Flat vs full

You have probably heard phrases such as flat, full and spilled floating around the bodybuilding world especially when people are on prep and thought what on earth are they talking about, and if i’m completely truthful a lot of people use these phrases when they don’t fully understand the meaning themselves, or saying someone looks flat when they are not, leading to more even more confusion so today I’m going to break it all down to its most simple form.

The science bit - Glycogen (broken down carbs/ glucose) is stored primarily in the muscles of the body and is used as the bodies primary energy source. As we train these glycogen stores which are used for energy deplete, a bit like when you drive your car and the fuel gage goes down, which is why we prioritise carbs around training so much so the glycogen keeps topped up and our weight training dosen’t suffer, keeping the muscle mass built in the off season, this is why its so important to keep lifting heavy in prep. as we put less carbs into the body throughout prep that fuel tank empties much quicker, which is why at points in prep we struggle to get a pump when training, often this is an indication of the need for a re-feed (high carb day) this empty fuel tank on prep is super common and not a bad thing at all outside of training as it forces the body to look for alternative fuel thus breaking down fat and using it for energy instead.

So the Flat “look” is simply put an empty muscle, like a duffel bag with nothing in but the more pairs of socks we put in our bag the fuller it becomes. with the muscle this also (when done correctly) creates a leaner look as the muscle pushes against the skin more.

Creating a full look - Firstly you MUST be in condition or there is no point but essentially all you are doing here is filling the muscle, pushing in glycogen in the form of carbs back into the empty muscle, dependant on the size of that muscle and how empty it was in the first place depends on how much carbs you need to fill it. (fats do also play a role here as some is stored in the muscle but more so to slow down that release of the carbs into the body). For some people they will need A LOT of crabs to fill up for others they wont need much at all.
There is always another ace up the sleeve when getting full for stage with in an effective pump up back stage which should pull blood into the muscle and water which would have been sitting sub q again fulling up that bag and creating the pop on stage.

Spilling - This is where you have put in to many carbs, the body can not store them in the muscles as they are full so the carbs spill over and create a watery look on stage hiding some of the condition you have worked so hard to obtain, there are instances where you would purposely spill someone, say you are doing a PCA show one week where they want super hard condition, then the following week you do UKUP or FitX where they want a slightly softer look you would add in more carbs than you need spill slightly and therefore hide the hardness of condition. With a good eye you can see the difference between fat and water sat on the physique.
In most cases though you want to avoid spilling a physique and more often than not coming in slightly flat, retaining midsection control and a good pump up is far better than risking spilling a physique for a tiny bit more pop, its very much about understanding each physique and how much you can push checking in after every meal and adjusting accordingly.

some common confusion- People saying someone “looked flat on stage” or they “needed to be fuller,” this often just is not the case unless you know that person inside out how do you know they looked flat? you cant, you can only fill the muscle you have so when someone says “flat” what they often mean is that person needed bigger muscles carbs will fill up the bag but they cant make it any bigger, thats what off seasons are for!
”Being flat on prep is a bad thing” - it is NOT you will need to go flat at some points in prep simply to gain the condition needed to get on stage however, running flat for too long will be an issue, it will bring fatigue levels above where is necessary and make it extremely hard to bring the look back for females in the back end of prep re- feeds should be occurring, the time frame will be unique to each individual but would normally be anywhere between 10-14 days in some cases with heavily muscular clients or clients with physical jobs it could be weekly. these re feeds should be tracked and lots of feedback gathered as this is where we get the data to build a perfect peak from.

Hopefully this clears up and flat vs full confusion and gives an insight into the intricacies of prepping a physique for stage and bringing the perfect look as well as interpreting feedback.