Posing Help! (Lat Spread)

[Primal]

Hey all, been really busy lately cutting down for this summer and it's going great so far! I've met a lot of really cool people in the industry (an IFBB pro and a handful of competitors!) in the past few months and it's been an awesome experience hearing their tips and seeing how they workout and I've learned so much! A couple of the guys are getting show ready and have been focusing on posing at the end of their workouts and naturally I like to watch and learn how they do it. They have been helping me with the poses but one that apparently needs big improvement is my lat spread.

These guys can all do their spreads perfectly, you know, where they pull their arms back and then push out and rest there hands around the pelvis area. I do mine but the problem is, my arms are really awkward when I flare my lats out. Keep in mind, I'm a lot taller than all of these guys, they are all around the 5"8 to 5"10 range and I'm 6"4. But anyways, when I put my hands by my pelvis, I only feel my lats half spread out if that makes any sense? Also my arms are so long that the elbows flare out and the whole pose looks really awkward as a whole... When I practice I usually do things a bit differently. For starters, I noticed that Marc Lobliner sometimes pushes out with the backs of his hands instead of with his fingers in some of his older videos. I like doing this more because it reduces the elbow flare towards the end of the movement but is that a good thing? Do people do this pose like that on stage, I don't know...? The biggest factor though is me moving my hands up closer towards my rib cage however. Suddenly when I do this, I can fully flare out and tense my lats all the way. The closer I bring my hands to my rib cage the better it is, but of course moving it up too far blocks the wingspan of the lats eventually, so I usually bring my hands up to my lower abs if that makes any sense. Also I find that if I get a slight lean backwards this helps too, not huge lean, just a very minimal one. The guy who poses most often tells me that I'm doing the pose wrong and that I'm supposed to keep my hands alongside my obliques (like when Shawn Ray does the pose, I'm sure you've all seen the video). But like i said before, my arms just flare out awkwardly when I do it like that. The guy says that I need to get wider and that will help with the pose a lot more. I definitely agree with him, I can still fit through doorways lol but I was just wondering if posing differently is ok or if I really am doing it wrong and need to bring my lats up a lot more?

P.S. I don't really know where to post posing under...? If there is a a posing section in the forum and I just missed it then sorry mods.

Thanks guys,

-Primal

[Sean Summers]

Hands most likely should be at belly button level. Are you talking about front lat spread or rear lat spread. They are different poses. Why don't you post up a video? You may get your point across better rather than trying to describe it.