Beyond a simple au-natureaux

5 Tips for a Bodybuilder When Posing as an Artistic or Advertising Model

Bodybuilding is not just about achieving maximum physical development, but also about how to use that achievement to open new opportunities in life. For many bodybuilders, one of those opportunities is posing as a model, whether for advertising campaigns or artistic projects.

 

However, before accepting an offer of this kind, there are key aspects you should consider to protect your image, health, and finances. Here are some tips for you.

 

First: Evaluate the Project as a Whole

It is crucial that before accepting any proposal as a model, whether for an artistic session or an advertising campaign, you thoroughly analyze the project. Ask yourself the following:

• What is the purpose of the session?
• What image is being projected?
• Who will you be associated with?
• Does the company or artist have a good reputation?

 

A project that damages your image or is linked to companies of questionable reputation can have long-term negative consequences for your career.

 

Second: Protect Your Image

As a bodybuilder, your image is your main asset. Make sure the use of your photos is clearly defined in a contract. Do not allow your images to be used in contexts that you have not previously approved.

 

Consider including protection clauses to prevent your photos from being reused without your permission or manipulated in a way that could harm your reputation. You need to be selective and set clear boundaries on how your photos will be used.

 

Third: Take Care of Your Health

Bodybuilding is a sport that requires a lot of physical and mental effort. When you accept modeling sessions, you could be exposed to conditions that affect your health, such as prolonged sessions under intense lights, poses that require you to hold uncomfortable positions for long periods, or even proposals that lead you to drastically modify your diet or training routine.

 

You must ensure that the photo sessions do not interfere with your health or performance as a bodybuilder. Remember that taking care of your body is essential.

 

Fourth: Negotiate Your Fees Fairly

Do not underestimate the value of your work as a model. Evaluate the fees offered to you and make sure they reflect the effort and time you will invest in the session. While some opportunities may be tempting for the exposure they offer, it is important that you do not sacrifice your income for visibility.

 

Make sure that the contract covers all financial aspects, such as additional fees for the prolonged use of images or their dissemination across different media.

 

Fifth: Consult Professionals

Before signing any contract, it is advisable to consult with a lawyer specialized in image rights and contracts. This will help you understand all the clauses and protect yourself from potential abuses. Additionally, having the advice of a representative or agent can facilitate negotiations and ensure you get the best possible terms.

 

Posing as a model can be a great opportunity for a bodybuilder, as long as the necessary precautions are taken. Remember that your image is your best presentation card—protect it!

 

The featured model in this post is César Quispe Estela. | Follow us on X | WhatsApp | chulucanasgym@gmail.com 

Who do you wanna look like?

They're on the magazines or the web, on your mind, or just on your mirror - what's better?

By ChulucanasGym

When you begin to train into a discipline, as bodybuilding or fitness to have an example, is unavoidable we look for a reflex or a referent turning in our sport achievement's goal.

"I'd look like..." is an usual answer among rookies, who usually become researching the life of those referents in many cases, as much as they turn that wish for real.

Is this a possitive attitude? It depends, so let's analyse the three possible scenarios about referents: models, archetypes or self-lovers.

The models, by definition, are all referents who became to achieve as much as their names and images are strongly linked and placed into the discipline we practice. Many times, they are part of a fashion vogue, so the model who was the masses idolatry 40 years ago probably has been replaced by a another one as each decade or each time range has passed on.

The possitive: As assummed as a mentor, someone which good example is good to imitate in other words.
The negative: Believing that everything working for that one will work for me too, when the first we have to have in mind is any organism is similar to another one, even having a strong genetic influence.

The archetypes are the possitive ideas we have about someone or something, adding a set of specific or very specific characteristics about we consider as perfect. They don't ask about a brand necessarily but our own aknowledgement and what is reflected in designing our own idealization.  Said another way, it's like having a model with a body but without a face in special, a name in particular neither.  It's not a "I'd like to be..." but "I want to be...". In some cases, archetypers could look like some Dr. Frankenstein taking an arm here, a leg there, a torso beyond,  so conceiving the human body as a set of exchangeable pieces in extreme.

The possitive: There's not an obsession to follow someone punctual but it becomes an addition of everything for creating someone quite different, inexistent, but turning into our best goal.
The negative: our archetype exceeding so much our expectations that turns into an unreachable obsession as much as it creates a guilt or frustration feeling.

The self-lovers don't see anybody else, think of an ideal neither, only go ahead as much as they can  and their actual achievement is their partial or final goal, indeed. It's hard to assure if this is  a symptom of much vanity, much self-esteem, or a rare hybrid of both, but they are not paying attention  about anyone nor anything as a referent.  They are their own model and archetype as well.

The possitive: It's possible they're more realistic when setting a goal not falling into the obsessive compulsion of being like somebody else.
The negative: They could fall easily into conformism as much as they don't set goals neither, only training for what comes on.

The advice for trainers and trainees is having the time to talk personally about their each one's sport tasks. The trainer must be much careful about not creating a profile who gets easily obsessed, frustrated, guilty or comformist. The trainee has to have in mind that training  must have two aspects: discipline and amusement. If your sport activity is another  cause of stress, then it is not becoming a healthy lifestyle.

Learning about myself knowing what my advantages and limitations are, knowing  to work them in my favor could be the starting point for everything. Then, choosing a model, designing an archetype or being a self-lover will be a very personal decision based upon reason instead of emotion.

It’s time you put in casting mode

At least in Peru, the Covid-19 infection is going to change muchly the culture about healthy lifestyles, and possibly to be the better. One of the measures the government has taken is body mass index (BMI) people equal or upper 40 may not work in person when the economy to reactivate because they are one of the most vulnerable human groups to the contagion.

The medical reason is simple: the virus leaves the lungsockets useless, the little bags  we have where oxygen feeds the blood allowing the functions of our body to work normally. When that vital gas scarces –a condition known hypoxia—our cells begin to weaken and even die, then they unchain oother health conditions which can shorten our life.

The diabetes and the cardio-vascular diseases also have to do much with obesity. Initially, the Peruvian government fit to the suggestion of World Health Organization about BMI people equal or upper 30, at the moment, were not abled to presential work, but a popular claim moved the mark up to 10 points.

Could your country or your boss take the same decisions? If we think it on the perspective of laboral risk, it’s a chance. Claiming could be a choice but i’ts the easiest choice. The alternative could be you don’t wait for the idea to turn a rule and take control of your own health. But many guys begin enthusiastic in the beginning and lose the motivation step by step.

Here is when our brain has to work to re-program first. Yes, we can. And although we are not endorsing you to take an image as a mirror, the current sanitarian situation does demand us to look for very inspiring references, and after much exploring, we find with the expectant attitude the models have. Yes, the guys you see looking like on the magazines, the posters, or the TV. They are ever ready for the next work, so all their effort is focused on the next casting.

Perhaps this same attitude is what you should adoptbut not falling into paranoiaor increasing your anxiety neither, so here we have a full recipe possibly useful for you very much. Easier, impossible.

Keep your body in shape

When a model has a casting, the first they are going to see is the physique, and that only is gotten with physical exercise, healthy feeding, enough and fixing rest. Remember you have to dedicate at least half-an-hour to work-out your physique, your feeding must cover all your energy need in the right balance, and your whole resting time really recharges in terms of alert and mood.

Then, you have to organize your lifefor accomplish each one of your activities and you must set real, verifiable goalsthose allow to control if you triumph or happens the whole opposite. Doubts? Contact a physical trainer now.

Focus your mind

When a model goes casting, knows pretty well the body is not enough. What the directors are going to evaluate is also how much concentration the model is going to performin the activity he or she is required for. If your body is here but your mind is away, things are not going to work well and that’s easy to notice, especially in crisis time.

Address all your attention to the actual moment, make aware of everything you do or say (even not mentioning any word), follow up the sequence of any activity since its beginning until its end, and pass to the next one when the last one was fulfilled, breathe deeply and think of yourself to ease projecting outside. The meditation is an excellent exercise and we know somebody who can help you.

Perfectionate your talent

We already have a good-shape body, we already have a focused mind. But, what do you know to do? It’s probable what you know to do, other many people can do the same way. Then, your personal task must be improving it to highlight. In that sense, more than compete against the other people, you should compete against yourself, against you used to be. As they say, making yourself a better version of yourself everytime.

And what about if they don’t choose you? This is the major probability a model has clear, then the first he or she learns is overcoming the mistake and reinvent for facing the next challenge, never giving up, following to fight until get it – to be resilient.

Using the social media to show the wworld how much preparation you have got in what you do the best? Yes, of course! Now than ever before, it’s an excellent decision but do it intelligently, strategically, not trying to be like anyone else but differentiating to be better than anyone else. If you need advise, we have somebody who can help you. And remember never to lose the faith in you.

As you will see, to be in casting mode is not only a mind state, the body and the spirit also have to do. It’s not complicated as much as you don’t see it complicated. It neither is a super piece of cake but it demans certain effort. What is actually clear – you can’t lose more time and you have to start right now, so when they call at you, the probability they say “begin to work today” to be very high.

Of course, we will be pleased to know your achievements or doubts on our Twitter account or our e-mail address: chulucanasgym@gmail.com

Thanks Carlos Maceda ffor giving us his photos to picturing this entry.

How to succeed despite the difficulties

 Mario Kanashiro has got an excellent justification to celebrate. He just upgraded as a Master Trainer for the entire Japan in shaka-dance, dance classes combinating hip-hop, African, music hall  with acardio-vascular workout plan. In this new position, he’s in charge of granting the licenses for trainers who teach it.

“Here In Japan, there is more work life than personal life or to relax,” this Peruvian born in Lima City, on November 12^th, 1990, comments. He had to migrate with his family when he was just 5 years old. Today, he’s an athlete full of charisma and love, but almost a decade ago, he was totally opposite – sedentary, apathetic, selfish. What happened to his life that brought him out from darkness to light?

Until he was 21 years old, he worked in NTT, one of the largest Japan’s phone companies, translating from Japanese to Spanish and viceversa. “I didn’t, had no intrest on any sport neither; in fact, I had no physique.”

Since he was 20 years old, he began to feel the whole right side of his body lulled: “I felt pain from the neck to the right hand, and I was losing power and sensitivity in my right leg and foot.” He attended two hospitals for an exam, but the surveys didn’t find problems in his muscles and bones, as the first suspicious was. In fact, he has them well formed.

There’s ever a before and an after

The surveys showed a rare anomaly in his neck’s veins just around his second vertebra: they were very narrow, complicating the blood flow, so they didn’t favor a good oxygenation of the body. The surgery was the only way to correct it. However, this procedure was not enough for him to recuperate the mobility of his ends. That’s why he had to go to physical rehabilitation, and the sport was the solution: “I started to build muscle in arms and the hand for having strength when I catch by using low weight; I also did stretches”

During the process, he took a zumba class, he realized he could dance –very well—and he liked it a lot: “I didn’t know to dance, it didn’t provocate me, it didn’t call my attention neither, despite I played the electric guitar between 16 and 20 years old… I performed rock and metal, I even play it good today – I’ve not lost the technique.” He followed to develop as a trainee until he prepared to be a trainer, and the rest is history.

“As for playing guitar you must listen to the drums and the bass, your ear achieves sensitivity for bass ranges, and it’s the same guide I use for creating choreographies,” he explains. “I’m going to be 7 years this year, holding dance classes and training that – I continue to do stretches, I do functionaltraining, and I play video-games in my free times to relax.” Inclusive, Mario sometimes trained weights.

The benefits to his organism have been dramatic: “Before, I ran 1800 feet or 3300 feet and I got tired, I run 4 or 6 miles today and I don’t get tired – I developed a good physique,” He smiles.

Growing takes much time

When Mario gave his first class, nobody attended. The next one, two persons attended. Then, five, seven, until he got his first 20-people group. Today, his groups are until… 40 people! Although it depends on the gymnasium he goes to, but his minimum doesn’t fall down 20 people. Even he lives in Nagoya, his work brings him through several gyms across the island, and getting a way was not simple to him due to the Japanese public prefers to support the Japanese trainers. The effort costed him six years.

“When I began, there were teachers who suggested not to attend my classes because I was a rookie, or the people could injury or I knew nothing of fitness,” he remembers. “Today, I’m the teacher of those teachers, and many get wide open mouth when they see the change, because I became better than them.”

“everyday, I can give classes to 80 to 100 people about,” he tells.  “70% of my pupils are women, so in a class, there are 3 men for every 10. When it’s morning or afternoon, the most are 30 to 60, 70 years old, but I have younger people at night, between 20 and 40 years old.”

Mario describes his pupils like in constant learning mode, like they’re attending to the school, and there’s something new to know everyday. “When I give three continued clases, I have the same pupils. For example, the first class is cultural dance, the second is fitness dance, and the third is hip-hop.” The cultural dances are those ones not available at the disco or in its original country, “and we put them difficult steps, so they can take until two months to learn an only choreography.”

And if he highlighted at dance classrooms, his mixed look has noticed too. One day after attending an event, somebody proposed him to be a model.  The only experience he had up to then was to be the cover boy of his high-school in promotional flyers and posters as well when he was a teenager.

“I signed up a talents school three years ago and I started to have many courses becoming to model HiBowl’s clothes. I was modeling until two years ago, but my career as a trainer became more exigent, so I do it very rarely.”

His casting was exigent too. His face or his body weren’t enough. As they learned he knows to dance, they included that test. But maybe the difficult part was an interview before five judges who examined absolutely everything: his best insights, his skills, even how he mannered. From 1000 people, only 80 passed.

“I’d like following to model clothes, but as I do sports, I’d like to model sportswear or dancewear, as much as I’m becoming known across Japan. If the chance to feature it appears, it would be great.”

 Bad times serve to improve

Mario sustains his better achievement until now has been learning to dance. Critics he had in the beginning pushed him to learn more, to get out his town and having classes, to perfectionate his style, to give his best to his pupils: “I take the critic to improve my work,” he affirms. “If the pupil says you something not to like, it’s not to bother but for you to improve.” He adds if when his work began he was very criticized, it was because he interested to many people.

“We live because of the clients – if there are no clients, there is no class, so you ever have to know how to listen to them,” he states. “There’s still people who prefers a Japanese teaching Latin music instead of a Latin teaching Latin music. I did mind it very much, but I learned now that if the people want to learn Latin music with a Latin guy, and they want to have my class, so have it. If not, they miss it.”

His veins narrowness faced Mario to his lifetime plan, and the answer was to encourage, although that was not easy in the beginning: “The doctor said me raw straight on my bare face that if I did not do the treatment, I was becoming worst. Then initially, more by the pushing of the doctor instead of myself, I went to the gym.”

Despite he overcame his condition so successfully, some sequels are remaining – his right hand is weaker than his left hand (so he prefers to carry stuff with the second one). Sometimes, he feel  an inner itch in the right arm followed by a redness, what can happen when he drives his car or when he’s holding a class. Fortunately, he attends his controls every two years (initially, they were monthly and they were elapsing progressively), and he continues to meet the doctor who encouraged him to take the control of himself – Sensei Izumi.

 You grow when you validate and share what you learn

“My another achievement is my trainee has become a trainer, that has taken the same motivation and the same opportunities,” he comments proudly. “Four of my pupils are trainers now.” He specialized in shaka-dance, got his license, and became to give classes with that same discipline’s creator Samira Talha, across Japan in July 2019. And Talha herself was who chose him to go with her: “ I felt happy and nervous as well, because I never thought  I was to work so.”

While we were producing this story, Mario was upgraded to Master Trainer. “I couldn’t believe it, but I understood that everything turns around, that it was because of the time I hhad dedicated to my work,” he says us in exclusive. “When I see in retrospective, I realise that everything happened to arrive to this very moment, and I follow to learn. Samira says us that we must follow to study and go up, despite the position we get.”

“Up to before my illness, I used to be very selfish and negative. I got angry to the people who loved me. When I got sick, I knew what my family and my friends –two— were, who never missed me to visit, despite I knew a lot of people. That was when I realized who loved me and who didn’t, and I started to value more my family and true friends, I started to change because I felt I might give back all that love.”

Business are business… until certain point

“When I began to work, I had no explanation about why the people paid 500 yens, equivalent to 5 dollars, to have a class, when I was not sure if I was doing it well, until a female pupil said me that she came to my class because she felt she was learning. Then, I realised I was rounding myself with people motivated to learn, who saw me to make a new step, and asked me how to make it,” he meditates. “I understood  that for the people, it’s important what I can teach them.”

“That made me to opened my heart, and I turned back to believe in the people, because I left to believe in the people,” he adds. “And that made I valued myself much more, because inclusive I came to think I wasn’t important.” His pupils affirm Mario has a very special energy, that allows him to empathize and feel comfortable with any person, even who envy him, and even them who have come to enter his classes for getting him out of the way, unsuccessfully.

“That’s why we never have to give up, ever have to follow learning,” he says. “There are people who can do some things and can’t do other ones, but to get them, you have to practice them. That learning and that love I put it on is what the people like.” Mario also encourages his pupils to develop their own style instead of copying his, and to practice it hard until getting it. “And they play their part.”

“Another issue is this is a business for real, and there are teachers who study to make money, but you have to identify in your work what thing is actually money and what thing you have to study to have a profession. I can have one only person in my class, as well as having 40. Of course, if one attends, I can dedicate 100%, and if more arrive, I have to deliver it, but ever focused on giving my best.”

In fact, Mario shares his art on his Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube accounts. So if your want to learn more about him and he does, contact him, no matters wherever you are.

Look at Mario Kanashiro’s manga

[Exclusive] Now, the dancer and model also amaze us as a cartoonist.

 

We’ve learned about athletes or bodybuilders who serve as inspiration to artists who take them pictures, shot them on video or film, draw them, or sculpt them. We’ve learned about bodybuilders or athletes who turn artists, or viceversa, exploring the different manifestation ways. Even, we’ve shown them here.

But, what happens when bodybuilders and athletes are also artists not meaning to exclude some of those dimensions?

Speaking much deeper, art and sports share common values what you never have realized neither: looking for perfection, wishing to overcome obstacles, needing to move, satisfying to reach goals, the discipline turning the unusual into daily, the recognized achievement.

 

Then, don’t get surprised if you decide to pass from physical culture to the artistic one, or reverse, and all during a single day, and returning to someone of them, or being between them not meaning it a conflict of time or personal/professional identity.

It’s the case of our friend Mario Kanashiro in Nagoya, Japan. We’ve already told you his story by here: after learning to dance and realizing he did it very good, now he is a trainer working in the Land of Rising Sun. But, let’s also remember Mario already came from a previous artistic experience – music.

Then, to get engaged to the dance costed but it was relatively simple to go achieving. Additionally, let’s remember he worked as a model. Review Mario’s story here.

 

Nevertheless, what we didn’t know is that Mario also has got skill for drawing. “When I was in high-school, I drew for some months as hobby,”  he tells us.  But once upon a day of 2021, he decided to retake it, and since June 2022, he is practicing it much intense – inclusive, he shares it on his social media accounts.

What he mainly portrays are manga characters, the Japanese art of comic, and animé ones, that would be something like bringing manga to the animation by hand or by computer. “I like drawings, I like to design them and creating something original,” he adds.

And this is very consistent with his facet of dancer and choreographer, which creations he continues sharing on his social media. In all them, he print his personal touch, his followers love it. “Inclusive, they advice me to improve.” Coming next, we offer you a selection of the drawings Mario himself did from his whole work. What do you look them like?

 

Drawings by Mario Kanashiro.

It’s necessary to say that the drawing, as any type of art, influences positively in mental health of any bodybuilder or athlete because it allows him to deal with daily pressures, develops focusing levels much effective as he doesn’t do the same thing ever, and it increases the mood to retake the physical activity. In some cases, the physical activity itself influences the artistic inspiration as it opens the mind from the body up to other conscience state.

Have you ever tried it? Tell us in the comments below, on our Twitter account, or at chulucanasgym@gmail.com. We’ll love to know what you do, and, if you agree, share it with our entire community.

Don’t miss Mario on his social media accounts: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

 

The model featured in this entryis Mario Kanashiro.