While all the current replies are good, I would also suggest a slightly different approach. Start by deforming your mesh into some poses, and you’ll see right away where it starts to break! For example the Warrior 2 pose from yoga. Then you can refine your loops to help your model retain shapes. Experience is often the…
What is the scale of your asset? If this is a gigantic scale, you might be hitting precision or lighting limits. It's best to work within real-world scale. So for example if this was a streetlight or electrical pole, it would be about 12 meters tall.