Front Double Biceps Pose

Advanced Posing Technique Master Class

Without doubt the single most important pose in competitive bodybuilding is the Front Double Biceps. No other shot has the ability to prove without doubt the quality of your physique when seen from the front.

Unfortunately the front double biceps pose has a very nasty mean side to it. If your physique has any weaknesses or your posing is slightly off then run the risk of looking bad in this pose. You might look worse in this pose than any other, which doubly proves how important it is to be able to hit the perfect pose.

Actually, if you are going to try and master any pose then this is the one. No other pose is as important.

The front double biceps seems like such an easy pose to master - you stand there, lift your arms up and pose, doing the age old biceps shot that anyone in the street would ask you do to when they want to see you arms.

Actually it is one of the most technically difficult poses to perform. In my opinion here is what is required to perform a great Front Double Biceps shot:

1. Standing relaxed

Stand in the relaxed (which is anything but) front pose.

2. Pose the legs

There are several ways you can pose your legs but we'll use the classic stance here: It is exactly the same as with the relaxed front pose!

If you've got the front relaxed pose sorted then you're virtually half-way there with the Front Double Biceps! Your heals should be slightly narrower than your waist apart with your feet pointing away and outwards - your feet should point between 45 and 90 degrees away from the direction you're facing. Increase or decrease this angle according to how your legs look - if they look better with your feet pointing out more then excellent, if not reduce the angle to the optimum position. Your feet should almost feel like they're in a Charlie Chaplin type duck-like position. You might feel daft to start with but it really is the best way to pose your legs - if you're posing with your feet pointing forward then you aren't showing your calves or quads off to their best.

You should be aiming to have your calves tense at all times - one trick to do this is to rise ever so slightly up onto the balls of your feet, but not so much that it looks like you're tip-toeing. You'll find that you only need to rise up ever so slightly to tense the calves and as long as you're on the balls of your feet your calves will stay tensed and in this position that will enhance their look by making them look wider and more diamond shaped.

Your knees should be ever so slightly bent - definitely not straight and locked out. Nothing looks worse than a bodybuilder posing in this pose with straight legs! The bend in the knee helps to ensure that you're always tensing your quadriceps and also stretches them out just that little bit and this really help to improve the look of them. I prefer to pose with my knees pointing diagonally out like the feet position but at a less extreme angle - 10 to 20 percent is more than enough. The position of the knee can really accentuate parts of the quads over others so play to your strengths and watch out for your weaknesses - if you don't have much flair or width to your quads when seen front on then experiment with knee direction but beware that pointing the knees too far out can make the quads look thinner. As I always had very thick quads I could get away with quite a big angle which really helped make the quads bulge and appear even large than they were.

Pointing your toes and knees out at an angle help to show off your inner calves - experiment with angles to find the best angles to show off both your calves and quads at their best.

Final point is to remember to ensure that your quads are fully tensed at all times - even with your knees bent slightly you will need to remember to keep them bent and tense your quads as much as needed to fully show their size, shape and definition.

Shawn Ray knows how to pose his legs (though he's slightly leant over to one side - intentionally). Note the pointing out toes and knees, the slightly bent knees and how tense his quads and calves are. What a fabulous poser Ray was.

3. Hitting the pose.

Executing a pose is not just about getting the final pose right - moving into the pose and making it dramatic or as impressive impossible is often down to what you do as you transition into the pose.

In this case we're going from the relaxed front pose to the front double biceps. That means we'll start with our arms down and need to end up with them in the high flexed double biceps position.

A point to note is to try and keep your torso tight and abs flexed whilst you transition - this is more difficult than it sounds as it can make you pose stiffly and awkwardly. Practice makes perfect though and keeping your abs tensed will make you look much better than the next guy who doesn't.

There are many many ways to do this, all down to your personal preference and how good you look whilst you transition. In this instance, we'll use the classic arms sweeping out and up as it's probably the most common transition from low to high.

In the relaxed pose your arms are pointing down but held out from the body. You've just got your legs sorted (see above) and now look down slightly and then start lifting your arms, keeping the angle of the elbows in roughly the same position they are in to start with. I think that a hand flourish really helps the beginning phase of the arm lift and you can pretty much do what you like as a flourish but I like to:

Allow the wrist to bend in as you begin to lift the arm (like the hands get left behind a little), Curl the fingers together and touch the thumb As the arms lift (but still not parallel to the ground) begin to supinate the hand (twist them forwards and up towards the ceiling) and open the fingers out. Aim to have them fully open, supinated (palm facing the ceiling) and wrists straight at the point when the arms are passing through the parallel to the ground position.

As your arms lift you can begin raise your head to the ceiling if you wish - especially good if you're trying to be dramatic. :) It's often good to have your head fully looking up when your arms reach the top of the lift.

It's important to realise that the audience and more importantly the judges are watching you at all times - not just when you're in one pose and then the next. They're looking and evaluating as you transition from one pose to the next. You actually spend more time in-between poses than actually in them so if you're focusing on looking as good as possible whilst transitioning as you do actually in the poses you'll be giving yourself the best chance to do well in the competition.

So, bearing this in mind it'll be no surprise that you should keep your arms tensed as you lift them. You don't want to look stiff though so it's quite a trick to look fluid and smooth but actually

Kevin Levrone mid transition into the front double biceps pose.

So now you'll have your arms out to the side, palms up, hands flourishing. At this position it's important to ensure your arms are tensed as it’s a really good position to show your arms off.

Continue you raising your arms until they're well above head height - basically you want them high enough so that you can then, after a suitably dramatic pause where you ensure everything is tensed, pull your arms down into the final double biceps position.

Kevin Levrone at the top of the transition into the front double biceps pose.

The movement of bringing your arms down you can do this how you like - I like to do it rather explosively, whilst lowering the head rapidly to look at the audience with a really pumped up expression - look at this!! You can also jolt yourself as you hit the pose to make it 'pop'. You can even momentarily relax most of your muscles (abs, quads etc.) just before you hit the pose to further increase the impact.

4. Perfect Pose

It's not as easy as just pulling your arms down, bending them at the elbows and tensing, unfortunately.

The position and degree of elbow bend depends on the development of your front delts, triceps, biceps and forearms and the shape of your biceps when tensed and contracted.

If you have full, long biceps then you can bend your arm to about 90 degrees and play to your strength - your arm will look really good and at this angle the pose looks the most impressive.

If, however, your biceps are quite short or not as big as you'd like then you will benefit from bringing the forearm closer to your biceps as this will reduce the gap between your forearm and biceps and improve the look of your biceps and arm overall.

You'll need to experiment to see at what angle your arms look best. To tight and you'll look like you're almost trying to hide your biceps with your forearms but if the angle is too low then you run the risk of your biceps looking small.

Elbow height is another important consideration. Most people fail by having the elbow below or at the same height as the shoulder. This makes the biceps look small. Raise your elbows up so that they're higher than your shoulder joint - this will massively improve your pose and make your arms look bigger than they are because the biceps peak will be higher than the deltoid. Again, you'll have to experiment until you find the right height for your body.

Also try varying positions for your delts - some people look better with the shoulders pulled up a bit but others (like myself) look better with the shoulder girdle relaxed or pulldown to emphasise the size of the arms. Always keep the elbow joint at least a little higher than your shoulder joint, regardless of how you hold your shoulders.

The final point is forearm suppination. If you have very peaky biceps then you can either suppinate fully (i.e. have the palms of your hands facing your shoulders) and max out the peak of your biceps or slightly keep the palms facing a little bit forward to reduce the peak but make the biceps look fuller. Obviously if you have flat biceps then you need to suppinate the forearms as much as possible to get the best peak to your biceps you can.

Six time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates performing the front double biceps pose. Note how he attempts to compensate for his right arm weakness by lifting his right elbow up and attempting to balance out both biceps by having a wider arm angle in his right arm as his right biceps has a better peak than his left. Both elbows are higher than his shoulder joints.

Conclusion

The Front Double Biceps pose is not an easy pose to master. The arm flexion, the elbow height, the tensing of so many other muscles, the problems with looking small in it if you aren't massive yet can all add up. Practice, practice and practice some more. Even when you're off season practice the pose - it doesn't matter whether you can see your cuts, just get the pose right and let the definition come later as your diet down for your competition.

Flex Wheeler had such great biceps development that he didn't need to bend his arms too much and could really show his size off confidently.
Once you've got it right for you and you look the best you can in the Front Double Biceps pose then you have a very potent weapon at your hands and you will do very well in the mandatories posing round and it’s a great pose for the individual posing routine and the pose-down. Good luck and train hard!