Bodybuilding Articles & News
Decades of trial and error from the highest level of bodybuilding written down. No hype. No shortcuts. Just what worked, what didn't, and why it matters for serious lifters. Every article connects to the Five Tracks on the BuildWithPros Education page.
Off Season Bodybuilder: How the Building Season Actually Works
An off season bodybuilder eats the same food as in prep, just more of it, and trains heavier. How Shawn Ray ran the building season.
How to Lose Weight During Menopause: What Changed, and the Five Levers That Work
How to lose weight during menopause and perimenopause: why the old way stops working, and the five levers that do, from protein to sleep.
Foods to Avoid for Menopause Belly Fat: The Short List, and What Not to Cut
Foods to avoid for menopause belly fat: the short list is the foods that arrive as a flood and the big carb dinner, and what not to cut.
GLP-1 Foods to Avoid: The Food List That Protects Your Muscle
The GLP-1 foods to avoid, symptom by symptom, and what to eat instead. The list is shorter than most versions, and the real risk is not a banned food but the retreat to plain carbs that quietly costs muscle. From the Side-Effect Food Playbook.
How to Increase Ferritin Levels in Women Who Lift: Test First, Then Food
Low iron is the quiet brake on a woman's training. The symptoms, the foods in absorption order, and why the test comes before any supplement.
How Much Protein Should a Woman Have?
The daily protein range for a woman who lifts, the per-meal target that makes it work, and why the number climbs after 40 instead of falling.
Signs of Not Eating Enough for the Training You Do
Sleep worse on the same hours, fatigue that no rest day fixes, training going backwards, a cycle that shortens or stops. Two or more together is the message, and the scale is the last place it shows.
Creatine for Women Over 40: What the Trials Actually Found
The pooled trials in women over 40 found roughly a third of a kilogram more lean mass and roughly 7.5 kilograms more on the leg press. What the dose was, why the bone density claim does not hold, and why none of it showed up without resistance training.
How Much Protein to Build Muscle: The Numbers That Actually Matter
The daily number is the easy part. Most lifters eat enough protein across a week and still stall, because the shape of the day is wrong: almost none at breakfast, most of it at dinner. Here are the numbers, and why distribution decides how much of your total the body can use.
Post-Show Rebound vs Reverse Dieting: How to Keep the Body You Earned
The show lasts an afternoon. Whether the cut was worth doing is decided across the two weeks nobody photographs. What the body is actually doing for the first five days, why the scale is the less honest instrument of the two, and why maintenance protects the result better than a reverse dieting schedule.
Peak Week in Bodybuilding: How Pros Handle the Final 7 Days Before a Show
Nobody wins a show in the last seven days. Plenty of people lose one. The four decisions peak week comes down to, from carbs depleted then loaded to water tapered but never cut off, drawn from Shawn Ray's nearly two decades of competing at the highest level.
Women Building Muscle and Losing Fat: The BuildWithPros Approach
The rules of building muscle and losing fat do not run on a separate track for women. Protein builds tissue, training sends the signal, consistency decides the outcome. Here is what is specific to women, and what changes after 35.
Can You Build Muscle Without Protein? The Straight Answer
No, and it is not close. Here is why protein is the one requirement you cannot skip, how much you need per meal, and where a good powder fits.
What Is the Best Muscle Building Supplement? A Hall of Famer's Honest Answer
The short list of supplements that actually work fits on a napkin. Here is what to buy, what to skip, and how to avoid getting fooled by the label.
GLP-1 Fatigue: Why You Feel Weak, and How to Protect Your Strength
Strength does not drop because the medication targets muscle. It drops because the chain from appetite to recovery breaks one link at a time. How the mechanism works step-by-step, and the three signals that protect strength on GLP-1.
GLP-1 Alternatives: How Habit-Based Fat Loss Compares
Two valid paths to fat loss, two very different tradeoffs. How sustainable habit-based fat loss compares to GLP-1 medication for lifters across speed, muscle preservation, cost, and what happens after the phase ends.
GLP-1 Muscle Loss: The Four Principles That Prevent It
Lifters on GLP-1 medication lose weight faster than ever, but a meaningful share of what drops can be muscle. The four principles that decide whether the scale moving down means progress or regression. From the BuildWithPros methodology.
The Shawn Ray Diet: How I Eat, Train and Build Muscle for Life
Eat like a bird and you'll look like a bird. Eat like a horse and you'll be built like one. The principles behind how Shawn Ray eats, refined across nearly two decades of competing and the years around it.
What the BuildWithPros articles cover
The articles on this page are written reference material built on the same method as the rest of the BuildWithPros catalog: bodybuilding training, nutrition, contest preparation, recovery, and mindset for serious lifters with two or more years of training. Each article answers a specific question, states the answer first, and connects to the products and learning tracks that go deeper. The catalog behind the articles is organized by goal into the Five Tracks on the BuildWithPros Education page.
Where to start
The competing sequence runs in three parts: peak week, your first bodybuilding show, and the post-show rebound. Lifters over 40 can start with building muscle after 40, natural bodybuilders with how big you can get naturally, and anyone weighing up their supplement stack with do supplements work.
Who writes the articles
The articles draw on the teachings of IFBB Hall of Famer Shawn Ray, 13-time Mr. Olympia competitor with 12 consecutive top-five finishes from 1990 to 2001, and on the source material behind the BuildWithPros audiobooks, videos, and PDF guides. Articles produced by the BuildWithPros team draw on published research alongside his master class material. Every factual claim is checked against the source before publication, and no article promises results.
Press releases and company news
This page also carries press releases and announcements from BuildWithPros: new product launches, catalog updates, and company news. Press releases are written for media use and are marked as such in the title, so they are easy to tell apart from the educational articles.
How the articles connect to the catalog
Every article links to the titles it draws on, across the PDF guides, audiobooks, video master classes, and bundles. The articles give the answer; the catalog gives the full system behind it. For direct input on an individual situation, Pro-Level Coaching pairs two sessions with Shawn Ray with the complete video bundle.