“Couples Bodybuilding Was a Thing Years Ago”: Fitness World Reacts to Viral “Bodybuilding Dance Competition”

Modern-era bodybuilding enthusiasts might only know about the major bodybuilding categories like open, classic, and bikini, but they will be shocked if they learn about a new category. There used to be a bodybuilding category called Mixed Pair Bodybuilding, which was a huge hit back in the day.

The well-recognized bodybuilding page generationiron posted a post reminiscing about the golden era and sharing information about the Mixed Pair category. The post startled some of the fans and gave them some nostalgia. The page captioned the image, “Have y’all seen a bodybuilding dance competition? Or Mixed Pairs performances? Anyone knows which competition is this?” Those who knew about the category sure chimed in! 

The Mixed Pair Division was first introduced in 1980, lasted until 1988, and was officially recognized by the IFBB in 1983. According to a document shared by the IFBB, “The 2013 IFBB International Congress in Marrakesh, Morocco, finally canceled women’s bodybuilding as an IFBB sport discipline, so nowadays IFBB Mixed Pairs category is open for athletes representing different IFBB sport divisions.”

The rules for this category were the same as those for normal bodybuilding competitions. Men pose all the mandatory poses in other categories, and women perform those poses the way they do in female bodybuilding. The attire for both men and women was the same as in other competitions. There were two prejudging rounds and two final rounds. 

In the first prejudging round, all athletes did five mandatory poses, and in the second prejudging round, they again did five rounds and a comparison of five poses. In the third round, they did five poses with a posedown, and in the last round, there was a twenty-second free-posing routine. The judges paid extra attention to the couple’s synchronization with the music and wanted a well-choreographed performance, including all the mandatory poses. 

The bodybuilder who holds the title for the biggest arm in bodybuilding history, Lee Priest, also posed in this category. Preist competed in this category in his teenage days with his mother. His mother was a good competitive bodybuilder, and they both mesmerized the audience with their posing. Let us see what people in the comment section had to say. 

A fan wants the Mixed Pair category in the Olympia

A bodybuilding fan was left shocked after learning about this division for the first time and commented, “Someone literally just told me about this. I hadn’t seen it.”

Continuing further, she asked her queries, writing, “Assuming you couldn’t have one person IFBB and the other amateur? They’d both either have to be pros or ams?”

Another fan expressed his wish to take this division to the most prestigious stage of Mr. Olympia and commented, “Wow…. I wanna c this on Olympia too“

A fan made a hilarious remark in the bodybuilding dance category and wrote, “u and ur boo should do this.”

A bodybuilding enthusiast reminisced about his days when the show was a hit and commented, “I remember back in the day this used to be popular in the mid 90s late 80s.”

An Instagram user called out Generation Iron’s Instagram page for stating the straight facts and wrote, “Couples bodybuilding was a thing years ago and it’s not a dance competition. GI get your shit together and do some research before posting a dumb remark.”

After learning about a new bodybuilding category, were you as surprised as the fans were, or did you go on a trip down your memory lane? Let us know in the comments.