Weird flex, but OK: Learning to pose like a Korean bodybuilder

A Korea JoongAng Daily sports reporter muscles her way through the world of amateur bodybuilding and learns to strike a pose.

Mary, right, practices posing like a bodybuilder. [MARY YANG]

There was a part of the pandemic when I got really into at-home workouts. I made do with a cheap yoga mat and a couple of dumbbells that now collect dust in the living room of my parents’ house.

I found it easier to keep up with a routine thanks to canceled plans and the grasping for any semblance of control in the era of work-and-work-out-from-home. Even when I was a regular in the weight room during track season in high school, I never considered myself a gym rat. I’m more of a late-night snack raccoon.

Frankly, gyms intimidate me. For the most part, I stick to the treadmill and the free weights in the corner and hope no one judges me when I put on a YouTube video titled “10 Minute Ab Workout: How To Get a Six-Pack.”

So it’s fair to say when my colleague, Malina Fairchild, an editor here at the Korea JoongAng Daily, reveals to the office that she’s been training as a bodybuilder — immediate awe is followed quickly by fear. Bodybuilding evokes images of extremely muscular men whose physiques are not far off marble statues, sharing in both aesthetics and density.

I gain multiple levels of respect and a reasonable amount of caution. (Don’t cross Malina, people. She could totally take you in a fight.)

My only encounter with bodybuilding up until this point happened during college, when I met a guy who had competed in a few amateur competitions. He’d weigh each meal, measuring every ounce of deli meat in a bowl on a kitchen scale in the shared dining area. And his profile photo in the group chat was from one of his competitions — spray tan galore.

Malina invites a bunch of us from the office to come out to one of her competitions — she’s got two; They’re back-to-back weekends and just outside of Seoul. And, because I'll try anything once for this series, I ask if her trainer would be open to showing me the ropes.

And that’s how I land an invite to play amateur bodybuilder for a day. I'm excited — then I remember that I’ve barely gone on two runs all month and haven’t set foot in a gym since January (although I have tried my hand at both American and Gaelic football and ice hockey). Dread sets in.

Battle of the bods

Before my own foray into the sport, I go to support Malina at her bodybuilding debut. The competition is run by the National Amateur Body Builders’ Association (NABBA) in Korea, held at the Ivex Studio in Gwangmyeong, Gyeonggi, a street away from the KTX station.

The studio covers the fifth floor of a mall, which is a very unassuming spot for a sport so over the top.

I step out of the elevator and into sensory overload. Music blasts from behind black curtains with two bouncers. The room is crawling with shirtless, muscled men who exude confidence. This could totally be a casting call for “Physical: 100” Season Three.

The walls are plastered with sheets of plastic like home renovation meets "Dexter." But I get it — half the room is walking around with five coats of spray tan. Everything a contestant touches gets a top coat of bronze.

I enter through the black curtains to catch Malina’s category, which honestly is a bit unsettling, as it's giving a bit of peep show energy.

I am engulfed by purple stage lights and the glare of huge television screens giving up close shots of the contestants on stage. I quickly find a seat in an audience that seems a good mix of women and men. Every so often, a high-pitched cheer breaks through the loud music, whooing someone on.

I spot Malina in the line of very muscular women wearing the same bright white platform sneakers and expressions that land somewhere between a smile and a glare.

Mary gets a glimpse of what a real bodybuilder looks like. [MARY YANG]

Malina places in the Top 6, and I join another colleague to wait for her on the other side of the black curtains, along with her coach and a few guys who’ve tagged along. We offer our congratulations and snap a few photos on the red carpet. (Yes, there was a red carpet.)

For a sport so focused on perception and physical appearance, at least here, all of this feels very empowering. I dig.

Gym time

I’ve gotten up earlier than I typically do to meet Malina at her gym in Incheon in the morning. She works afternoons.

I take a taxi from the nearest metro stop, passing by a yellowed golf course where I spot a single cart, and my driver drops me off in some sort of alley in a very residential area. Am I in the right place?

I turn the corner and see a tall poster with an oiled-up man donning a six-pack and a pair of briefs, which welcomes me at the bottom of the staircase. Yup, this is it. It’s quite a juxtaposition against the jars and snacks sitting outside the HomePlus Express next door.

The gym sits above a HomePlus Express in Incheon. [MARY YANG]

Malina arrives, and we walk upstairs to the gym, New and Reborn Fitness. I say hello to Malina’s trainer, Nam Ki-suk, whom I met over the weekend, and apologize in advance.

Coach Nam is a bodybuilder himself and has been training people for about 15 years. In fact, it was his photo on the poster downstairs. Today he’s wearing a baseball cap, an oversized grey crewneck and sweatpants the length of capris.

We get changed, fill up our water bottles and head over to the treadmills for a warmup.

Malina tells me she’s in the gym at least six times a week. (This is the kind of dedication and hard work that the Korea JoongAng Daily boasts.)

We only tread for five minutes (the trainer turns my pace down to 4.7 kilometers per hour), but I break a sweat. Though I swear it’s nerves and not fatigue.

We join Coach Nam over by the free weights for a quick stretch. He points out that my right shoulder is significantly tighter than my left — do I work a desk job? (Yes, I type, from my desk.)

I'm ordered to use a massage ball on my neck against the wall.

He also tells me that most of his personal training clients come in to work out a way to relieve their pain, although I suspect I may leave this place in it.

The first exercise Coach Nam has me do is squats. I thought I had decent form, but I am quickly humbled when I’m barely able to wobble through a first set of 15 reps. I do a second set, and it’s only until the eighth squat that I remember to breathe. I power through a third and final set, fueled by a few expletives.

Mary re-evaluates her life choices in a moment of clarity that can only be achieved mid-squat. [MALINA FAIRCHILD]

“This is basic, this is basic,” Coach Nam repeats. I hear both exasperation and amusement in his voice. Hilarious is the plight of a washed-up high school athlete turned sports reporter who now exercises vicariously through her work.

Then we move on to arms. Coach Nam hands me a pair of tiny pink weights. They are 1.5 kilograms — the limit that Coach Nam believes I can handle. Surely they are the lightest thing in this gym. (I later spot a pair of weights a different shade of pink that weigh 1 kilogram apiece and feel a sense of pride because hey, I could’ve done worse.)

Powering through an arm workout with 1.5 kilogram weights. [MALINA FAIRCHILD]

I do a couple shoulder pulls on one of the machines, which I sit on backward before Coach Nam corrects my blunder. I'd be embarrassed, but I'm too tired to feel shame.

Posing

Posing is bodybuilding’s bread and butter. (Or whatever a ‘builder’s equivalent is — raw beef and whey?) In a competition, it’s what an athlete has squatted, lifted, pulled, pressed, dipped and dieted toward for months. This morning in the gym, it’s a chance for me to escape any more three sets of 15.

Malina takes the reins from Coach Nam at this point as she’s just come out of competition. We walk over to the stretching corner with a wall of mirrors where we’ll indulge in the narcissism that this sport demands. (This is also the moment that allows me to justify a bodybuilding column and not just a free trip to the gym.)

I don’t know if there are any official names for these poses, so I’ve decided to create for each its own moniker.

First up is what I’ll call the “Classic Sumo.” Both arms out to the side and flexing downward in a sort of semicircle shape. I find that I am quite familiar with this pose — it is exactly what I look like when I try to unload all of my laundry from the dryer in one go and carry it, unfolded, to my room. I think this is supposed to exaggerate your lats — the muscles from your shoulders to your back that create the Dorito.

Malina demonstrates the first bodybuilder pose. [MARY YANG]

Next is the “Hands where I can see them!” Here, we pretend-turn our backs to the pretend-panel of judges to bare our delts. Malina demonstrates first. It’s actually very methodical. You have to raise your arms above your head first before settling into the flex — work with the grain, right?

The ″Hands where I can see them!″ [MARY YANG]

We make a minor adjustment for our next move, which I’ll dub “The One With the Peace Signs.” It’s the same back flex but with your hands in peace signs. It’s meant to accentuate different muscles, Malina explains. (I’ll admit when I saw this on stage I thought the peace signs were an interesting, and extremely Korean, personal choice.)

Malina informs Mary that the peace sign pose is indeed meant to accentuate one's muscles and not an aesthetic choice. [MARY YANG]

Then we come to “The Pop.” Here, attitude is everything. I shift all of my weight onto one leg and into a booty pop, kind of mirroring a flamingo. This pose is also a chance to show off our triceps, which Malina does and I totally would, if I had triceps. Malina tells me to bend my wrist to make my muscles pop, but alas it is all in vain.

Mary ″flexes.″ [MARY YANG]

It’s at this point that Malina reminds me to always be flexing my core. I try to smile like somebody who is definitely confident they can control their core, but it comes out as a grimace.

We have a couple more left, and I’m amazed at how complicated all this posing is. In order to really display a particular muscle, the angle and everything is important. Perfecting each pose is tough when you’re constantly flexing and inherently resisting any movement.

Our next pose is a bit more complicated and employs everything I’ve learned up until this point. There’s a bit of hip pop action and I bend my left arm at the elbow while my right arm stays kind of suspended in the air, almost like I’m waiting for someone to escort me down a winding staircase into a ballroom like a debutante ball for really jacked people. (And isn’t that what a bodybuilding contest is anyway?) I call this one “Barbell Barbie.”

Mary does a solo ″Barbell Barbie.″ [MALINA FAIRCHILD]

There’s one more move that’s kind of Classic Sumo adjacent — same set up, but instead of ending with our arms flexed downward and out, we bring them up, like a bicep curl, or, like I’ve tried to carry all my groceries from the car in one trip.

Practicing the bicep-curl-grocery-run pose. [MARY YANG]

And we end with a wave to the audience — ourselves, in the mirror.

Waving to the fans. [MARY YANG]

Cool down

I recover off to the side as Malina practices her walk for the “Wellness” category in the competition the coming weekend. I’m amazed by the fact that she has to do it all in six-inch heels.

Coach Nam demonstrates the strut. We've completely transformed the upstairs of the HomePlus into a catwalk. Work!

Malina practices her walk for about another half hour, which seems long but really isn’t. Now that I’ve tried, it’s a lot to keep track of — while constantly keeping everything clenched.

It’s time for me to get back to the office, and I thank Coach Nam for his patience. On our way out, we’re greeted by a jumpy small white dog — his.

“What’s the name?” I ask, between pets.

“Bicep.”

Sure.

The Korea JoongAng Daily's Mary Yang is on a mission to try her hand at any and every sport that will let her in the door. She can't promise skill or finesse, but she'll give it a good go.

BY MARY YANG [mary.yang@joongang.co.kr]