You Be The Judge!

My own personal experience with physique judging began in 1981. I had invited several of my H.I.T. Squad team members to a local physique contest so they could see the order of things as well as what the local competition looked like and what they would be up against. As I was going in the National Chairman for the AAU greeted me at the door and shook my hand. He was there in Winchester VA. When I won the Virginia State Championships in 1980 and seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when I won because he knew I was drug-free competing in “open” or untested events. He made an appeal to me to basically give back to the sport by volunteering my time as an AAU Physique Judge, because there was a shortage of judges.

I couldn’t think of any reason why I wouldn’t so I agreed. He gave me the phone number to the nearest branch of the AAU where I could purchase a copy of the official manual of Rules And Regulations For The AAU Sport of Physique. And after purchasing a copy, I began to study the contents of this manual from cover to cover.

In this manual there were photos of models that illustrated the standards of physique both male and female. What would be considered the ideal? What  would we be looking for in graphic detail as judges? The manual taught the judge what to look for in the physique and how to evaluate the caliber and quality of the athlete. Extremely informative to me having a back ground in anatomy, I already knew the names of these muscles.

But I did not realize at the time how physique contests were judged. Like most athletes I would show up at a contest in the best shape I could be- and hope for the best in terms of the outcome. I had no idea how the criteria was defined or how many points were allowed for each catagory, or how many different categories of  judging there was.

Like most other bodybuilders I didn’t know the rules or even the finer points of my own sport!
But as I absorbed this manual and I began to test judge, I really got insights that would later on help me to know what the judges were looking for, this proved to be very valuable to me- I now knew what the judges were looking for at the different levels of competition. And I was able to use this information to my advantage for my own competitions.

It wasn’t long before I was judging local, regional, national and finally international physique competitions. Over the years with continued practice my eyes have sharpened and I have been able to distill much of this information to help others understand how to judge the physique.

I’m going to share an article I wrote two years ago on how one can “Judge” their own progress- with this information, I believe that you the reader will be able to determine if I have indeed eclipsed my condition of 1980.
Then I would like for you to cast your vote.
Is “everyone” OK with that?