Lee Priest still keeps tabs on how the sport has changed since his era of bodybuilding. In a YouTube video shared on July 6, 2025, he discussed reducing the number of competitors at the Olympia, dancing onstage, and the standing relaxed pose.
Lee Priest built a one-of-a-kind career defying the odds. Despite his shorter stature, he held his own and even toppled some all-time greats. Throughout his tenure, he defeated eight-time Olympia winner Ronnie Coleman on seven occasions.
From posing presentation to improving the Men’s Open class, Priest is always trying to elevate the sport. With the 2025 Mr. Olympia approaching in a few months, he explores whether or not too many athletes qualify, along with dancing, and the merit of the standing relaxed pose that each bodybuilder starts with when they hit the stage.
Lee Priest Says Modern Standing Relaxed Pose Makes Athletes ‘Blocky,’ Talks Dancing at Contests: ‘It Just Makes the Sport Look Stupid’
In the video, Priest maintained that the Olympia could reduce its number of competitors who qualify each year by only allowing the winner of the event to automatically re-qualify.
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“My solution would be only one guy re-qualifies. Back in our day, the top 10 would re-qualify for the following year.
Generally, because there wasn’t as many pros coming through, a lot of the time the same guys would be there, but they were all top quality. Look at the top 10 back in the 90s or early 2000s, any of those guys could be up in the top six on any given day,” he said.
Additionally, Priest argued that each competitor should have to compete at a minimum of two or three shows a year.
“To me, get to the Olympia, at least win a show, but if you win a show, you should have to do two to three shows minimum a year. That way promoters make more money, the fans get to see these guys onstage. A lot of these guys compete once a year, twice if you’re lucky.”
Priest favors how athletes used to perform the standing relaxed pose, with their feet together, versus how it’s executed today, which Lee Haney refers to as a ‘motorcycle stance.’
“We were pretty much told heels together. If you’ve got a great physique, even Samson, with his feet together, he’ll still have the flare in his quads, his waist will still look small, to me, they start to look blockier like this, yeah, you might bring your shoulders out more, but you still look blocky. It doesn’t look pretty.”
As for dancing onstage, while Priest says it looks funny, he argued it’s making the sport look stupid.
“It’s funny to look at, but to me, it just makes the sport look stupid. If he had clothes on doing that at a nightclub, it wouldn’t look half as bad, but for some reason, when you’re a muscular guy covered in oil and posing trunks or even board shorts, doing that onstage, it doesn’t look right.”
He explained that when Vince Taylor or King Kamali used to incorporate dances, they managed to do so while mixing in the mandatory poses:
“At least back in the day when Melvin, King Kamali, or Vince Taylor did some sort of posing routine, they hit poses in their routine, properly hit poses. Vince Taylor being Terminator, loading the gun, hitting the bicep, there’s wasn’t just dancing it was actual posing.”
Priest has also kept fans up-to-date on his favorite protein options as a bodybuilder. According to the 52-year-old, ground beef is his go-to protein source, which he said he’d often pair with rice or pasta for a well-rounded meal when bulking.
Unlike his era, Priest believes there are too many competitors squaring off at the Olympia. To address this problem, he argued Pros should have to compete more often and only the Mr. Olympia winner should re-qualify, not the top three.
Watch the full video from the Ron Harris Muscle YouTube channel below:
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