I’ve been training for 4 years very consistently, averaging 80 working sets a week across all body parts. As a lifetime natural in my 40s, I’ve never competed in a bodybuilding show, but I’m eager to know what I need to improve to have a strong chance of winning a natural show. The leanest I’ve dieted down to is about 10% as shown in the leaner photo (I might be off by a few %). I appreciate honest and constructive feedback, so please don’t hold back. What body parts need the most improvement to be competitive? Thank you for your time and input!
Overall you look pretty solid. Obviously need to get way leaner to compete.
Legs have good size but i would expect more separation in the muscles at current leanness. Might be an issue for you trying to get the legs peeled enough.
What’s your current height/weight?
What class would you compete in?
Be good to see a side shot.
You are quite a way from winning a bodybuilding contest if the competition is good. But you need to start somewhere.
You seem to have fairly good symmetry and balance. As @s.gentz says, we need to see some side poses.
Your inner thigh development is lacking and needs more muscle. More squats and leg presses.
Your body fat needs to be much lower for striations to show, which you will need to place higher than competitors in contest shape.
EDIT addition: You need to learn to spread your lats doing a front double biceps pose. You need to learn how to pose your legs. You need to get good at posing. And I am not talking about doing a posing routine. I am talking about learning how to do the compulsory poses to show your strong points and hide your weak points as best you can.
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Thank you for the reply! Yes need to get far leaner and I’m probably higher than 10%. I’m 5’ 9", 172 lbs to 180 lbs in these photos. I like classic and/or physique. What class would suit me best? To be competitive, what weight do I need to get to? My lower body holds more fat so probably why my legs have “good size”. I get a lot of compliments on my upper body, but was always called chicken legs growing up so its nice to hear I have good size. I still need a lot of leg development and I’ve never been close to seeing glute or ham striations. I guess that’s the last to come in when dieting down.
This reply was meant for s.gentz
Thank you for the reply! Yes need to get far leaner and I’m probably higher than 10%. I’m 5’ 9", 172 lbs to 180 lbs in these photos. I like classic and/or physique. What class would suit me best? To be competitive, what weight do I need to get to? My lower body holds more fat so probably why my legs have “good size”. I get a lot of compliments on my upper body, but was always called chicken legs growing up so its nice to hear I have good size. I still need a lot of leg development and I’ve never been close to seeing glute or ham striations. I guess that’s the last to come in when dieting down.
Thank you for your honest opinion. I’ve always felt my legs need more muscle, but didn’t think it was the adductors. It might be the posing making my sweep outshine the adductors, but I probably just have lagging inner thighs. I have been training more quad focused on leg press. I don’t squat much because of hip issues, but when I do its high bar quad focused. My quads were lacking so much that I devoted a lot of training to them. Now maybe my adductors, hams, glutes were left behind? I’ll try more squatting. Would hack squat be ok instead because it feels better on my hip? As for my posing, its a work in progress. I’m a beginner in posing and need to do it much more often. I can’t even properly hit a lat spread. Like you said, I need to learn to spread my lats. I’m just so tight and bunched up. Any tips on opening up the lats? Mobility work or just more practice? Here’s my disastrous attempt at a front/back lat spread.
Might be the posing or maybe I just need to grow my lats more.
Here’s a side chest with a better camera phone and different lighting/background. A lot of these photos are random, some cutting, some bulking, but I’m about 177 in this photo.
Try to get a side tricep. I’d like to see how thick you are back to front.
I think your biggest obstacle is gonna be getting your legs in shape but who know, maybe they come in great at a bit lower BF.
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You’re not going to improve much at this point. Pick a show, prep for it, practice posing, and do it.
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The three guys that responded all have stage experience. I don’t so I can’t add anything other than to mirror @BrickHead and just go for it. Pick a show, if you can find a coach, and start your prep 16 weeks out. Give yourself this amount of time or close to it to get ready.
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If anything, your quads are by far the best quality of your legs. Your vastus muscles are long and full. Your rectus femoris muscles are full. The remainder of the muscles in your thighs are extremely underdeveloped. Those who complement your quad development are not seeing the imbalance in your leg development.
You could do wider and higher foot placement leg presses (and get to moving very heavy weight and get deep.)
You must concentrate on the back of your thighs. It is likely that your glutes are doing most of the work, thus your glutes look round and full, yet your hamstrings appear almost non-existent. My guess is that this will be a real challenge.
This is a “trick.” You need to be able to control your scapula to flare out. It will push your lats wider. You need to control your scapula on both the front and back lat spreads AND front and back double biceps pose. For some this comes natural. For others, they will need to work on finding how to have the muscle control to accomplish this.
More back development is always a benefit, not just lats. You need thickness too.
Quads / hams / possibly calfs…but look solid bro !
These are from about a year ago and the other one from a year and half ago. I don’t have any recent side tri pics. Shows how little I practice posing. I’m not sure what I’m doing holding my wrist haha. I don’t like this pose as it’s hard on my shoulder, but I’m sure it will get easier the more I work on it. I looked up how to do it properly holding my hand and a better stance, but haven’t practiced it much.
I will do a show in August or one in September, maybe both. Doing a muscle gaining phase for the next 4 months and then I’ll cut down for the show. I know I can still make gains in my lagging areas. I’ve ran specialization programs before that have helped me grow noticeably over 4-6 months. Just need to figure out one or two that will make the biggest difference and hit them hard for the next 4 months. I know I won’t be putting on several pounds in 4 months, but even small gains are worth it to me at this stage.
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I’m going to do a show at the end of this coming summer. I just wanted to know what lagging muscle group I need to focus on the most until then. I’ve dieted for 8 weeks straight before, but I think I’m going to need 16 weeks to get into contest shape. I’ll really have to push the dieting though. If only the dieting was as fun as the training!