how do *you* do posemaniacs?

[mactire]

I would avoid using posemaniacs to be honest, since it uses "posed" 3d models that have a musculature texture applied to them they can actually be mis-informing you. I realise that you are probably only going for gestures due to the time you're going for, but even at that the posemaniac models can't convey light, weight, balance and correct muscle movement that you would get from studying from a real model. Ideally the best results would probably come from attending a life drawing session but since that's not always possible due to financial or geographical reasons there are several good resources online that allow for timed poses like the system posemaniacs uses but with stock and pose reference photos of models.
Some include:
http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/figuredrawing.php
http://www.artsyposes.com/ (look for the "Timed Drawing Tool")
http://www.lovecastle.org/draw/

Enjoy!