Techniques and systems for magnetic resonance imaging. In one aspect, preparatory pulse sequences precede alternating repetition time steady state free precession (ATR SSFP) pulse sequences to enable image acquisition before reaching a steady-state equilibrium. The design of the preparatory sequences is based on a two step process: First an oscillatory residue is expressed in terms of a window (e.g., a Kaiser-Bessel window) and scale parameters. Second the oscillatory residue is minimized to determine the scale parameters according to a desired application (e.g. ATR SSFP, optimized for fat, water, etc.) The preparation scheme described in this specification can be applied to arbitrary repetition times and RF phase cycling combinations.