March 15, 2003

Perfecting the Art of Posing: Part One

Understanding the importance

You’ve trained as though your life depended on it, you’ve dieted as if you were stranded on a desert island, and you’ve labored over your bikini and routine outfit as if you were a top-name fashion designer readying your collection for the next big Paris show. You’ve done all this, but you forgot to learn how to pose -- the one thing that actually shows it all off in fitness and figure competitions. (Yes, what you do in fitness and figure competitions, all those quarter-turns, is full-fledged posing.) As a result, you get on the stage and all that hard work is shortchanged because you haven’t done the one thing you needed to do in order to present yourself properly.

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many fitness and figure competitors make the same mistake, but that doesn’t make it right. In fact, it can be lethal come contest day. If I had to guess, I’d say posing can count for 20% to 50% of your final placing. Did you hear that? Up to almost half! You don’t believe me?

I remember watching one contest and seeing a competitor whose physical condition should have put her in second place -- she was not good enough for first, but certainly good enough for second. The problem was that this person was the worst darn poser I’d ever seen. The hands were going from here to there seemingly unattached from the body; the arms were flailing as if she wanted to climb a tree; the muscles were flexed, then relaxed, then flexed, but never flexed when the judges were actually looking; and worst of all, there was this look on her face as if to say "I just don’t want to be here." It was painful for me to sit in the front row and see all this potential and have the person go from second place to fourth in a flash.

I had done photos for her, though, so she called me a few weeks later and we had a chance to talk. She asked me pointblank what I thought about her placing at the contest. My response was based on two rules that I think are vital: First, the best way to learn is from mistakes, and second, honesty is the best policy. So I told her flat-out that she should have been in second place, but she was the "worst darn poser I’d ever seen" and that’s how she ended up in fourth.

Now granted, that’s quite a heavy burden to throw on someone in less than two seconds, but I did manage to lighten the load a bit when I told her not to feel too bad because even many national-level competitors don’t have a clue how to pose. Surprisingly, this person didn’t feel bad and I didn’t have to tell her my second rule (even though it was true). In fact, she was overjoyed to find out she could have placed second if she had posed well.

The next year she phoned me and asked me to help her with posing. I said I would on the condition that we worked together for at least three weeks, two to three times per week, and that she took posing as seriously as she did dieting and training. She readily agreed because it certainly wasn’t dieting and training that defeated her last time; it was that other thing that everyone takes for granted and never spends any time doing -- until it’s too late.

So we worked together for three weeks. This contestant didn’t go from "the worst darn poser I’d ever seen" to "the best darn poser I’d ever seen," but she did become a "competent and respectable poser." The result was that at the next contest she won it hands down. When called out to pose, she did it perfectly. Because of her outstanding physical conditioning combined with all the other preparations she had made, the judges didn’t need to see anything more and it was first-place scores across the board.

Proper posing alone won’t make you a winner, but proper posing combined with effective training and dieting can guarantee that you’ll get the placing you deserve -- and sometimes more!

Why you need to start posing today

When I taught this competitor the intricacies of posing, I started three weeks ahead. The reason that we started three weeks ahead and not four is that I was busy during the first week. Had I not been busy, we would have started right away. The point is, the earlier you start, the better you’ll be by contest day. Posing should be as integral to your preparations as training and dieting, and if at all possible it should start three or four months out.

So now when I assist people, I start as early as possible. At the moment I’m helping a national-level athlete who will compete in two contests, one at the end of May and the other at the beginning of July -- probably like many of you who are reading this article. We started her posing sessions in the middle of February and already the progress is showing. In fact, we are seeing so much improvement that our plan for doing this every second week has jumped to every week. For one hour, sometimes more, it’s quarter-turn after quarter-turn after quarter-turn, flexing as hard as she would as if she were on the stage, implementing little refinements here and there to ensure that she’s showing off the best aspects of her physique, and hiding any flaws so that they go unnoticed by the judges.

Posing is not easy and after the first session she told me that she was sore for at least four days -- longer than after a workout! But it’s worth it and all that practice makes you learn it like the back of your hand. By the time contest day comes around, posing will be as natural as doing squats or bench presses (or perhaps downing cheesecake and ice cream when the dieting is over).

The obvious benefit to starting early is to have time to refine the posing to perfection, and to master it so well that it happens almost subconsciously. Being able to do it almost without thinking also helps to show supreme confidence when you’re on the stage. The opposite is being on the stage and shaking like a leaf, trying to hold poses you haven’t even practiced, and knowing full well that you don’t look as good as you could.

There’s another benefit to starting early. A number of the very best bodybuilders in the world -- three-time Mr. Olympia, Frank Zane, and the legendary "Iron Guru," Vince Gironda, for example -- have said that practicing posing makes you more muscular-looking come contest time. Not surprisingly, Vince and Frank were fantastic posers and were years ahead of their peers in terms of presenting well-defined physiques at bodybuilding competitions -- the same criteria that holds true in fitness and figure competitions.

So does posing really make you more muscular? Does that mean you don’t have to diet as hard to get that well-defined physique? While it is true that posing is strenuous (four days of soreness is a heck of a long time!), and that extra exertion you’re putting into posing will burn calories, I don’t believe that it’s a great fat-loss tool. Get on a treadmill or a bicycle for the same amount of time and you can burn off more fat. I also don’t believe that constant flexing changes the muscle to make it appear more defined. Muscle is muscle and how it looks is more a result of training. However, I do believe that the constant practice allows you to gain much more control over your muscles which allows you to snap your body to attention on a stage. In turn, that can make you appear more defined and muscular. So, yes, an expert poser can also appear more defined.

I can spot an experienced poser over a novice in a flash. The experienced poser can turn her body from something as soft-looking as a marshmallow to something as rock-hard as granite with such effortlessness that you’ll never see her move. The novice, on the other hand, will be shaking as though it’s minus 30 degrees onstage, straining with all her might, and still nothing will be popping out.

Hopefully, I’ve convinced you why it’s so important to become an expert at posing -- it may be the difference between first and second, or second and fourth. And if you’re now a believer in posing, you realize that the best time to start is today! Get going on it. Next time I’ll explain how to show off the best aspects of your body, and how to hide the rest.

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com

• Go Back