Josh King PT

If i was starting my competing journey from scratch, these are the five things id tell myself before i ever touched a tanning mitt.
1. You wont feel ready.
Nobody does. The athletes next to you are just as deep in their own head. Readiness isnt a feeling you arrive at, its a decision. The prep either did the work or it didnt. Trust what you built.

2. Your worst posing day is peak week.
Everyone hits a day in the final stretch where the body looks flat and wrong. Water shifts, carbs are low, youre exhausted. Thats not your final condition. Ive watched athletes spiral over one bad mirror check in the last 72 hours and it costs them more than any meal could.

3. Condition beats size every time.
Judges dont reward the biggest in the class, they reward the sharpest. Every season i see athletes carry too much in, telling themselves theyre full when theyre just not lean enough. If you think youre ready, you probably need another week.

4. The stage shrinks you.
Lights, distance, the platform. Everything you thought was visible disappears, muscle flattens, separation softens. What looks right in the gym at 80 percent light doesnt read on stage. The best up there trained for that environment specifically.

5. Confidence is built in the off season.
You cant manufacture stage confidence in the last six weeks. The ones who walk out owning it built it in the growth phase, the specialisation blocks that brought up weak points, the back that finally fills the stage. The off season work is what you feel when the music drops.

If im rebuilding from scratch i spend less time worrying about peak week and more time making sure the off season actually does its job.

Save this and come back to it in the final week when your head starts going sideways.

the gym doesn't lie. and neither does this.

you're not lazy. you've never been lazy. you train when you don't feel like it, you track, you try. i know that.

but if the mirror hasn't moved in months, discipline isn't the answer. direction is.

at your level, the difference between stuck and progressing isn't effort. it's whether the effort is matched to the right phase. growth, optimisation, specialisation. get that wrong and you can grind for years and stay exactly where you are.

that's not a discipline problem. that's a decisions problem.

if you're experienced, consistent, and still not where you should be, drop a comment or hit the link in bio. let's figure out what phase you're actually in.

This one goes deep...

Its an insight into me and how I got into bodybuilding

We all over come things in different ways but this is how I overcome my mental health battles everyday

Finally a picture with the big man 🙏🏼

The brains behind it all!

Could not be more thankful for his help, support and guidance

Not only an amazing coach but an amazing friend someone i always want in my corner backing me

I appreciate everything you've done and continue to do for me onto the next comp and then another 2 after that 4 comps big year so lets get some big wins!

Nick Hewitt Project Phoenix 🐦‍🔥 much love brother 🙏🏼

THIS... is bodybuilding

Loads of like minded people, food depleted, dehydrated all getting together and posing on stage

Even though we are all tired and feel in the gutter the amount of respect for each other is incredible

At every show I always meet amazing people no egos no arrogance just people wanting to see other people succeed

I am honoured to of shared the stage with amazing athletes especially Joe Pocklington who brought incredible condition and great posing!

Had a great chat with him back stage i wish all the best in his next shows coming up 🙏🏼

Hopefully get to do it again some time and battle it out on stage again 💪🏼

most guys handle a ni**le one of two ways.

they either push through it and make it worse, or they stop entirely and lose weeks of progress they worked hard to build.

both are wrong. and if youre chasing an elite standard physique, you cant afford either.

1. they rest the whole body, not just the joint
your elbow is angry, so you stop training your back. your knee is sore so you skip legs AND everything else. the ni**le is localised. the rest of your body is fine. you can train around it, you just need to be smart about it. resting everything is a decision problem, not a physique problem.

2. they swap exercises randomly and lose the stimulus
you pull a movement and replace it with whatever feels okay that day. no thought to whether it actually hits the same area, whether the load is comparable, whether progression still makes sense. you lose mechanical tension on the muscle you were building and wonder why that body part stalls. the replacement needs to do the same job.

3. they stop tracking because the session feels off
this one quietly does damage. you know the numbers when everything is normal, but the modified sessions get no data. you come back from the ni**le with no baseline, no idea what happened to volume or load, no way to rebuild progressively. tracking a modified session still matters.

4. they push through the painful range and make it worse
if something hurts at the bottom of a dumbbell press, the answer is not to just push through the bottom. find the range that is pain free and work there. load it properly, control it, get the stimulus from the range that is available. most movements have enough usable range to still drive a training effect.

5. they come back too fast and undo everything
three sessions in, it feels fine, so they go straight back to the weights they left at. the tissue hasnt caught up. two weeks later they are back to square one. rebuilding into the movement over a few sessions costs you almost nothing. skipping that costs you weeks.

a ni**le is not a reason to stop building your physique. its a reason to get better at making decisions inside the session.

most people tracking macros are doing it right

but theyre tracking the wrong target for the goal they actually have

protein to build and hold muscle
calories set for the phase youre in
carbs and fats used as tools not avoided as threats
and weekends that dont undo the week

thats it
that's the whole thing

no complicated system
no app subscription
just understanding what the numbers are actually for

save this one, its worth coming back to