CHAPTER 55

Step Four – Round Three

“You have only two or three minutes to express yourself and show the audience what you’ve been training so hard for. You need to have music that suits your physique and personality.”

– Ed Corney, master poser, offering his views on the free-posing round.

Round 3, or the free-posing round, can win or lose a close contest for you. The free-posing round is also the last chance the judges have to see you before the posedown. You may have been “just another competitor” during the earlier rounds, but now you have your chance to really stand out and make the judges take notice. Also, don’t forget that the majority of the audience didn’t attend the prejudging, so here’s your chance to really win them over. There’s nothing like a well-polished and dramatic posing routine to get an audience on your side screaming and clapping. Given that the judges are only human such a response could tilt a close contest in your favor.

If you’ve attended any bodybuilding contests, you’ve seen many different routines. Odds are that you remember the dismal and the spectacular. A few boring presentations would have been a great cure for insomnia, while others were nothing short of poetry in motion. There may have been one bodybuilder who captivated the judges and audience alike from the moment he strolled onstage to the moment he left. Time seemed to stand still. That’s the impression you want to make, and the key to it is practice and preparation. So let’s start.

Photo of Chris Cormier by Irvin Gelb

MUSIC SELECTION

Few things are as important to a great free-posing routine as your choice in music. Your music must excite the audience as well as suit your physique. Larger physiques can get away with hard rock or classical, but smaller bodybuilders should probably stick to something more upbeat. You need a tremendous physique to get away with posing to slow classical music. Guys like Arnold and Lee Haney could get away with it back it the ’70s and ’80s because their bodies were huge and spectacular. The audience was mesmerized. But a 5'6", 160-pounder will only put the audience (and more importantly, the judges) to sleep with Beethoven.

If there’s any doubt, stick with pop or rock music. The best choice is something that’s currently on the charts. Most of the audience is in their teens, 20s and early 30s, so modern music helps get them on your side. Besides, modern pop music has an upbeat tempo that’s ideally suited for hitting poses to, and has the added benefit of getting the audience clapping along. Unless your physique is way off, such a favorable reaction from the audience can’t help but influence the judges.

Something else to keep in mind is that your music selection should complement your posing routine, not distract from it. While catchy to listen to, soundtracks from movies – especially science fiction movies with laser blasts – can overpower your posing routine. You also want to think twice about using speaking voices within your music selection. Some bodybuilders have managed to mimic the voices on their music selections with great results but it takes a great deal of practice to keep your poses and voice in sync with an audio track. And then there’s rap. Pure rap music is virtually all talk, and while perhaps a powerful way to make a social statement, it is an extremely awkward form of music to set a posing routine to. If you have the time, physique and desire to use rap music, give it a go. But I still think you should play it safe for your first show and use a pop song.

DRIVE-BY POSING

If you still have trouble deciding what type of music to pose to, try this little tip. As you’re driving around, visualize posing to the various songs you hear on the radio. As the music climaxes, visualize hitting a dynamic pose such as a most muscular or double biceps. As the music slows or drops in tempo, picture yourself hitting some classic poses or kneeling shots. Over a period of a few weeks you’ll discover that some songs have the right spacing between tempos to build a complete posing routine around. Or you may discover that parts of different songs seem to work well together.

CREATING YOUR CD

Whether you decide to splice different songs or use just 90 seconds of one song, make sure you get someone who knows what they’re doing to do it for you. If you have the money a professional sound engineer will do a great job, but even a local disc jockey can make a CD without it sounding amateurish.

Ed Corney flexes his biceps.
Photo of Ed Corney

Make two or three copies of your CD. This may sound trivial, but you’re tempting fate if you rely on just one copy of your music. Besides, you can’t forget your fellow competitors, some of whom have been known to play such games as “hide and seek” with your stuff backstage – especially if they think you’re their main competition. My suggestion is to carry two copies with you and have a trusted friend who will be present hold on to a third.

These days probably all contests use CDs, but make sure you ask. You’d hate to show up with CDs and find that they are demanding tapes. If you are using tapes make sure they are rewound to the beginning. It’s also a good idea to leave some blank space (about 5 to 10 seconds) at the beginning so you have time to set yourself in position onstage. Of course some bodybuilders have the music start before they step onstage and simply build their posing routine around this.

At the amateur level you’ll generally be limited to 90 seconds for your posing routine. But again you’ll want to check with the promoter to make sure. You may have only 60 seconds, or for that matter, you might have two minutes. If you’re talented enough to make it to the pro level, you normally won’t have a time limit, but you should still stick to no more than two minutes. Any more and you’ll overstay your welcome, any less and the judges won’t get a good look. A good rule of thumb is to stay just long enough to highlight your strong points but short enough to leave the audience wanting just a little bit more.

As a final suggestion, it’s probably a good idea to start collecting posing routines on DVD. There are numerous sources for this, including contests televised on ESPN and DVDs advertised in the various muscle magazines. Also, check out YouTube. Use the routines for both inspiration and instruction.

SWITCHING SONGS AND ROUTINES?

If you have a talent for posing (and don’t be surprised if you do – some of the sport’s greatest posers didn’t realize they did until they started working on their first routine), it might be a good idea to prepare two routines with two different music selections. By following the advice to use current pop music, you certainly risk ending up with the same song as another competitor. Nothing is as frustrating as having to follow a competitor who used the same music selection as you. Even if your routine is better than his, much of the impact is lost. You can easily avoid this if you have a second posing routine set to a different song all ready to go.

Besides the risk of duplication there’s another reason why you might want to alternate songs – dramatic effect. Nothing impresses the judges as much as originality, and a bodybuilder who has obviously done his homework. A few bodybuilders switch posing routines between the prejudging and evening show (some also change the color of their posing trunks).

Before leaving this topic I should leave you with a word of caution. If this is your first bodybuilding competition then no doubt you’ll be nervous. Your first time onstage will be stressful to say the least and it’s hard enough to remember the sequence of poses in one routine let alone two. If you do decide to use two different routines, make sure that you have the routines memorized and down pat. You should be able to flip through the poses in your sleep. If you have any doubt, stick with one routine. With time comes experience. In your subsequent contests you can start experimenting with multiple posing routines.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER – THE POSES

“I always worked hard at it. Posing is so emotional for me. There are so many parts to it. You have your facial expressions, hand gestures, foot movements. I went to ballet classes in L.A. and learned more. I was never mechanical, never afraid to express myself.”

– Ed Corney, Mr. Universe winner and master poser, giving his views on posing.

Once you have selected your music, the next order of business is building a posing routine around it. Pick your poses by answering the fundamental question: “What’s the purpose of the posing routine?” The answer should be straightforward: you want to show your body to its best advantage by highlighting its strong points and minimizing its weak points. For those who say they have no weak points, my response is dream on! Every – and I mean every – bodybuilder has weak points. Just take a look at the lineup from last year’s Mr. Olympia. You’ll notice some bodybuilders with upper bodies too large for their legs, lower chests that overpower the uppers, backs that come nowhere near the quality of the fronts, and, as is becoming very common these days, large, bloated-looking midsections. You may think I’m being too critical and perhaps you’re right. But the fact remains that every bodybuilder who ever lived had some flaws that needed to be made less apparent. Your goal is to do the same.

Your first step is to make a complete evaluation of your entire physique. Unlike music selection, for which your opinion probably counts the most, objectively analyzing your physique is best left to others. If you’re like most bodybuilders you’ll probably only see your good points and ignore or minimize your weak areas. Here’s where an honest second or third party comes in. Get someone to scrutinize your physique from head to toe, and make sure this person is both knowledgeable and not afraid to hurt your feelings. The best person is a judge or another competitive bodybuilder (obviously not one entering the same contest as you!). Have this observer make notes as he takes you through the compulsory poses. In fact, hit as many different poses as you can think of so he or she can get a complete look at your physique. Then get him to rank the poses from best to worst.

The next step is to start picking the poses you’ll use. There are two schools of thought on this. Some bodybuilders believe that since you’ll be doing the compulsory poses in round 2, there’s no need to include them all in your free-posing routine. The counter argument is that since the compulsory poses tend to be the best ones for highlighting your physique, you must work them into your routine. And the judges may feel that a bodybuilder who avoids hitting compulsory poses is trying to hide something. My advice is to try to use some if not all of the compulsory poses in your routine. If a couple of them really don’t do your physique justice then perhaps omit them, but put the rest in there somewhere.

Keep in mind that you have only about 90 seconds to work with. Allowing for a couple of seconds to hold each pose and another second or two in between will give you room for 15 to 20 poses. So choose wisely.

Once you have the poses ranked, the next step is to arrange them in a logical order. By this I mean placing them so that you make the best impression on the judges. Generally speaking, you want to start and finish your routine with your best poses. If you have great arms you can’t go wrong by doing a couple of arm shots, including the front double biceps. If you’re ripped to shreds and have a set of abs that look like stacked bricks, use them. Hit a couple of ab shots to demonstrate to the judges that you mean business and took your pre-contest dieting seriously. In fact, with most of the other competitors probably starting out with the old standby poses, you’ll stand out for your originality by opening with an ab shot. From here the choices are almost endless. Make your poses fluid, so they flow easily from one to the next. It doesn’t make sense to try going from a front pose to a back pose all in one motion. Most people would have a hard time making it look graceful. It’s much easier to stop halfway and hit a few side poses before continuing on to the full back shots. One of the things that separates the great posers from everyone else is the way they move almost effortlessly from one pose to another. Most bodybuilders try to stay flexed at all times but the great posers relax slightly between poses so when they stop and hit a pose, the muscles, veins and striations seem to pop out from nowhere. This makes a much more dramatic effect on the judges and audience than if the muscles were tensed at all times.

Most bodybuilders save the most-muscular pose for last, as it shows just about every muscle on the body and gives a great idea of your overall bodyfat percentage. A totally ripped bodybuilder will display veins, striations and cross striations when hitting the most-muscular pose.

TRANSITION

Once bodybuilding became more popular and the quality of the physiques increased, competitors began to realize that it was going to take more than a collection of individual poses to win. For those who have seen the documentary Pumping Iron, one of the opening scenes shows Arnold Schwarzenegger and his good buddy Franco Columbu posing under the direction of a dance instructor. Arnold was probably the first big bodybuilder to put as much effort into moving between poses as he put into the poses themselves. The great Cuban-born Sergio Oliva carried as much muscle as Arnold (perhaps more given his shorter stature), but looked awkward and unsure of himself when posing onstage. Arnold moved gracefully from one pose to the next. It was this attention to detail that helped make Arnold the superstar he became.

The art of moving between poses is called transition and it takes as much practice to master as holding individual poses. It’s for this reason that many pro bodybuilders hire professional dance choreographers to help them with their posing routines. And if you think that dance and ballet are for sissies, think again. I assure you that after a couple of minutes of posing, whether holding individual poses or moving from one pose to another, you’ll be huffing and puffing like you were on your last set of squats … and squats are not for sissies, right? So if you can afford it, take advantage of it. Instead of giving the audience and judges just another mediocre posing routine, start establishing your reputation as a dynamic poser.

FINAL TOUCHES

It’s easy to spot the bodybuilders who started practicing months in advance and those who have left it ’til the last week. The last-minute guys usually look awkward and seem to be searching for the next pose. They rarely interact with the audience and can’t seem to get it over with fast enough. Those who practice, however, appear confident and move gracefully from one pose to the next. They seem to be enjoying every minute and love interacting with the audience. They also do something very simple but important – they smile! Arnold may not smile much in his movies, but he always had a confident grin on his face during his Mr. Olympia days. Today such competitors as Dexter Jackson, Jay Cutler, Gustavo Badell, Ronnie Coleman, Mustafa Mohammad, Victor Martinez, Markus Ruhl and Toney Freeman flash the pearly whites every chance they get. They also make eye contact with the judges throughout their posing routines.

As you practice your posing routine, leave nothing to chance. This includes walking to and from the stage. Every now and then a competitor will trip on the stairs leading to the posing stage or platform. If possible, practice walking from one room to another and up a flight of stairs and then doing your posing routine. If you can, try sneaking into the actual contest venue and practicing. A great posing routine can take months to perfect but the results are worth the time and effort.

A well-polished, dramatic posing routine with great music will get the audience on your side.
Photo of Kai Greene by Paul Buceta

TIPS FOR MASTERING THE FREE-POSING ROUND: RECAP

Tip #1: Don’t make the first one your first one

Don’t make the mistake of making your very first bodybuilding contest the one you compete in. Attend at least one and preferably two or three contests as a spectator. Pay particular attention to the following: the length of time each pose is held for, how the competitors move from pose to pose, which competitor looks most relaxed (and who looks like they’d prefer to be somewhere else!), which competitor is too light or too dark. Also, study the audience. Figure out which routine(s) seems to go over better. Finally, determine which competitors are prepared and the ones who appear to be making it up “on the spot.”

Tip #2: Start posing months in advance

Unless you want to be one of those competitors we criticized earlier, start your pre-contest posing preparations at least two and preferably three months in advance. Holding poses is isometric exercise. You may be able to bang out 8 reps with 300 pounds on the bench press, but trust me, flexing every muscle in your body and holding it for 10 to 20 seconds is nothing short of brutal! Besides practice for the contest, posing helps harden your physique. Try to practice posing 30 minutes a day to give your physique a ripped, muscular look.

Tip #3: Shoot yourself! (No, we don’t mean develop suicidal tendencies!)

Have a friend take a dozen photos from different angles. Group the photos into good, fair and bad. Unless they’re compulsories, toss the bad ones. You want to start and finish your routine with your best poses. You can also use these photos to try and improve.

Tip #4: Master the compulsories

The free-posing round will allow you to be creative and camouflage weaknesses. But you won’t be able to do this as well in the compulsory round. The compulsory poses are there specifically to give the judges a close look at your entire physique. In fact, most placements are decided in the compulsory round. For this reason, you must have all seven or eight poses mastered.

Tip #5: Watch some TV

Hundreds of contests are out on DVD these days. In fact, many of the top bodybuilders have their own DVDs that instruct you how to pose. This is a great resource to help you learn and practice posing in the privacy of your own home.

Tip #6: Make your own videos (No, not like Paris Hilton or Pamela Anderson!)

Have a friend or relative shoot a video of your posing routine. Sit back and watch. Different, isn’t it? This is how the judges and audience will view you on contest day. Use the video to evaluate everything about your routines, from your static poses and transition moves to your facial expressions and confidence.

Tip #7: Variety is the bodybuilding spice of life

Do not rely on the same couple of poses over and over. Yes, you may have the best arms in the show, but what about the rest of you? The judges award points for creativity; they also penalize competitors who are repetitive. The key to impressing the judges is to display a well-balanced routine that incorporates the compulsory poses in combination with original poses.

Tip #8: Dance – no, wait – pose to the music!

Although music selection is a personal thing, there are a few points to consider. Only the largest competitors can get away with slow classical music. The rest of us will put both the judges and audience to sleep with such music. Play it safe and pick something modern and upbeat. Or blend a couple of songs with different tempos together.

Tip #9: Bring two copies of your music

Bodybuilding competitors are known to play head games backstage, and accidentally “misplacing” someone else’s music tape is one such game. Or maybe the copy you brought just doesn’t work right. Play it safe and bring at least two copies of your music. It probably wouldn’t hurt to have a third in the safe hands of a friend. Don’t forget to check with the promoter to see if they’d prefer tapes or CDs.

Tip #10: Posing transition – like poetry in motion

Take a look at great posers like Ed Corney, Frank Zane, Chris Dickerson, Lee Labrada, Vince Taylor and Melvin Anthony. All these great bodybuilders had or have one thing in common: they make posing look effortless and fun. When putting your own posing routine together, try to infuse a sense of style and personality. Also, while you don't have to be a ballet star, try to ensure your poses flow seamlessly from one to the next.

Tip #11: Mix it up in the posedown

Don’t be afraid to mix it up; this is no time to be meek and mild. By this round, you’ll know who your closest competitor is. You’ll also know how you stack up on a bodypart-by-bodypart basis. As soon as he hits one of his best shots, counter it with one of your own. Try to outdo him at every opportunity. Don’t hold back. In a close contest, a show of aggressiveness may be enough to push the judges in your favor.

Tip #12: Relax and smile!

Even though it’s tough work, try to make your posing appear effortless and relaxed. Try to smile at all times – even during the most difficult of poses. This is another reason you should begin practicing a couple of months in advance. One or two weeks of preparation is simply not enough time to train the muscles for holding forceful, static contractions, all while appearing relaxed.

Tip #13: Display confidence at all times

You must constantly believe in yourself and feel that you are the best. Try to straddle the fence between cockiness and confidence. If you’re still not sure, watch Pumping Iron and pay close attention to Arnold’s attitude. At no time did Arnold appear as though he felt second best. In his mind he was the best, period. Believing in yourself will come through onstage – you’ll hold your head higher, hit your poses more forcefully, and appear relaxed and confident. And besides, if you appear to think you’re not up to par, then the judges and the audience will think you must know best.

Tip #14: Practice, practice, practice

Posing will fatigue you just as much as any chest or leg workout, because you’ll be flexing and contracting every muscle in your body. The best posers practice for 30 to 60 minutes every single day. They treat posing the same as a workout and perform “sets and reps.” Put the time in and you will be rewarded on contest day.

Photo of Dexter Jackson by Irvin Gelb