How to Take Progress Photos for a Recomp (Cut or Bulk)

How often should you take progress photos?

Weekly or every two weeks is the useful range on both a cut and a bulk. Daily photos mostly capture sodium, lighting, glycogen, and whether you trained that morning — not tissue that actually changed.

Recomps are slow on purpose. Give the protocol enough time that two photos can disagree. If you shoot more often, treat extras as backups, not as a new verdict every Sunday.

What lighting and location should you use?

Pick one spot you can repeat: same room, same overheads, same time of day. Bathroom lighting is fine if it is the lighting you will still have in six months. Chasing “better” light week to week is how people invent progress that isn’t there.

Window light moves with weather and seasons. If you use it, keep the camera and your stance fixed and accept that some weeks will look softer. Consistency beats a cinematic setup you only use twice.

Which poses should you shoot?

Front, side, and back. That set is enough to see a waist, a shoulder line, and whether a cut is coming off the back. Arms relaxed at your sides is the easiest default.

If you add a flexed shot or a vacuum, write it down and keep it as a second series — don’t swap it in for the relaxed set when you compare. Three poses you can repeat beat a new angle every check-in.

How do you keep angles consistent over months?

Mark the floor. Note camera height. Use the same phone and the same zoom — 1x, not ultrawide, if you can help it. Ultrawide stretches a midsection. Stand the same distance from the lens. A timer or a cheap shutter means you are not also holding the phone.

You will still drift. That’s normal. When you review, compare the same pose and nudge the frames so hips or shoulders line up. The goal is a fair look, not a perfect studio.

Should you track weight and notes with each check-in?

Yes. Weight without photos is a noisy number during a recomp. Photos without weight make it hard to explain a “worse” week that was a high-carb day or a late night. One line of context — sleep, sodium, pump, travel, menstrual phase — keeps you from rewriting the story later.

You don’t need a novel. Date, weight, the three poses, and a sentence is a complete check-in.

How do you review progress when the scale is flat?

That’s the job photos are for. Open the same pose months apart, not yesterday versus today. Look at waist, hips, shoulders, and how the same clothes sit. If the scale hasn’t moved and the photos have, the composition is changing. If neither has, look at the plan — not a new camera angle.

Don’t grade a recomp on a Monday morning weigh-in. Grade it on a stack of comparable pictures.

What tools help?

A timer or Bluetooth shutter. A tripod, a shelf, or a stack of books at a height you wrote down. The same fitted shirt or the same underwear. A place to keep dated photos next to weight — not a camera roll you will never search.

That last part is what a dedicated tracker is for. Your Photos album can store the files; it won’t line up poses or keep the note you needed in March.