Cost of bodybuilding

[bigsd67]

Hey Guys I was planning on competing for the first time in November. Therefore would begin constest dieting in mid April to early May. My question is by your estimate how much does prepping for a competition cost?
Food, Coaching, Registration Fees, and anything else that goes into it...i'm planning to do a natural amature show so the cost of gear doesnt apply...i just wanna know so i can start saving. thanks.

[quebecbulk]

since your natural i would think food and suppps would be the biggest concern....personally for me it would run me up about 150$/wk(CAN).
100$ food
50$ supps.

[Rsox1]

depending on what you are eating the price could vary greatly, i mean if your eating tuna and wholesale protein it will be a lot cheaper than fillet minot and rtd shakes out of the gym cheapest i could see while still meeting your needs ( enough good whole food, and supps, glutamine bcaa's ephera product, good mrp and protein powder along with some zma, and multi) it cold be around $100-125 for the food and $50-80 for the supps a week thats pretty costly but if your natural you have to pull out all the stops with the supps

[decadbal]

yea, even with finding the cheap ways id spend upward of 100 for a week or week and half, so id save up if your on a budget

[saboudian]

I was surprised how frickin expensive it was when i competed. Lets start with mandatory crap that there's no way around.

$50 to enter comp
$50 to join organization sponsoring comp (1 year membership)
$50 for drug test (if its natural comp, )
$50 for your dreamtan/protan or whatever you end up going with
$50 for 2 pairs of posing trunks
$35 for perfect posing video
$50 for ECA (obviously more if you go with clen , but either way you'll probably end up using some type of fat burner somewhere)
$50 (at least) for tanning

Now I would consider those the bare essentials for what you will need to compete, there's obviously a million ways to make it more expensive. For example, instead of eating canned tuna you might switch over to chicken or even fresh fish which really adds up, or if you have trouble tanning you might decide to buy some lotions or go for the more expensive tanning machines. I pretty much went with all the most expensive crap for my first comp, so i would say I definitely was over a grand. But now I know that some of those things don't work, so I won't even bother with them the next time, so I know next time I compete it'll be a heck of alot cheaper.

Of course the other things that are gonna cost you money is the fact that there are gonna be somedays where you just feel like crap, and you're not gonna want to work any overtime ever during the prep, and you will probably have to take a day or 2 off of work during the final week.

As far as getting a trainer for it. This is definitely something I would recommend, especially for your first contest. Find someone who preps alot of ppl every year. There's a supp store somewhat near me(not a GNC) and they prepare tons of ppl every year, and all they ask for in return is that you buy your supps there. Or you can check out comps or comp fliers and see what other competitors go to get their comp supplies and stuff.

Well, anyways good luck with the comp, the first one is definitely the hardest and most expensive, but you'll learn quite a bit. Good luck!