New member presentation and advice

[Camilla1980]

Hi All, I'm Camilla, 42yo, always been sporty and playing tennis twice a week since I was young. In the last 3 years I started lifting with my husband and I'm quite satisfied by my body response.
I would be happy in the next years to compete in a figure contest, and so...here I am, please look at my gallery and rise your comments and suggestions!!! I know I need to work hard up to my failure but everything will be appreciated.

PS I know that my left side is much weaker of my right due to an old wrist injury. So please let me know how you would even out this huge difference (see it in size, tone and vascularity)

[xsquid99]

Less extreme closeups and more whole upper and or lower body shots in good lighting would help to better judge things from an overall perspective. But if you have a noticeable difference from one arm to the other then you'll need to find ways to bring that arm up, most likely by just doing more reps but at a lighter weight while ensuring you're working up to near muscular failure.

Take a look at the judging criteria and use that as your guide. Judges are looking for round shoulders, defined abs, soft lines in legs, and tight glutes. Excessively lean, muscular, visible ribs, or hard or vascular physiques will typically be scored down.

[Camilla1980]

Less extreme closeups and more whole upper and or lower body shots in good lighting would help to better judge things from an overall perspective. But if you have a noticeable difference from one arm to the other then you'll need to find ways to bring that arm up, most likely by just doing more reps but at a lighter weight while ensuring you're working up to near muscular failure.

Take a look at the judging criteria and use that as your guide. Judges are looking for round shoulders, defined abs, soft lines in legs, and tight glutes. Excessively lean, muscular, visible ribs, or hard or vascular physiques will typically be scored down.

Yhank you for your advice. So maybe I am aiming to a wrong class according to my body muscles and shape? Should I differently address the effort to another challange so not lo se the efforts I put in building my muscles? What do you think should I more take care of of my body and for what type of show?
By the way, when I mean unablaced upper body is meant something like in pic #11 of my gallery...

thank you
Camilla

[air2fakie]

Hi All, I'm Camilla, 42yo, always been sporty and playing tennis twice a week since I was young. In the last 3 years I started lifting with my husband and I'm quite satisfied by my body response.
I would be happy in the next years to compete in a figure contest, and so...here I am, please look at my gallery and rise your comments and suggestions!!! I know I need to work hard up to my failure but everything will be appreciated.

Your progress is impressive, I think your goal is realistic.

PS I know that my left side is much weaker of my right due to an old wrist injury. So please let me know how you would even out this huge difference (see it in size, tone and vascularity)

Try to figure out some innovative gym hacks with seemingly inappropriate machines or cables+velcro wraps to try to mimic regular exercise movements that get around whatever wrist/grip limitations you might have. For example, you may be able to use certain machines with tubular or flat pads to lift/push/pull with your forearms or elbows/back of arms without using your hands. It's poor gym etiquette but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Some wrist-wrap hooks might also help for pulling exercises. If you're able & like a challenge, try playing tennis solely with your left hand for the next few years... sometimes sports also leads to imbalances.

[Camilla1980]

Thank you for the nice words, I'll keep working hard!

Regarding my muscle asymmetry I lost the hope, I've been discussing with my trainer in the gym many times. I believe after so many years of low or better non use of my left hand its now more a mind set rather than a problem to be solved in the gym.
If you see the pics in my gallery you can notice the difference but it's not due only to gym but to the massive everyday use of my right arm compared to the left.
You say to play tennis with my left... Well with my left hand I normally don't even drink a glass of water, figure out playing such stressing sport! Hope the contest commission Wil close an ye on this!

[xsquid99]

Yhank you for your advice. So maybe I am aiming to a wrong class according to my body muscles and shape? Should I differently address the effort to another challange so not lo se the efforts I put in building my muscles? What do you think should I more take care of of my body and for what type of show?
By the way, when I mean unablaced upper body is meant something like in pic #11 of my gallery...

thank you
Camilla

Here's the different classes: https://julielohre.com/difference-be...que-divisions/

Like I mentioned, its very hard to tell from individual body part photos what class you're most suited for, you'll have to make that determination. For example, its difficult to look at a photo of a single arm or a torso and say like "oh yeah you belong in figure" (or bikini, or whatever). I do know a couple bikini competitors who are quite lean and vascular most of the year, but they they carb up to just the right level of intake leading up to the show so they don't appear so "dry" on stage, which would be detrimental to their chances. Its just one of those things you would need to work with a coach to determine how to best present yourself. A coach can also probably advise you on how to ensure you bring a balanced physique as well.

But you've obviously put in the work, there's a category there for you and your goal of competing is definitely realistic.

[Camilla1980]

Xsquid thank you for your indication. So maybe I should aim to Welnness or perhaps Bikini? My gym is a small provincial one, so I need to find advide elsewhere, take a look to my profile and post, what do you (and everyone else) think about the type i should chase?

When I speak about my asymmetry I mean something like visible in these pics. Look at the back one.. it seems a paintshop paste of arms of two different people (shoulder, bicep, tricep, foreram)!!

imagecdn.bodybuilding.com/fitboardimg/posts//fitboard/177641491/a354c3c927824910a4ab4f09e57e24d5.jpg

And here for the vascularity and overall tone:

imagecdn.bodybuilding.com/fitboardimg/posts//fitboard/177641491/f07ac245d50a4dcfa3ac688d36de10c4.jpg

[air2fakie]

So maybe I should aim to Welnness or perhaps Bikini? My gym is a small provincial one, so I need to find advide elsewhere, take a look to my profile and post, what do you (and everyone else) think about the type i should chase?

When I speak about my asymmetry I mean something like visible in these pics. Look at the back one.. it seems a paintshop paste of arms of two different people (shoulder, bicep, tricep, foreram)!!

You have a solid base to shoot for bikini or figure (or wellness, if that's a thing), since if you're not in a hurry you can steer your workouts/nutrition towards any of those goals. Bikini might be the easiest to sneak any asymmetry through if you're not able to resolve that to your satisfaction.

This forum is a bit dead, but I think there are some female competitors who used to be on here so if you're lucky maybe one of them might respond eventually - they may have a more relatable perspective on the whole process.