Guest Blog - Water loading for a comp
Water loading notes from
Strongman competition May 2013 –
By - Aj Bhardwaj
Water loading is a weight cutting process used to shed 3-5% of Body weight prior to competition to make weight. The process itself is 7 days long with the weigh in being on the 7th day.
Summary:
- Incremental increase in water consumption over Day 1 – 3 Starting at 4 litres and finishing with 8L of water consumed on day 3.
- Day 4 onwards, water depletion begins as you will only consume maximum of 1-1.5L every day for the next 3 days.
- Weigh in on Day 7.
Detailed Notes:
1 week prior:
- Get into habit of drinking water regularly however beware that if you drink already a lot of water during the day, daily water consumption quota during the loading phase will have to increase. The below details are for someone who drinks 2-3L a day normally.
- Taking a multivitamin. It normally takes a few days for your body to get used to absorbing minerals and vitamins from a tablet. If you don’t take one regularly, start taking one prior to the loading phase.
Day 1:
- Consume 4L of water
- Also add “Beast aminolytes” or other electrolyte replacement formula to 2L of the daily quota to replace electrolytes and minerals
- Started taking multivitamin.
- Drink majority of the water prior to 5pm.
Day 2:
- Consume 6L of water
- Also add “Beast aminolytes” or other electrolyte replacement formula to 2L of the daily quota to replace electrolytes and minerals
- You won’t be able to consume that much water prior to 5pm but try to do it 2hrs before bed or else you won’t be sleep.
Day 3:
- Consume 8L of water
- Also add “Beast aminolytes” or other electrolyte replacement formula to 2L of the daily quota to replace electrolytes and minerals
- Overloading process will be coming to a stop now, and you will be pissing like no tomorrow.
Day 4:
- Consume 1.5L of water
- Also add “Beast aminolytes” or other electrolyte replacement formula to 1/2L of the daily quota to replace electrolytes and minerals
- I removed a lot of the salty foods from my diet so my body can let go of water faster. Examples of this are: bacon, egg yolk, high saturated fat foods because they retain more fluid, high GI carb foods such as bread, rice etc.
- My diet for these three days pretty simple: 300g of meat with broccoli x 3-4 times a day with 2 table spoons of coconut butter each meal (Medium chain fats). 2 protein shakes with 30g of protein per serving.
- It is very important that you don’t drink the 1.5L of water quickly. You need to drink this during the day as this will induce peeing.
Day 5:
- Consume 1.5L of water
- By now you will be pissing very often and if you have stopped, it’s because your body has adapted already. In order to keep the process going, you need to make sure that water is consumed throughout the whole day rather than big gulps.
- Also, if you have done this right you will find it hard to sleep because you will have the urge to go the toilet every half hour. I suggest using melatonin to help aid REM sleep quicker so the sleep you do get is quality.
Day 6:
- Consume 1L of water.
- Now this day is very important. If your weigh in is early on day 7 in the morning, I suggest consuming most of the water prior to 5pm and then just sip on a glass of water until you go to bed.
- If your weigh in is later during day 7, afternoon/evening, then you will consume 1.5L of water but throughout the day and into the night if need be.
- Now you can guarantee you won’t sleep tonight. From nerves of the competition to having to go to the toilet, this will be a shitty night but get through it cause on the other end is awesomeness.
Day 7:
- If day 6, was important, day 7 will make and break you competition.
- If your weigh in is early, just consume a coffee with some coconut butter and weigh in. If your weigh in late, have some eggs but make sure no salty food yet but don’t consume anything 4hours prior to weigh-in.
- It is absolutely critical that you gain the
weight back in whatever time frame you have between weigh in and competition
kick-off as this will affect your strength obviously.
- Immediately after weigh-in consume 1L of water followed by another 250ml of electrolyte formula. Just force it down.
- You now need to eat like there is no tomorrow. Salty foods galore, bacon, whole eggs, rice etc etc. Make sure you eat healthy fats, and carbohydrates as this is what will get you back into the game.
- In the next hour, consume another litre of water with 250ml of electrolytes.
- During competition stay hydrated.
Extra Notes:
- If some reason, you completely screw the timings and your body adapts prior to day 5 or 6 and you have stopped excreting water and you still are above weight. You will need to sweat it out.
- If you have a sauna available to you, use it but it takes ages to burn a KG of water weight in it.
- I have used Matt Kroc’s method and I have been able to sweat out around a KG/45min. Still a very long time and painful process but worth it if you wanna compete.
- This method is fairly simple and can be done at home. I did it. Sit in a bath tub with as hot water as bearable by your skin. I had my whole body inside the water except my nose and mouth. If you have a small bath tub, get your chest and head in as this is what regulates body heat.
- At the same time I had the shower running to
keep the bathroom steamy. I spend 30 min in the water. 20 min outside to let my
body heat come back down so the water again can have effect again. This is also
a mental break as its quite challenging sitting in there for 30 min listening
to nothing but your heart beat.
Water loading notes from Strongman competition May 2013 – Aj Bhardwaj
Water loading is a weight cutting process used to shed 3-5% of BW prior to competition to make weight. The process itself is 7 days long with the weigh in being on the 7th day.
Summary:
- Incremental increase in water consumption over Day 1 – 3 Starting at 4 litres and finishing with 8L of water consumed on day 3.
- Day 4 onwards, water depletion begins as you will only consume maximum of 1-1.5L every day for the next 3 days.
- Weigh in on Day 7.
Detailed Notes:
1 week prior:
- Get into habit of drinking water regularly however beware that if you drink already a lot of water during the day, daily water consumption quota during the loading phase will have to increase. The below details are for someone who drinks 2-3L a day normally.
- Taking a multivitamin. It normally takes a few days for your body to get used to absorbing minerals and vitamins from a tablet. If you don’t take one regularly, start taking one prior to the loading phase.
Day 1:
- Consume 4L of water
- Also add “Beast aminolytes” or other electrolyte replacement formula to 2L of the daily quota to replace electrolytes and minerals
- Started taking multivitamin.
- Drink majority of the water prior to 5pm.
Day 2:
- Consume 6L of water
- Also add “Beast aminolytes” or other electrolyte replacement formula to 2L of the daily quota to replace electrolytes and minerals
- You won’t be able to consume that much water prior to 5pm but try to do it 2hrs before bed or else you won’t be sleep.
Day 3:
- Consume 8L of water
- Also add “Beast aminolytes” or other electrolyte replacement formula to 2L of the daily quota to replace electrolytes and minerals
- Overloading process will be coming to a stop now, and you will be pissing like no tomorrow.
Day 4:
- Consume 1.5L of water
- Also add “Beast aminolytes” or other electrolyte replacement formula to 1/2L of the daily quota to replace electrolytes and minerals
- I removed a lot of the salty foods from my diet so my body can let go of water faster. Examples of this are: bacon, egg yolk, high saturated fat foods because they retain more fluid, high GI carb foods such as bread, rice etc.
- My diet for these three days pretty simple: 300g of meat with broccoli x 3-4 times a day with 2 table spoons of coconut butter each meal (Medium chain fats). 2 protein shakes with 30g of protein per serving.
- It is very important that you don’t drink the 1.5L of water quickly. You need to drink this during the day as this will induce peeing.
Day 5:
- Consume 1.5L of water
- By now you will be pissing very often and if you have stopped, it’s because your body has adapted already. In order to keep the process going, you need to make sure that water is consumed throughout the whole day rather than big gulps.
- Also, if you have done this right you will find it hard to sleep because you will have the urge to go the toilet every half hour. I suggest using melatonin to help aid REM sleep quicker so the sleep you do get is quality.
Day 6:
- Consume 1L of water.
- Now this day is very important. If your weigh in is early on day 7 in the morning, I suggest consuming most of the water prior to 5pm and then just sip on a glass of water until you go to bed.
- If your weigh in is later during day 7, afternoon/evening, then you will consume 1.5L of water but throughout the day and into the night if need be.
- Now you can guarantee you won’t sleep tonight. From nerves of the competition to having to go to the toilet, this will be a shitty night but get through it cause on the other end is awesomeness.
Day 7:
- If day 6, was important, day 7 will make and break you competition.
- If your weigh in is early, just consume a coffee with some coconut butter and weigh in. If your weigh in late, have some eggs but make sure no salty food yet but don’t consume anything 4hours prior to weigh-in.
- It is absolutely critical that you gain the weight back in whatever time frame you have between weigh in and competition kick-off.
- Immediately after weigh-in consume 1L of water followed by another 250ml of electrolyte formula. Just force it down.
- You now need to eat like there is no tomorrow. Salty foods galore, bacon, whole eggs, rice etc etc. Make sure you eat healthy fats, and carbohydrates as this is what will get you back into the game.
- In the next hour, consume another litre of water with 250ml of electrolytes.
- During competition stay hydrated.
Extra Notes:
- If some reason, you completely screw the timings and your body adapts prior to day 5 or 6 and you have stopped excreting water and you still are above weight. You will need to sweat it out.
- If you have a sauna available to you, use it but it takes ages to burn a KG of water weight in it.
- I have used Matt Kroc’s method and I have been able to sweat out around a KG/45min. Still a very long time and painful process but worth it if you wanna compete.
- This method is fairly simple and can be done at home. I did it. Sit in a bath tub with as hot water as bearable by your skin. I had my whole body inside the water except my nose and mouth. If you have a small bath tub, get your chest and head in as this is what regulates body heat.
- At the same time I had the shower running to keep the bathroom steamy. I spend 30 min in the water. 20 min outside to let my body heat come back down so the water again can have effect again. This is also a mental break as its quite challenging sitting in there for 30 min listening to nothing but your heart beat.
*Aj Bhardwaj is an accomplished national level strongman competitor/Strength coach and PTC Sydney member)