Preparation for a Figure Competition

Training for a figure competition is a lot harder than it may seem. It is a very intense experience that really pushes you to your physical limits and tests your character.

Some people may watch a figure show and think of it simply as a bikini contest. It is far from that. While there is a trend recently to include some type of bikini/swimsuit category to a bodybuilding and figure competition, the training involved is much different.

As many of us know, it is very difficult for women to lose body fat. For these competitions, women need to get below 12%. It is necessary to be lean so the judges are able to assess muscle definition, which also means these women need to build muscle, another challenging task.

In order to achieve these results, competitors commit to a rigorous workout schedule and strict diet. Training usually starts about three months prior to the competition (I’m referring here to competition training. Many women have exercised for years before attempting to compete). This may start sooner if the individual needs to lose a higher amount of body fat.

As stated in the video, combining weights with cardio is most effective in burning fat. The workouts (at least twice a day) are very difficult, especially when your caloric intake is limited. At the beginning of the diet there are more calories in each meal, slowly tapering each week until show time.

Despite being tired, hungry, sore, stressed, and angry, these women press on to achieve a goal they’ve set for themselves.

Some say you have to be crazy to do this sport. From my own experience, that may be true!

Crazy in a good way, I say.

If you'd like to learn more about this, check out the following link:

http://www.hardbodyfigure.com

Figure Competition Prep from Shrell Krawczyk on Vimeo.

Be Bold

Learning about wiki’s was interesting, and creating one was kind of fun. I had used Wikipedia before, but I had never really thought about how it came to be. What was most interesting to me is how dynamic a wiki is. I find it a bit fascinating that anyone can edit the pages of a wiki, that in fact it’s the point of such a site to get the community active with participating in its creation. Prasarnphanich and Wagner described this concept as “collective authorship” in the article, “The Role of Wiki Technology and Altruism in Collaborative Knowledge Creation”.

While it was relatively simple to create a wiki page, the process leading up to its completion was not so smooth. My partner, Laura, was great and had an open mind to my suggestions. However, we both had such busy schedules it was difficult to connect on a regular basis. We communicated through email, and instead of “phone tag”, we played “email tag” a lot. While the point of a wiki website is to work together in sharing knowledge for others to see, unless you have an interest in the specific topic of the page I can see where you could lose your enthusiasm. It was strange trying to find a topic that we both liked when we did not even know each other.

Laura and I changed our topic from the one stated in the last assignment (placenta art). I didn’t have any images for it and we had thought of doing a wiki how about it. I think that topic is one where images are needed to be effective. After browsing BufWiki!, I noticed there were not a lot of pages on there, so I thought of what we could add. We ended up creating a page on Bufwiki! about a specialty gym I go to which is located in North Buffalo.

As I write this, I am a little frustrated because the assignment was to create a wiki article of at least 1,000 words. Laura and I did that. However, when I just checked the site I noticed that our page is totally edited already! It is completely condensed from what we created. There was so much more on our page last night.

This seems to be the opposite of what Prasarnphanich and Wagner, in their article, “The Role of Wiki Technology and Altruism in Collaborative Knowledge Creation”, explain as wiki magic. Wiki magic, according to Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia co-founder, is a cumulative effect of incremental knowledge contributions. The article explains how someone may start a wiki article with just a few sentences in the evening, then by morning there may be several additional paragraphs created by others. In our case, we had created several paragraphs in the evening, and by the next evening they were practically gone!

I guess I am not yet accustomed to the “wiki way”, explained by Prasarnphanich and Wagner as a shared code of conduct within the community when collaborating for wiki content. I am only just beginning to get my writing and ideas out on paper through the journalism program at Buffalo State College, and the concept of having to let go of the control or ownership of what I create doesn’t come easy yet. Particularly when I am surrendering to a bunch of “editors” unknown to me.

As with all things, over time I am sure I will get used to this new concept of “cooperating” and “collaborating” with virtually everyone. I hope that however, the changes made will not affect our grade too much.

Below is a link to our BufWiki! page
http://buffalo.wikispot.org/Stokes_Fitness

Below is a link to a site about how to use a wiki for group planning. Includes a video.
http://www.commoncraft.com/video-wikis-plain-english