Three Heads Are Better Than Two

Sir,

Your blog, Female Muscle Slave, has many commendable qualities. However, we are writing to bring to your attention the obvious and repeated bias it has shown in favour of our antagonists. This bias, one might even call it a prejudice, has been inherent within the blog from its earliest days, but has, in recent months, become so pronounced we have felt compelled to demand you restore some semblance of balance.

We are, of course, referring to your tireless glorification of the biceps brachii, muscles that are, in every way, inferior and far less important than we, the triceps brachii, are. Not only do we have one more head each than our overrated opposition, but we are also, on average, twice as large.

It is indisputable that we, not they, are the Daddies of the upper arm. Furthermore, we are considerably more useful. Yet your blog continually and consistently behaves as though we were not there at all.

At the time of writing, Female Muscle Slave has 156 posts which are tagged “Biceps”, and, as far as we can see, not one tagged with our name. Yet many, in fact, ALL of the women so lauded by your authors for their arm development are, quite plainly, 66% tri, and only 33% bi.

Unless you take immediate action to begin to redress this preposterous imbalance, the only reasonable conclusion one may draw is that Female Muscle Slave is an institution rampant with anti-tricep sentiment.

A blog, yes, we will say it, rife with tricepophobic prejudice.

To help you begin the process of rectifying this sorry state of affairs, and as a sign of good faith that Female Muscle Slave will do the right thing, we have, along with a suggested title for the piece, attached a selection of our best images in order to facilitate your prompt action on this matter.

Should you require further examples, please do not hesitate to contact us.

We look forward to reading your first ever post tagged “Triceps”.

Yours sincerely,

T. Rice & P. Brachii

Back Is Beautiful: Brigita’s Beautiful Back

I was going to call this post “Brezovac’s Back”, but given that Brigita retired from competitive bodybuilding after the Ms Olympia last year, I thought that might be slightly misleading and make some of you think she’d changed her mind. Sadly, she’s not “back”, but this little tribute is going to showcase her beautiful back.

Slovenia’s greatest export (can you think of another?) started lifting weights at the age of 14 as part of her training for karate. In that time I lived only for karate and practising with weights which brought me very good results, I was national champion… for few years competing up to 116lbs and my body looked amazing.

Her inspiration was a picture of Cory Everson that she saw at her then boyfriend’s garage gym. I immediately knew I wanted to build the body she had, she has said. That meant first moving from karate to fitness, but then in 2004, she was told by judges at the IBFA World Championships she could not compete in fitness, and was forcibly moved to the bodybuilding category. She won the title.

And over the next few years she won a few other titles competing in a variety of federations. In 2005, IBFA European Champion. In 2006 she defended that title successfully, and also won the NAC Universe, the IBFA Worlds (again), and the oddly-named WPF World-Universe title. In 2007, she was NAC Universe champion again.

The biggest obstacle I had to overcome was to find a way to compete in IFBB federation. Our country didn’t care about the IFBB and finally I managed to pull things together with the big help of Balkan IFBB president, Nenad Vuckovic and then represent my country at World Women’s Championship 2009. Well, well done Mr Vuckovic (there I go again congratulating an IFBB man – see Lisa Cross IFBB Pro).

Brigita didn’t win the title (Simone Linay of Germany did), but she did get a pro card for the IFBB and arrived in Tampa in 2010 for her first pro show. She won. I just couldn’t believe this is really happening for a long time after the show was over. I was working for that success for many years, keeping my biggest goal, step onto the sacred Ms Olympia stage. At the beginning of my career it was only the big dream which seemed almost impossible to reach. But we have to have our dreams and I believe if we work hard for them, one day they become reality.

top: Tampa 2010 & 2011; bottom: Olympia 2011 & 2012

After finishing 10th in that first Ms Olympia, Brigita returned the following year with a 3rd place in Tampa and a win in Toronto under her belt. She came 3rd, the highest placing by a European since Marja Lehtonen had finished 3rd in the lightweight class in 2004. In 2012 she was 6th at the Ms International, 5th at the Olympia, and in 2013 she was 4th at the Ms I, and 5th again at the Ms O.

top: Ms International 2013; bottom: Ms Olympia 2013

I love the way of life being a bodybuilder. I like the food and diet regime because I can always have my body under control, I like working out and I like that I’m different from the average person. But Brigita, what do you enjoy most about being a top female bodybuilder? If I tell you the truth, the thing I most enjoy is the attention.

Since retiring from competition, Brigita has become an IFBB judge. And she has been passing on her knowledge and experience to others. Does anybody have a better job than me? she recently tweeted with a pic showing her putting three shirtless men through their posing practice paces. All in good shape, they look tiny next to her.

Finally, Brigita battering that big and beautiful back of hers…

More Brigita via Twitter, her website, and her excellent (and often updated – if you are a fan of candids, you will love it) blog. Another (longer but lower quality) clip of Brigita training her back from 2011 here, and an interesting compilation Brigita Brezovac Over the Years, which includes all sorts of things, including snippets of an interview.

Enjoy!

[More Brigita on FMS passim]

Pull Up of the Day: Marja & Brigita

MARJA

From front on, sir will note the pronounced ‘teardrops’ above the knees, the outstanding abdominal definition, and the volume and aesthetic curve of the biceps.

BRIGITA

In this rear angle view, sir may like to appreciate the explosive shoulders and the layers of thick muscle revealed across the back as the repetition is performed.

The results speak for themselves…

And, a bonus ball!

Colette Nelson reaches failure, again and again, but not for want of trying –
check out the shaking. GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!

gif by Muscular Girls in Motion

Enjoy!

Prof. Pennypacker’s Pectarium

Pennypacker on building an archive
My collection of magazines continues to grow. The more I acquire, the more I sense the need for preservation. How wonderful it would be if there were an archive, an exhaustive collection held in one location, and dedicated to the acquisition of all female muscle media past, present, and future. To think about: 1) How to fund such an archive, its upkeep and acquisitions? 2) Where to locate it? 3) How much digital storage space would be needed and how much physical space this would require?

Over the next couple of years, these questions would continue to drive Pennypacker, and were the seed out of which The Pectarium was to grow. Though not the ‘British Library of Female Muscle’ (as he began to refer to his idea), The Pectarium is, however, not only a unique and ingenious system of female muscle media presentation, but is also the tangible result of some of the solutions he devised to the problem of how to collect and collate such enormous amounts of digital material.

from Pennypacker’s diary 19th January 2011
Have spent the last week and a half backing up. I would say I need an assistant, but employing a hard-up undergrad for such a purpose might be a little awkward. At least all digital media is now saved and stored on hard drives ranging from 350GB to 1TB. How much more will I need in the future? The files seem to be getting bigger and bigger and more and more hi-res.

from Pennypacker’s diary 27th March 2011
Have decided to write my own cataloguing software. Tried several that are freely-available and the two most recommended, which were, of course, to be paid for. Some had commendable features, but none completely satisfactory. Need image recognition software integrated into the cataloguing to avoid duplicates. I recall Gerald was working on something like that at one time. Face recognition or some such. Might be a good first port of call. Will contact tomorrow.

//www.youtube.com/get_player

The ‘Gerald’ who was contacted by the professor was Dr. Gerald MacKinnon, Professor of Electronic Science at Christchurch College, Oxford. Over the next six months, Dr. MacKinnon would help Pennypacker construct the software that allowed him to acquire, collate and catalogue millions of images and clips simply by running the program. After September 2011, the professor’s computers were downloading and archiving female muscle material by themselves. This, however, created new problems. According to the professor’s notebook in late 2011, ‘It would take me to the age of 202 years and 7 months to actually view all the material that has now been gathered by my software.’

from Pennypacker’s diary 27th May 2011
Left an image of Jo Stewart’s magnificent chest on my screen when the doorbell rang. It was my niece and her husband paying me a ‘surprise visit’. I kept them talking in the hall for long enough to let the screensaver hide those perfect muscles. The closest I have been to having to reveal my secret. How ludicrous that at the age of 66 I feel compelled to hide my passion. We lunched at the Pelican. Kathy’s husband is tiresome with his tales of business conquest (one wonders what other conquests he doesn’t speak about in the presence of his wife) and I increasingly daydreamed of returning home to privacy and the delectable Jo as the meal progressed. Got the impression they had been sent by the rest of the family to find out why I hadn’t been more sociable since the first few months of retirement. If only they knew!

Kathy Winterbottom, Pennypacker’s niece, along with her older brother, Tate Pennypacker, lost the most from the alterations the professor made to his will – amendments were registered with his solicitor on four separate occasions from late 2011 to spring 2012 – and were consequently the most vehement contestants during the legal battle that followed his death. For Tate, even more galling than the loss of inheritance the provision for the upkeep of The Pectarium entailed was the clause, inserted by the professor in his last alteration to his will, that his own inheritance would be dependent on his taking responsibility for the maintenance and operation of The Pectarium. In court, his nephew would refer to it as ‘a monstrosity’, ‘disgusting’ and ‘perverted’. Obviously not a muscle women lover.

Pennypacker on Guimond
Of all the truly awesome sights I have come across through my new passion, the chest of Collette Guimond must rank as high as any. Frankly, I hold her responsible for my preference for this, no, these muscles over the many others that adorn the body of the muscular woman. I have travelled in my life. Seen many amazing things – Iguaçu Falls, the Grand Canyon, the morning mist over the Mull of Kintyre. There are also things I have never seen – the Nile, Ayers Rock, Everest rising above the peaks of the Himalayas. Honestly, I would rather travel to see Collette’s chest with my own eyes than cross any of those other sights off my list right now.

As far as we know, Pennypacker never did get to see Collette’s chest first-hand, or indeed any other female bodybuilders’ chests. Nothing in his diaries records a visit to a female bodybuilding contest or any other kind of meeting. During 2011, he seems to have come to the conclusion that unless he devoted all time he had left to the construction of The Pectarium, it would never be finished. In the end, he preferred not to indulge himself in personal experiences, but instead chose to leave his archive and his creation as a legacy to the world of female muscle fandom.

from Pennypacker’s diary 4th December 2011
The work has begun. This week the old barn has been gutted and by Christmas the structure will have been made sound. In the New Year renovation work will begin. If everything goes according to schedule, I will have my haven by Easter.

More selections from Prof. Pennypacker’s archive tomorrow. Enjoy!

gifs by Shirtrippers2.0, The Ankle and ‘the street fighter’.

Contest Candids

We’ll be back to the round-up of recent contests tomorrow, but today we can catch our breath with a few candids from the shows featured over the last three days, culled from the hundreds available at Muscular Development, Flex Online, FTVideo, Bodybuilding.com, contest website of the year TEAM-ANDRO, and Lisa Cross’s own Facebook page.

Another reason for thinking about the IFBB Worlds as a contest worth a visit is provided by these candids of the ‘Farewell Banquet’. I’m not saying they’d let you in, but presumably there’s nothing to stop you hanging around the front door or trying to get a job as one of the waiting staff. Better still, get the DJ gig. ‘If you want me to play it you’re gonna have to flex for it…’ It does look like fun, doesn’t it?

Swedes Deniz Faith (left) and Eva Lagerhorn Blom (right) both bid to get their favourite tune played. Readers will remember both these beauties competed in Bodybuilding, finishing 5th and 6th respectively. More evidence here that, as we suspected, Deniz is really gorgeous and Eva can control her face when flexing off stage about as well as she can when she’s on it.

Katka Kyptova (left) digs into her pudding after her first (as far as we know) show as a Physique competitor. And the kind of glamour you expect at an event called a ‘Banquet’ is provided by Hungarian fitness goddess Zsuzsanna Toldi (left) and German fitness/bikini babe Valeria Ammirato. Readers who’ve been with FMS since 2011 (!) may remember Valeria being featured before (see Innamorato with Ammirato). At the Worlds she won the short Bikini Fitness class, and I think if I look at her in that dress and those shoes much longer I’m going to get all innamorato with her again. Zsuzsanna, by the way, didn’t compete at the Worlds, so she must have been there to support her Hungarian compatriots. Or perhaps just for the free food.

From Kiev to Madrid, and (left) a picture taken moments after Lisa Cross had competed at the Arnold Classic Europe. Just got off stage and bumped into the gorgeous Olga Belyakova, World Champion, Lisa tells us. Glad I am not the only one who thinks Olga is ‘gorgeous’. In case you’re still undecided, another close-up of her (right) from the Arnold Expo.

It shouldn’t surprise regular readers to see Lisa hanging out with the Russians. We learned that Lisa’s degree was in Russian and Politics during our Arnold countdown. Lisa doesn’t waste the chance to brush up her Russian with Natalia Yariz and Maria Kuzmina (above) and Valentyna Yefymchuk (below). Lisa says Valentina is such a lovely lady. We have met up a few times now and it is always a pleasure.

Finally from the Arnold Europe, here’s Lisa ‘having a chat’ with Yeon Woo-ji, the Physique class winner, who Lisa reckons is a lovely lady and has a beautiful physique. She doesn’t tell us what language they were chatting in. It wouldn’t surprise me that much if Lisa had picked up a working knowledge of Korean. Amazing woman. And she wears that dress well, doesn’t she?

And from Madrid, it’s back in time to September in Las Vegas.

BEFORE

A ripped and veiny Valerie Gangi and a bouffed (and no, that’s not a spelling mistake) Tina Chandler at the meet and greet before the show. Valerie is fondly remembered by older fans from her younger, bodybuilding days. She turned pro way back in 1995, and not only looks amazing for her age, but is a serious competitor in the Physique division, winning this year’s Tampa Pro to qualify for the first ever Physique Olympia. I’ve already told you how I feel about Tina this week, so I’ll just say it’s the thought of having the opportunity to get this up-close and personal with her (and all the other top muscle goddesses) that makes me wonder whether I should blow all my air miles at once for a trip to the Olympia next year.

DURING

Mmmmmm. If this isn’t the kind of scenario you’ve always dreamed of being a part of then you are probably here against your will. All three of the ladies here look like they’re having fun. The kind of fun I’d like to be having with the lady in the middle.

AFTER

Just hang around in the Orleans Casino and you will get whiplash as the fbbs walk by.

I can only imagine that if yours truly was just ‘hanging around’ and spied the newly-blond Aleesha Young, glammed up to the nines with her blue blue eyes and sexy pout, suggestively toying with that bottle of beer, then ‘heart failure’ would probably be a more likely outcome than whiplash. What a way to go that would be!

The ultimate double date? Europe’s finest, the recently retired Brigita Brezovac and Ms Olympia in waiting Alina Popa showing that female bodybuilders can be beautiful, feminine and fashionable. In pairs.

Enjoy!

Contest of the Day: Ms Olympia

This week on FMS we’ll be looking back at some of the contests that have been held recently. But don’t expect any considered, objective opinions…

Once upon a time, the only way I could get the results of female bodybuilding contests was from muscle magazines. I was excited to see the handful of images of the winner and the other top finishers, but then again being dependent on the magazines for female muscle material meant I was pretty excited about any image of a female bodybuilder in those days. But by the time I was reading that Cory Everson or Lenda Murray had won the Ms Olympia title again, and drooling over the pictures of them posing on stage, a month or more had passed since the contest itself.

It’s all different now. Big contests like the Olympia have live webcasts. I can actually watch the show. If there isn’t a webcast, there will be a website where I can follow a ‘play-by-play’ description of what’s happening on stage. Images are uploaded within hours of the show, and hundreds of images of each contest, sometimes of each contestant, are available online within days. I’m so much more engaged with female bodybuilding as a sport now.

What hasn’t changed is the way I personally ‘judge’ the contests. From those magazine years until the present I have never been able to look at the women in any objective way. I want my favourite to win. I judge with my heart (or perhaps groin would be a more accurate description). Back in 1988 I would have been looking at the pics in Muscle & Fitness and wishing Anja had beaten Cory (and don’t get me wrong I thought Cory was great, but I was in love with Anja). A few weekends ago I followed the play-by-play description of the recent UKBFF British Championships (by reigning champ Rosanna Harte, no less) hoping that my favourite lady would win.

I’m completely unable to think about contests in any other way.

More about the UKBFF later in the week.

But we begin our week of reviews with the biggest contest of them all…

Ms OLYMPIA
26th September, Las Vegas

The result was no surprise, no surprise at all. Iris Kyle was crowned for the ninth time (a record for any bodybuilder, male or female) and for the eighth time in a row. It is a magnificent, unique achievement, and to my untrained and ignorant eye, she really did look back to her best after a disappointing showing at the Ms International, when she had been suffering from illness (though that hadn’t stopped her winning it). One spectator who attended the show agreed, I saw her at the Arnold and was not that impressed with her performance. But at the Olympia people were in awe when she flexed her back and hit her poses. Another female muscle fan claimed, You had to be there to believe it. She exudes champion attitude. She was really shining with confidence and really had the most professionalism.

It’s easy to knock Iris (as we noted here on FMS in our Ms O countdown). She is held by some to be responsible for the demise of female bodybuilding at its highest level, simply because she has turned up in her best shape year after year. It seems to me that is a peverse way to look at it. In fact, I think what has happened is that Iris has forced her competitors to raise their game. To challenge her, to really challenge for the Ms Olympia title, you are going to have to bring a spectacular package to Las Vegas. In years past that spectacular package has been brought a number of times by Yaxeni Oriquen. In 2009 it was Heather Policky, and last year it was Debi Laszewski who had never been better. This year, though, the challenge came from Alina Popa.

Before the show we wondered how she could improve on the physique she had presented the judges in 2011 and 2012. We knew she hadn’t been seen on stage since last year’s Olympia. We knew she had been preparing in Colorado at Heather Policky’s ex-husband’s gym, the gym frequented by Mr Olympia Phil Heath. We thought that if there was anywhere she could find that little extra surely this was the place for her to be. We imagined her emerging from the Rockies bigger and better than ever.

And we were not disappointed.

Debi Laszewski finished in the top three for the second year in a row. Yaxeni Oriquen, the Olympia veteran of Olympia veterans, was fourth, her lowest placing since 2009 – which was probably more indicative of the high overall standard than any shortcomings on her part. Gorgeous Brigita Brezovac, in what we now know was sadly her last ever competition, was fifth, and the top six was completed by rising star Juanita Blaino, competing in her first Olympia.

Personally, I was very very taken with Juanita, as I have been every time I’ve seen pictures of her in competition. Her glutes, I am quite happy to admit, are two of my favourite things in female bodybulding at the moment. I was also, as I always am, extremely excited to see the bounteously muscular physique of Mmmmonique Jones (8th place) in a posing suit. Her routine, full of understated slinky sexy moves was one of the 2013 Ms O highlights for the area in and around my groin.

My heart went out to Tina Chandler, a long-time FMS favourite, who finished 12th (last because Tammy Jones withdrew). I’m beginning to wonder if we are ever going to see the stunning 2011 Tampa Pro Tina again, but having said that, if Slave had been judging the show, Tina would have been in the top six just for being Tina.

But 2013 at the Ms O was, for me, all about Alina. And not just for me. She has that je ne sais quoi, that x-factor, that makes her appeal not just to the fans, but to her peers, and just about anybody else with an interest in the sport. It was unanimous that Alina should have won, said one of the fans who attended. Not the first time that a female bodybuilding result has been questioned, I don’t want to make that tired, old point again. But that fan continued, From other ladies who were on that stage to the countless FBBs at the event. From fans to photographers all in favour of Alina. It was overwhelming. And not to mention social media was heavily in favour of her as well. No one, it seems, is immune to Alina’s charms.

With the genetics I have bodybuilding is my only option to compete right now, tweeted Tarna Alderman after the Ms Olympia. @ALINAPOPA1 shows it can be feminine! I’ve been a big fan of Alina since I got into bbing, [she’s] literally the only reason I’ve stayed with bbing, very inspiring.

Alina certainly has more followers than Iris has ever had. For all her achievements, and despite her consistent excellence over more than a decade, Iris has never won the fans’ hearts in the way Alina undoubtedly has. More pertinent than that though, is the reaction of Alina’s peers to her Olympia performance. They might indicate that it is now Alina, not Iris, who sets the standards other female bodybuilders aspire to.

Alina now leads the challenge to dethrone Iris – in fact she looks like the only contender. She leads the popularity stakes with the fans, and female bodybuilders the world over look to emulate her. And since the Olympia she has taken to her Facebook page to speak to her sisters of iron, calling for a collective effort to reinvigorate the sport. Alina may not be Ms Olympia. Not yet, anyway. But, it seems to me that she can rightly claim to be the leading female bodybuilder in the world now.

Review the 2013 Ms O routines on YouTube (first of three parts) here

Enjoy!

Arms of the Day

I would never give less than 100% to the blog, and to you, dear reader, unless it were absolutely necessary to cut a corner or two, and unfortunately this is a week when it is. So slightly lazy posting this week, although hopefully not completely devoid of interest, in the shape of muscle women and their weapons of choice.

left: We sleep better now we know Super Muscle Girl aka Shawna Walker is keeping watch over us, ready at a moment’s notice to swing into (extremely violent) action.

right: If you should go down to the woods today…

left:It’s a crying shame that Brigita Brezovac has recently announced her retirement from competitive bodybuilding, and it’s probably quite insensitive of me to be posting a photo of her (with probably the biggest gun and the biggest guns we’ll be seeing this week) while Brigy fans are still in mourning. Maybe she’ll be baaaaack as the super muscular female action hero we’ve been dreaming about all these years…

right: Andrea Giacomi and a weapon that has something to do with ‘Doomslayer’, I am reliably told. Afraid that’s not my area of expertise, although if knowledge of it was a prerequisite for getting involved in cosplay with the like of La Giacomi, I might be persuaded to read up about it.

Sonja MacFarland and her épée. On guard!

Enjoy!

FMS Ms O Countdown: The Europeans

Flying the flag for Europe on Friday will (once again) be Brigita Brezovac of Slovenia, who is appearing in her fourth consecutive Ms Olympia; and the female muscle fan fantasy made flesh that is Alina Popa, competing in her third.

Brigita, it surprised me to learn, actually has a better pro record than Alina. She won the 2010 Battle of Champions in Hartford, and followed that success with victory at the Toronto Pro in 2011, and the same year finished 3rd at the Olympia. In comparison, Alina has no pro wins, and a fourth place last year as her best Olympia result. She has, however, done better at the Ms International, coming third in 2011 and 2012.

But while Brigita may have the results, Alina seems to have that special something that makes us fans go crazy. For three years running she has been voted ‘Muscle Goddess of the Year’ on the most famous female muscle fan forum (the first rule of which is you do not talk about it). When FMS asked readers who would line-up in their Fantasy Contest, Alina gained more votes than any other woman. If Friday’s contest was decided by online fan votes, Alina would only have to turn up to win.

Brigita was, she says, a strong but skinny 14-year-old trying to gain more explosive power for her chosen sport of karate when she first entered a gym. There I saw a photo of Anja Langer, who really impressed me, so I started exercising with weights. Although she went on to become national champion in karate, injuries and study commitments meant giving up the sport, but she didn’t give up the training she had been doing in the gym.

As she did last year, Brigita has only competed once in 2013, finishing 4th at the Ms International. She has spent much of the year indulging one of her great loves – travel. This year she has posted photos on her excellent blog from trips to Dubai, San Francisco and New York, as well as time spent back in her native Slovenia, and from Venice Beach, which she calls her second home. Her other great love is fashion, and between trips this year has brought out a range of T-shirts bearing the legend ‘Barbie Wants to Be Me’ (featured on FMS in May).

Brigita says, Bodybuilding teaches you the greatest discipline and dedication. You realize what a powerful tool your brain is – your willpower will move tons of weight in each workout, you will diet and starve for a higher purpose, put your body through physical and mental stress… Yes, you are really something special if you get through all this.

Few female muscle fans would disagree that Brigita really is something special. It’s no wonder that Barbie wants to be her.

Alina has been almost hermitic in 2013. It’s hard to see how she could improve on the physique she presented to the Olympia judges in 2011 and 2012, but she’s been training at the Armburst ProGym in Colorado (run by the former Mr Heather Policky, who is the kind of guy that makes me, and maybe you too, dear reader, wonder what we did wrong in a previous life), where the two-time Mr Olympia, Phil Heath, also trains. If she’s going to find improvement anywhere, it’s probably the place.

I LOVE BODYBUILDING, says Alina. It taught me how to fight, how to stay strong against the odds and society’s tendency for conformism. It has eventually made me a better human being. I do believe that overcoming obstacles in trying to reach my dreams made me more self-confident and stronger. I know I can achieve whatever I want as long as my goal is true to my nature and comes from that warm place inside me that’s filled with love and passion.

There is certainly plenty of love and passion for Alina among female muscle fans. Collectively, there’s nobody we’d like more to win. Will Alina emerge from the mountains of Colorado on Friday, bigger and better than ever, to give Europe its first Ms Olympia since Juliette Bergmann twelve years ago? If she does, she’ll be the most popular winner since then. Maybe the most popular ever.

BRIGITA BREZOVAC (Slo)

Born: Ptuj, Slovenia
Age: 33
Height: 5’4″ (1.63)
Best Ms O: 4th 2010
In 2013: 4th Ms International

ALINA POPA (Swi)

Born: Brăila, Romania
Age: 34
Height: 5’7″ (1.70)
Best Ms O: 4th 2012
In 2013: has not competed

Woman vs Food: Brigita

Last November, FMS went Around the World with Brigita, showcasing her ‘candid’ photos from her travels, some of which showed her eating and drinking. However, Brigita likes her candids (or perhaps it’s her husband who likes them) so much, that we by no means exhausted our supply of images of ‘Brigy’ keeping her magnificent muscles fed in a variety of exotic locations, so we thought we’d bring you a few more.

Brigita is most definitely a carnivore. I’m a typical meat-eater, she says, and I have my meat in every meal except in post workout shake. I also eat decent portions of egg whites, rice and vegetables. While keeping my diet clean I feel good and I look good. And it’s pretty easy because I don’t like pizza or pasta, I prefer steak. I’m careful to buy organic food, especially the meat and vegetables.

But obviously she’s not averse to a post-contest treat either, judging by the way she’s devouring those sweet treats in the pictures below. Gosh she can open her mouth wide, can’t she?! And I’m not going to say anything about her lips or what she’s doing with them in the picture on the right… Not a word!

Hope you enjoyed our feast of female muscle beef feasting.

Thanks to those who liked it enough to comment. I wasn’t sure if this was going to be a winner or not – it just seemed a bit ‘out there’ – but obviously I needn’t have worried.

Legs in Leggings: Curve Theory

Just the same as when they pack their beautiful physiques into tight dresses, muscle women in skin-tight leggings emphasise how curvy their bodies are. Exhibit A is Sarah Backman (below), eight-time World Armwrestling Champion and WWE superstar in the making. Note the way the fabric of her Brazil-themed leggings bulge out from below her hips and then, in a seemingly perfect arc, curve back in above her knees, before her calves produce a smaller, but no less perfect, effect below them.

Whether from in front or behind, the curves are there for all to see. And when I, or, I dare say you, dear reader, look at Sarah or at other muscular women, it is those curves that we see. (Interestingly, the guy on the left seems truly dumbfounded that she has lost this particular match, which, given her prowess at the sport, is an understandable reaction. Although she looks truly mouth-watering in them, maybe these leggings simply aren’t lucky ones for Sarah.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes! The curves. As I was saying, we see the curves. Look at the beautiful (and curvaceous) Olga Belyakova (above). Curves, right? Curves all over, and, due to the tightness of her legwear, the curves of her thighs and calves are especially noticeable.

left: Dayana Cadeau – please show me a part of Dayana’s body that isn’t curvy?!

right: Kristina Krstic from an extremely interesting angle

Now, guys who don’t like muscle women – or say they don’t anyway, but that’s a debate for another day – often, though not always, also comment that they like their women ‘curvy’. So, herein lies the paradox. We see muscular women and say they have curves everywhere, but they see muscular women and accuse them of having none at all. Weird, isn’t it?

left: Victoria Dominguez seems to be getting curvier all the time

right: Suzy Kellner – would she really be unappealing to ‘most’ men?

It’s not like most of us can actually have a discussion about this with one of our friends who isn’t into muscle women, unfortunately. I’ve always thought it would be fascinating if I could, but have never managed it, even though a few of them do know about my female muscle preference. So we’re hardly likely to gain much understanding of our opposing positions on the curve issue any time soon.

BIG, BEAUTIFUL AND CURVY
left: Big Brigita Brezovac; right: Big Annie Riveccio

My pet theory is that they are in denial and we are enlightened, but then again I would say that, wouldn’t I? Maybe it is as simple as the fact that these things are subjective and we all have our own little fetishes. All the same, I’m glad my little fetish is for the most curvaceous women in the world!

Here’s an example of what I mean. You and I are looking at the lovely (and curvy) Heidi Vuorela (above) stretching her sponsor’s leggings, and maybe, due to the ‘mirror’ effect, you are imagining Heidi cloning herself, not once, but enough times to make a Heidi for every one of us. Meanwhile, those who don’t appreciate muscle women are, well, living in a world where they don’t know who Heidi is, probably.

Makes you feel kind of lucky, doesn’t it?

And, a little bonus clip (for you lucky people) featuring two of the women illustrating my insane (inane?) ramblings today. Suzy Kellner (in rather fetching leggings) being trained by Dayana Cadeau. Think it sounds like another of my fantasies? Well, yes, it is, but this one turned out to be true! And they even cuddle a little.

Enjoy!