Posing

[foxybrown]

How soon should you start practising the mandatory poses for a comp? I'm 14 weeks away from my one in Sept and I'm thinking I may start practising now... The guy at my gym holds posing classes every Sunday - I haven't been to one yet (my bad), I'm gona check it out tomorrow though. Is it worthwhile to do yoga as well for flexibility? This is my first comp and I've already tried to do a few poses just from what I've seen in some pro pics and man, they are hard to hold for more than a few seconds!

[jono]

How soon should you start practising the mandatory poses for a comp? I'm 14 weeks away from my one in Sept and I'm thinking I may start practising now... The guy at my gym holds posing classes every Sunday - I haven't been to one yet (my bad), I'm gona check it out tomorrow though. Is it worthwhile to do yoga as well for flexibility? This is my first comp and I've already tried to do a few poses just from what I've seen in some pro pics and man, they are hard to hold for more than a few seconds!

i practice my posing every day and im not even competing yet. im gonna make sure my posing is perfect

[deegee]

I often pactice different poses usualy when I come back from the gym (and no one can see) some are hard and do take a lot of work to get right, so no time is too soon to start I also think it helps with muscle definition to try different poses, it gets easier to maintain with practice just make sure you get someone to critic them so you dont pick up any bad postures and find it hard to break later.

[big brontson]

you can never get enough practise of the mandatory poses and the more you practise the better as you will learn beter ways to hold your poses and get better definition and size ,example: you may rotate your rists right back on a back double biceps to enhance bicpes or practice doublefront lat to coax the muscle right out etc

[muffinman]

me and mossely practised and went through her routine and posing way early when others hadnt even thought about their routines, the earlier you start the more confident you will be on stage.

[Mossley]

Yip, I agree, you can't start soon enough. I've been slack and stopped mine but I will definitely start again soon. It also increases your fitness and if you do half an hour even three times a week you'll notice a difference in muscle tone.

It is really hard in the beginning to hold them for more than about 5 secs but after a bit of practice you will find it easier. When I was on stage I didn't even think about the pain, you just hold it for as long as necessary but I found that the next day I could hardly move. Everything was sooooo sore. It's the adrenaline that gets you through. I used to feel like I'd run a 10km run after I'd finished practicing!

I also found that my posing got heaps better after practice, the trick is to keep smiling (start practicing that now, it's easy to forget!) and make it look easy even though every muscle in your body is screaming for you to relax!

[Pseudonym]

How hard do you squeeze the muscle when posing, Mossley? I know a lot of people do squeeze hard, but to be honest, I'm not convinced it gives much extra size or definition. I suspect it just makes people shake.

Of course, you've got to flex hard, but to squeeze hell out of the muscle may be counter-productive?

[muffinman]

i was back stage for most of the wellington show, and watching the guys close up posing was very good, ive never seen posing done so hard, facing the crowd it was all smiles but when they turned their backs to the crowd you could see the effort they were putting in, they were straining as hard if not harder than a workout at the gym and you could see close up it made a hell of a difference, afterwards some of them had to sit down to catch their breath.

[Mossley]

Hmmm, I probably didn't explain that correctly. When I said a difference in muscle tone, I meant that all that posing does make you sweat and like muffinman said it does make you feel like you've been out running. So really what I was trying to get across was that it's awesome for fat burning which in turn will show more muscle tone as you lose fat.

When I was just practicing posing I wasn't tensing as hard as I was on stage, but I still ended up exhausted after 30 mins of it. Most days we used to do it after a workout so I was still warm enough not to inure myself and it was just enough to deplete the muscles fully.

I think it just takes so much out of you because even though you are focusing on showing one or two muscle groups everything has to be tensed so it does put a strain on the body.

[muffinman]

a few years ago a friend of mine came 2nd in a comp and was told after the show by the judges he would have came 1st if he had kept flexing hard with his posing, he was very exhausted and began to relax with his strikes and lost some of the vascular look, as many trainers etc will say you can have the best body on stage but unless you can pose properly and keep looking confident, ripped and pumped up you will not get the 1st place.

[tafrost]

for you foxy - take advantage of those posing classes of Tony's, he's the man when it comes to posing - he's got the bod and he moves beautifully!!!! thats why he's the champ! Big ups to him...

[foxybrown]

Went to posing class today - had a session with Tony. Went over the mandatory poses. Worked up a sweat! I've been practising from time to time and it is getting easier to hold most of the poses. The ones I'm having difficulties with is the Abdominal and the side Tricep poses. Will definitely need to keep practising these. I'm enjoying the whole process now

[Pseudonym]

Yeah, side tricep is a tricky one for me too. I'm just not flexible enough there (yet) for it to look good. Are you finding the same thing?

[tafrost]

Posing is effectively an addition to your training it helps to get you "stage fit" and you need to get a feel how to pose right for you, the individual, it's different for all to eccentuate bodyparts that are your best and bring out your weak body parts!! I've just started myself, although I haven't got the master of posing like yourself - so think i will struggle a little with posing this time round!!! But gotta do it.....

[foxybrown]

Yeah, side tricep is a tricky one for me too. I'm just not flexible enough there (yet) for it to look good. Are you finding the same thing?

I think it's a combination of not being flexible enough and my technique.. I haven't quite got it right. I need to get my right shoulder curved a bit more to show more of the muscle. Mind you, I'm still working on defining my tricep muscle - I carry a lot of fat there unfortunately. It's a very stubborn part to lose fat from for women!! I'm going to print the pics I took last night to show to my nutritionist & Lynnie/Tony. Need to get their opinions on my posing and areas I need to work on.