I tried Goo last time I competed (in 2004) and felt it worked ok (my first contest and I have nothing to compare to).

I have my 2nd show coming up and have noticed a couple of posts that talk about foregoing Goo in favor of Muscle Synergy.

What exactly is the "synergy strategy"? Sounds like it involves taking fairly large quantity of Synergy when you'd normally consume your Goo mixture.

thanks!

John

I think the Goo combined with, "Keeping water in" is a disaster waiting to happen, especially if you're going to use Peanut Butter containing sodium.

I did the Goo, with Muscle Synergy and felt it was a good mix, BUT...I was depleting water.

Frank

Frank - I have done the goo and kept water in and had no issues. You can buy low sodium natural PB in the health food section, it is more expensive but you only need it that one week so what's a couple of extra bucks?

I am a big advocate for keeping water in. Having done it both ways, keeping water in is MUCH better for many reasons. But for those who have not done it, it is not as simple as just "keeping water in". You have to properly set the stage for that strategy to work. If you do so, you will feel so much better Thursday through Sunday and you should have no worries about any negative effects from keeping water in, in fact all of the effects should be positive if done correctly. It is also much healthier and safer.

Some sodium on Saturday is ok, you really do not want to go to zero sodium as your body still needs some to keep things in balance. Some sodium on Saturday morning actually helps you fill out and can help with vasolidation. Timing and quantities are important, and as I mentioned above, the rest of your strategy has to be in place.

Personally I have not had a lot of positive effect from using synergy, and I have tried it three different times. It never hurt me, but I saw no positive effect either. Others really feel that it has worked great for them. We are all a little different in how our bodies react to various strategies. Knowing what works or does not work for you comes from experience.

quote:

Frank - I have done the goo and kept water in and had no issues. You can buy low sodium natural PB in the health food section,

I thought you may have done that...but that's why I brought up the low sodium PB. I mean, I've done the goo thing and ended up eating nearly 1/2 a jar of the PB.

Frank

People go and do some crazy things on the day of the show and it can really cost you, trust me using herbal diuretics that pull water from the muscle and the skin maybe, the use of potassium during peak week, water depletion, all thesee things can really alter the normal ways that got you there, hard and full!

These are generics but seem to be one of the best methods I have seen on Contest Day! 1st thing drink about 8-12 oz of water!
5-6am-eat steak like filet, depending on size anywhere from 3-6 oz, and about about 1/4-1/2 cup rice, now this can aso be sweet pot1/4c-3/4c, but i use that the rets of the way!
8 am-1/2 protein bar-1 bar, and 1/2 banana
10 am-smaller steak w/ sweet pot, if not quite tight enough, could be swtiched to chicken
30-45 min before prejudging-1-2 rice cakes with tbl of PB and real jelly about 45 min before going on stage
If necessary maybe use another 1/2 protein bar between 10 and 1230 due to time fo show, running late and drink about 4-8 oz of water with each meal!

After prejudging, you can usually just repeat these steps and replace the chicken for the steak w/o the protein bars and should be good to go for the night show and same rice cakes30-45 min before showtime!

When is the show? These are just general numbers and need to be suited to fit each person and some thing can be changed if these don't suit you either!

Another good article to read about "peak week" is this one Dr. Joe Klemczewski:


PEAK WEEK – IT HAS TO BE PERFECT!!
Dr. Joe Klemczewski


I could fill a book with the quotes I hear at contests from competitors who placed from second to last in their class. There are many versions, but just one quote. I’ll paraphrase: “I screwed up my peak.” That’s it – end of quote. It’s usually sandwiched in a paragraph including words like carb loading, sodium manipulation, water depletion, and it always comes right before the line, “I tried something new this time.” Now, I’m talking about legitimate peaking screw-ups, of which there are many. The one thing I want to eliminate from your mind at the beginning of this article is to blame your body fat percentage on peaking. Some people start peak week at 14% body fat and think that by doing one neat, new little trick that they read about, they’ll wake up Saturday morning looking like Frank Zane. You’ve seen them. The ones at 8% body fat who say, “Yeah, I was just holding a little water today.” This article isn’t for them. This is for people who know how to dial in on contest shape and now want to know exactly what to do in order to wake up Saturday morning and shout, “Eureka! (or ‘****!’ -if you’re on the East Coast) - I did it!! I finally nailed my peak!!”
First of all, let’s begin with how you should plan to enter peak week. If you still have to be concerned with losing “the last couple pounds” in the week before the show, you won’t be able to peak properly. Peak week should be thought of as recovering slightly, being fresh, and focusing just on making sure the muscles are full and hard yet visible because of proper subcutaneous water elimination. Fat elimination should be over before this last week.
The next thing I want to erase from your thought process is the myth that you have to make extreme changes to manipulate your body into looking good on contest day. You’ve no doubt experimented with massive sodium loading and depletion, varying carb loading schemes, and endless water depletion schedules to try to be your biggest, hardest, and driest all at one time. You also have probably experienced the shock at looking at a flat, shriveled up, smooth physique (with it’s mouth gaping open in terror) in the mirror six hours before prejudging. DO NOT PLAN ON DOING ANYTHING DRASTIC DURING PEAK WEEK!!
Your body is constantly being monitored by your brain with thousands of chemoreceptors that are sending feedback on millions of chemical reactions happening in the body. It’s how your brain manages to balance the chemical necessities for life. This vast neuro-hormonal-chemical network is brutally dynamic and always in flux. I’m not smart enough to predict and override these millions of reactions in my body to create an unnatural super-compensation effect exactly at prejudging and then maintain it all day. Neither are you. What we can do is understand the cycles that our body goes through in directing water into muscles or outside of the muscle cells, the way our body stores carbohydrates, and how to gently massage these cycles so that we ride the right wave into the right day and predictably peak perfectly and naturally instead of trying to force a freaky, extreme response. That is a gamble you’ll lose nine times out of ten.
When I peak a bodybuilder, I control protein, carbs, fat, sodium, water, and training. We start seven days from the show and I provide a chart that tells the athlete exactly what to do in what amounts each day for the entire week. I use these variables to control the normal cycles of water and glycogen flow in and out of the muscle tissue. We start out the week in a certain pattern and then each day the variables change in a subtle way to be able to predict and control peaking. Obviously, every bodybuilder is different in the amounts of each of the variables. Some people have unbelievably fast metabolisms and some people are very carb-sensitive – two extreme differences which dictate different amounts of each nutrient variable and a slightly different schedule. But, the actual flow and cycle is still very similar. It is important to know and understand what to expect on each day so you know how to adjust. For this reason, even my “long-distance” clients have daily communication with me during peak week. I want to go through each of these variables and give you some physiological insight to why peaking is so elusive.
Carbing-up is the great myth started and continuing with 250-pound steroid using bodybuilders who consume huge amounts of food anyway and then take prescription diuretics to eliminate the steroid bloat. If this describes you, traditional carb depletion and loading may work. If you’re body isn’t an eighth grade science experiment out of control, let’s stick with normal physiology. Even the hardest, leanest bodies cannot metabolize and shuttle glucose into muscle cells at a maximum rate without having some extracellular spill-over. Read that sentence again. You cannot deplete carbs and then supercompensate and expect all of the glucose and water to end up in the muscle. You’ll certainly fill out, but you’ll also smooth out. Some a little, and some a great deal. Yes, a lot of carbs will go into the muscle, but a little or a lot will end up outside the muscle cell with a lot of water which makes you smooth. Next time you’re dieting and you’re fairly lean, log some comments every day in a journal. “Woke up pretty lean. Very smooth – must have been the sodium in the chips. Very vascular. Hard as a freak’n rock!!” Just write down comments on how you look in the morning. I guarantee that you’ll consistently be your hardest after a couple of low-carb, high-water intake days. You may not be your biggest because the carbs aren’t as high, but the lack of extraneous carbs and water under the skin makes you very tight and you appear much bigger. Who wins the show: the big soft guy or the bone-dry striated competitor? The way I carb up my clients catches the wave of glucose and water entering the muscle on the way up, but not at the expense of smoothing out on the rebound effect of over-carbing.
My general carb cycle for peak week is to start at the highest point on the weekend before. I start at a slightly above “normal” level on Saturday and Sunday and schedule no training. I want this weekend to be a recovery time with a refilling of glycogen. As training starts again on Monday, I slowly drop carbs each day. It’s a subtle drop, not a severe depletion. The training each day, Monday through Wednesday, with the slight drop will create a sufficient carb deficit without total depletion. Depending on the client’s metabolism, I keep the carbs coming down and keep the water very high all the way through Friday. For a very high metabolism bodybuilder, I’m not going as low on the carbs during the week, and I may start re-carbing on Friday. For carb-sensitive clients it’s very important to wait until Saturday to reload. By waiting until later in the week to carb up, you eliminate the chance of glycogen and water spill over. Your body can metabolize glucose very quickly and you don’t have to start three days ahead of time especially if you haven’t completely bottomed out with a severe carb depletion. There are also some issues with the type of carbs you use to reload. There are some that create more subcutaneous swelling due to being food allergens. It’s important to know which are the most common and how they affect you.
Water is just as misunderstood as carbs. The traditional carb and water theories have people drop their water sometimes days before the show. Nothing will flatten and smooth you out faster! You have to maintain a high water intake because your muscle tissue is around 70% water. No water, no hardness – just flat, squishy muscle tissue. The reason people typically start dropping water is because they’ve over-carbed so much that they’re already spilling glycogen and water under the skin and think, “Oh, my gosh!! I’ve got to get rid of this water!!” With the carb reload as I described, you won’t have that problem; you’ll actually get harder and harder throughout the week. KEEP THE WATER INTAKE UP AND LET IT FOLLOW THE CARBS INTO THE MUSCLE!! IF YOU’RE NOT OVER-CARBED, THE REST OF THE WATER WILL BE ELIMINATED!
Sodium also has to be cycled. Start with a moderate amount of sodium, up to two grams at the beginning of the week and around Thursday start dropping it slightly but don’t eliminate it completely. If you do, you’ll force water out of the muscle cell, you’ll look flat and smooth, and you’ll cramp like there’s no tomorrow. You need approximately four times more sodium than potassium for your muscles to contract normally. Again, don’t let the myths from the pharmaceutically dominated side of our sport lure you into doing things that aren’t physiologically correct. You don’t have all those drug side-effects to combat in peaking properly. If you sodium load and/or deplete in a big way you’re gambling with extreme chemical rebound effects that you can’t possibly time. If you’re lucky enough to stumble into a good effect, it will be short lived because you’re on a pendulum swing that your body will adjust to and you’ll look absolutely lousy in a very short time.
I also use specific tricks regarding fat intake and schedule very specific contest day meal strategies for the individual needs and characteristics of my clients. As I get to know their metabolic rates through the dieting process, I’m already planning their peak and everyone’s a little different. These general guidelines, however, I hope will dispel some common mistakes and put you on a path to learn your body type and peak perfectly every time!!

And heres another one by Joe about Water!

Using Water to be “Dry” on Contest Day


Drifting in and out of sleep for most of the night, your routine ran through your mind at times, your pulse raced, you wondered if “it would work.” You were awake long before the alarm sounded but you were afraid to look. Maybe just a little more sleep. Finally, you amble to the hotel bathroom, turn on the light, and slowly lift your shirt to reveal your abs. Would your skin be dry? Would deep crevices and vascularity be visible like so many days in the last two weeks? Or...would you look soft…like last time.
There are countless locker room experts to guide you through the last week of your contest preparation. They competed a decade ago in the County Novice Mr. Nobody, have their PhD from Flex Magazine, and their advice is free. You listened. If my psychic powers are tuned correctly and Jupiter is in the right position, I bet I can get close to your formula. Carb deplete Sunday through Tuesday, drink tons of water, maybe sodium load a little, carb load starting Wednesday, start cutting water Thursday (Friday virtually none,) eliminate sodium for two or three days prior to Saturday, start taking 99 mg of potassium every 2 hours, and use a magic cocktail of glycerol, creatine, sugar, toss in a little wine if your from the British team, and finish it all up with an over-the-counter dandelion root-based diuretic to supercharge your vascularity. By the way, if you ever get tired of bodybuilding, pharmaceutical companies pay volunteers to test new therapies far less complicated – you may want to apply.
I know; I’m being cruel. How can I joke about this when you’re standing in front of the mirror shocked at how you could follow the “protocol” so perfectly and be flatter and softer than you were last Saturday. I hate to tell you, it will get worse. After the disappointment of not being able to recover your form all day, you’ll wake up tomorrow full, hard, and vascular. Sunday, that is…just like last year. Why is it so hard to time a peak? Turn off the T.V., you’re going to want to concentrate on this article.
Water balance in your body is incredibly complex. The end goal of a bodybuilder on contest day is to look “hard.” Body fat must be gone, that’s a given, but even with the leanest physique you can present, the shredded/dry look comes from having a minimal amount of water under your skin. Really, what this means is interstitial plasma, which can be thought of as any fluid outside the cells in your body. There are several processes that affect cellular fluid dynamics. We have to start with the big picture first.
Water makes up 50-60% of your body and up to 75% of your muscle tissue. If you’re 2% dehydrated it will negatively affect your muscle tissue and athletic ability. If you’re 5% dehydrated you’ll cramp and if you’re 7-10% dehydrated you’ll hallucinate and risk death. Think back to when you were drinking a gallon and a half of water a day. You were full, hard, and vascular. Why? You had enough water in your body. The morning of the show you were flat as a pancake, soft as a marshmallow, and every muscle on your body shook and cramped on stage. Why? You were dehydrated. When you see pictures of top WNBF pros that are clients of mine, be assured they didn’t cut water one bit.
Why weren’t they waterlogged and soft? The water was in their muscle tissue making them full and hard, while interstitial water was at a minimum. Keeping water intake normal gives you the opportunity to be full, but being hard depends on what we do to channel it into the muscle. This is where the sodium/potassium comes in. Sodium is the major extracellular fluid cation and potassium is the major intracellular fluid cation. “Aha!!!!! Professor Novice Mr. Nobody was right in having me cut sodium and increase potassium!” Nope, misapplied science. Normal physiology maintains 55-65% of our fluid intracellularly anyway. If we are in a normal condition, we have more fluid inside than outside our cells. It’s when we screw something up that this percentage heads the other direction and fluid is diverted outside the cell. Fluid dynamics is controlled with incredible precision via our kidneys. Though you hear the phrase “you have to trick your body” every time you get a locker room lesson on peaking, trust me, there is no tricking your body. It’s much faster than you and much more sophisticated than you could hope to account for. Every time you do something extreme trying to cause an extreme reaction, you’ll get one. Two problems are that first, it may not be the one you wanted, and second, if it is, it will be very short-lived because the extreme reaction will be quickly countered in the other direction just as severely until the “pendulum” that you violently swung slows back down. Take a serious look at what happened to your body during the fictitious example I gave. You went from hard and full, to harder, then a little smaller, then huge, then huge and soft, then soft and flat on the morning of the show, then huge and vascular on Sunday, and finally as soft and squishy as can be for a couple days after that. That’s the kind of instability you get when you start trying to “trick” your body.
Yes, sodium and potassium are key ions that regulate cellular fluid dynamics, but you can’t create extreme environments and expect to time them for a show. You can subtly influence them, but keep in mind this phrase: water follows solutes. Water is attracted to and will follow the ions as they travel across the cell membranes. We want plasma to be attracted to the inside of the cell but it won’t happen by just increasing potassium, it will be because we have the right balance of sodium and potassium. The goal should be to simply maintain the “normal,” stable environment that would have 55-65% of the fluid there anyway. Just as big a factor, however, is sodium’s role in blood volume. Deficiencies in sodium will lead to a drop in blood pressure which means plasma (water) has been pushed out of the vascular system. If it’s not in your blood vessels, it’s around them interstitially which means subcutaneously. That, of course, means SMOOTH!!! This will then start a chain reaction that will take days to remedy. When sodium is dropped from the diet, your kidneys will be influenced immediately by the hormone Aldosterone to conserve sodium from being excreted and remember; water follows solutes. If sodium is being resorbed, then water will be as well. You retain water and with the lower blood pressure, it’s all under your skin instead of in your vascular system.

Take a look at this study:


NB&F EDITOR, PLEASE MAKE A CHART:

NORMAL DIET

Urinary Sodium 217 (mmol/day)-normal
Aldosterone 10.4 (ng/100 ml-normal
Serum Sodium 139 (mmol)-normal
Low sodium diet
1 day 2 days 6 days
Urinary Sodium
105 59 9.9
Aldosterone
11.7 22.5 37
Serum Sodium
139 139 138
Within one day of dropping dietary sodium, excreted sodium is cut in half and continues to decline as more Aldosterone is produced. BUT, look at blood levels of sodium: they’re conserved perfectly!! YOU CAN’T TRICK YOUR BODY!! All you did by cutting sodium was screwed up the osmolarity of the cell membranes and you won’t know where the water is going to go. If you keep your water intake and sodium intake normal, your cellular fluid dynamics will stay normal. You’ll continue to flush excess water and sodium out of your body. So, you ask, “What’s normal?” The RDA for sodium is a range of .5-2.4 grams per day but other sources recommend up to 3.3 grams per day. The RDA for potassium is 1.6-2.0 grams per day. One quick side note on potassium: excessive potassium will also stimulate Aldosterone. Don’t add potassium in amounts that place it higher than sodium intake. Everyone, of course is a little different, and this is precisely why I don’t just “peak” clients. I have to have more than a week of working with them so I can make and observe changes in their body before I detail out a perfect plan for them as individuals. If you’re going it alone, you also need some self-practice to see what’s right for your body.
I know you may be disappointed to hear all this talk about “normal,” so I want to give you a chance to manipulate a variable that WILL make a huge difference. Since I won’t let you whack your sodium/potassium around, what other nutrient could possibly affect water balance in a very, very positive way??
Carbs. You already know that every gram of glycogen (stored glucose/carbohydrate) attracts water to it – 2.7 grams of water to be exact. Remember the “water follows solutes” thing? Glycogen is a solute too. This is why you get so full and feel so huge when your carbs are high. Your water content is high also. We already established that when your water is low, you’ll experience the opposite: flat, soft muscles. The real trick is to have enough carbs in your body to attract water in your muscle tissue to be full and hard, but you may have also heard the phrase “spilling over” in relation to carbs. This is a legitimate concern. The average adult can only store 375-475 grams of carbs in the body, about 325 of which would be in the muscle (90-110 grams in the liver and 15-20 as blood glucose.) When you consume too many carbohydrates, which is likely with a traditional carb-up, the excessive glycogen ends up in the interstitial fluids, the water follows, and now there’s another reason for the water under your skin. How you carb up, how much you carb up, and the foods you use are all factors in making sure the glucose is in the muscle not outside. Combine this with water intake, sodium/potassium intake, and even your training and you have the full picture of how you will look on Saturday morning.
I know this is an incredibly complex subject, but if you read it, make notes, sort it out, you’ll see that peaking can be consistent and predictable, not a gamble. I’ll let you go back through the article to isolate the details but I hope I have impressed upon you that dropping water, eliminating sodium, increasing potassium, and carbing up hard are not only physiologically contrary to your goals, but has been the sabotaging of your contest day! Try doing things in concert with your body instead of trying to trick it and practice them several times before contest day!

quote:

People go and do some crazy things on the day of the show and it can really cost you, trust me using herbal diuretics that pull water from the muscle and the skin maybe, the use of potassium during peak week, water depletion, all thesee things can really alter the normal ways that got you there, hard and full!

OH NO DOUBT!!

I've heard of near death experiences. A couple of years ago in Austin, TX. Some diuretics (prescribed, but not to this person) is good, so load up! Had there not been a RN backstage, this person would be pushing up daisies.

I remember such pain from dehydrating. It was enough that I was never going to step on stage again. That's when David Henry had me talk to Beverly. Life is different.

Craig, thanks for posting this.

Frank

I would also be curious of any other snacks people eat right before going on stage. Has anyone tried niacin?

Muscle Synergy has niacin. As VA had pointed out, taking a range from 16-30 about 30 minutes before going on stage (diff competitors) would load up on the niacin. I've taken 24 per day and would take 12 before working out. I currently take 8 before working out and 4 in the AM, 4 in the PM.

VA, and Cytrainer seem to have a great method of final week prep. I don't know about Aram. I just don't know. LOL

Frank

quote:

Originally posted by Frank:
VA, and Cytrainer seem to have a great method of final week prep. I don't know about Aram. I just don't know. LOL

Frank

Ha..

...Secret

I have to agree with keeping water in! I've only done 4 contests so far but I've learned a ton with each. The last show was the Natural Northern in Cleveland. I stopped water at 10pm the night before and was 162 when I woke up (only slept 3 hours). I sipped water and had moderate carb meal until pre-judging was over. I was really dry but was NOT full. I then started drinking a ton of water, had a half pizza, and 3 protein bars before the finals where I looked MUCH fuller and vascular (water!!!) After the show I had another big meal and lots of water and looked even better when I got home! I had to take more pictures for reference for the next show.