How to Become a Male Fitness Model

Disclaimer: This article gives you tips on how you can launch your fitness modeling career, on your own, without our involvement. We have no modeling jobs or opportunities to offer you. We do not submit you to photographers or muscle magazines. We do not want to photograph you. Please do not send us photographs of yourself.

If you have developed a muscular body, it's easier than you think to start a career as a male fitness model. You may think that appearing on the pages of a fitness magazine is the only first step available to you. However, there are new and innovative ways for you to take a first step in this new career.

Three Ways to Become a Male Fitness Model

Mail unsolicited photos to the editorial offices of fitness magazines
Email or mail informal snapshots of yourself to fitness photographers who shoot exclusively for fitness and muscle magazines.
Team with your friends to "create" a modeling opportunity using a crowdfunding site

Choose a Sure-Thing Over a Long Shot

In the past, beginner fitness models simply needed to get snapshots into the hands of fitness photographers or magazines and hope for the best. However, competition is tough, being chosen is rare and travel for those who do not live in a major city is a major factor cost that can prevent careers from being started.

But, what if you could greatly change the odds?

If you are ready to become a male fitness model, consider our innovative advice on how to get your modeling career started locally, by teaming with 11 of your buddies on your college campus or at your gym. Our advice breaks from the traditional way of getting your career started and allows you to take a giant leap ahead of other aspiring fitness models!

But first, let's discuss the traditional and long-standing ways of becoming a male fitness model by getting snapshots of yourself into the hands of decision-makers.

When To Submit Photos: Being in Optimal Shape Not Required

If you are changing your training program, cutting weight or Bulking Up, you can still submit snapshots to photographers. Photographers know that bodybuilders fluctuate in weight before bodybuilding shows. A good photographer can predict how you will look when he is ready to bring you in for a shoot.

Just as you choose a weight class that you expect to be in on the day of a bodybuilding contest, you create snapshots when you are not in optimal condition. You simply inform the photographer that you are X weeks away from competition weight. Professional photographers know that you will be cutting weight and be in condition by the time you arrive for a photo shoot.

Types of Snapshots to Create

If you wish to be considered for fitness modeling opportunities, always include a face shot when shooting audition photos to submit to a fitness magazine or a fitness photographer, but be sure to include additional photos that focus on individual muscle groups.

Concentrate on one Muscle Group Per Snapshot

When you are asked by a fitness photographer to submit a photo that shows your abs, or any other body part, do just that. Photograph only that body part. If someone requests photos of your biceps, shoot just your biceps.

Abs

Your face does not need to be in every photo. While you need to submit at least one "head shot," your face does not need to appear in the photos when a fitness photographer wants to see a body part. When you include your face in the photo, it makes your abs smaller in the snapshot. Remember, its well-defined muscle groups that put male fitness models into national fitness magazines. You need to "show" these muscle groups - one muscle group per photo.

Measurements

Include the following measurements with your audition photos. Read this article on how to measure your body.

Height:
Weight
Chest size:
Bicep size:
Body Fat Percentage:
Waist size:
Inseam
Age:
Ancestry:
Eye Color:
Hair Color:
Location:

What To Do When Snapshots Ready

Once your snapshots are ready, send them off to professionals. We provide a list of muscle magazines and fitness photographers. (Then hope you receive a response.) But, what if you could guarantee your first fitness modeling job - without going through a magazine or contacting a fitness photographer? That's where crowdfunding comes in.

Your First Fitness Modeling Job Can Be a Calendar

There certainly are more young men who wish to become male fitness models than there are modeling opportunities. Everyone cannot receive a fitness modeling gig. Everyone cannot get onto the pages of a muscle mag. And there are only twelve covers a year. You may have the most worked out body, but it is a challenge to be one of the small percentage of guys who land a fitness modeling gig.

This is where your hard work can help you create your own modeling gig - one that did not exist - one you do not need to convince anyone to hire you!

Crowdfunding is the new equalizer for models. Many filmmakers successfully use crowdfunding sites to obtain funding for production costs of their films and webisodes. Beginner models can use a crowdfunding site to collect pre-orders for a pinup calendar. You and 11 of your friends appear in this calendar once it receives adequate funding - which results from your and your friends' word-of-mouth promotion. Appearing in a calendar - in which you organize - becomes your first fitness modeling gig!

Pin-up calendars were frequently published in the past. From female swimsuit models, celebrities, firefighters to Chippendales, calendars have been a staple and exciting gift items. Calendars can also be an effective means for aspiring models to get noticed by the public and by professionals ...fast. Appearing on someone's walls for a month is a special honor. A calendar is more than just a photograph. When you grace the pages of a calendar, you become "Mr. March" or "Mr. July."

The exciting part is that you do not need to rely on some stranger to control your career. You are creating an exciting opportunity for yourself and eleven others.

Crowdfunding sites allow beginner fitness models a way to be in control of getting their careers started. And with control comes ownership. With ownership comes sharing in the calendar sales (after printing costs are covered through pre-orders.)

Your Dedication in Weight Training Matches Dedication Needed to Promote Your Calendar's Crowdfunding Page

Your hard work and dedication in developing your muscles is the same kind of dedication and stick-to-it-ness that is needed to have a successful crowdfunding project. In the gym, you were dedicated to lifting hard, proper form and returning to the gym consistenly, day after day. With a crowdfunding project, you keep promoting calendar pre-sales day after day. You reach out to more friends and friends of friends each day. You become a constant promoter of your own career.

You Guys Are The Gym's Regulars

Twelve models are needed to make a calendar. You can choose to team with popular guys from your college or the "regulars" from your gym. In the gym, everyone knows the hard-core lifters. The guys who are the regulars. The guys in the gym who are there four days per week and know each other's names. Sometimes you hit the bars together. This is a perfect set-up for a team. You can join with the popular guys from your gym to promote your calendar's crowdfunding project. Everyone in the calendar will have known each other from lifitng at the same health club and are rady to work together to bring success to the project.

Here is what you need to do to appear in a calendar:

Gather as many of your friends from your gym or on campus as you can, (You will need 12, including yourself)
Post a "project" on a crowdfunding site. Describe a calendar that will be produced IF you receive a minimum quanity of pre-sale orders. Charge $14.95 per calendar.
Simply posting a crowdfunding project is not enough to be successful. You and the other would-be calendar models must tell everyone. Everyone! Ask family, friends, coworkers and anyone you know to pre-order calendars through your corwdfunding page.
Search for bloggers who specialize in writing about your college, your school's sports team, or your city. Ask bloggers to "do a post" to encourage their readers to pre-order the calendar. Contact local reporters who write for your city's newspapers and TV stations.
Do anything and everything you can to gather enough pledged orders to put your over the top - so your calendar's printing costs will be met.
You will likely need 1000 calendars sold to have enough funds to cover production costs.
Once you obtain the minimum quantity of pre-orders, the credit card of everyone who pledged will be charged.

Something To Show Your Grandkids

Remember, appearing in a calendar is life-changing and something you will always remember. Years in the future, you will be able to tell your grand kids that "Grandpa was Mr. January once." Given the exciting advantages of appearing in a calendar, the energy and time you expend in gathering pre-orders through your calendar's crowdfunding project page is well-worth it.

Work Required

Yes, with this idea, there is no separate person or company who will do all the work for you. The responsibility is on the shoulders of you and the other 11 students who are lined up to appear in the calendar. However, you will not have that wondrous chance of appearing in your pinup calendar if you sit back and wait for someone else to do all your work.. its up to you to make yourself famous.

Get intense with promoting pre-orders. Go the extra mile to get this chance to get your modeling career started.

Personal Training Clients Are a Perfect Support System

Many guys who want to become male fitness models also provide weight training services to people in their city. Clients you train are a perfect potential team for supporting your crowdfunding project. Contact all your clients and challenge them to pre-order a calendar and to also get two of their friends to also order. This is an exciting chance for them to be able to say they are trained by a calendar model.

And if you do not presently have personal training clients, undergoing the process of gathering supporters for your calendar is an opportunity to develop new clients - another source for revenue in addition to calendar sales. Once the project is funded, make sure those people who supported the project know that you are now offering personal training services in their homes and at your local gyms.

After Your Calendar is Printed

Once your calendar is printed, you will have a perfect promotional peice you can use to get doors opened for your fitness modeling career. Instead of submitting snapshots to muscle magazines and photographers, submit a calendar. Submitting a calendar is sure to garner you more attention than all the non-professional snapshots that are submitted by many aspiring fitness models. Who would catch your eye? One of the hundreds of random physiques that arrive through email, or Mr. March, who mailed his calendar?

Also consider all the indirect oportunities that may arise without your active promotion. People all over your city and across the country will see your calendar page. There may be professionals who seek you out after seeing your page in the calendar. Publicity for your calendar is key to your getting more exposure and possible opportunities.

You Get the Profits

You will get famous on your campus or in your gym, but also remember the earning potential. You are not just posing for photos, you are an owner! Once printing costs are paid out of pledged pre-sale orders, you and your friends get to split the revenue from any orders over and above the amount needed to print the calendar.

Remember, you and your friends own the product and earn all the profits from sales once printing costs is deducted!

Team with "the Right" Friends

But you cannot do it alone. By its nature, there are twelve months in a year. So, you need twelve friends to appear in the calendar. Choose guys who will actively promote the calendars' crowdfunding project.

So, don't only choose friends based on their looks. Be careful to team with students who are not lazy. Choose friends who have a lot of Facebook friends who will support them. Popularity on campus is key! Do any of your friends gave Twitter accounts with a lot of supporters? If yes, they might be the best candidates for appearing in a calendar. Are any of your friends able to easily get hundreds of their friends to show up to a house party? If yes, they might be good candidates for appearing in your school's calendar.

In some cases, a parent of a student who is lined up to appear in the calendar, might pledge to order 100 or more calendars!

Production Steps

Don't worry about photography and finding a commercial digital printer for now. Those tasks are easy once you have enough pre-orders. Those are not as challenging as you might expect. A good physique can be the source for an awesome photo - even with an average camera. Remember, for now, promotion is key. You will only appear in a calendar if enough pre-orders are pledged through your crowdfunding project's page.

So, are you ready to work hard to get your fitness modeling career started? If yes, start by reading the details on how to set up your crowdfunding page. Then, start identifying energetic friends who are the best choices to promote your project and appear as a model. Good luck and we hope to see you on the pages of your calendar!

Once your calendar project is posted, email me at ...and we will pre-order a copy!