FULL HOUSE state is characterized by a liberal amount of interstitial & subcutaneous water & fat that has the cosmetic effect of blending all the muscle groups together into a uniform smooth appearance. If you were in Full House condition and gained any additional water & fat, you would just become big and fat. Unless you were born with deep facial dimples,you have no cuts anywhere on a Full House physique. Other point of note.
- Waistline is slightly distended, yet firm to the touchand capable of shrinking to a smaller state once the abbs are tensed.
- Although muscular girths measure the biggest,they appear the least impressive visually of all the states.
- This is your physically strongest statedue to the aditional water provides your joints with extra leverage.
- The face is typicaly puffy: vascularity is almost entierly absent. A male would weigh more than 30lbs over the SLICED state, a female BBer more than 20lbs over.
- People may mistake you for a football playeror wrestler in this state, as your muscle clarity and overall shape would not directly indicate you as a BBer.
- You should still be able to see obscure muscle lines or blurry portions of muscle separation in your abbs.
- You look massive in clothes, however you look better with them on rather than off.
- When you strike a double bicep pose there is no striking visual transformation in your physique. You can't flex fat.
- When you start dieting your body changes over night.

HARD is typified by a moderate amount of interstitial fat & subQ water & fat around the body that has the cosmetic effect of gently rouonding out the muscle groups into a shapely,powerful look. If you gain additional fat and water in the Hard state you become Full House again. Although there are no cuts in the Hard state, the lower percentage of fat & water creates a visually perceptible difference in the outward contour of the muscle groups. This makes them more pleasantly shaped & enhances the overall symmetry as well, additional point to the Hard physique
- Even though you weigh less than Full House you appear bigger beacuse of the improved muscle shape.
-The state of being Hard is a very wide condition. Unlike Full House, a several pound loss produces vaying degrees of the same look.
- The waist is the first region to change dramatically. Males typicaly lose about 2 inces off their waist, females 1-1 1/2 inces, when they become Hard.
- Although muscle separation still appears as obscured lines, the number of prominant lines rises sharply from Full House to Hard.
- When you strike a front double bicep pose, the arms appear to have more height, the upper torso has a better V-taper, and there is greater detail to the lower rib cagewhen compared to Full House.
- When viewed from a distance of 30 feet away the Hard body looks big and shapely. When it's viewed from 6 feet away there is a large drop in visual impressiveness.
- More facial contours start to appear, and vascularity starts to hint more in the forearms.
- A male would weigh between 24-30 pounds over the SLICED state, plus or minus a few pounds, a female would weigh between 16-21 pounds plus or minus a couple

The CUT physique is the first state where geneticaly predisposed areas of the body start to display groove like formations of muscle fibers. These are the first signs of being Cut. For some BBers this may occurin the delts, for others in the abbs, but all weight trained bodies have a particular area that shows cuts first. This also means that the remaining regionsof the physique will be less cut as a result of greater amounts of interstitial & subQ water aand fatstored there. From an overall standpoint, muscle roundness becomes considerably more pronounced in this state. CUT carries these features as well.
- Although you appear weight trained in clothes, you look slightly better with your clothes off than with them on.
- The face becomes more etched, vascularity is clearer in the forearm region, and most people immediately recognize you as a BBer.
- A male weighs typicaly between 14-24 pounds over the SLICED state. A female 12-16 pounds over SLICED. This is teh widest state as it takes a steady weight decrease in order for cuts to appear in new locations.
- When viewed from 30 feet away the CUT person looks big and symmetrical outdoors. When he or she is seen from 6 feet away the viewers eyes tend to be drawn to the less impressive regions, as visual contrasts now exist on the body of a CUT BBer.
- When you are posing the double biceps pose, your legs show the general outlines of some of the muscle heads.
- You loose around 1-1 1/2 inces from your waist line when you become CUT.
- With a good workout pump, this is the first state where you begin to look impressive in the gym mirror, especially in the morning light.
- When improving from HARD to CUT, you loose slightly more size in the thighs than you do in the arms.

DEFINED carries a minimal amount of interstitial and subQ water and fat, which has the visual property of defining the outlines of each muscle group. Simply staated when you add more cuts to the CUT stage, eventually you carve out and separate each muscle group from an adjacent one. The morphology of the muscles becomes visually DEFINED, and in turn you have reached the DEFINED state. If even one area shows no detail to the muscle area you are still CUT, not DEFINED. In addition, a good rule of thumb to remember is that once your naturally cut area melts into the rest of your physique, it is likely you are DEFINED. Here are more pointers to DEFINED.
- You will experience your first real power drop in this state.
- Cheeck bones start to push outwards, hints of vascularity start to appear on the thighs, and the veins on the arms raise higher from the skins surface.
- When you hit the double bicep pose, more muscle lines appear everywhere. The biceps and triceps are cleanly separated, you can see where the lats insert, the waist forms an indentation underneath the rib cage, and the thighs show more distinctness in each muscle group.
- When viewed from 30 feet away the DEFINED BBer looks impressive. When he or she is viewed from 6 feet away, the viewer observes a greater uniformity to the bodily definition but is still drawn to the areas that need more surfaace detailing.
- Although you look athletic in clothing you definately look better with clothes off than with them on. You loose another 1 1 1/2 inches from your waist.
- While certain lighting conditions make you look very good, when you stand under fluorecent light, most of your lines become less pronounced. The DEFINED cuts are not deep enough to resist the washout effect.
- The weak points on your physique become clearly noticable when DEFINED. A man typicaly weighs between 8-14 pounds above SLICED condition and a female between 6-12 pounds.

RIPPED physique is characterized by less than minimal degrees of water & BF, which tends to highlight striations and surface irregularities of various muscle groups. Anatomicaly speaking, as you add more cuts to the DEFINED stage your skin starts to fold over and fall into numerous angles that are unique to a specific muscle. This creates the presence of striations and sets up the multiangled look to each muscle group. Over 70% of all BBing contests are won in the ripped state. With two stages left, this tells you how difficult it is for most BBers to go past RIPPED. This is how you know if you are RIPPED.
- The cheeck bones are quite prominent, vascularity is scattered aall over the body, hints of cross striations occur in the thighs,triceps and abbs. A clean pectoral line is still evident, even when you put your arms above your head.
- When you strike the double biceps pose, the forearms should appear knotted and hard, the biceps will have surface markings on the peak and the middle head of the thigh will be cleanly visible and separated from the inner and outer thighs.
- When viewed from 30 feet away you look quite impressive in the outdoor lighht. When seen from 6 feet away you still appear impressive aalthough less so.
- You appear somewhat average in clothes, but when you take them off the transformation is striking.
- A bystander who sees a RIPPED BBer will stare intently. The state of being RIPPED is a narrow condition. That is beacuse at this point, the addition of cuts will produce a radical cosmetic diffence in your physique.
- Guys who are RIPPED weigh 3-7 pounds over the SLICED level, a female 2-5 pounds.
- As you graduate from DEFINED to RIPPED, your thigh measurment will further decrease, upto 1 inch less from one stage to another.
- Although you wont look your best in fluorescent light, the RIPPED physique will not suffer the same washout that DEFINED did.

SLICED stae carries trace levels of fat and water, which creates the dramatic effect of adding new cross striations to certain muscles, as well as deepening the already existing cross striations. Achieving the SLICED state accounts for around 29% of all the BB comp wins. This is the stage that everyone says the winner was SHREDDED but in fact he was not really SHREDDED. Incidently, the SLICED state increases the apparent density of the physique as well. Here is how you know you are SLICED.
- When viewed from 30 feet away, the SLICED body looks fantastic. When seen from 6 feet away it still appears truly impressive.
- The cheeck bones are very prominent, and the veins are raised prominently away from the skins surface, no mater where they are located.
- It is extremely easy to flex a muscle group and cause it to jump out at you visually.
- Men who are SLICED have aboout 3 pounds to play with in this state, once they go over that they immediately drop to RIPPED. Women have a 2 pound leewayto float with. As you see a 2-3 pound weight gain is all it takes to slide you back to RIPPED. Conversely, those 2-3 pounds removed can almost assure you of victory. With SLICED you are dealing with a subtle state.
- When you do the double bicep pose the transition from relaxed to flexed is phenominal. The skin has a translucent quality & appears to be wrapped tightly around the muscle bellies like freezer wrap. Every muscle group stands out in bold relief.
- Unless you compete as a heavyeight you will look small in clothes. Once you remove them, however it is not uncommon to hear shrieks of amazement from a crowd of onlookers.
- Even your glutes will have striations running across them. The triceps and thighs will be heavily feathered, this is genetic as well.
- Moving from RIPPED to SLICED will further decrease the waist by about half an inch. You can see striations in Fluro lights, and in the gym light you appear to be bordering on the freaky.
- To go from SLICED to SHREDDED you need to drop an extra 3-4 pounds. Obviously that wont be coming from fat loss much, so the majority of this change will be in the amount of subQ water.

The highest condition of muscularity you can achieve is SHREDDED. Less than 1% of BBers ever achieve this state. It is characterized by an absolute zero apperance of water and fat, which makes the possesor of this state look as though he or she has no skin covering the muscles. Cross striations appear in all sorts of strange places when you are SHREDDED. This is what to expect if you want the ultimate degree of muscular definition.
- When viewed from 30 feet away in the outdoor sunlight, the SHREDDED physique will not look much different from a SLICED one, however when viewed from 6 feet away, it will absolutely stun you visually. You eyes will dart all over the body beacuse it is so totaly mesmerising to look at. Seriously it will appear freaky from 6 feet away. For some people it will simply be too much to like right away, others will be visually G forced but completely appreciate it anyway. Being SHREDDED creats strong reactions from the BBing comunity. As for the general population some amy loose their breakfast over it as it's simply beyond their wildest dreams.
- The state of being SHREDDED can only be held for hours at a time. Since so many biological processes have to be maximized to create this effect, it is very easy for the body to start changing one thing, then the whole picture reverts back to SLICED. BBers who are SLICED can be photographed the next day and still hold that condition but SHREDDED Bers should be photgraphed straight away.
- SHREDDED BBers look like rakes in clothes. When they take them off at a weigh in everyone seems to get an immediate urge to go home.
- If a SHREDDED BBer stands next to a CUT one the CUT BBEr will look like he is FULL HOUSE. The state of SHREDDED is the instant giant killer state.
- When a SHREDDED BBer makes the slightest physical movement, everything flexes and striates. Even eating an apple seems to take on an out of this world look of importance and purpose.
- The SHREDDED state gives it's possesora unique advantage. It is excellent for hiding the structural faultsof the development, beacuse the observers eyes are kept so busy.
- Each muscle group appears to be sitting right off the bone. You can see the insertion points of the lower jaw mandible, the veins are hanging out massive, and even the muscles on the feet are clearly prominent and visible.
- Fluro lights do nothing to weaken the visual picture of a SHREDDED physique.
- Memebers of the opposite sex will wonder if they should feed you. If they do you will instantly drop to SLICED. Then you can give the rest of the field a more interesting ending.
- The muscular measurements of the SHREDDED BBer will be much smallerthan you would imagine, however once that person stands under the bright lights of the stage, he or she will appear enormous.

Hope you all enjoy the read. Now how many of you will go and strike a pose and see where your at.

This is from the book Sliced by Bill Reynold and Negrita Jayde