Comments
Hey Vander!
We've corresponded on some other topics, but not necessarily a critique.
Your physique is a great one -- absolutely, and from the perspective of those not so advanced having a good model to look at, learn from, and aspire to.
Beginning with bone structure: you have a longer than average collarbone, which gives you naturally broad shoulders. They also appear pretty much horizontal, which enhances the visual image of breadth. Your rib cage is more oval than barrel, which is better for bodybuilding. 20 years ago, the barrel chest was used and admired in the side chest particularly -- not so anymore. The barrel chest poses problems proportionally in that it's hard to get the upper pec thick enough so as to look well-developed, and the barrel chest also makes arms and legs look small, even when they are not in absolute terms. Your rib cage also tapers, and the floating ribs are flat and tucked in. This allows the waist to be narrow and the stomach to be flat. Hips are flat and relatively narrow compared to shoulders. Length of arms and legs in proportion to each other are good, and upper body length and lower body length are in good proportion. All in all, about as good a bone structure as a bodybuilder could ask for! Go hug your parents!
Muscle structure is also good -- great thickness along the full length of the muscle structures with good insertions into either the next muscle group or the joints. The muscle bellies look to have good shape for development.
Development of the muscle structure is led, right now, by arms and delts. Legs need to be brought up to comparable mass with the upper body, arms particularly. Legs are passable from the side, which you could improve by using the back leg as a "prop" against which you lean the front leg in order to expand it. This requires moving the front foot farther out from the center line and bending the knee in so the thigh is pushed against the back leg. You already know how to do that, I'm sure, but you just don't yet do it habitually when posing. It matters, particularly when the legs don't yet have comparable mass with the upper body.
However, from the front, the quads don't have the total width or the outer sweep they need. In the short run, especially since you need to be careful not to re-injure yourself, you can "mask" that deficiency by concentrating on getting deeper separation in the quads, and making sure the separation shows all the way up into the hip. Obviously, thigh extensions with emphasis on holding the contraction and a slow negative are standard for this. Hack squats may be less risky of injury and also help you in this.
Hamstrings need to "project" back with more sweep. I would bet, though, if you posted a photo of legs from the back, that the hams would also need more width at their base -- i.e., they're probably somewhat narrow right now.
Arms and delts are your strength. However, given how much arm size you have, I'd suggest changing your hand position in the side chest to what it would be if you were doing hammercurls. Given that your arms overpower your legs, you can make use of that to emphasize separation instead and simultaneously lessen the visible discrepancy. In hammercurl position, you should see the brachialis come out more, which gives that impressive 3-part arm separation. You give up a little appearance of size, but you don't need to emphasize the disproportion between arms and legs anyway.
I don't know how far apart the side chest shots were from the photo in camo pants in a double bi. However, the double bi suggests that the inside face of biceps and triceps don't match the development of the outer face. Triceps dips off the side of a bench and reverse grip pushdowns on cable will help the inside face of the triceps. Elbow position when doing biceps exercises will affect the inside face of the biceps.
Would love to see a back shot! Though maybe after all the above you may not want to post it!!!!
Posing. Your approach to posing appears to favor power and mass versus lines and definition. I'd recommend a better balance. For example, in the side chest you are bringing your arm way back. In that position, you can't press it against your rib cage to get more size or to pop your delts even more. Use your lats to push out your tris, and your rib cage to push out the bis, and then change the hand position as I suggested above to hammer curl. Your arm ought actually to look even bigger, have greater sweep in the tris, and have much better definition.
In the double bi, you're hiking up your shoulders which collapses the traps and narrows the shoulders, losing some of the impressive width and therefore taper that you have. Drop them into a more natural position, and don't EVER roll them forward (which collapses the upper pec and also narrows them). Also, don't lift your rib cage so high that you can't show abs -- remember that good judges are always judging the WHOLE physique regardless of the name of the pose currently being performed.
Would love to see a lat spread, a back double, a back lat, and a side tri! I have a hunch your side tri has to be spectacular!
Simply put, you could be a highly competitive IFBB Pro with not a whole lot different from what you have. Yeah, some really hard work for probably a couple of years. I know you have family and other obligations, so I'm not saying "do it"! I'm just saying you could do it if competition fits into your life -- I never recommend trying to fit one's life into competitive bodybuilding as that's almost uniformly a recipe for living in a truck outside a gym with no life at all.
I hope that's helpful (and encouraging!) to you, and useful to others who may read it who are not as advanced as you are. Congratulations on the truly great gifts which you possess, and on the hard work and willpower which have developed them this far!
KenT
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