Setting pose to a particular point in an animation

Hi,

I am writing a multiplayer game. For hitscan shots, i.e non projectile, I use colliders attached to the bones. On the server I do not want the animation playing constantly, rather I would like to set the pose when a shot occurs to a given state based on some information I have stored. For my game I only need to set basic poses for now ( e.g standing, crouching, prone). What is the best and, given it is server code, the most efficient way to achieve this. I would like to use the mecanim system, without root motion, but if this can be achieved better in the legacy system, or even just in script, then I am happy to use that instead.