บทถอดความฉบับเต็มของ A Guide To Natural Contest Prep & Mistakes | Brandon, Rachel & Jacob EP.3

need in the slightly different poses for IFBB. So again, it's it's it's a it's been a game of chess and it's been fun. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Is anything you're doing differently to prepare for the alternate looks? Rachel: Not really. Obviously, like there's a slight difference in terms of variation, like in posing. just more so obviously with the front pose is completely different for WMBS compared to to IFBB. That's completely different. but still very, very similar in terms of transition and cues and things like that. But in terms of execution on controlling my variables on this side. Not really. I still I suppose I very much turn into the athlete especially everything Brandon says to me r resonates and I don't think he realizes how much I I hear the echo, you know. So every time I go to train, like you make that session count, you make it worth it. You know, we need to make sure we're holding volume in these areas. So just sort of for me it's attaching to that process as much as possible, irrespective of the federation. Like I'm not gonna ever walk into a show being like, yeah, this is just a warm up or, you know, I'm just gonna like just, you know, sort of just slide into this show. No no no, like my mentality is still very much you attack every session, you attack everything that you do, like no when to push, no one to pull, but nothing changes in my protocol on that side of things. Just some chang you posing things, I suppose. BK: The execution, right, on Rachel's end I don't need changes. But the the protocol that we put together will probably change. You know, look for example, coming into Yeah, that's I mean Rachel: That's not my job. BK: looking at say WMBF where we can be present a a leaner look through the upper body pardon me. Then we can probably be a little bit more heavy handed when it comes to acute sodium loading. maybe a touch less when it comes to the IFBB. I'm I'm happy to pump up her arms for IFB for WMBF and and just have that basilic vein hanging out of her arm. But I'm I'm gonna be more heavy handed on delts and less on that for for IFBB. so it'll be little little things like this just to please the look. And I gotta say this is what this is What makes that category quite fun in those organizations because it it there is a lot more strategy than most people assume. And if you're well accustomed to say ICN, bikini, like again it's not this is not to be to talk down but at all. But there's a whole lot less strategy involved with that look, Rachel: Mm. BK: versus what you need to do for WMBF, what you need to do for IBD. So It's been fun. Rachel: Mm. I will say it's been really cool after because obviously this is a daily routine that Brian and I go through in the AM of evaluation and it's been really cool sort of doing the photos, doing the rounds, and then coming together and sort of comparing between them. 'Cause I think when you're the athlete and when you're in the jar, you can't really see or necessarily understand to

that extent that your coach what what your coach is looking for, in terms of like Hey, we're getting flatter here. Hey, this is what the refeed's done in these particular sections. And everybody's physique is different. So it's been really good to sort of again standardise that and come together and say, Okay, well, this is what you looked like yesterday, this is what you look like today. Like these are phenomenal differences. And it's BK: Yeah. Rachel: at that point, I suppose, in time where we can granularize those details and and really look at it and go, okay, well actually, yeah, what we're doing, the digging at the moment is actually doing stuff and we can see that on that level as well. So That's been really cool to learn from that, for sure. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Warrior mindset Rachel. That's all I'm thinking. BK: Yeah. Rachel: Ha ha ha Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Well, given that contest prep is well, not around the corner, we are in the corner, about to come out on the other side, I thought today we should discuss a little bit about contest prep. And I want to start with UBK around tracking nutrition and maybe how we like to approach the different tiers of tracking too. BK: Yeah, cool, cool. Yeah, so the way I view it is the level of tracking accuracy you require is specific to the individual phase. So in the off season it's akin to sort of walking on a sidewalk worth of width if you're in these parameters. And I if you're listening here, I've got my index fingers up here for parameters. But if you're you imagine a sidewalk worth of width, if you're on the sidewalk, you're in good good state for a high quality result. And in Conusprep, it's akin to walking on a tightrope, a little bit to the left, a little bit to the right, and it's gonna have a more substantial effect on your result. Things done right in the off-season, transition to condress prep is not overly hard. All you're doing is sharpening the tools. So you can imagine, like if you are really relaxed in the off-season and you are operating across a four-lane highway of bandwidth, my gosh, now you're going to jump on a tight rope very hard. But if you have worked with us or another coach in the off-season, we will have acclimated you to the standards of a quality off-season, have ran a pre-prep, you know how to quickly just Take a you know, just change gears and tighten the parameters. And obviously the you the well you try tighten your parameters for tracking and also tighten well there's adjustments of course to the nutrition. But in general we have in the context of the off-season specifically, we employ the three tiers of tracking, of which is essentially three levels of kind of good, better, best. So level one or tier one involves tracking our PCF targets. within specified parameters, let's say off season, plus minus ten for protein carb, plus minus five for fats. usually a mini cut for T1 is defined as plus minus five across the board and Connus prep as plus minus two across the board. So you can see we adjust what the definition of T1 is, but T1 is tracking PCF. Proticast bat that is, by the way. And we have T2 tracking, which is what we can drop back to if we need to in the off-season, which involves covering the two big bases, which is protein sufficiency and energy balance. Let's say for example your protein target is 240 grams per day, T2 tracking and say it's thirty four hundred calories within and you've you've got your Carbs and fats allocated, T2 might be equal to or more than 220 grams of protein within 150 calories of that energy budget, which is appropriate in the off-season on occasion. And then we have T3, which we're not tracking per se, but we're eating with an in in an informed manner. For example, you go on holiday and you're not going to stuff your face with the donuts that all you can eat buffet. Instead, you're going to think, hey, I need some protein with this meal. Cool. And it's about getting in a ballpark. Now, obviously, T1 and T2 is Where the money's at in the context of the off-season and T3, we do on occasion. And what we do with our athletes is we set up, and I know we're getting into condress prep, but in the off-season we'll set up a agreed upon standard. And it's about meeting the athlete where they're at and ensuring that we find a sustainable midway. And then once we're in the condress preparation, it's T1 as defined as plus minus two across PCF. That's the general. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Does that mean I can still have couple slices of cheesecake during my contest prep or how does that work? BK: say first thing I'll say is unlikely you'd be able to fit that within your fat budget. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yeah. BK: But I will put forth the notion that we we do put in place recommendations. So put it like this, if we have a plan that's designed, it will cater for a diverse array of minimally processed micronutrient dense food selections to ensure that you are accumulating your needs on that front. And if you are designing your own nutrition, we'll put in place guidelines for that. Condo's preparation represents a pretty unique risk for micronutrient deficiency. So if you're chucking a whole lot of cheesecake and therefore you don't have enough space to add Sufficient mini processed boost selections, you're in trouble. It really comes down to a couple things. The primary piece is you have a lesser opportunity to accumulate your micronutrient needs. Second of that is your high rate of turnover of some micronutrients, particularly iron, when your training load comes up with the addition of cardio. And the most common nutrient deficiencies in the dieting condition will be zinc, calcium, and iron. So these are considerations that we put in place when we build a nutrition system, and if the individual is tracking, then we will audit that system, ensuring that they meet their needs. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Hm, yeah, I love that. And especially you might be great at flexibly dieting, but like you

sort of put forth, there will be gaps due to the amount of energy availability and the the phase of the contest prep as well. But Rachel, I was interested how you like BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: to set up a contest prep. You know, do you like to Rachel: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: go really slow at the fast and then push hard at the end and dig them into the ground or you do something different? Rachel: I mean I've had both, I suppose, athletes who have prep before and haven't prepped before, as most of us have, of course. and I always love both, but I love the learning that that comes with it and that's why I think that even before we start getting into the prep, like we've talked about pre prep in our last chat, I realise. And the athlete having a really full understanding of what that means definitely helps that that process. But for me personally, I You know, be be very clear about the calendar. And I think one of the things, especially in newer athletes, is they're very focused on what their weight will be. so whilst we try to bullpark that within a range as much as possible, like really emphasizing before we even enter this process that it's probably gonna change. This is only ever an estimation where focused on how you look, not how much you weigh at the end of the day when you're on stage. Judges don't give a crap about what you weigh. obviously beyond meaning a particular you know, class. But yeah, BK: Young white categories yep. Rachel: yeah. but we do like to go fast at you know, we've got our momentum at the beginning and that's generally when people are most hyped, most gassed about, you know, let's do this, let's get into it. So we'll ideally preferably go faster at the beginning. and as we get through contest preparation, you know, things will will slow down a little bit because, you know, we expect those processes to slow down because we're we're getting closer to our target goal weight or I suppose look for the stage. But I'm really against and this is again where pre prep comes in, really against trying to run people into the ground, like especially for our first come p time competitors. We want this to be an enjoyable experience. We want this to be something that they want to come back to, right? So it's it's not about you know, driving you hard into the ground. We need to know when to push, absolutely. So it's not going to be comfy all the time, but we need to know when to pull back and give to the system as well. So I think making that plan really clear from the get go is this is where we're gonna expect a lot of our momentum. But being realistic is this is where we're probably gonna slow down a little bit as well, because at the end of the day, like that's how the body functions and also like Let's take stock of how far you've come and I I want you to enjoy this process. So it comes with a little nuance, I suppose. BK: I mean broadly speaking, like the starting position there, that's obviously like pre-prep stuff, right? But I mean if you're not within fifteen percent of stage Rachel: Yeah. BK: weight, you're gonna have a pretty hard prep. And I I seldom meet someone who pulls off twenty-nine, thirty percent you know, total body mass that brings the look. I mean I've seen it on occasion But in most scenarios, they have to overdiet to try and cram that in within a 25-30 Rachel: Mm. BK: week period. So within 15%, faster at the start, slower at the back end. And I will mention this, when when I refer to diet aggression, or we refer to diet aggression, it's Diet aggression is not defined by your energy intakes, defined by the energy deficit available. By the end of contest preparation, or when you're when you are a smaller being, your basal metabolic requirements will be less. There will be a degree of metabolic adaptation at the level of BMR, at the level of NEET and NEPA, non-excitativity thermogenesis and non-exercise physical typity, by the way. In which case your energy requirements will be less. So in Rachel's case here, her energy right intake right now is at its lowest, but she's not dieting aggressively. She's losing a couple hundred grams here, a couple hundred grams there. And after show number one, we will increase her energy intake likely coming into the next set of shows as we do two things. that is as we seek to essentially wash off fatigue and preserve. And two, cater for the look for the follow-on shows, which is slightly different to the first. Rachel: Mm. BK: So yeah, hopefully that offers some more context. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yeah, Rachel: I think sorry, Jacob - HomeBrand BK: and I go for H. Rachel: totally jump in there. I think it's also worth mentioning as well. Like we talk about acclimating the athlete to our standard and expectations, right? But also creating a standard for them within this process. And I don't think and again, not to sit into pre prep because I know we've already talked about that, but I think that as a as a novice athlete, if you've never done a Prep before, you'll never truly understand the importance of a pre-prep until you actually do one and do one successfully, if that makes any sense. I've worked with athletes before who were like, yeah, I really should have like given more to that particular phase. Like you didn't just say it for fun, you said it because we actually needed to do it. I'm like, yeah, because it makes things exceptionally difficult if if we're not doing it and you know, achieving what we need to achieve to get you as close to that that percentage before starting prep. Like and I think it's experiential learning at the end of the day. Perhaps it's a lesson I in my mind, I'm a person who believes I only need to learn the lesson once to learn it. Like I had a pre prep and that's totally fine. Like it worked really well. We learnt a lot of things along the way and it put me in a really good position. And I think that that's part of that prep timeline is being able to learn that lesson and and

understand that but perhaps you have to go through that process first to really, I suppose, have respect for it. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I guess you're talking on a point there, Rachel, about doing something like a diet, a pre prep first to make that contest prep smoother, right? Yeah. Rachel: Yeah yeah. Absolutely. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Cool. BK: You know, the a little while back when I had the opportunity in Melbourne to present on the floor, part of me, constraints of contest preparation. so basically this presentation was really about learning how or teaching people how to balance your competing interests in contest preparation, how to balance essentially pleasing your requirement for fat loss. Pleasing your your need to retain muscle mass, pleasing your requirement to manage fatigue and to keep adherence in check. Like how do you keep these four things in check? And the biggest piece that I would tell without getting into the specifics of that, we should definitely release that at some point. It was really quite a handy presentation. The biggest thing is you stand no chance balancing your competing interests in condress preparation. if you ha have the impossible task of losing twenty five, thirty percent body mass y in a 25 to 35 week period. You just can't balance the protocol. You're just gonna lean into fat loss so hard that you accept trade-offs on the other side. All things done right, you can continually balance the protocol and step in with great conditioning, with decent proofronutrient partitioning and top conditioning. I sorry, and all the muscle mass of which you started with, maybe more, all things done right. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Hmm. I think we made some really good points and if we give the listeners a bit more practical examples. I mean generally we'll set up a 24 to 28 week contest prep. It might be 30, just depends on the person. And I know we like to set up the contest prep in phases where just like Rachel was saying, it's not necessarily a body weight goal, it's a look. So, you know, that 15-week outmark, we're starting to see clearly defined quads, clearly separated abs. We're maybe within the realms of a beach body lean look, except probably a little bit closer towards a bodybuilding specific look. And then especially when you get to that 10-week outmark, you want to be at least within that 5% range of stage weight. And you might start to see the first hints of glute striations. Or they could already be quite prominent just depending on what your body does with its body fat stores. Maybe you're someone, which is very rare, who has triaded glutes in the off season. But then their quads have BK: Mm-hmm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: a lot of fat and maybe a lot of fat around the midsection. So that might be something you consider in providing landmarks for the athlete as well with what they're looking to expect rather than just a body weight figure. Because as Rachel sort of suggested, if we attach our identity to this too much, it can become quite an emotional psychological challenge to overcome. And I know Brandon, just from what we've had a conversation about recently, there was an individual who did find it challenging, body mass went up. But as you will probably explain, that's not really the primary concern. BK: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I mean those conditioning checkpoints are super important and something that we do put forth within our planning. And just as you were describing there, we are very just for the listeners, we are very vivid with explaining to the athlete what the conditioning checkpoint looks like for so basically Rachel: Yeah. BK: we have a usually a conditioning checkpoint every five weeks. That just keeps everything simple. There's P1, phase one, P two, three, four, five, etc. Each culminating to a conditioning checkpoint in which there is four or five key features that we we would like to see within the physique. And it's specific to the category the individual is doing. And we're quite vivid in in the explanation we give there. And it's about creating vision for the athletes. So they you know what to see, what to ex you know, what they're expected to see. We might put in place Rachel: Yeah. BK: a target body mass. Well, not a part, I should say target body mass. We should we put in place a a general range that we'll probably need to be within to have the look we need. But just as Jacob put forth, the with body mass, all it serves as. is a surrogate indicator for changes in body composition. A s and a s and a weak proxy for the magnitude of energy deficit and surplus or surplus you're currently existing in. That's it. And it's a trailing indicator. It usually happens Way after. And if you look across a timeline, there's certain periods in the timeline where you may have a stronger or weaker correlation between body mass and body composition. The first week you drop a lot of body mass from chain is in muscle accent saturation, reset of the residual food in the GI tract, poor correlation. First section of contest preparation, probably pretty strong because you're losing a lot of body fat quite quickly. And then at the back end of conospread, weak, very weak correlation there, because we might be losing a hundred grams of fat mass per week. For context, by the way, in my last contest preparation, the last 1.9 kilos was 10 weeks. So when you're losing less than 200 grams per week of of body fat, even if body if muscle mass was stable, you're it's just so easy to wash that out with transit fluctuation. And you're going to have more transit fluctuation at the back end there due to changes in GI, motility rate, etc. And there is still a possibility if the quality of stimulus is appropriate and your other variables also, to put on muscle mass. So the way you look is the most important piece, and really what you're always doing is triangulating multiple components here. How does the individual look? Full, flat, tight, soft. Rachel: Mm. BK: Beyond that, we're

gonna look at performance metrics, objective feedback, and then basically triangulate all this together to evaluate their position, and that obviously plays into decision making. The hardest thing is body weight's the only quantitative metric we have. I even skin folds, you could you could do skin folds. Most people aren't Isaac accredited. The data has so much noise and it's useless. BIA, I would Strong use of words, but i within the con context of bodybuilding, useless. DEXA, dual X-ray absorptiometry, the gold standard for body composition analysis. Not overly helpful, the back end of a condition's preparation. I don't bother. I I wouldn't waste your resources on that. so really all you have is body weight, is the only quantitative piece, and that's why people fixate on it, especially when they're not emotionally regulated enough to actually objectively look at their physique. That's where the coach comes in, gives it to real. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I think if we summarize where we're at so far, we want to be within 15% of stage weight, probably gonna have 24 28 weeks of time to get into shape. And we've got a couple of conditioning checkpoints. Got that 20, 15, 10, and then 5. So we're looking for certain landmarks now. And if we then look at things like training, does anything change from your perspective, Rachel, with training throughout a contest prep? Rachel: Always like to say that once we start prep, nothing changes on that side of things. We might modulate you know, as we get further into it, we have to be aware of the dieting and training cumulative fatigue that does build, absolutely. And that's where these check-ins are really, really important when we ask these questions about, you know, how are you recovering? How does everything feel? And we do anticipate that there will be a degree of fatigue that the athlete does start to feel. Usually and feel free to correct me here, Brandon, but I mean with my experience, my athletes, we're probably looking at like the sub ten weeks out kind of time frame where they start to go, actually I'm feeling this a little bit more, recovery might be a little bit more challenged. So that's where we might modulate those training volumes absolutely, not to you know, the detriment of of losing volume, but just perhaps shifting them around slightly. perhaps the protocol BK: Yeah. Rachel: isn't as balanced as we you know, for example, like for me, for example, my program is very, very glute focused because that's what If B warns like upper shelf, upper shelf, upper shelf. You hear that so you're blue in the face. but I also have to be able to recover from that as well. So we've had to do a little bit of modulation, in terms of, you know, reduction of a set here or there or just sort of shifting it to a different day. So I suppose the how we approach our training in terms of the the intensity doesn't change, we should absolutely be you know, definitely pushing progression, it is it is doable. And I think especially for new athletes, I know I say this and I don't mean to pick on them, it's I think, you know, when you're on less food, you're like, I'm hungry, I feel weaker, etcetera. I always really encourage my guys and gals to s move past that conceptualization because it it is purely that in the conceptualization. Yes, there is a degree of fatigue. However, you know, we can still make progress in a dieting phase in a inner prep phase a as well. So I think there's two parts to that answer in that it's both a physical modulation of the volumes as required, in athlete specific, but also there is that psychological vulnerability that they have surrounding dieting that we do need to protect as much as possible. And that's I think, yes, on the athlete, but it's on us as coaches to try to fortify that as much as possible. BK: And just to build on that, I think if you have a sustainable off-season training paradigm, then not much to change in kindness preparation. People have this preconceived Rachel: Yeah. BK: notion that because the nutrition phase change, everything in training needs to change, which it should not. Rachel: Mm. BK: And if you are managing the diet aggression appropriate appropriately, which you should be able to do if you A have appropriate starting position, B have sufficient time, C have sufficient planning and integration, then you're not going to tax the system as much. The fatigue will be more manageable. And with fatigue, everyone seems to be scared of fatigue. Fatigue's not something you eliminate. It's an inevitable byproduct for trading hard enough to facilitate progress. It's something that you manage. And at the back end of connoisse preparation, it could be as simple as we change this movement for another. We have another a movement that loads the tissues in a similar fashion, but is a little less systemically taxing. Minor adjustment. Or I recall at your conus prep, Jacob, we made a reduction of volume of one set. We're not we we need to Yeah, but we ha I think. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Massive, massive changes. BK: Yeah, right. But you have to keep stimulus to these structures to persuade the body to liberate energy from adipose tissues and maintain that highly metabolically active tissue that is muscle mass. So I I think it would be illogical to assume that you know removing h thirty percent of your volume would be an intelligent decision. I mean if you had to do that for recovery, something is very systemically wrong in the entire contest preparation structure. The adjustment should be minor. And I personally, and I know all of us, we we don't the training is probably less dynamic when it comes to changes in condust prep than even the off-season. Because you want standardization to evaluate performance over time. And then it might be, cool, we got to this point, steps were a little bit higher here. I might have to reduce the calf volume by one set here. Okay. And then maybe we change that. RDL with a barbell and just

strade that over to an RDL on the belt squat machine because it has a resistance profile that that challenges the mid range a little bit more, so it might be a touch more rec manageable recovery-wise. Great. Okay, cool. We're we're good to go. So yes. actually last piece, just to build on that. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I think yeah. BK: Sorry. Sorry, Jacob. Rachel mentioned the store like the stories we tell ourselves. I Rachel: Hm BK: We work with our athletes a lot on this, right? Very common for an athlete to step into conscious preparation, the preconceived notion that the moment they step into prep, everything gets hard. It does not. It should not. And that performance loss is normal in a dieting condition. It should not be normal. And one thing that I noticed with lot of the the new athletes is they ruminate on sensations they're experiencing instead of accepting it. The more I think about hunger, The more feedback I get of hunger, you can acknowledge it, but you need to accept it and compartmentalize it. I feel low energy, I focus on how low my energy is. I get more feedback on that. I feel more shit. Okay? Now I'm not saying you shouldn't acknowledge this, acknowledge it. I I feel how I feel. Why do I feel like this? Because of this. X, Y, Z, amend deficit. Cool. And obviously communicate with your coach. We'll identify whether it's in the expected norms or not and if the protocol needs to be updated. But High-level athletes have this unique capacity to compartmentalize. And the stories you tell yourself are very important. I recall, and this is where you need to know your athlete when you're coaching as well. I recall seeing an athlete in the gym, I asked him how you're feeling. And he's an elite athlete. His shoulders would have been down by his hips. He was that fatigued. And he said, I feel great, in the most monotone voice ever. And I thought, okay, he's telling himself this 'cause it to to actually accept would be a big problem for him. But I know the athlete well enough to know that we're actually right on the limiter. We need to turn it down. So stories we sell ourselves are important. Sorry, Jacob. Rachel: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: No, I like that. And you almost gotta just like you sort of put forth there, you gotta know the athlete as well. I know Rachel is willing to be, you know, have her head just rubbed along the concrete and she'll get up and be like, Yeah, let's keep BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: going. We'll we'll go for we'll we'll keep pushing hard. And so having that the ability to build that relationship and then make a objective decision as a coach is really important too, right? BK: Absolutely. I mean, thankfully I know Rachel exceptionally well as my wife. But man, she exactly that. She would happily just run into the absolute ground. I need to tell her when to push and when to pull. And I suppose as I often put forth, right, we teach new athletes how to push hard. We teach advanced athletes when to push hard. So

it's a interesting dichotomy. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Yep. Now, all right, we're losing fat mass, but do we just keep food the same? And I know for a while that the topic of refeeds was to boost metabolic rate and you know increase rate of fat loss. And there's a whole horde of different rationale and strategies behind why we implement refeeds, but I know we like to get them in relatively early. And maybe for slightly different reasons than the the old bros used to put forth with having high days or even cheat days. I've heard a couple of people used to do cheat BK: yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: days. I'm like, wow, what a phenomenon. A whole day just to eat whatever you want. Just crazy. BK: Alright Jacob Alright Jacob this is I f I love that you bring this up like people used to do this because this was in my era and There was a multitude of ways in which this used to be recommended. A cheat day? Could you imagine you're five weeks out from a show? Someone says, eat anything you want. Make it a cheat day. And this person sits at McDonald's and does this fast food tour of HJs, McDonald's, Wendy's, it'd be an absolute write-off. But people used to do this. All they used to do a a window. For two hours, eat what you want. I don't know about you, but I mean if I really tried. I could probably do 8,000 calories in two hours. It's ridiculous some of the things that people used to do. But back to your point, yeah, refeeds used to be thought to to benefit metabolic rate. And to be fair, there is some research that indicates an acute increase in metabolic rate, but it's likely Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Mm, mm. BK: very acute. You know, okay, we have a bump for a day or so and then it's back to baseline. And if there's any benefit in that regard when it comes to either boosting or slowing Metabolic adaptation, then great, that's a bonus piece. But I mean the primary benefits that that I see is that we can preserve training performance, and that is arguably the biggest rock when it comes to your ability to retain muscle mass. You need to be able to maintain stimulus to the structures. Second that is protecting peripheral nutrient partitioning capacity. Most people know that insulin sensitivity is quite poor when you are overly fat and it gets better with exercise and appropriate body composition. But it is an inverted U. insulin sensitivity declines in a period of low energy availability, and you want the ability to to partition nutrient favorably. even looking at carbohydrate in isolation with insulin sensitivity, you want to be able to deposit it in the peripheral tissues. That's beneficial for performance, beneficial for your look when it comes to peaking. And mechanistically it makes sense that That basically pumping the breaks in the dieting condition on occasion will be of benefit in remain in essentially maintaining a degree of familiar familiarization, pardon me, when it comes to proof for nutrient partitioning capacity. And then there may be some benefit

for adherence. Question for you, Jacob. When you, because it's a bi-directional mechanism here, or mechanistic basis, when you dieted and ran refeeds, and we'll put this to Rachel as well, did you feel hungrier or less hungry on the refee in the day after? Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I So I ran we ran BK: Mm-hmm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: refeeds on eventually Friday, Saturday. I normally BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: felt my most depleted on a Sunday. So the day after. Yeah. I would have some of the most BK: Fascinating. You can Jacob - HomeBrand BK: interesting experiences on those days where I'd just be standing and I'd go off into another planet or universe and I'd come back ten seconds later. I was like, what the hell was that? I'm like, all right. Yeah. BK: That's where to the fifth dimension. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Like I I'm dieting here, it's definitely working. but hunger, it BK: What about hunger specifically? Jacob - HomeBrand BK: didn't change for me throughout the entire phase really. It was not something I guess goes down to the story I told myself. I Rachel: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I mean I c if probably if I sat there for long enough and thought about it, I could come up with yeah, I I probably am a little bit hungry here, and I think I remember telling you that, I would say, look I'm not really hungry, but you know, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. there's a couple of behaviors. BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I'm I'm probably a little bit more focused on food than I actually think. But again, the the story you tell yourself. BK: Yeah. But Jacob - HomeBrand BK: However, I always did know a massive movement. or sorry, always had a massive movement on that first day in in GI in GI movement and motility. It was huge. had a couple of issues on a few occasions. BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: because Just like other people might experience, there is a delay in which you might go to the bathroom at the back end of contest prep. But I wouldn't say on the Saturday, that training session was probably one of my harder training sessions as well. So after a day of refeed, on another BK: Mm-hmm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: day of refeed, it would always be a hard session. yeah, that's BK: Cad. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: me. I wouldn't say it's necessarily I noticed a big uptick in energy. BK: Rachel, a any change in perceived energy, any p and specifically any rise or fall in hunger? Rachel: So I will say the day after like a refeed that that morning that I wake up I always feel hungry, like I feel empty. I you know, I think like again stories we tell ourselves, I I feel hungry in general, sure. I've just tried to ignore that word, but especially after a refeed, like I feel you know you wake up and you're like, I need to eat something to put something in my body that was significant, is significant the next day after a refeed. Energy after one day and after two days back to back refeed. Phenomenally great. Just amazing significantly. Yeah. BK: Picks up. Yep. So I mean the single refeed at the back end of a concept preparation within the parameters of which rerun it is which is approximating maintenance is not overly restorative. It's two days and three days it's gonna be much more restorative. But the reason I asked this question in reference to appetite is because refeeds as an adherence tool is an interesting one. Because in theory you would think, okay, appetite will come down a little bit because I'm consuming more food. however what you're also doing is you're increasing parasympathetic tone, which is part of the reason why you're able to go to the bathroom, right? And this is primarily because when you're in an energy deficit, you upregulate the sympathetic arm of the nervous system, pump out some catecholmines, etc., to aid with energy mobilization. These hormones are generally correlated with shunting blood flow away from the digestive organs, etc., and actually blunting hunger. So There's a mechanistic basis for an increase or decrease in hunger with the refeed. For some people they have it, okay, an increase in energy intake. Okay, my hunger's perhaps a little bit more manageable. They're obviously not going restore regular appetite until they put on body fat. But for some, the day after they actually I'm pretty hungry because we've just basically had this drop in cortisol and all these catecholamines, etc. And then it upticks for a moment. And that's one instance where refeeds could work against you from an adherence tool. Rachel: Yeah. BK: So that the only the the primary time in which I have not utilized refeeds because we're not dogmatic with how we do things we personalize is when it has challenged ad adherence. but one other mechanistic benefit actually of the refeed is also to test out your response to a given carbohydrate dose for PK. That's a really important piece as well that you can back test. But yes, an interesting general conversation on that front. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Because I know BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: you you had someone, BK, that was running no refeeds BK: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: the back end, but for for an actual and like an intentional issue it was okay. Maybe to what you were inferring to before around adherence, where BK: Mm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: it was just better if you just kept a sustained energy intake across the week. BK: I can think two instances where we have done that. one is with a a fitness competitor and adherents would be challenged following the refeed, so we kept a more linear approach to her nutrition. Now obviously with fitness back in this is a decade ago, the standard wasn't as high for conditioning. So I was less concerned about hampering proof or nutrient partitioning capacity and degradating performance and therefore muscle mass because we didn't have to get as lean. one other individual comes to mind, of of whom unfortunately I won't mention his name, had to had to to exit his conness preparation recently due to a injury baker

assist, a bit of a random piece. But he With with him, we ran him basically linear with a a floating refeed, essentially. So we would refeed on a really as needed basis. So generally speaking, in most scenarios, we'll start refeeding quite early in Connus Prep as a prophylactic measure, even when the athlete's not feeling the dieting condition, and then we increase the refeed frequency coming into a show. One, two, possibly up to three refeeds by the end. With this particular gentleman, we had such a Predictable result from the get-go, we just held him on a linear diet and then we would incorporate a refeed as needed. Starting to get a little bit too depleted, a little bit flat. Cool. Refeed here, here. Run up, back to linear diet, gets a couple weeks in. Cool. So we'd use it more sporadically, and in that example there, we still had the opportunity to back test carbohydrate response. Rachel: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Right. Now we'll probably keep Peakweek to a separate video, but are there any top tips you give people going into a contest prep or anything you think is worthwhile mentioning on top of what we've already spoken about? Start with you, Rachel. Rachel: Mm-hmm. those keep calm things, keep calm and trust the process. irrespective, I think, of whether you are novice or advanced or intermediate or whatever you want to define yourself as. There's gonna be points where you feel tested, there's gonna be points where you feel uncertain and unclear and not confident at all. That's normal, but remember to take a step back. And talk to your coach about it because kind I suppose comes into the thing that there's too many cooks in the kitchen as well, like especially if you've got people in your ear, et cetera. You're gonna feel some of the points, some of those points I've I've mentioned throughout prep. But you know, it is a process, it is a journey, it does take us a little bit to get there as naturals. and the more that you can trust that process and give power to somebody else, which I know is super hard, super duper difficult. the more you will reap the the benefits of the process and just be able to function you know focus on doing you and doing you as best as possible. Sorry, that was really long winded. BK: I mean Rachel hit hit hit us with the philosophical piece here and I'm actually going to do similar. I would Rachel: On art. BK: say two things. Focus on mastery over placings. Rather coincidentally, doing so puts you in the best position for placings. As part of that, focus on your game. Other people's game is not your game. Focusing on others Rachel: Mm. BK: is oftentimes a distraction from your game. People get very concerned, this person's doing this. Yes, they are. You need to be concerned about doing X, Y, and Z because this is your game. And that'd be my two biggest takeaways as a standard piece. I could go on, but yeah. What about you, Jacob? Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I w was just gonna touch on a lot of people say you don't wanna go too hard too fast at the start of contest prep. And I I don't really know if I one hundred percent agree with that. but I think there's definitely some things to to consider. You know, you could probably still go out and have two eggs, a little bit of avocado on a bit of toast, probably more likely if you're a a male. just with your energy availability and fat constraints. But you could probably still do that for a portion of the initial part of contest prep and be within a very close proximity to those exact those exact weights because they're very easily trackable pieces of items. So you can still have a bit of social outings in there. But it also comes down to who you are as a person. And I know we've had this discussion before around variety of flexible dieting in contest prep, making things really tasty and hyper palatable and how it's potentially a suicidal approach. and I've heard a few BK: Mm-hmm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: different stories over the years of people trialing different methods of flexible dieting, trying to eat something different every single day during a contest prep. And that in itself just sounds ridiculous acidine. but you know, keeping things simple, I know for me that works best for me. So I'm gonna look to implement that. And I think for most it makes sense from a a mechanistic perspective as well. Keeping that Rachel: Mm-hmm. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: hedonic power of food down and ensuring where ticking all the boxes from a micronutrient and a macronutrient perspective and not having to think about food. like it's a twenty four seven math equation to try and fit everything in. I think I th I know I'm sure you guys can relate to that, but I wouldn't mind experimenting and putting my adherents to the test at one point in time to have that experience as well. Looks like we lost Mr. BK. Yeah. A look of discontent. there he is. Rachel: I think we did. I'm like, his face is just stuck in that. Mm. Quizzical kind of matter. Hey, there he is. BK: Sorry, I just can't yes, sorry, did clunk out for a moment there. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: I don't know, you've got I know you got Taiwan as well coming up, Rachel, in the future. Korea looked like an awesome show that the WNBF held over the last weekend. Just Asia Rachel: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: are setting the standards, so I'm excited to see what Taiwan looks like this year. Rachel: Absolutely. Well we'll keep you posted and be great to sort of move through it, I suppose, in a in a proactive manner, if that makes any sense. Just recapping what the shows look like and how they were run. But yeah, very keen for Taiwan. It's always a really sort of amazing platform, amazing arena as well. So very keen. Very keen. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: Awesome. Well, Brandon, if you got some leaving remarks we'll BK: I was just going to say that for the Aussies listening here, guys, Asia is on your doorstep. If Rachel: Wow. BK: you have the opportunity to take that short flight to Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, guys, do it. The I mean it's a big world out there. Australia's a long way from pretty much anything, but that's the closest sort of next. stop for bodybuilding and they are setting the standard. I'm telling you the the light in the production, to be fair, Australia the standard is amazing when it comes to the production. I want to make that known. Having traveled to the United States, etc., Australia has a very high standard. But I would encourage you to venture out into some of these other areas as well because it is incredible what they're doing. The promoters are very hungry to Rachel: Yeah. BK: really put bodybuilding on the map. And when you have the population density that we have here in Asia, the shows are big. The the athletes have something to to prove, not in a negative way, but they they really when they give themselves to the game, they give themselves wholeheartedly and you can feel that passion. And it's amazing to be a part Rachel: Mm. BK: of that, in this sector of the the globe. So get amongst it. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: And it's probably if you compare it to an interstate show, it's probably not too much more expensive, especially when most of the cost of living is a lot less in those Asian countries as well. You know, flights are probably gonna be a little bit more expensive, but on a per night basis, accommodation will be less, food will be less, and you probably Rachel: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: even pay less for registration and Classes as well. Yeah. So hey, it's probably Rachel: You do. y y y you do, for sure. And like and BK: Yeah. Rachel: remember like even if you're impressed you get the experience of soaking up a culture, even though, you know, y you're not soaking up the food side of it. But like even like I'm keen to go back to Taiwan 'cause we had all these awesome markets around us for fresh fruit and veg and 'cause we live obviously in Indonesia, like that's what we go to. So you've got all this selection and variety and and the culture that encapsulates it. It's just and the people you meet along the way and we've got Like to say we've got family, bodybuilding family in pretty much well, everywhere. Yes. So BK: Mm. Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: All right people. Well, Rachel: get in it. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: thank you for listening. Please, apparently leaving a review is a good thing, so I'll go along with that. with Rachel: Yeah. Jacob - HomeBrand BK: that with that line. yeah, let other people know about this. And thanks for listening. We'll catch you in a couple of weeks. BK: Nice guys. Yeah. Rachel: Awesome. Thanks guys.