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Bodybuilding Posing Tips

This is an excerpt from Bodybuilding Anatomy by Michael Israetel,Jared Feather & Christle Guevarra.

Universal Truths of Posing

There are a set of universal principles in physique posing that can be applied to almost all poses and posing situations. These principles, when followed, can make every physique look better, and, when ignored, can often render even the most impressive physiques less impactful and aesthetic. Let’s discuss these nine principles briefly before we discuss individual poses.

1. Smile confidently: Unless you’re turned away from the judges, smiling confidently can add to the perceived aesthetic of your physique. By practicing smiling confidently during posing, you can negate the problem of letting your natural facial expressions take over—frankly, many people’s expressions look strained and silly!
2. Open up: You are posing to show off your muscles, not to hide them. A key principle in nearly all poses is to open up your physique. You can do this by flaring the lats, lifting the chest, not retracting the scapulae, and opening up the knees to show the full size of the legs (inner thighs included). For example, in most poses, having your chest up and out makes you look thicker, wider, and taller at the same time. If you let your chest cave in, even on the rear lat spread pose, you can diminish the impact of your silhouette. If you constrain your physique by curling in, you’ll look much smaller than if you open your physique up—and looking as big as possible is kind of a huge deal in posing!
3. Focus on what’s visible: Do you have to contract your glutes when you’re facing the judges in your most muscular pose? Absolutely not. No one will see it, and the extra strain will be visible in your posing and your breathing; it can also tire you out sooner in long posing rounds, degrading your presentation over time. Similarly, if you’re doing a rear lat spread with your back to the judges, your tummy will pooch forward if you hit the pose right. Still, because the judges don’t see the pooch and because pooching forward allows for your waist to look smaller from behind, all is well! Some novice competitors will flex their entire bodies because they think everything is always on display onstage. But unless some of the judges have X-ray vision, this is not the case.
4. Contract all visible muscles: While contracting non-visible muscles in a given pose is unwise, contracting all visible muscles in a pose is a very good idea. This may seem obvious, but countless competitors forget about most of their muscles and focus only on contracting and positioning a few of them. For example, novices tend to contract their biceps and triceps for the front double biceps pose, and some remember to control their midsections, but many forget to contract their legs. It’s often said that you should contract the needed muscles from your feet on up, making sure not to miss any.
5. Employ shallow breathing: If you breathe with large tidal volumes (huge breaths in and out), you’ll experience two negative results when posing: First, you’ll end up having a huge, bulging gut about half of the time that you’re hitting a pose—neither judges nor fans and photographers will enjoy that look. Second, you’ll also illustrate to the judges that you’re out of cardio shape for posing, and that’s the opposite of both a professional look and the kind of look that ups your placement in the final tally. When onstage, you need to mostly breathe with shallow breaths so that your midsection doesn’t move much and stays under your control. Is this tough? Yes. Is it possible to master? Absolutely. It takes many practice sessions of posing to master this, especially longer sessions where you’re running through all the poses multiple times and holding each pose a few seconds longer (about five to 10 seconds total) than will usually be asked of you in competition. Judges have very keen eyes for who’s in shape to hit the poses like a pro; they definitely know who’s slipping up, unprepared.
6. Don’t over-contract: Contracting your muscles (also called “flexing”) is a critical part of displaying them properly. However, if you contract them with as much muscle force as possible, in most cases they won’t look appreciably different than if you just contract them the minimal amount to make them taut. In fact, if you contract them any more than this minimal amount, they have a much higher chance of cramping onstage (really bad news), and each pose will tire you out much more, degrading your posing quality as the comparisons proceed. Also, it will be easier to smile and breathe if you aren’t trying to contract so hard as to rip muscle from bone. Why do professional bodybuilders often make posing look effortless? Other than years of practice, it’s because they’re not actually working that hard!
7. Don’t shrug up; shrug down: Shrugging up brings your shoulder joint closer to your midline and makes you look narrower. Shrugging down reverses this path, and makes you look wider. Practice shrugging down in nearly every pose. This is a very common mistake, right up there with over-contracting.
8. Control your midsection: Don’t just control your midsection with your breath, but also keep your abdominal muscles contracted (barely, but taut) nearly the entire time you’re onstage. You can, in fact, relax them during poses where you face away from the judges. For any forward or side-facing pose, make the waist narrow via abdominal control (that also applies to many visible transitions between poses). Novices will often forget to control their waists, and this can make poses like the side triceps pose feature a comical looking, though muscular, pooch belly. This isn’t the look you’re going for—we promise!
9. Position before contraction: Position your limbs where they’re supposed to be first. Only after they’re in the right place should you contract the needed muscles, in most cases. For example, during the front double biceps pose, arrange your legs as needed, then your core, then flare out your lats, then raise your arms up and get the right shoulder and elbow position, and only then contract everything with the needed intensity to present it best. If you go muscle by muscle from the feet up, the same rule applies: Position the limb how you want it, and then contract, repeating all the way up. It’s tough to move into positions while contracted, and it also wastes needless energy in high amounts.

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