Max Keirn-Whiting: NPC Continental Championship recap part 1

This past weekend I competed in my first bodybuilding show, the NPC Continental Championships. I'm very pleased with the package I brought to the stage. I feel at my current level of development I came in with the best physique and presentation that I could.

I competed in the Men's Open bodybuilding lightweight class. I took second out of three. I feel that this was a very fair placing. The person who took first place in the class had amazing structure, he was very well muscled, and had a lot of experience competing.

I believe that I came in as lean and hard as I could for this show. It was a long prep and spanned 16 weeks. During these 16 weeks I moved from living in a hotel to a house and my partner and I welcomed our second daughter into the world. Given all of the changes that have happened during the prep (and over the course of the last year) I remained focused on my goal and carried out my plans as well as I could.

The week before the competition

This was taken 1 week prior to the competition. At this point I was almost as lean as I needed to be and only slightly over the weight I needed to be for my intended weight class.

-Monday we had a slight refeed with an increase in carbs

-Tuesday and Wednesday were a slight decrease in carbs and Wednesday was my final day of training

-Thursday we increased water intake dramatically and increased carbs a bit

- Friday was slightly lower in water intake, same amount of carbs as Thursday

- Saturday morning I woke up exactly where I needed to be with my weight, conditioning level, and energy level

Prejudging

Prejudging in the sport of bodybuilding is when everyone in the class is brought on stage and goes through their mandatory poses. This is when the judges have the best opportunity to compare everyone to their competition. It is generally when most of the decisions on placing order will take place.

I was very nervous and didn't really know what to expect going into prejudging. I had been practicing my posing very extensively over the last few weeks. The judges moved through each of the poses much faster than I had expected and I feel that had I practiced doing them this way instead of holding each of them for extended periods of time I could have presented myself better. That being said I had some really strong poses and some much weaker poses.