A question that might rise into your mind as a follow up to an invitation from a friend, a trainer, a coach, another athlete or… someone else or from yourself. Living in an era of social media and influencers, it is almost impossible that you didn’t come across posts from people who participated in bodybuilding competitions. And, to be clear from the very beginning, we are going to talk only about Natural bodybuilding, where athletes are not using any performance enhancing drugs and that are strictly tested before competitions and in their preparation season.
So, you’ve seen these posts and you started to think of it, why would I compete? First of all, you’ve reached already a certain level of fitness; you’re training for years, with or without a coach, and you see a certain level of muscular development. You also feel fit, strong and you have a strict routine of training, eating, resting. All of the things mentioned are contributing to a better health and a sharper mind. But you are asking yourself if you reached your maximal potential.
And this is the moment when competing in a bodybuilding competition can provide you with answers. The period before stepping on stage is the prep period when you start cutting down calories and increase your cardio activities in order to make more visible the muscularity of your body. For most athletes this is the challenging part of their sportive routine. Food is very much at our disposal, but you’ll have to restrain especially from the dense calories type of foods and count the amount of calories consumed every day, compared with your daily released energy. This process can only come into your advantage. It is very well known that calorie restriction and low fat percentage have many health benefits.
You’ll think that the required fat percentage for a competitive athlete will be under the healthy limit, but I’m assuring you that is not the case. Considering that an athlete, as male, will not go lower than 6-7% of body fat during his competitive season and a woman, not under the 10-12% (let’s not forget we are talking about natural bodybuilding) and this, not longer than 4 to 5 weeks (depending on how many competitions the athlete is going to take part in), it will surely not affect his or her health and will only bring advantages. Between these advantages we can mention: increase in cardio vascularity, reduced inflammations, increase of autophagy, mental strength and high control over external stress factors.
Once you’ve achieved the body composition that can be presented on stage, you just started a journey that might take many years for most of the athletes, no matter at what age they made this first step. Now you are going to be evaluated by a number of judges with experience in the field and placed and also advised about further development. Natural bodybuilding doesn’t have age limits. This is also the reason why we make categories based on age.
Its very true that, naturally, you can only develop a certain amount of muscularity, but very little people that are nowadays on stage came to their maximum potential. It is very often that we can still find ways of training and nutrition and lifestyle that will improve our physique and our mind power. This will bring a better version of yourself every time we step again on stage.
Have you counted so far the advantages brought by competing in a natural bodybuilding competition? The biggest of all advantages is that the challenge never ends. A reality almost never found in another sport. Knowing your weak spots and working every day on improving yourself, coming afterwards to present your new version on stage, is the most condensed way of defining what competing in bodybuilding is. The process to that is the battle with your mind and your body behind the curtains of the stage.
So, is your mind as strong as your body or the other way around? Mens sana in corpore sano.
Come to meet us at one of our next events, The Grand Dutch Naturals (23rd of September 2023, in Baarn) or at our next workshop that will be announced on our social media @wnbf_netherlands and on our website: www.wnbfnetherlands.nl
I’m looking forward to meeting you.
Yours,
Georgiana Zwemmer-Ghioc,
President of World Natural Bodybuilding Federation, The Netherlands