What are Your Opinions on My Proportions?

I have what I believe my proportions are, what is behind, what is a strength, and what my weaknesses are, but I wanted more opinions on the subject. Please list what you believe my strengths and weaknesses are, as well as being specific on what about it makes it a strength or weakness.
A little about myself
I am 5’5" (165 cm)
I weigh around 152 lbs (about 69kg)

1 Like

Hi JT. You look great, IMO.

Really nice job with your lats (wicked insertions there in your front double bi pose). Delts and triceps also shine, IMO. It’s a little hard to tell in some pictures, but I suspect your triceps are dominant when you’re pressing, rather than chest, but that may be lighting, or just your genetics for chest development. Overall, you have great proportions. Obviously, we can’t see the balance between hamstrings and quads in these.

@ height. I don’t think he’s here often these days, but I’ll tag @robstein, in case he has time. I think he’s very close in height. Also, you might enjoy seeing pictures of Kelly Bautista. He’s an acquaintance of mine, and is one of the most developed men I’ve known IRL. He’s not at TN, but you can google him. He’s about your height. I always like to look up pictures of petite women, of similar height.

Best of luck to you. Just a question. Do you have an athletic background? How long have you been lifting?

Amazing how close our physiques are! Even the long arms hahah. Kinda hard to make them look big right? I’m 172cm @ 72.5 kg

You look great and everything seems to be well-balanced. Chest might be your weakest point relatively. But it’s not like it’s lagging… Just a LITTLE behind the rest imo. Might be lighting though.

Thank you man! I agree 100% with you saying it is my chest, and believe it or not my chest takes over in my lifts. I think it is mostly genetic, but I agree 100%. Also, I didn’t include my hammies cause those are definitly not a weakness for me :joy:.

1 Like

Tbh, I actually have really short arms for my body, and an even shorter torso. I just have a lot of taller friends take my pictures, or I set up my phone on a low bench. Thank you for your input though! I was thinking my chest was my weakness, but I thought maybe that was the bro in me and that it is really my quads :joy:

Oh really? What’s your wingspan? The vitruvian physique is seen as ideal and wingspan should correspond to height.
Nah your quads are totally fine! But I get you. Big quads look sick.

I have a 55 inch wing span (roughly 140 cm). That is REALLLLLLY stretching too.

Oh, and thank you about the quads! I was hella worried :joy:

Damn those are quite short then! You should have no problems building MASSIVE arms then. Good luck on your journey!

Thank you! I appreciate your input!

@anon71262119 thanks for the tag!

@jtpender - happy to offer some input. I am 5’4", stage weight of 140lbs, current off season weight of 155lbs.

Please keep in mind as this is “Rate my physique” I’m going to do my best to provide my honest thoughts and feedback, we’re not here to blow smoke. You clearly are dedicated, so that being said, use this info to move forward.

FIRST AND FOREMOST - what do your workouts look like?

You certainly have some muscle on you and have a good start to a great physique. To be honest, it’s hard to tell your proportions because you haven’t posted any pictures that allow us to see your proportions, these are mostly bro shots in favorable lighting. There are also no back shots, or quality leg shots, or hamstring shots.

It’s hard to tell your leg proportions again because you haven’t posted any pics that allow us to see your physique in its entirety. From what I can see, your quads don’t look like a weak point, but again hard to see how they line up. Again, back and ham shots would be helpful.

I’ll go one shot at a time regarding proportions -

Shot 1 - locker room shot - Shoulders are popping and are the strongest point. Abs are flat and need development for rounder muscle bellies, same for your chest. What kind of direct ab work do you do? Upper chest? Chest in general?

Shot 2 - arm sticking out - again hard to tell proportions by this shot. One thing this pose is supposed to show off is triceps, and forearm to wrist ratio, in which case I’d say bring up both.

Shot 3 - quad shot - calves look good, can’t really say anything about the quad shot in regards to proportions. Again, quads are not a weakness.

Shot 4 - front double bicep - Try to lower your arms a hair to make your lats appear bigger/wider. Shoulder and arm development is on the way. Chest needs to be brought up.

Shot 5 - side chest - Chest needs to be fuller everywhere; upper, middle, and lower. With the top down favorable lighting it’s hard to see what’s really there. Abs aren’t visible as you’re vacuuming quite a bit, maybe try tightening the abs and obliques next time.

Shot 6 - bicep - Bicep is the strongest point of this particular shot. Chest is lagging as well as abs.

If you want serious feedback about proportions, post better pictures that allow us to see your proportions. Full body shots (legs included), lighting from the front - Front bicep, front lat spread, rear bicep, rear lat spread would get the job done.

3 Likes

Thank you for your feedback! It was extremely useful and I can definitly upload some of those poses that you mentioned, but later today since I don’t actually have those one my phone.
My workouts are actaully kind of hard to explain. I set up an entire macrocycle that contains three messocycles. First one is basic hypertrophy and lasts 5 weeks, second is another hypertrophy block that uses higher rep ranges and lasts 5 weeks, then the third is a strength/resesitization cycle that lasts 4 weeks. Each cycle has a deload week at the end due to how each is set up. For both hypertrophy cycles, I will start with a low amount of sets, then add sets and weight (weight only changes if I can and can also move down, even though it very rarely does.) as I progress through the cycle. The fourth week of the cycle is a very large amount of sets that differs from each body part so that I can aim to overreach. That is one reason behind a deload for week five. The strength cycles are new for me. I added them since I noticed that after about 2.5 months that my progress slows. With that, I decided to take a break from trying to grow and work on strength. Not 1rm strength, but just strength. It is very low volume. I am not aiming for hypertrophy, but instead to maintain and optimize.
For what I do for chest. I follow that outline. I always trade between two focuses though, from messo to meso. Those focuses are upper chest and the rest. For upper chest, 50% of my work is pressing for the upper chest (I always include an incline barbell or flst barbell press, so in this phase it would be an incline that is included), then 25% towards flys, and the other 25% toward pressing that doesn’t focus on the upper chest. The other focus would follow the same ratios, but the 50% does to presses that do not focus on the upper pecs, and the 25%s go to flys and upper chest dominant pressing.
Ab work I do is mostly lower ab focused. I do not do hanging leg raises because I feel them in my hip flexors before I do my abs, but instead do them on a flat bench. I often weight those movements since research has shown that the abs benifit more from traditional work as opposed to doing sets of 30 or so. I do change those exercises every 2 messo cycles though. I do not do much oblique work because I thought that they were string for me, but of course my opinion could be wrong.
Then one last thing, and it is a side note. In my side tricep pose, believe it or not, but I actually wasn’t vaccuuming there. I have one hell of a vacuum, but that is mostly due to how thin my waist is. I think about pulling my rib cage up in most poses that I di because it makes my waist look even smaller, and even though it doesn’t make my chest look better I still do it in hopes of that. Should I just not do that, and instead opt for relaxing my ribcage and flexing my abs?
I will hopefully have those poses for you today. Since I hope to compete in classic physique instead of bodybuilding, I will do all of the poses for the professional level and post them on here.

The one thing that I forgot! All of those pics are from my social media, so I arange lights very carefully. I will not do that for what I am going to send to you.

1 Like

@jtpender Thanks for posting better pics.

In regards to proportions - You’ve got a good structure, lat development helps the waist look smaller, certainly good for the bodybuilding look.

What to bring up - chest, shoulders and abs.

CHEST
Based on your workout structure, it would be helpful if you included specifically what exercises you do, but overall, I’d encourage you to focus more on your MMC (mind muscle connection) and feel a better pump in your chest. This is especially clear on your side tricep pose, and side chest pose, the chest is lacking compared to the rest. Your back is wide, could use more thickness which will come in time, and a big full chest will fill out the upper body. I’d consider hitting chest twice a week, and again, focus on the MMC, initiating the movement with your chest and squeezing hard, keeping it out of your triceps and front delts, completely in the chest.

SHOUDLERS
Front and medial delt development is ok for your current structure, but your rear delt needs to be brought up, as can be seen more clearly in your side poses, and rear-bicep. This will give you a well rounded, 3-D shoulder look and will make the side chest, and back-bicep, more impressive and proportionate. Do you do any rear delt isolation work? Rear peck deck, face pulls, chest supported straight arm dumbbell swings, all good. I also do a vacation of standing next to the cable machine, set the attachment at shoulder level and pull, using a single rope. Great pump for the rear delts.

ABS
Consider doing some weighted movements for abs and stop focusing so much on lower abs. I’m not saying ignore them, but abs benefit from being trained as any other muscle group. Weighted cable crunches are pretty standard, ab wheel rollouts, etc. Doesn’t take a ton of volume or frequency, but two to three exercises for 10-15 reps, 4-5 working sets each, twice a week, should be helpful.

POSING
Continue to work on your posing, if you want to get on stage eventually, practice as often as you can.

On your front poses - bring your feet a little closer together, especially the front bicep. Continue to squat down slightly and point the knees out over the toes. Grip the floor with your toes and try to turn your legs outward slightly to flex the quads. On your front lat spread, keep your hands closer to the sides of your body, they’re too far in front of you and are covering up the lats, and decreasing the space between your torso and arms, making you look smaller. Touch your torso at the narrowest part as you are, but don’t let your hands get so close to your belly button.

Back poses - your back leg should be more to the side and not as far back, also get more of a bend in the back leg and put the weight on your toes so your calves pop on both legs. Flex the hamstrings more as well by feeling like you’re trying to scrape gum off of the bottom of your feet.

Side tricep - keep your shoulder closest to the camera (audience) down, it’s raised pretty high up. Do not vacuum or lift the rib cage for the side poses. TKeep your chest elevated, but don’t lift the rib cage. Squeeze the obliques much harder towards the audience.

Side chest - bend your legs a little more to pop the hamstrings out. Again more rear delt work needed here to round out the shoulder.

Hope this helps! Certainly have a good start, work to be done before stepping on stage.

Practice your posing a lot, as much as you can.

Also, just my .02, take better pictures of yourself as often as you can and use those pictures to gauge your progress. Taking 5 minutes to have perfect top down lighting might be the look you want for your social media pics, but they’re not indicative of what’s truly going on with your physique, and won’t allow you to accurately gauge your progress. When you’re on stage, the lights come from the front, and they are insanely bright and unforgiving. Be prepared!

Please always feel free to post and tag me anytime :slight_smile:

2 Likes