Stop Holding Water on Contest Day

This article was published in the January 18, 2008 edition of Natural Bodybuilding & Fitness Magazine, a nationwide publication dedicated to the promotion of drug free athletics.

As the competitor’s meeting comes to a close, the stressed-out promoter finally lets you go backstage to start prepping. You rush to a mirror to lift up your shirt or drop your warm-ups around your ankles teeming with excitement. Vascularity and striations should be reaching a new level and months of work is quickly funneling down to minutes onstage.Horror replaces confidence as the reflection shows just shadows of veins where straw-sized vessels stood days ago. Tight, thin skin has turned thick and watery – you look like you did 2 months and 12-pounds earlier. What can you do now? What should you have done to avoid the spill-over? Why does this happen so often?

I want to list every scenario possible that can cause water retention; some are drums you’ve heard me beat before; some may be news. The first thing I want to cover is the fact that those with slower metabolic rates – the endomorphs of the competitive world – are the most disadvantaged. As if dealing with slower body fat loss and more body fat cell mass causing “thicker skin,” they have to deal with a much greater potential for spill-over too. A higher metabolism doesn’t just mean you burn calories faster, it means you produce more heat. Your body temperature is higher and you use carbs faster. The higher body temp is kind of an obvious trait, but so obvious most wouldn’t think of it in terms of peaking. An ectomorph will sweat more all day long, lose more water even in respiration, and thus subcutaneous water is constantly being evaporated. This is one reason you’ll see people with heat lamps, hair dryers, and space heaters backstage. If the weather is cooperating, many will be outside in the sun before their time on stage. People have speculated correctly that a warmer body will be more vascular, but not just more vascular: you can sweat away some superficial water to make sure tightness is improved as well. An ectomorph and even many mesomorphs look like this all the time – they just don’t spill over. At worst, they may have a very slight and transitory glimpse of not looking quite as crisp.

If you’re completely spilled-over in a disastrous way, these things aren’t going to help – it’s too late. You need to learn how to avoid that scenario and it begins days earlier.

The greatest cause of holding water under the skin is being over-carbed. Consider that you can only assimilate a certain amount of carbs at a time. Eat more than you can put in muscle and your liver and you’ll end up with a lot of glucose floating around your body attracting water wherever it goes. Again, a fast-metabolism is using so much carbohydrate at all times, that eating “too much” is a greater threshold. Others can quickly cross the line with far less carbs and end up looking softer in minutes. At this point, your body needs time to use the carbs and there’s nothing you can do except wait. You’ll probably look better at the night show – little consolation, I know. Eating the right amount of carbs in the right patterns during the preceding days and the morning of the contest is critical. And it’s unique per your body type, your genetics, and your body individually.

The second way to be mortified with a glazed-over, thick-skinned look is to stop drinking water. If you dehydrate and therefore take away your body’s greatest asset in muscle size – water – you’ll end up with flat, saggy muscle tissue. Muscle full of water that stretches out against their fascial coverings creating deep separations and tight skin is what you’re used to seeing in the weeks before the contest. Even with less carbs (because you’ve been dieting) and a regular schedule of training and cardio, you were tight virtually every day. Insanely tight some days. Let’s see…controlled carbs (not bizarre levels of carb-ups), high amounts of water – gallons, and you were tight. The end of peak week: shoving enough carbs in your body to save a village in Africa and dehydrating away the water that creates muscle fullness and hardness. Anyone see a problem here?

The icing on the cake – the thing that will affect your “dryness” but not as much – is sodium, potassium, and other minerals. I’ve written several, often too-complicated articles on this topic alone, so I’ll use a light stroke here. The bottom line is that over-loading your body on potassium will cause water retention just like too much sodium will. Dropping sodium from your diet will cause muscle cells to NOT be able to hold onto water. You need sodium and you don’t need mass influxes of potassium. You need stability. More potassium won’t necessarily make you drop water from your body and if it did, it may cause your muscles to be flatter than you’d like. As a matter of fact, if you’re scheduling your carbs to make sure you’re not holding water in your body, you may need slightly MORE sodium to hold water in your muscle. I know – now you think I’ve actually lost it. “Joe’s just trying to sabotage me – he actually wants me to keep sodium in. I’ve heard he’s a wily dude like that.”

Likely the most novel thing I’ll tell you is that just like that stressed-out promoter I mentioned, your anxiety, excitement, and nervousness may be hurting you on contest day. When you hit higher and higher levels of stress your body starts releasing glucose from your liver to prepare your body for action. Not a bad thing if you’re about ready to deadlift a 500-pound stone on ESPN, but you’re in a different sport. If you can’t use the glucose fast enough as it’s flooding your body, it pulls water out of cells with it and you look softer. As your energy level subsides, much of the glucose is actually converted to fat for storage or just gradually used up and when that process is done, voila: you look great! About two hours too late. Maybe the European teams that are drinking wine and lining up shots backstage are onto something. They may think the alcohol is dehydrating them, but maybe it’s relaxing them and they’re avoiding the cortisol bomb that you’re experiencing. Can we get some liquor stores to start sponsoring shows?

Do some homework on peaking. Don’t let last-minute, out of the ordinary antics rob you of what you worked so hard for. Do what’s right physiologically and what’s right for your body individually. Have fun on contest day knowing you’re going to look your best!

Joe Klemczewski, Ph.D. is a WNBF Pro who helps bodybuilders and figure competitors achieve their best condition through his unique online “Perfect Peaking” program. Dr. Joe can be contacted here.