Let’s be honest, in an Instagram world that promotes being lean year-round as the epitome of fitness, going into a gaining phase / offseason / push phase as a female can be a real mental challenge. Not only are you going against everything you’ve ever been taught, but you’re also going to be working “against” that mainstream media messaging of “lean/thin = worthwhile”.
If you have been following my journey for a while, you’ll know that I have officially stopped competing as a bodybuilder. However, I did complete 3x seasons and a total of 10 shows between 2018-2021, and having gone through some long gaining phases, here are some of the key lessons I took away from those phases.
Health is wealth
And I don’t just mean this superficially. Regaining necessary body fat has meant that so many other physiological processes in my body have gone back to normal, or back to feeling normal.
The one which has been most obvious for me has been my hunger – in the offseason between my 2018 and 2019 prep, I had about 7 months to make improvements. However, in that time, my body didn’t quite get to the point where it simply wasn’t hungry or wasn’t as interested in food. That takes time. It was only really when I took 18months of an offseason when I noticed I no longer felt like a bottomless pit, which of course, was a great feeling.
So, even if the thought of “losing your competitive physique” scares you, and you can’t find any motivational quote to draw on to keep pushing through and regain the weight you lost, remind yourself that “you live, and then you compete”. Health will always come first!
You have your body, and then you have your prep body
Something I had to learn and relearn again was that that the way my body looked in the “offseason” wasn’t just “my offseason shape” – it was my shape, period. This shift in mindset helped me realise that I was more than just a bodybuilder, and it helped me deal with some of the shame/guilt (from weight gain) which is hard to escape from in social media.
With this, I’m specifically referring to messaging from fellow competitors (particularly bikini competitors), claiming to be in a “gaining phase” yet maintaining 3kg above stage weight. It can be hard to see that when you’re sitting 5x heavier than that, head buried in cocopops, wondering if you’re doing it wrong. You’re not.
Another way to phrase this is think about what else your body enables you to do: it allows you to be functional, bring yourself to the world, be there for others physically (or virtually right now!), it allows you to train, to enjoy everything there is to enjoy in life.
Being “you” in the offseason is a gentle reminder that you’re more than just a competitor, and that’s important too.
Training your mind is as important as training your body
Again, another cliché that unfortunately gets dismissed too often. When you are not in a calorie deficit, when you’re not solely focused on food and losing weight to compete, you have the ability to focus on what’s going on in between your two ears. Being able to practice paying attention to your inner self-talk, and spending time addressing it too when you have the energy to cope with it, is a winner’s skill.
The athletes who are able to spend time in their offseason cultivating this self-talk skill will be the same ones who don’t get discouraged by other people’s progress pictures, or who don’t let their confidence be shattered by what other people are doing are saying.
If you’re going to invest so long into improving your physique, it would be a huge lament not to do the same with your psychology, as both skills are imperative to improve your package on stage next year. You really should be working in as much as you are working out.
In short, a gaining phase isn’t just time spent in a calorie surplus: it is time spent improving your health, improving your physique, improving your relationship with yourself, and ensuring your headspace is ready to be as supportive as it needs to be when push comes to shove in the dark days of prep. Missing out or disregarding these lessons could cost you the enjoyment of your next prep!
