Peaking methods

I thought we would stick with peaking people here, and there are 3 main ways I would look at peaking someone for a show, people may call them slightly different things but most coaches agree there are 3 main methods.

The first thing is that you can not really peak someone if they are not ready, if someone isn’t ready and they might just be doing the show as a tick box exercise then I wouldn’t change a thing, potentially have a rest day the day before and day of the show what I am talking about here is if you are READY for stage.

Method 1 - front loading,
I personally prefer this method with females and anyone who has issues with water retention, I would say most of my athletes are peaked in this way. the idea here is to carb load earlier on in the week so Tuesday or Wednesday for a Sunday show, this method has a good level of predictability with it as you can see from re-feeds throughout prep how the body responds and when it looks its best post re-feed to what day/days you would load on e.g I know client A looks best 3 days post re-feed so if her show is Sunday I would load Wednesday so she then has 3 days and baseline and hits her best look on Sunday. the idea here is high day/days then back to baseline then show day food based on the individual and what is needed.
The other reason I really like the front loading method on females is that in all female classes we need a tight midsection, and front loading means the food will have all been digested fully by show day and the waist is tight. This is the method I used with overall champ Louise last year as a figure athlete she needs a lot of carbs to get full however she is prone to water retention and we needed to keep her waist tight so this method worked perfectly and as it was a short unexpected prep we needed time to get in so this allowed us maximal diet time and still time to fill.

Method 2 - back loading,
This is probably my least used method as the margin for error is the highest but I have used it before, this method sees you add in your high days around 2 days out or the night before a show, this is quite common in men chasing fullness to go out for burger and chips or steak and chips the night before, yes it can work but it is also very risky if it will work or you spill, it can also work for some of the more muscular female classes too like trained figure who need more carbs and fats to keep them full but again this is person dependant. if you are someone who easily retains water or struggles with midsection control I would be hesitant to use a back loading approach. however if I have a client who is very lean but flat and burning through a lot carbs very quickly this method can work very well and I have had great success with.
The other way you might use this method is to potentially soften a look, some feds like a tighter and harder look than others, for example PCA want a very lean and hard look but if you were also doing a WFF or Fitx show that look would be too hard in bikini so you may purposely spill slightly to bring a layer of water hiding the hardness of the condition but bringing a fuller look more inline with their criteria.

Method 3 - reversing in,
now I do think you can kind of mix this method into a front of back load slightly and I normally do a bit but the idea here is to slowly reverse someone into a show putting up food and lowering expenditure bit by bit over a 2week or more period to bring a fresh and full look to stage. This method works really well between shows or if you have a client who is ready ahead of time. I used this method last year with Steph and she never placed outside the Top 3 with a good amount of wins in there too, this is such an effective method for some athletes, the only down sides here really are that the athlete must be ready early and if they are someone who burns through a lot of carbs it may take a lot of food daily which person dependant could effect midsection control. I know there are athletes competing this year who we will reverse in as well. The other benefit of this method is athletes and their shows on a higher daily amount of food so therefore hunger signalling is normally lower making for a slightly easier post show experience.

What methods have you tried and which works best for you? drop me a message and let me know but as always don’t copy the crowd do what works best for your body always.