The Arnold Sports Festival, the group that runs the Arnold Classic contests around the world, announced this week that there will be a new amateur “Wellness Division” contest taking place at their Columbus, Ohio event during the weekend of March 5-8, 2020.
This new division is for women and had recently been added to both the National Physique Committee and the IFBB Pro League. The announcement goes on to state that these events will be the first pro qualifying competitions in the United States and the winners of these contests will be among the first to earn IFBB Pro League status in the new division.
The contests in Columbus will be open to all amateur athletes around the world who wish to take part this coming March.
About the Wellness Division
According to the NPC News Online website, the Wellness division is “for females with athletic physiques that showcase more body mass in the hips, glutes and thigh areas. The upper body is developed but not to the same degree as the lower body.” Some insiders in the bodybuilding community feel that the look will be a softer version of the standards for the bikini division.
Competitors will have to present their physiques onstage in a fashion similar to bikini as well. They will face the front, take quarter turns to the right to show their bodies from both sides as well as the rear. They will also have to walk to the front of the stage and back. They will compete in two piece suits that must be pre-approved before preparing to take the stage as well as heels. There will be height classes as a part of the competitions and events can have up to four classes which would be based on height.
There has been no other word on what other contests or promoters will be holding events with Wellness included as of this writing, but there is believed to be more in development and will be announced as we get closer to the new year.