By Todd Lee M.D.

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NPC Bikini Division: The Best of the Best

In 2009 the NPC introduced the bikini division and with this decision, single handedly saved the sport of bodybuilding. Now, bikini contest prep is a huge source of revenue for personal trainers across the country.  

What is a Bikini Competition?

Bodybuilding as a sport began to lose popularity in the 80’s with the baseball/steroid witch hunt.  It became less popular when the female bodybuilders looked like they were using male hormones to build muscle but in the process, masculinizing their features.

To save the failing image of the sport, the National Physique Committee (NPC) introduced the Bikini Division.  In this division, the goal was to have a classic beach body and not dramatic visible muscle. Women are ranked against each other based on poise and grace, femininity, a dramatic/inhumanly perfect hourglass shape and a toned but not ripped, hard, striated or chiseled body.  

Why is a Man Writing This?

Photo shoot which got me my first Magazine cover! Thanks Jeff Sygo!

In 2009, the bikini division was introduced. By Spring of 2010, I had my first ‘client’ winning the Overall at her first show.  While I was preparing for my first attempt at the title, Mr. North America, by attempting to win the IFBB North American, I was helping my buddie's girl out with her diet for her first bikini competition. She ended up winning first place and the overall at not just her first, but her second show as well! She did the North American with me that year and she did quite well. I myself got 4th place that year in my class.  By September 2010, I was sponsored, on a magazine cover and had completed testing to be an NPC Judge.   

I was planning on getting back into medicine at the time, but I soon fell in love of the new growing field of competition prep. I knew exactly what the grading criteria was for each of the divisions: Bodybuilding, Figure, and Bikini.  That, coupled with my command of nutrition and training had me in a good place to start using competition prep as a form of income. I made a living at competition prep and specializing in bikini for about 4 years.  Over that time period, my team Operation Ragnarok, racked up quite a few first place wins and overalls, especially in natural male bodybuilding and in bikini.

What Is Involved In Bikini Contest Prep?

Prepare for battle Valkyries, your ride to Valhalla begins NOW!

Bikini prep is not the same as bodybuilding prep. All too many girls have been fucked up by well intentioned, yet not properly informed, coaches and trainers. I've seen many cases where a girl's boyfriend thought he knew how to train for a feminine physique and had no clue how to address a feminine physique or to consider the complexity of a woman's hormones. For this reason ladies, even if your boyfriend is a great bodybuilder, he may not be a good prep coach for bikini.  If nothing else it's hard on the relationship.

 Bikini Do's and Don'ts:

Nutrition

Back when this sport started, the figure competitors were trying to write the bikini girl's diets. These were usually bastardizations of what I think was a Mike Davie's diet that included grapefruit, tilapia, and asparagus with some oil and cayenne pepper. Or they ripped off some bullshit from a Beverly International magazine and sold it to a person as if it was a customized meal plan for just them. This is great for Figure, it dries you out and destroys all your estrogen levels so there is no water or fat under the skin (fat makes you look feminine), which is perfect for showing striated muscle.  This often causes the woman's breasts to flatten out and her butt to have wrinkles as it deflates from the lack of nutrients holding the skin up.  AKA, Wrinkled Pancake Butt syndrome (WPB).

It's not about being skinny, it's about looking good!

For bikini, the goal is to look feminine and attractive, a healthy diet is a better option. There is no reason to bulk in bikini and thus no offseason. One of the great things about bikini is you can stay lean, healthy, and beautiful all year round, you don't have to gain 40 lbs like a bodybuilder and strip it off for every competition season. For this reason, I keep a bikini competitor working with me at no more than 10 lbs over their stage weight if at all possible. Then, for 12 weeks before the show I just drop their carbs little by little each week and add in cardio slowly. Never using super low carbs unless they are behind schedule.   

Uh oh! Shows over, so they're consuming 30,000 empty calories a week and dropped their Var and T3. Get ready for crying season!

Just like everyone else, many bikini competitors like to drink alcohol, eat junk food, and consequently do rebound hard. The most common statement that I hear is "It's my thyroid" but it ain't. This is usually do to peer pressured by other women who don't have drive or discipline to live a healthy lifestyle.  The worst "Frenemy's" are usually the family: sisters, mothers, and daughters. They say catty bullshit like "you're too thin" or "you look like a man". Even your mother or your best friend can try to derail you from the course. One of the hardest things to realize and deal with in the day to day is that someone that you've been close to for your entire life is trying to literally cause you harm because they feel inadequate in the presence of a superior looking woman. I myself lost my whole family from this, I wouldn't tolerate negativity. Anyone one who disagreed with my choices were permanently removed from my life.  All your hater family members will change their tune when you win of course.  You will hear third hand that according to them you owe it all to them.

Most women don't believe they have what it takes to get these results so they throw hate at any woman who tries and inevitably succeeds. If your family and friends are hating on you, you're doing it right! Fuck em, get better ones :) I, myself, didn't talk to my mom for a year when she told me competing was dumb.

The best cut diet is don't get fat in the first place :) In bikini, one can stay perfect all year round, so do that! Then you don't need to diet or do cardio much and you can enjoy your prep like I do!

Posing and Presentation

Posing is one of the easiest parts of bikini because it is only 2 poses; front and back.  The girls act like they are learning advanced aerial kung fu for the amount of whining they do about how hard it is to walk in heels and turn in a circle. But, when you make them learn bodybuilding poses as punishment for whining, they shut up real quick. You don't know the meaning of suffering unless you've been drilled through bodybuilding posing routines!

Front pose, transition, back pose, transition, front pose, wave, smile, done. That is IT! Don't be 'that girl' who wastes 30 seconds bouncing around, you're going to get marked down.

Girls are graded on walking gracefully in heels, facial expressions bespeaking confidence and elegance, with suit, hair, nails and makeup which compliment their natural skin tone and eye color. It’s really hard to explain with words what makes one woman place higher in a bikini competition than the next and thus the rules are relatively vague, but when you have the women on stage it’s a lot easier to stratify the exceptional from the excellent.  

General ideas are not to stomp your feet, move erratically, wildly, or to move in a confused purposeless fashion. A better approach is to walk out on stage like you're a goddess and the audience are your idolaters here to worship your every move.

Because you are, and they are.

Training

Correct squat form for woman to grow their booty, not their legs. This is what you want to do to look feminine and excel in bikini. 

The training for women is different than for men. Women are looking to have a very dramatic hourglass. This is created by increasing the size of the glutes, the lats and the delts.  The trick is to keep the traps, arms and quads from getting larger in the process as well.  That is what generally happens if a bodybuilder trains a woman; her everything gets big, not just the muscles which accentuate her femininity.  

This is BAD form. Her knees are inside her feet, her stance is too wide and her toes are pointed forward and she's shallow, meaning it's all quads no glutes. It looks like her boyfriend trains her and he learned bad form in high school football. PEOPLE THINK THIS  IS RIGHT BECAUSE THE GIRL IS STUNNING AND IT'S A PRO PHOTOSHOOT. If you want big legs and a medium booty, squat like this masculine form.  Aside from building masculine legs, when she's older she'll need medial meniscus surgery on her knee. I know, because I've assisted in those surgeries. 

Every woman's physique has to be addressed in a case by case basis. A general routine that all women should follow does not exist and if your coach has you on “assembly line” training, get a new coach.  You're making Bikini Models not Model-Ts after all!

I think the most important exercises are squatting with a duck stance super, super low and only coming up halfway, the abduction machine, glute kickbacks,  lat pulldowns and lateral raises with impeccable form.  Mastery of those will give you the hourglass frame, with additional exercises used to bring up certain areas like lower pecs to increase breast size or calves because calves and heels go together like peanut butter and crying.

Supplements

Many women use the same supplements as men.  But many women have mixed ideas about certain ingredients like creatine and what not.  Some women have an opinion about everything regardless of absence of education. Most of those will avoid creatine because they think it “makes them bloated”.  It’s the cheese sticks and margaritas that did that;) Creatine should be absorbed just fine by women. It’s not like women’s intestines don’t absorb creatine and men’s do.

Fenris Fury is a pre workout which would meet all women's needs. Perfect for burning fat in the gym instead of muscle, and helps a persons muscles receive the nutrients they need during training and after, so they recover and look the way you want not flat and stringy like with other pre workouts.

Nothing would be more useful for a woman prepping for a show than Wrath of the Valkyrie. I designed it specifically for women. The cream is better than any of the leading brands for guiding the capsule to where you want  to burn the fat from. Usually on women its the thighs and arms which is where estrogen causes fst to store preferentially.

It has T2, which is a better fat burner than T3, and it has every ingredient that is any good that any of the leading brands have. But, Wrath has them at the clinically proven dose!

Even through Wrath of the Valkyrie was designed with women in mind it is certainly strong enough for a man. I myself only use a half dose. 

Many women use Anavar.  Anavar is a very safe anabolic steroid which is perfect for almost everyone and every goal. It isn't hard on the liver. In fact, it's FDA approved for TREATING the liver. Women love it because it has no real side effects at doses 5-10 mg a day and helps them lose fat and increase their muscle while typically improving every aspect of their sex life from sensitivity to drive.

 The problem with Anavar is women abuse the shit out of it. They take as much as 50 mg in some cases and get voices like truck drives, hairy lips, bony faces, Adam's apples, and basically give themselves a a sex change.  This is especially popular in Michigan where bikini competitors are know to take their self destruction one step further with Tren, Deca, and Primo or even Winstrol.  All of those are extremely masculinizing save deca but irregardless steroid use is not ideal or useful for looking more feminine. Why take male hormones to look more feminine?  No Bueno.

Other drugs like Gh, Clen, and T3 are complex double edged swords, and hard for an athlete or coach to wield without injuring themself. But anabolic steroids have no place in bikini.

Miscellaneous

There are thousands of details I can't get into here.  For example: how to get the two white spots off your butt when you go tanning to how to keep your bikini from going up your butt or the correct procedure for flushing a toilet backstage so you don't get water on your paint.

If you want specific help with your prep I can help!!

Click here for one on one time with me either gym time here in Michigan or phone consultation on training, posing, or other discussions; whatever it is, I can help.

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Disclaimer

Nothing in this article or on this site should be considered medical advice or as an endorsement to violate any law of the country in which you reside.  The information given is for fun and entertainment purposes only.  All claims are 100% dependent upon proper diet and exercise.  Please consult a medical practitioner prior to any diet and exercise program.