According to my mum, I am somewhat of a slight narcissist, so looking at myself in the mirror has always been one of my favorite pastimes.
Now with my first competition approaching, the mirror has become an important part of my daily workout routine. Besides checking my form in it while I am actually lifting weight, the mirror is the essential tool to work on my posing. In order to be successful at a bodybuilding competition you need to have more than just a sculpted body, you will also need to know how to present it.
Now with my first competition approaching, the mirror has become an important part of my daily workout routine. Besides checking my form in it while I am actually lifting weight, the mirror is the essential tool to work on my posing. In order to be successful at a bodybuilding competition you need to have more than just a sculpted body, you will also need to know how to present it.
On stage, a bodybuilder is judged by several criteria. The judges are obviously looking for muscular size and definition, but also for symmetry and importantly, the ability to present it.
Posing is exactly this ability to present your well-trained body. Nearly every bodybuilding event consists of several rounds of posing routines, which vary between prejudging and the actual show.
During prejudging, the "morning show", there are usually three posing rounds. The first round contains the so-called "semi-relaxed poses", the second ones are the "compulsory poses" and the third round is the "free posing".
Semi-relaxed Poses: Unlike one could assume by their name, these poses are anything but relaxed. Every competitor is viewed from the front, his or her left side, the back and the right side, while constantly flexing the entire body and maintaining a relaxed look on his or her face. This round's purpose is to mainly evaluate the contestants' proportions and symmetries.
Compulsory Poses: In this round the contestants are asked to perform seven or eight standard poses and emphasize specific body parts. As with all poses, even though the focus are on specific muscle groups, the entire body from head to heel needs to be flexed and held for some time. The standard poses are Front Double Biceps, Front Lat Spread, Side Chest, Side Triceps, Back Double Biceps, Back Lat Spread, Abdominal-Thigh Isolation and Most Muscular. Depending on the sanctioning organization, a competitor might be asked to only present his strongest side or show both sides for Side Chest and Side Triceps.
Free Posing: This round gives the competitors the opportunity to present their unique routine and emphasize their strong points, while at the same time hiding weaker areas.
The actual show, which is most of the time at night, usually begins with "free posing to your choice of music", then a "pose down" between the top competitors and is concluded with the "overall pose down"
Free Posing To Your Choice of Music: It's show time. Like, the free posing round during prejudging, this round gives the competitors the opportunity to present their unique routine and emphasize their strong points to a 60 to 90 second piece of music of their choice.
Pose Down: In this round, the top competitors of each class pose "against" each other simultaneously on stage and present their best poses to the audience before the placing is announced.
Overall Pose Down: This round allows the individual class winners to compete directly "against" each other on the same stage before the overall winner is announced.
The key to good posing is endless practice. I am currently working on all mandatory poses for 15 to 30 minutes every single day. Besides having the possibility to "hit" them at the aerobics room of my gym in the mornings, I also put up a large mirror in my bedroom to work on them in the evening.
Besides adding posing to my daily workout routine, I have also changed up my cardio workout and increased it from a daily 30 minutes session to a 45 minutes session. Since my main purpose of doing cardio is to loose body fat without losing too much lean muscle mass, I am trying to keep my heart rate between 110 and 130 beats per minute. To achieve this, I am only "walking" on the treadmill at a constant 3 miles per hour speed, but at varying inclines. The first 15 minutes are performed at a 5.0% incline, the second 15 minutes at 7.5% and the last 15 minutes done at an incline of 10.0%. This causes my heart rate to gradually increase within the fat burn zone.
...who gets leaner and leaner and is 6'8" tall?
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