Ideal Stage Weight for Bikini Competitors

This is a revision of one of my more popular articles.  It seems the judges have been looking for bikini girls to be leaner and dryer than they were a few years back when I wrote the original article on Ideal Stage Weight for Bikini Competitors. So I’ve taken a close look at where my clients have been weighing in in relation to their height over the past few years since the criteria has changed. And sure enough, they’re weighing in a bit lighter on average. I wasn’t sure if this would be the case, since the judges are also looking for more muscle these days. I think probably at the pro level things are different, and girls will be towards the high end of the ideal range. For most regional and national level girls though, the ideal weight is a tad less than it was a few years back.

Here is the article…I’ve only changed the ideal ranges and replaced the calculator with a simple chart (the calculator wasn’t mobile friendly). Please be sure and read the article though so you don’t end up thinking that you HAVE to shoot for a certain weight! That’s not at all what we’re saying here. It’s just to give you a ballpark, since A LOT of girls are way off in terms of how much weight they think they need to lose or gain to be stage ready.

I’ve always had a good feel for what the ideal weight range is for a given height, but just recently I decided to see if there might be a consistent formula to determine this that would be accurate for girls anywhere from 4′ to 7′ tall.

And there is.  Its the otherwise mostly useless BMI (Body Mass Index) formula.  Yes, I know it doesn’t differentiate between 130lbs of muscle and 130lbs of fat…but neither do the judges if you’re 5’2″ tall.  At 5’2″ 130lbs, you won’t place well (if at all), regardless of what your bodyfat % is…if you can even measure it accurately.

No, you’re actually going to have to be within a pretty tight range of normal for your height if you want to be competitive.  Now don’t get me wrong…I’m not saying that if 5’2″ at 111lbs is an ideal height/weight, that you will be competitive JUST because you’ve achieved those numbers.

I’m saying that you probably won’t be if you’re far off from that.  There is A LOT more at play than height/weight, and body composition does come into play.  But in my experience, body composition testing (four compartment models aside) is WAY too inaccurate for lean individuals, and BMI is EXTREMELY consistent amongst well prepped competitors of all heights.  My observations AND my data reflect that.

So how do you calculate your ideal stage weight for bikini, based on this BMI formula?  Well, I could give you the BMI formula and you could use 8th grade math to do the rest.  Or, you can just use this handy chart I created.

Here is what I’ve determined for ideal stage BMI ranges:

A BMI of 18-18.9 can be fine for some girls…will be too skinny for many though.

A BMI of 19-20.2 is the MOST ideal BMI for a fully prepped bikini competitor.

A BMI of 20.3-21 can be fine for girls who carry their muscle well…especially if a lot is in the booty.  Its going to be too heavy for a lot of girls though.

And here is the chart so you can figure out where you are, and where you need to be.  Please don’t take this to mean that you HAVE to get to this ideal range…if you carry a lot of muscle that you don’t want to shed, then either do figure, or just deal with being a more developed bikini competitor.  You can make up for a lot with your posing, at the regional level at least.

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