HITTING THE 'PEAK'

By Kristyn Lia

Peak week training is both exciting and daunting at once... You've made it, the physique is there but you know the battle ahead, both physical and mental.

Physically as the weights you were once smashing out easily are now incredibly taxing on your body and because as every day that passes you become more and more depleted and more dehydrated. Mentally because you are forced to drop the ego and restrain yourself from both training to failure and lifting to your max weights. My peak week training went like this; 'Sunday – Chest / Triceps / Deltoids' This was my last chest day. The reasoning behind it was to allow my body ample opportunity to recover. I work in a corporate environment and get really tight through my chest due to sitting at a computer all day. This can be detrimental to my posing in terms of getting my lats nice and flat without rolling my shoulders forward. My training is kept to 80% of my usual weight range and I do not train to failure. I incorporate deltoids into this session so that I hit them multiple times during the week. 'Monday - Biceps and Glutes' Again being on the computer and typing at my work my biceps get tight and can cause impingement on my medial nerves. As I will be hitting them again Thursday I want to ensure they are fully recovered so as to not cause any tightness come show day. I stick to 80%, no failure. At this stage my energy levels are still decent so I leave the session feeling I haven't trained hard enough. I have to keep reminding myself there are different rules this week. 'Tuesday and Wednesday' I break my back workout up to allow myself to hit all parts effectively without over exerting myself. It is very important to avoid any injury at this point. As I am 4 days out and have had no significant diet amendments I am still training at 80%. By now however, I am fatigued and these sessions hurt and tax on my body. I am quite happy at the end of these sessions. Wednesday is a fun day as after training I spend 2 hours posing with my idol Mary Carra, a world figure champion. She won the figure open Melbourne Classic last year (2014), which is what I was competing last Sunday (May, 2015). We work on variations on all the figure poses to find which suits my physique best. 'Thursday' is all over my upper body excluding chest. It is my last real training session before the comp. On this day I undertake quite a significant calorie and carb reduction. The purpose of this is to totally deplete my glycogen levels which hold water so that I rid my body of fluid and dry out. For this reason my body is exhausted. I train to 40-50%... And it's hard! I watch myself lifting weights I would not even warm up on and laugh.. “Does she even lift??” Again it’s that ego thing. This is my meltdown day. I've gone strong all week. But during this session I doubt myself and all the emotions I didn't think I had come out. My poor trainer didn't know what to do. I showed tears and all! However despite how demotivated and defeated I thought I was I did not stop lifting once! So it can't have been real. After my session I walked on the treadmill for 30 minutes and wrote down how I felt. I shot the feelings down with recognition of how far I had come and how proud I was of myself. My meltdown was resolved rather quickly and I spent my afternoon getting my body realigned with my Myotherapist. I was done! The rest of my prep was now just about posing, saunas, light rehabilitation in the gym and re-feeding!! Come Sunday I was confident I would present my best package to date.. My best posing, conditioning and physique. I couldn't wait to smash it! 'Stage day' I wake up early to my stylist knocking on my door. Now begins the beauty process, hair and makeup. This takes a couple of hours. About half hour before I leave I do a light ab session to get the blood onto my abdominals. Now is the moment I've been waiting for. Two rice cakes each with 2 teaspoons of peanut butter and jam... I'm not going to lie, after dieting so long I have been dreaming of this moment and it is the best moment for me!

Kristyn Lia in competing mode

We arrive at the venue I get into my bikini and begin pumping up backstage. I am very excited! I walk onstage with a strange sense of calmness and confidence. As we get into the posing I know I am nailing it. I can hear my fiancé and trainers yelling support in the crowd. They were so proud of me! Never have I had so much fun! The placing’s were called and the moment I had been waiting for! All of the hard work, training, dieting and posing had come down to this moment. To my absolute joy I won both Figure Titles of Miss Figure Open and Miss Figure International! It was something I had never imagined I would achieve and it is still so overwhelming and surreal to me. I have learnt and grown so much during this season. I am very excited for the future and the opportunities ahead of me. I love this sport and I cannot wait to see my physique improve each time I get onstage.