Bodybuilding judging - men

Gadi Taroni

I still remember when I was an enthusiastic kid reading ‘sport-on’ magazines by Zvika (Zvi) Harlev..

The issues were relatively old, 93-94, and I eagerly swallowed every article.

- Sean Ray's chest workout
- Body Development Beauty
- Dorian yates mass plan
- Sonny Schimdt’s back
- Lee Haney’s training methods

And so many more..

One of the articles attempted to define the proportions requested for bodybuilder in questions directed to judges and elite competitors..

Now, remember we are talking about the golden age of bodybuilding when every athlete was a star:

Lee Priest Chris Cormier Flex Wheeler Paul Dillet Markus Ruhl Kevin Levrone Nasser El-Sonbaty

The article condensed the things that repeated the most and defined the appropriate proportions and structure as following:

- Calves muscle size equal to unflexed arm

- One leg width equal to waist width

- Round and wide pectoralis

- Round and wide shoulder, triceps should be at the rear deltoid line

- Wide lats and narrow waist

Still, those were the guidelines according to olympia competitors and senior judges.
Of course that other parameters such as mass, dryness and low body fat playing a fundamental role but judges paid attention to proportions and you could see it for an instance in ’93 Olympia when Lee Labrada ranked higher than mighty Paul Dillet.

there were a few other notes..

Now, we're talking about a time when bodybuilders legs muscles were definitely very developed but not at today's level and no one has any doubt that the criteria above is like a 90-60-90 model - a mold that is very, very hard to fit into..

The judges paid attention to the term “FRAME” meaning - how you would look like if we could stretch you diagonally to the height of your challenger or vice versa - if he were your height - and then you would have been judged fairly.

This way, for example the monstrous Lou Ferringo could stand on one stage with little Fabiano Beccianini and be judged fairly in relation to their size.

At the time, the golden age of bodybuilding according to many – you could see that the bodybuilder's condition level was crazy, they were cut to the bone and the competition seemed to be really about proportion, symmetry and mass.

Let's go back a moment – what are the judges looking for?

All Bodybuilding classes are judged on Muscularity, Symmetry, Balance & Proportions, Conditioning & Presentation.

First of all - CONDITION!!! The basis for the beginning of judging is the competitors who are ready for stage in terms of shape and dryness.

The shape is measured in two unwritten aspects:

The one you control - your body fat %

The one you born with:
muscle structure such as depth of fibers, muscle separations and veins.

The shape can be measured in "stripes" – shoulders, triceps, pectoral muscles, obliques, lower back muscles (Christmas tree), glutes, quads and twins.

A professional judge doesn’t need to linger on your body to notice how dry you are. He can tell in seconds even remotely that your skin is thin and “sticking” the muscles or if you have an elastic skin that points you’re not so dry..

Fluids can be detected in certain areas of the body such as that "Christmas tree" in the back that is very prominent when the athlete is dry, in the buttocks and waist.

If all competitors are dry and cut, you can start to notice the quality of the competitor in the proportions round (quarters of rounds to the right).

On the front round, we can see the width of the waist in relate to the legs and shoulders – the desired shape here is the X-shape, wide upper and lower body and narrow waists.
On the side, we can see the hamstrings in relation to quads, the buttocks, the pectoral muscles and shoulders in relation to the hands.
The back is similar to the front but gives another perspective on the back and rear deltoids muscles, back depth, buttocks and hamstring.
Compulsory poses allow judges to sharpen these points.

The general look of the X-shape in front double biceps pose is more important than the biceps size.

In both lat spread poses it's about the width of the waist in relate to the shoulders and not the back as you might think.

And so, each compulsory pose allows judges to better understand the athlete's qualities and how correct this definition is for him because bodybuilding is not just about exercising and building muscle, bodybuilding is art and the judge needs to identify who is the artist on stage and not who is the biggest or the most vascular or the driest.

Correct judgment requires a number of things, and one of them is to concentrate the best athletes on stage side by side, with the first place in the middle, second best to his left, third to his right and so on.
In another round of posing, the judges will be able to easily identify the qualities of the contestants and, if necessary, change their order or simply decide definitively on the rating.

So it's true, judgment is subjective, no doubt.

The "complete package" is in the eyes of the beholder or the judge.

But before the judgment is subjective - it has very, very clear guidelines and if a judge or judges don't understand it they damage our sport by having no clear criteria.

Professional judgment is a judgment of seniority and experience that the things written above are clear to the judge even without reading them.
Seniority as a fan, seniority as a competitor, seniority as a coach and only then seniority as a judge.