Multiple Show Prep...

[coffee-guy]

Does anyone have any good tips on this - I'm mainly concerned with the sodium load/cut portion - I have two shows within two weeks of each other and I'm not sure how to handle this - can I not sodium load the second show (because I would expect a serious bloat/rebound effect after cutting it for the first show)....

[coffee-guy]

Here's what happened last time - I sodium loaded for about a week and then cut it out completely when I started cutting water a few days out - as soon as the show was over my ankles swelled up considerably and I kept my sodium intake very low in the days after the show (mainly because ANYTHING with salt in/on it tasted NASTY) - I swelled up in a matter of days and it took about a week to dissipate - I'm looking for a way to avoid this while doing 3 or 4 shows within a short amount of time off from each other...

[Lmg2701]

Sodium manipulation can be extremely tricky. I almost just think from now on I'm going to avoid it completely, it can turn all your hard work to shit come stage time. Were you taking any diuretics? If you were, I would taper off of them slowly after your show and not cut them out completely.

Your water retention was bad even when you kept your sodium low? That's odd, I'd have to know exactly what you were taking and what you were eating before/after the show. As far as manipulating your sodium, if you were going to do it and you think you can hit it right, I would only do it for the show you were most concerned about.

Do you have a dietition helping you or anyone helping you as far as your diet goes? If so that person would be your best bet in deciding whats right for you.

In weeks prior to shows I would have 1 cheat meal weekly until about 4 weeks out and I would try some with higher sodium and some with lower sodium just to see how my body reacted. I saw too many varying results to come to any distinct conclusion on this. The theory behind sodium manipulation sounds great and all but it varies so much from person to person that it makes it hard to have something set in stone unless you just try different things. All you can do is hope to get it right one day after many tirals and errors.

[coffee-guy]

Sodium manipulation can be extremely tricky. I almost just think from now on I'm going to avoid it completely, it can turn all your hard work to shit come stage time. Were you taking any diuretics? If you were, I would taper off of them slowly after your show and not cut them out completely.

Your water retention was bad even when you kept your sodium low? That's odd, I'd have to know exactly what you were taking and what you were eating before/after the show. As far as manipulating your sodium, if you were going to do it and you think you can hit it right, I would only do it for the show you were most concerned about.

Do you have a dietition helping you or anyone helping you as far as your diet goes? If so that person would be your best bet in deciding whats right for you.

In weeks prior to shows I would have 1 cheat meal weekly until about 4 weeks out and I would try some with higher sodium and some with lower sodium just to see how my body reacted. I saw too many varying results to come to any distinct conclusion on this. The theory behind sodium manipulation sounds great and all but it varies so much from person to person that it makes it hard to have something set in stone unless you just try different things. All you can do is hope to get it right one day after many tirals and errors.

I didn't use anything for my last show (diuretics or any AAS etc) - I will be using Aldactone this time around along with my planned cycle (Tren, Winny, Prop, Proviron, T3, Clen, Aldactone)...

I think I've resolved to just manipulating sodium for the first and last shows - they're five weeks apart - the first one is a big show (Level 5 NQ with over 200 competitors etc) - the last show is important to me just because I know the promoters and they have clout/connections in the sport - the middle show I could care less about other than just getting more stage/prep experience so I'm not going to mess with much there - just your basic carb deplete/load....

No one is helping me with my diet - I may handicap myself there but I don't trust many people with it since they're not the ones on stage - I've got someone keeping an eye on me and giving me pointers as to how I really look but other than that it's just me and me......

I haven't had a cheat meal in 3 weeks - I may have ONE before I hit the 4 week out mark but I doubt I will - maybe I can try a carb/junk load trial just once but if I do it it's going to be sooner than later in case I don't react well....