Posing and
competition prep
Training, nutrition and posing, run together on one calendar from the off-season to show day. Daine has competed as an IFBB Pro and coaches prep the way he ran his own.
- Covers
- Training, nutrition, posing
- Format
- 1-on-1 prep coaching
- Where
- Bergen County, NJ
- First step
- Message Daine
Three plans, one calendar
Training, nutrition and stage practice have to move together. One coach writes all three.
Off-season
Build the muscle the diet will later reveal. It can't be added in the last ten weeks.
Eat to grow, under control, so there is room to diet later.
Learn the quarter turns while you have the energy to practise them properly.
In prep
Keep the muscle. Loads are managed against a shrinking calorie budget rather than chased for records.
Food and cardio change when the check-in photos say so, not earlier.
Posing becomes a scheduled session with its own homework.
Peak week
Volume comes down. The job is protecting the work, not adding to it.
Water, sodium and carbs move on a plan, day by day.
Full run-throughs in your suit with the tan on, so nothing on show day is new.
Show day
A pump timed to your call-out. Backstage is not the place for a workout.
Small, planned meals. Nothing improvised.
Walk out knowing your turns, your mandatories and where to look.
How long the middle of the board runs depends on where you start. Daine sets it once he has seen you.
A coach who has competed
Daine earned his IFBB Pro card doing this: the diet, the backstage hours, and the last week before a show. When he tells you to hold a change for a few more days, it is because he has seen what changing it early costs.
He coaches the physique, not the scale. A panel scores conditioning, symmetry and presentation, so weekly changes are decided from check-in photos taken in the same light at the same time each week.
Posing
Two athletes can bring the same condition and place differently. The difference is usually presentation: a clean turn, a pose held long enough to score, a face that looks composed. Posing is a skill, it responds to practice faster than anything else in prep, and it is scheduled from early on.
- Quarter turns
The sequence the whole class runs through, practised until it holds on tired, depleted legs.
- Mandatories
Your division's compulsory poses, held long and steady enough to be scored.
- Transitions
Getting from one pose to the next. A sloppy transition undoes the two clean poses either side of it.
- The walk-on
The first few seconds. A panel starts forming an opinion before the first pose.
- Comparisons
Standing beside someone else and still presenting your own physique rather than copying theirs.
- The face
Every photo records it. A few seconds of practice a day fixes it.
The last seven days
Water, sodium, carbs and training volume all move at once, on a schedule, with a thin margin either way. Too little and you arrive flat; too much and you lose the condition you spent months on.
This is the week most self-run preps go wrong. Daine runs it with you day by day rather than handing over a protocol.
Starting without a show booked
Some people arrive with a date and some with a maybe. Both work. Daine sets the date after he has seen where you are, working back from the stage.
Prep is built from the other services here, run to a stricter standard: nutrition and meal plans with a deadline, and 1-on-1 personal training in Bergen County.
Common questions
How far out do I need to start?
It depends on where your physique is now. Daine sets the timeline after he has seen you, working back from the show date. Anyone naming a number of weeks before that is guessing.
I've never competed. Is this only for people with a show booked?
No. Plenty of preps start without a date. Bring the goal and the date gets set once Daine has seen where you're starting.
Which federation and division do you coach for?
Bring the show you're aiming at. Mandatories and judging criteria differ between federations and divisions, so the prep is built for the one you're entering.
Is posing included or is it separate?
Included, and scheduled from early in the prep rather than added at the end.