Quote Originally Posted by IronRobi View Post
He's probably still out eating, but congrats on the 2nd place.

I guess I don't understand the judging of this category yet. To me you were bigger and leaner than the guy who took 1st. Which is probably why you got 2nd?

My overall thoughts on the show were kind of disappointing. Record # of competitors with 138, but probably a record # who just completely missed their conditioning as well.
Physique (men and women), figure, bikini, are WAY more subjective than bodybuilding. You can't just have the ideal physique and mean you are going to win. stage presence is about 80% of it. That's why there is such an incredible spectrum of types of bodies that do well in those divisions. People always ask for advice on how to improve their body to suit the division. They place 2nd to someone a little less conditioned and they assume the next show to get less ripped. It's the biggest mistake I've seen over the years especially in figure. The girls just said, OH the judges go for "this" today, its so confusing, etc.

When in reality stage presence determines success most often. Hard to figure out, but once you do, its a powerful tool. At that point you don't need to worry much about improving bodyparts, etc, since the effort needed to put it to make the change in your physique would have been trumped 100 fold by putting the same effort into perfecting stage presence. Some people are born with it, some people can practice to get it, and some people will just never get to that point. Personally I would likely never have had what it takes to pull of the physique stage presence. I would say Randy would agree that was the reason for 1st vs. 2nd when the first place had more experience in that type of light. Both arguably had pro body types - but its not really the body that separates the placings.