I just finished a show and placed 3rd in my class, I'm pretty excited because it was a very competitive show. Afterward I talked to the judges about my placing and was told that I need to add a little size to my arms, harden my legs and tighten my glutes. Any ideas of what I can do to possibly shock my biceps into growing? I use a challenging weight on my first set and go to failure on my next two sets, I usually do curls, incline curls, and conentration curls. As for my legs and glutes, again I lift heavy, sqauats, leg press, extensions, rear lunges, lying leg curls, stiff leg deadlifts, I do intervals on the spinning bike, 1 min hard, 1 min slow for 20 minutes twice a week, any suggestions on how to get my glutes tighter?
Jimel

Jimel - Hopefully some of the women competitors will make suggestions - but I'll start the ball rolling. For the most part, having more detail in your hams and glutes is a function of leanness and not your training program. Surely there are exercises that work those body-parts, and you seem to be doing many of them now, but the definition will only show when you are very lean and for many women those areas are the last and most difficult to loose body fat from. You may just have to get leaner next time. If you do a search on "lower body" or "cardio" you might come across one of several threads that I recall talking about this general topic. Some of the suggestions were very sound.

As far as biceps goes, it is a relatively small muscle group that you want to challange through intense exercise, but not over-train. You can't work your biceps as hard as your legs or back for example and not run into an over-training issue. Too much volume, or biceps workouts that are too frequent would cause biceps growth to stagnate. I'd suggest a training plan that hit biceps only once a week directly and limited the routine to no more than 3 or four exercises and no more than 12 total working sets, and 8-9 would be even better. Good luck in planning your attack!

hi jimel...i agree with maddog...diet its key!...i have problems in the glutes and hams, my bf is pretty low right now and still have cellulite "clinging" on to dear life!....the body does not want to give up the fat!...i think the main key is to try to stay lean throughout the year (off season ) this year i put on more mass but along with more fat!...last year went i started competing i was pretty lean to began with, i only had to loose 12 pounds, this year i lost 25! ...you work outs sound soild as far as mass building, do you change it up differnetly?...supps are a definelty a must as you know!...lots. and lots of aminos and protien! feed those muscles!...it hard to build mass the "natural" way so to add a few pounds of muscle a year is realistic, keep up the good work!...congrats on your placing!...kat