed the memo, contest prep WILL be one of the most stressful things you put your body and mind through. Unfortunately, the other areas of your life don’t just go on hold because you want to get on stage, and make no mistake: CONTEST PREP WILL IMPACT EVERY OTHER AREA OF YOUR LIFE. It simply can’t NOT, by virtue of the fact that you need your body and your mind for every other area (shocking, I know).
What might not be so obvious, though, is that this is a two way street - the stress experienced in other areas WILL impact your bodybuilding endeavours. This is because the body is a "system of systems", with each system impacting the others, either directly or indirectly.
During prep, stress hormones (also known as catabolic hormones) run higher than a Wi-Fi bill in a teenager's house, their primary goal being to mobilise energy for you to be able to - to put it scientifically - get shit done. The way they do this is by converting proteins, carbs and fats into usable energy.
They are also what help you to get lean.
Now that’s all well and good in normal conditions - but where does it get that energy from if proteins, carbs & fats are already very limited, and stress levels are maxing out?
Yep, you guessed it; the stuff that actually costs energy to maintain - MUSCLE TISSUE.
I don’t think I need to elaborate on the fact that retention of muscle tissue for a Bodybuilding contest is kind of a thing, so all I'll say is this:
If you want to give yourself the best shot on stage, develop stress management techniques that align with your goals. Downing a dozen Krispy Kremes and a bottle of vino won’t cut it on this path you've chosen.
Whilst nutrition, managing training volume, and sleep are your primary stress management strategies when it comes to your physiology, these will already be hampered thanks to the demands of the sport, and so other strategies must be developed to help make up for the shortfall. Strategies such as:
Meditation
Journaling
Salt baths
Massage
Yoga
Yoga Nidra/Non-Sleep Deep Rest
Breathwork
Barefoot walking/getting out in nature
Less time on devices
Gaming
Hobbies, provided they don’t eat into training productivity...
…are all viable options available to you. The key theme you want to be looking out for is relaxation - so anything that helps to tone down the sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system gets the tick of approval. As such, playing the latest Doom game, for example, might not fit the bill here (epic game; butt clenching experience).
Spend the time in your off-season building out a list of options that work best FOR YOU, so that you have a sound recovery system to help you carry the stress.
HABITS
When you eventually become a member of the Walking Dead, your ability to apply conscious thought will decline.
Decisions become harder as you wade your way through the swamp of your calorie deprived existence, trying to remember which way is up from down, and whether your name is actually worth responding to.
In short, you don't want to be relying on making more decisions. You want to rely on automation. For example:
Know your macro targets instinctively,
Build default meal plans so you don't have to constantly decide what to eat,
Train at the same time every day so your body & mind gets used to the rhythm of when it needs to be on and when it can be off,
Follow your training program,
Reduce friction on key behaviours.
And you do all of this fully accepting that "no plan survives first contact". There will be curveballs we need to field, disruptions to the plan - there is no such thing as a "perfect prep"...
...But that doesn't mean we can't optimise. Because when prep gets brutal (usually 12–2 weeks out), your routine will be what carry's you through the doldrums; No Man’s Land.
All you need to do is show up, dot the i's, and cross the t's.
ENVIRONMENTAL SUPPORT
It’s often been said that bodybuilding is a solo sport, but a team effort - and the word “team” isn’t limited to people. Take the time to put in place the right elements of support for YOU.
Is your home food environment dialled in?
Does the gym you train at encourage hard, aggressive training?
Do your friends & family know what you’re doing and what it means to you?
Do you have the right support from your place of employment?
Is it better for you that as few people as possible know, so you can focus without distraction?
Can your schedule realistically support 6 months (minimum) of precision and rigidity?
Your environment will either amplify your prep... or slowly sabotage it.
Don't try to be the exception. Be the one who sets up conditions to win. Be PROactive - not REactive
Whilst this is largely a journey into yourself, we don’t need to make it harder than it needs to be. Besides, success is usually better enjoyed when it is shared - so recruit your support network wisely, and ensure your environment is positioned to help you accomplish your daily duties.
KNOW YOUR LIMITS
And no, I'm not talking about your 1RM's. This is about your life outside of the gym. Anyone who struggles to say “no” will benefit from this advice — myself included:
No one gets extra points for spreading themselves thin when they are working towards a very specific goal. It is simply poor prioritising. Try to be a jack of all trades and you will end up a master of none.
It might even be a sign of a lack of commitment - Afterall, if you don’t achieve your desired outcome, you have excuses at the ready 😉
Prep will cost you:
Social events
Spontaneity
Sleep
Cognitive bandwidth
Relationships (or at least, tending to them how you usually would)
Libido
Yes, you can mitigate some of these, but not all, so it's better to plan for loss than to pretend you'll keep it all balanced. Make peace with the cost before you're asked to pay it, because every time you say yes to something, you are, by definition, saying no to something else.
Take it from a seasoned competitor - there is NOTHING worse than standing on stage, not winning, and your mind racing back to “oh well what if I didn’t do this, or what if I did that instead?”
Give me last place any day - if I know in my heart of hearts that I did everything in my power to give myself the best shot, then that is enough for me - and will be for you as well.
2. GET AN OBJECTIVE SET OF EYES
Put simply, you cannot coach yourself - at least not to the best of your ability.
Even if you're a coach. Especially if you're a coach. Even the top coaches have someone they turn to for an objective perspective.
Here's why:
Hunger warps perception,
Fatigue creates false positives AND negatives,
Body image shifts daily - actually, more like hourly,
Feedback loops narrow under pressure, and,
We all have blind spots.
A good coach will save your prep from becoming a slow-motion car crash of over-dieting, under-recovering, and late-stage panic. Their job is to hold your line when you lose sight of it; tell you when to push hard and when to pull back.
This was something I didn’t do. I let my ego get in the way of hiring a coach for too long. I had mentors and training partners, but never a dedicated, career-coach with a keen eye for detail.
In part, this was due to me wanting to pursue the attainment of professional status on my own, which I did. But in truth, a larger part of it came from a spitefulness I carried with me towards other people hiring coaches to do the thinking for them - as if I was somehow “superior” for having done things MY way…
….only to have my ass handed to me in the form of last place in my pro-debut.
Ha! Ahhhh the irony 🤦
My hiring of Brandon Kempter (who, incidentally, won that same competition I came dead last in) was actually less to do with reaching my full potential physically and more to do with subsuming my ego. I just knew that I was letting my pride get in the way of my own successes.
And honestly, I wish I'd done it sooner. Aside from the fact that the right coach can shorten the journey for you AND bring out your best, there’s the fact that the mind does very strange things when you are under prep conditions.
You either always feel like you are leaner than you are (and so “need” more food), or you aren’t lean enough (and so “need” more training and cardio). More more MORE!
It works in economics, surely it should work for the body, right?
Not quite.
Just another example of the survival instinct kicking in. The body doesn’t function all that well in single digit body fat territory, and given it prefers the idea of staying alive over your idea of looking more like something out of an anatomy textbook, it’s going to try to convince you that you need to do certain things when you just don't.
That’s where a coach comes in.
An objective set of eyes WITHOUT the concurrent diet fatigue is invaluable when it comes to making decisions. They aren't just someone who tells you what to eat and how to train - they are a force multiplier for your own efforts.
REDEMPTION! Coach Brandon and myself, taking out the ICN Bali Pro Show top spot in 2023, after not placing several weeks before in what was widely considered a controversial show. Having Brandon in my corner to help me navigate the injustice and refocus on the next show was invaluable, and we brought a level of conditioning I knew I had in me, but always struggled to get on my own.
3. UNDERSTAND THAT THE COMPETITION SIDE OF THE GAME ISN’T SUSTAINABLE…
…and it’s not meant to be!
I chuckle when some keyboard-warrior or some overweight, well-meaning relative/friend sees a picture of you, or even just your gaunt cheekbones and goes “oh surely that’s not good for you!” or “yeah you’re in great shape, but it’s not sustainable”, as they wash down their last bite of that double cheeseburger with a beer **sigh**.
Here’s the thing: bodybuilding, with all its weird and wonderful eccentricities, is a BONAFIDE SPORT.
In some countries, it’s even Olympic-recognised! Because it isn’t just about looking good - it’s about employing a structured, thought-out process designed to achieve a very specific outcome for a particular point in time.
Show me another sport where that isn’t the case…?
It’s called “peaking” for a reason, yo!
In fact, success (or failure) in any facet of life really just comes down to a process: a unique set of actions that were followed for a particular outcome.
It just so happens that for the sport of bodybuilding, that outcome is essentially: how big and how lean can you get?
They are questions that are designed to inspire a push to greater heights, to beyond known limits. The mere act of striving for such a feat is in itself, not sustainable! Otherwise people would be successful in everything, all the time.
So stop asking "Is this sustainable?" during prep. Instead ask:
Is this appropriately intense for a defined timeline?
Do I have structured guardrails to return to once prep ends?
Am I ready, willing and able to wear the costs of it for this period of my life, amidst all my other responsibilities?
Don’t be deflated when the excitement of comp season inevitably wears off as you scrub those last bits of fake tan off your knees and elbows.
Likewise, don’t just settle for a pro-card.
Pick yourself up, embrace it as a part of life's rich tapestry of experience, and reset your focus on the next one.
Turn pro and then, become a GOOD pro.
Play the long game, and I promise you your experience will be all the more wholesome.
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal - it is the courage to continue that counts”
4. ACCEPT WHAT IS NOT WITHIN YOUR CONTROL, FOCUS ON WHAT IS.
As I said in Part I, in a sport with so many factors beyond your control — and so little tangible reward — acceptance is vital.
Many, myself included, have come off stage feeling deflated for not winning, as if it’s somehow a judgment of their character or “worth” as a human, and allowing that to fuel unhealthy behaviours: binge eating, overtraining, self-harm, jumping “to the dark side” (steroids), or turning spiteful and cynical (guilty 🙋♂️).
The truth is, none of this needs to happen, if we would just first stop, identify the things that are within our control, and focus our efforts on that.
As a reminder, you cannot control:
Judging criteria,
Other people's opinions,
Genetics (yours, or those of your competitors),
Stage lighting,
Whether the stars in the Capricorn constellation aligned correctly the day of your show 😉.
But, you can control:
Your effort,
Your adherence,
Your mindset.
The sheer lack of things that we have any real control over should be liberating (albeit, likely a little frustrating upon first admission).
And so whilst we can’t control the ultimate outcome of months of suffering, we can, at all times, control how we respond.
We can turn to our fellow competitor and, with our hand on our heart, say “hey man, well bloody done. I brought my best and you still beat me. Thank you for being such a worthy adversary - the battle made the journey worth it”.
We can ring up our parents after the show and thank them for all the sacrifices they made so that we could have the best start in life… that we even have the PRIVILEGE to participate in such an event, when there are people around the world struggling to find water!
We can use the spare time from the delayed flight to practice patience and reflect on what’s really important in our lives (we can also learn the lesson to never fly fucking JetStar again so close to the actual date 🤦).
No matter WHAT HAPPENS to us along the way, it just comes down to a choice:
Will you be a victim of circumstance?
Or the victor of your fate?
Anyone can point blame and rattle off excuses - and some of them, to be fair, will be legitimate! I’m not here to invalidate anyone’s lived experience (I personally can’t stand the toxic masculinity/hustle culture that we engulfed in in today’s world).
But it takes a unique level of character and response-ability - skills that you can develop - to turn the adversity into it's own triumph. Because the fact remains - it happened, and it's not going to unhappen, and no amount of blame - on others OR yourself - is going to change it.
In a world where passing the bucket is becoming the norm, dare to be different.
As the poem goes (where my Robert Frost fans at?), it is the path less travelled that makes all the difference.
Thus endeth the sermon.
I hope you found this insightful and informative, and maybe even a little entertaining. This isn’t an exhaustive list (sorry, I left out which coloured posing trunks to buy ), but it is - I believe - the nuts and bolts of a successful prep; of your very own "Musha Shugyo".
The macros, the training, the long term strategy - all that stuff is in the realm of the coach-athlete relationship, and highly specific to the individual, as no two people are the same. And - like the proverbial fig on Seneca’s tree - it requires time, collaboration, devotion and attention to detail.
Contest prep will strip you down, inside and out. What’s left standing can either be the ruins of your ego or the foundations of your character.
The choice is yours.
If any part of you feels compelled to undertake this journey, I encourage you - take the leap! I did, and it quite literally saved me from younger, more destructive self. You too can climb to a position where you feel morally justified to take pot shots at fitness influencers and the like from your ivory tower in the middle of nowhere 😉😅
If you have any questions, or any particular topic you would like me to unpack, be sure to drop them in the comments below - in the meantime, stay tuned for my next deep dive.
Who knows - maybe I'll talk about HOW to actually build some muscle, rather than run off on paradigm tangents in a bid to express my frustration at the majority of the industry 🤷😅.
Till next time.
