February 1, 2004

Competitors: This Is the One Mistake You Don't Want to Make
Special guest editorial by Doug Schneider, SeriousAboutFitness.com chief photographer and publisher

Some of the people who read SeriousAboutFitness.com are fitness enthusiasts – people who train and eat the right diet, but who just want to look good. Others are competitors – those who don’t just want to look good, but who want to get up on the stage and show the world how good they look. We obviously invite both to read us, and we hope we’re giving each of you some good information so you can move forward, but this article is specifically for the competitors. Its purpose is to give one solid piece of advice that’s applicable to all competitors before you get onstage. And it’s valuable advice whether you’re entering your first or your 100th show. It can help you win.

Every competitor knows that in order to enter a fitness (or figure) competition you must train and diet, and most competitors do a pretty good job of taking that seriously. (Whether they end up in the condition they want is another story.) What most people neglect, though, is to practice their onstage presentation – in other words, posing, walking on and off the stage, facial expressions, etc. All the things that show off all that training and dieting that you did to prepare. And I don’t mean practice it once, I mean practice it over and over for months, making it as integral a part of the preparation as training and dieting are.

Why do I recommend spending so much time on this? I believe that onstage presence can account for about 25% of how well you do – sometimes even more. To put that number into more meaningful terms, if two competitors are equally good with regard to their physiques, the one that’s practiced her onstage presentation will likely win. Why? She will be better able to show off what she has than the other person. And if one competitor does not have quite as good a physique as the other, she can overcome that obstacle by having a better presentation, and there’s a good chance that she will win, too! Yes, the lesser competitor can come out ahead. I’ve seen it happen a good number of times. As Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) said in Pulp Fiction, "Personality goes a long way."

But onstage presentation is more than just personality – it’s a bunch of little things that end up creating the "whole package" that you see onstage. And while I can’t tell you everything you must do to practice this aspect of preparation, I can tell you the things that, at the minimum, you must consider.

First, you must learn to pose to show off your body to your best advantage. And when I say posing, I do mean all those quarter-turn fitness and figure poses you must do. Fitness and figure may not be bodybuilding, but it takes the same type of skills to show off your physique.

Posing is an art form that takes months just to get good at and years to master completely. Frankly, most people never perfect it because they never put enough work into it. While posing may look simple to do, particularly for figure and fitness competitors who must simply do quarter-turns, in reality it’s quite complex. There are a countless number of little things you can do, and should be doing, to make yourself look your best. To start you off, I recommend that you read the articles I wrote last year ("Perfecting the Art of Posing: Part One, Part Two"). Following that, it’s practice, practice, practice –  and don’t forget to get feedback from others. Believe it or not, you are your own worst judge.

A couple of other things you must consider are how you walk on and off the stage and how you stand in the lineup. Have you practiced walking in high heels? The day of the contest is not a good time to learn. Do you know how to stand in the line so that you’re the one everyone notices? There are little tricks you can do to make that happen.

Finally, your facial expression is crucial. Think about it: If you were the judge and two competitors were very close, would you pick the person who looked scared or would you pick the person who looked confident and ready to win? The best competitors, even when they’re not at their physical best, can make you believe they are the best just by the confident look on their face.

How often should you practice the onstage-presentation aspect for contest preparation? In my opinion, a minimum of once per week for two months (eight sessions) is necessary to at least be comfortable. Preferably, though, you’ll need to give yourself about four months – that’s why I’m writing this article for you now. You want to learn it so well that it becomes second nature so you don’t even have to think about it. And remember, this is not something you should do alone – you need feedback from others. Recruit a "team," get a private posing room, and let them critique you. And remember to use the heels you’re going to use the day of the showing, and make sure you’re wearing your real posing suit, too. You need to practice each time as if you’re competing that day.

So have I convinced you? I hope so. If you take this article seriously and incorporate "presentation" into your training schedule you’ll have overcome the one mistake most competitors make. If not, you stand a good chance of walking onstage and being only 75% of what you could be – at that point you had better hope you’re not facing off against the person who’s done 100% of the work. Take it to heart and start now if you haven’t already.

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com

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