Hadi Choopan’s Weak Body Parts: Where the Former Mr. Olympia Can Still Improve

Calling any body part on Hadi Choopan “weak” needs context. He is a former Mr. Olympia, a perennial top-two Open contender and one of the most conditioned bodybuilders of his era. At that level, a weakness usually means the area that loses a pose against another world-class physique—not an underdeveloped muscle by normal bodybuilding standards.

The most useful recent evidence comes from the 2025 Mr. Olympia, where Derek Lunsford narrowly beat Choopan for the title. In his post-show pose-by-pose breakdown, IFBB Pro League vice president Tyler Manion explained why he had Lunsford ahead in five mandatory poses and Choopan ahead in three. Those comments give us a much better framework than simply looking at one photograph and declaring a body part “bad.”

Choopan’s conditioning, midsection control, muscular hardness and ability to look complete under stage lights remain major strengths. The places he can still improve are therefore mostly about adding selective volume—especially where a slightly bigger rival can create more width, roundness or density without giving away conditioning.

“Weak” is relative when you have already won Mr. Olympia

Choopan won the 2022 Mr. Olympia and has stayed close to the top ever since. That alone should stop the discussion from turning into a list of supposedly “small” muscles. His physique works because several qualities reinforce each other: a compact frame, a tight waist, extremely deep separation, thick muscle bellies and posing that makes his conditioning obvious from almost every angle.

The better question is: where do judges still find separation between Choopan and the one or two athletes capable of beating him? In 2025, Manion repeatedly returned to the same themes when comparing him with Lunsford—leg volume from the front, shoulder and outer-arm fullness in certain front and side shots, and back density in the rear double biceps.

That does not erase Choopan’s strengths. In the same judging breakdown, Manion gave him the abdominal-and-thigh pose and most-muscular pose, and also had him winning the rear lat spread. The goal for Choopan is therefore not a wholesale rebuild. It is to add just enough where the scoring gap appears without blurring the traits that already win him poses.

Leg size is the clearest front-view gap relative to Derek Lunsford

In the 2025 front double biceps, Manion praised Choopan’s taper, small waist and conditioning, but said his legs did not carry the same size as Lunsford’s. That is an important distinction: Choopan’s quads were not lacking definition. If anything, his separation was one of the reasons the pose stayed competitive. The difference was total front-view volume.

Lunsford arrived with more leg width and retained more fullness through the lower body. In a pose where both athletes have small waists and broad upper bodies, that extra quad sweep changes the silhouette. It makes the whole physique look larger without requiring a dramatically wider waist or torso.

For Choopan, the obvious improvement would be more leg volume while preserving the deep separation that already makes his lower body dangerous. That is easier said than done. Adding scale weight is only useful if it lands in the right places and still allows him to reach the dry, detailed condition that has become part of his competitive identity.

The important point is that “more legs” does not necessarily mean chasing indiscriminate bodyweight. At this level, even a modest increase in quad sweep or adductor fullness can change the visual balance of a front pose. The useful target is enough added tissue to close the silhouette gap while keeping the same lines and separation.

Shoulder cap and outer-arm fullness can cost him front and side poses

The second recurring theme in Manion’s 2025 analysis was the shoulder-and-arm silhouette. In the front lat spread, he described Choopan’s shoulders as flatter relative to Lunsford’s and highlighted the greater cap and outer-arm volume on Lunsford. He returned to the same comparison in the side chest, again preferring Lunsford’s shoulder and outer-arm roundness while noting that Choopan had the stronger biceps peak.

That makes this a very specific weakness rather than a blanket “small arms” problem. Choopan’s arms are huge, and his biceps shape is a strength. What can change a pose at this level is the transition from delt to upper arm: a fuller lateral delt and thicker outer-arm look create more three-dimensional width when the judges compare athletes side by side.

Choopan clearly knows delts matter. During his 2025 Olympia preparation he publicly showed high-volume shoulder work built around presses, lateral-raise variations and cable work. Training footage alone cannot tell us what his eventual stage improvements will be, but it does show that shoulder development has remained a deliberate priority rather than an ignored area.

The rear double biceps exposes a back-density gap more than a “bad back”

The rear double biceps is probably the most important place to be precise with language. Manion said Choopan had good back width, but that he did not quite match Lunsford’s width and that the larger difference was density. Lunsford’s back is one of the defining features of his physique, so losing this pose to him does not mean Choopan has an objectively weak back.

It means the rear double biceps can still reveal a relative deficit in total tissue across the back when the two men are compared at the same time. More upper-back thickness, more lat density and a little more visual width could make Choopan harder to separate from Lunsford in the pose that has historically been one of Derek’s biggest weapons.

The challenge is adding that density without thickening the waist or compromising the crisp separation Choopan brings from behind. Open bodybuilding rewards mass, but mass only helps when it improves the pose.

The rear lat spread proves that calling his whole back weak is wrong

The 2025 rear lat spread is the counterargument to any simplistic “Hadi needs a better back” take. Manion gave the pose to Choopan. His explanation focused on how well Hadi opens his back and displays thickness, density and detail across it.

That tells us the issue is pose-specific. The rear double biceps rewards a different combination of width, upper-back density, arm presentation and detail than the rear lat spread. Choopan can look excellent in one rear shot and still give up ground in another. That is normal at elite level, where tiny structural and presentation differences become the deciding factors.

For improvement, the goal is not simply “more lats.” He needs any extra back mass to improve the rear double biceps without disturbing the proportions and detail that already make the lat spread a winning pose. Selective thickness through the upper and mid-back would be more useful than indiscriminate bodyweight gain.

His biggest competitive problem may be the size-versus-conditioning tradeoff

Choopan’s calling card is conditioning. His abdominal-and-thigh pose is routinely one of his best because the waist stays controlled, the midsection looks deeply etched and the quads show severe separation. Manion gave him that pose in 2025 and also gave him the most muscular because of the overall polish and flow.

But the recent Olympia history shows the tension he has to manage. In 2024, Choopan finished ahead of Lunsford but behind Samson Dauda, whose larger frame and overall size gave judges a different package to reward. In 2025, the tighter contest with Lunsford again turned on places where more lower-body volume, shoulder roundness and back density changed the comparison.

So “get bigger” is not a complete answer. If Choopan adds enough mass to soften his waist, flatten his separation or make the physique look blockier, he risks weakening the exact poses that currently beat larger men. His path is selective growth: add tissue where judges repeatedly see a gap and protect everything that makes his conditioning look extreme.

That balancing act is one reason elite Open bodybuilding improvements can be difficult to spot outside a direct comparison. An extra few pounds can be a success if they improve two poses without changing the waist; the same gain can be a failure if it reduces sharpness. For Choopan, stage effect matters more than scale weight.

More size only helps if Hadi keeps the qualities that beat bigger men

Against Samson Dauda, Choopan has often shown why sheer scale is not everything. Hadi has beaten Dauda multiple times when his conditioning, density and presentation produced the stronger overall package. That history matters because it shows the solution to every lost pose cannot simply be adding as much mass as possible.

Choopan is dangerous precisely because his physique is compact and dense. His waist stays small relative to the upper body, his quads look deeply separated, and his most muscular can look harder and more finished than competitors who outweigh him. If he chased enough bodyweight to erase every size gap on paper, he could also erase the visual contrast that makes those strengths stand out.

The realistic target is a few strategically valuable improvements: slightly more quad sweep and lower-body volume, rounder delts and outer arms, and extra back density that shows most clearly in the rear double biceps. Those changes could close several of the exact pose-by-pose gaps Manion identified without changing the basic blueprint.

What realistic improvement looks like for Hadi Choopan

For a beginner, “bring up your weak points” can mean adding inches everywhere. For Choopan, the margin is much smaller. He does not need a new physique. He needs small changes that become visible only when he stands beside Lunsford, Dauda and the other best Open bodybuilders in the world.

Based on the 2025 judging comments, the highest-value targets are straightforward. More lower-body volume could strengthen the front double biceps and side shots. More lateral-delt and outer-arm fullness could improve the front lat spread and side chest. More back density could make the rear double biceps harder for Lunsford to dominate. None of those changes require sacrificing the tight waist, conditioning and posing polish that already win Choopan the abdominal-and-thigh, most-muscular and rear-lat-spread comparisons.

That is why “weak body parts” is almost the wrong phrase for a physique at this level. Choopan’s weaknesses are really the last few places where another Mr. Olympia-level bodybuilder can still create a visible advantage. If he closes even one or two of those gaps while arriving with his usual conditioning, the difference between second and first can become very small.

For a physique this advanced, that is the realistic standard of progress: not a dramatic transformation, but a slightly stronger comparison in the handful of mandatory poses that decide the Sandow.

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