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Bodybuilding Poses
Bodybuilding Mandatory Poses
Posing could very well be our biggest 'pet-peave'. Your posing can make a total difference in your physique. Just the slightest adjustment in your position could bring out muscularity that you didn't even realize was there!
This is what we focus on more than anything in your preparation.
We will eliminate any bad habits you may already have or be developing.
- Trembling
- Bad positioning
- Poor stage presence
- Weak point exploitation
When you train with us, we make sure your mandatories are flawless and your routine is second nature!
Your posing should be practiced several times per day. Even after you have it perfect, you need to make it even better!
We have created a list to show you each compulsory pose that is required in mostbodybuilding contests
The Mandatory/Compulsory Poses
This list of mandatory poses was created as a study guide for those that don't know how to do or what the poses are.
| Men | Women |
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Although the lat-spreads are not required for the women, you could see the pose during pre-judging if requested by a judge. So practice them anyway! Ladies! Don't ever do a most muscular!!! |
Quick Tips:
In the descriptions below, I will refer to your front and back legs. Your front leg is the one closest to the judges/audience. Your back leg is closest to the curtains.
In every single pose, always "set" your legs before you do anything else. Don't hit your hamstring and your biceps at the exact same time. Be a little dramatic and attempt to catch the judges attention. But don't be downright SLOW!
| Front Double Bicep This can be done with either one leg out in front or to the side as seen below. |
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| Front Lat Spread This pose is usually done with feet together for men. If you have some decent size quads, you could even space your feet apart a little bit. But don't do this if you have like 25 inch quads or something! No offense. |
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| Side Chest We perform this pose with our back leg slightly bent and the front leg bent with the toe right inside the instep of the back foot. To get a little more thickness from the hamstring to quad, squeeze your front knee in against the back knee. Or try just the opposite slightly bending the front knee out. Try both and see which looks better on you. |
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| Side Tricep Keeping your front leg SLIGHTLY bent and your toe turned out just a little, bring your back leg about a foot behind you on your toe "spiking" the calf. Turn your back knee out just a bit. Enough to see some of your hamstring. Now bring your back arm around behind your back and grab the wrist of your front arm. Your front arm should be straight and locked. |
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| Rear Double Bicep The judges may call out which leg they want back and spiked but otherwise, practice with both legs. Facing the curtains, bring your left leg back about a foot squeezing the hamstring and spiking the calf. Turn both knees out just a little bit. The right or forward knee will not be turned out as much as the left or back knee. With the left leg, turn the knee out just enough so that the judges can see a bit of your quad's outer sweep. Now, reach up above you as though you were doing a close grip lat pulldown and slowly bring your hands down into fists. You want your elbows slightly higher than your shoulders and your fists will probably be just above your ears. Do not squeeze your biceps so much that your thumbs touch your shoulders! That looks rediculous! |
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| Rear Lat Spread The judges may call out which leg they want back and spiked but otherwise, practice with both legs. Facing the curtains, bring your right leg back about a foot squeezing the hamstring and spiking the calf. Turn both knees out just a little bit. The left or forward knee will not be turned out as much as the right or back knee. With the right leg, turn the knee out just enough so that the judges can see a bit of your quad's outer sweep. Now, reach out in front of you as though you were doing a close grip row and slowly bring your hands towards you into fists. [This is commonly refferred to as the "Christmas Tree" part of the pose. This is because if you have good muscle development in the back, your lats will form a shape almost like a christmas tree.] Place your fists on your hips just above your posing trunks and pull your elbows forward and spread your lats out. This is a tricky pose and often takes a lot of practice to get it right. |
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| Overhead Abdominal & Thigh Extending one leg out in front of you [slightly bent at first], reach up behind your head and then flex your abs. You should also be flexing your biceps as well since they are in plain sight! After hitting this pose for a couple of seconds, straighten and lock your extended leg to hopefully show more striations ("Feathers") through the vastus lateralis or outer sweep. |
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| Most Muscular There are more variations to this pose than worth mentioning. Here are a few...
Basically what you are doing during this pose is trying to give yourself a headache. Your are squeezing every single muscle in your body all at once (including your traps which usually does it for me). |
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