IK Rules, OK? V

KYLE BY NUMBERS

Seven times Ms International: 2004, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2013

Only three different women finished as runner-up to Iris in those seven Ms Internationals. Lightweight winner Dayana Cadeau lost the Overall posedown in 2004, and was runner-up in 2006 in what was an Open Bodybuilding class. Debi Laszewski finished 2nd in 2009, and Yaxeni Oriquen was runner-up to Iris in Colombus no fewer than four times – 2007, 2010, 2011 and 2013.

DEM QUADS DOE!

Alina kept challenging Iris in the posedown to compare legs. Alina made it apparent that she knew her legs were better and wanted the judges and audience to bear witness to that. Iris avoided her after the first challenge…

At least, that’s was how one forum poster saw the finale of the 2014 Ms O. Haven’t we heard “She had better legs than Iris!” before from her (many) armchair critics re:Heather Policky in 2009? And it may be true – I’m no judge, as I’ll freely admit, but Iris always had the next best legs in the show, and much more besides, and a large part of her quality resided in her huge and always detailed thighs. Dem quads.

Her 2009 quad routine consisted of 4 sets, 12-15 reps of squats, leg presses and front squats, and, unusually (I believe), Iris apparently never saw extensions as the best way to develop her quad separation, instead opting for lots and lots of lunges.

Lunges are key for bringing in thigh separation, she told Flex Online. I think they’re much better than leg extensions for really bringing out the details. I end my leg routine with lunges, and then for the final weeks before a contest I’ll often end every workout with lunges, doing four sets of 20-25 reps.

Whatever she was doing, seems to me it was working…

SHE’S A LADY

And, for example, allowed the glammed-up Iris to stop traffic using legs only!

KYLED HARD FACT OF THE DAY

Iris is a fan of the private spa resort, free of all the big city lights and smog. Relaxing, sipping wine and getting deep massages every day is her idea of a perfect vacation, and Arizona her perfect hideaway spa location. So now you know, boys!

EVERYBODY LOVES IRIS

She’s just a regular neighbourhood super-hero!

And always the centre of attention at parties…

IRIS SEZ…

There’s no secret I train smart not hard. Tampering, changing and following a system that changes by the day isn’t smart, it will ONLY allocate room for error. So I’m the queen of sticking to the basics. During the off season I train five days a week with two off, training one body part per day with three days of cardio. During contest mode, I train every day, including cardio, working two body parts per day. As the weeks expire, I simply add supersets, drop sets and increase reps…

KYLE IN MOTION

IRIS KYLE – Ms OLYMPIA, Ms INTERNATIONAL

Iris warms up and works out her upper body in this (quite old, I think) clip made, it appears as a kind of promo for Iris’ website: “Get In Best Shape with Iris Kyle”.

Again, more of a curiosity/rarity than a clip of the greatest quality, but it’s worth a watch, if only to see how ridiculously easy Iris makes it all look!

And IK just keeps on ruling tomorrow…

한국인 of the Day: Mi Hee Yu

The recent BBC News report into Korean female bodybuilding suggests there is going to be a lot more female muscle emerging from the country in the future, but back in 2007 when the gorgeous Mi Hee Yu was crowned national champ, she looked pretty much like the sole bodybuilder on stage with a bunch of figure competitors.

Something of a pioneer, then, I reckon. One of the first really muscular Korean women – or one of the first I came across anyway. And she always seemed to be in great shape. Always lean, always defined, even when she wasn’t actually competing. And I also enjoyed (and still do enjoy from time to time) the guest posing routines of hers that are out there. They’re always real performances, and she is, in my opinion, an extremely captivating performer: elegant, teasing, poised, and very very sexy.

Here’s the first of a couple of clips of Mi Hee Yu that we’ll post today. Frustratingly, it’s not quite the complete routine, and ends rather abruptly just as it’s getting good and the crowd are getting into it, but even so, it’s not a bad appetiser!

Apparently, Mi Hee Yu took up bodybuilding in the late ’90s in order to lose weight, and a decade later in 2007 she was the cream of South Korean female muscle – quite a success story! She took obvious pride in representing her country in international competition for the following four years, finishing second in her weight class at the Asian Championships in 2007 and 2008, and winning her class in 2011. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any evidence to suggest she has competed again since that year.

Still, it’s not as though we are short of Mi Hee Yu material to remember her by. As well as the guest posing clips, there are a number of workout clips on YouTube for your viewing pleasure, and the pick of the bunch, unsurprisingly, can be found on the mighty watatiwatatio’s channel. Entitled Mi Hee Yu Heavy workout! (exclamation mark included and with good reason). It includes not only the apparently lost (ie. deleted due to third party complaints) appearance of our heroine on a Korean TV show called The Dynamic Gym Show, but also a truly HEAVY workout. The whole thing weighs in at 30 minutes plus. A hardcore watch that leaves you in doubt that that the woman you are watching is a very very sexy and hardcore muscle lady.

And so, to finish, the second guest posing clip of Mi Hee Yu for your enjoyment today. A very revealing posing suit, two feather fans, a pair of boots that wouldn’t look out of place on a building site, and a beautiful vision of female muscle.

Enjoy!

Tube of the Week

From the marvellous watatiwatatio, a guest posing clip from “Tokyo 2013” starring the very beautiful Japanese bodybuilder Aki Nishimoto. (At least I am pretty sure it’s her. Google Translate says the name is “Nishimoto ShuNozomi” and a search under that name only brought up Aki, although I am fully aware of the limitations of my research method, so if anyone can tell me with any certainty who this is, please do!).

Remember Aki Nishimoto? She’s probably best-known (to me anyway) from a set of photos by fibofoto.de from way back. Seems she is still around, and by my reckoning in her mid-40s now. Damn she looks amazing! Get proper comfy and see for yourself…

And this is by no means the only terrific clip you can find on watatiwatatio’s channel. Among the many other delights are clips from the bodybuilding show at the recent Toronto Pro. I humbly suggest you pay a visit and fill your proverbial boots.

Have fun now!

FBBUK: Donna Hartley-Wass

FMS’ latest irregular and far from comprehensive week-long survey of all things UK femuscle-related begins, I’m afraid, with some not so good news.

Swell was extremely sad to hear of the untimely death of the former British athlete turned female bodybuilder Donna Hartley-Wass at the beginning of June.

As a child I remember cheering Donna on with my family watching the Commonwealth Games in the late 70s, and the Moscow Olympic Games in 1980. I was too young to have had any ‘feelings’ for her at that age, but she was the ‘Golden Girl’ of British athletics at the time, the Jessica Ennis of her era, a natural for the cameras as well as a world-class athlete.

As The Independent puts it in their obituary of Donna, With her long blonde hair and flashing smile, Hartley was an attractive as well as an accomplished performer. At a time when women’s sprinting was dominated by runners from the Eastern bloc – many of whom were subsequently implicated in doping regimes – she was a Brit genuinely capable of mixing it.

She was awarded an MBE in 1979, and retired from athletics a year later. but I also remember her being a fixture on Superstars (a British TV show where sports stars would compete against each other in various events – swimming, cycling etc.). It was a huge show in its time, and Donna was still more than famous enough to be among those chosen for the show.

But what really makes Donna worth remembering here is what she decided to do next. In the mid-1980s, Donna Hartley became a bodybuilder, hardly a common career-move (more’s the pity!) for renowned UK female athletes.

Many within athletics were stunned to see pictures of Hartley’s changed physique at the time, according to UK athletics historian Stan Greenberg.

And it wasn’t just those within her sport who were stunned. My abiding memory of Donna is an appearance she made on The Last Resort, the chat show that launched Jonathan Ross’ TV career, in the late 1980s.

There I was, mid-teens, as I always was on a Friday night, watching TV. I quite liked this new-style chat show and the irreverent host, and there was nothing better on, so as usual, I’d tuned into Channel 4 that night. Among the guests Jonathan promised us that night in his intro was the familiar name of Donna Hartley, but little did I suspect why exactly she was on the show, little did I suspect one of my formative female muscle experiences was about to unfold.

Out she came in a long black bathrobe that all but covered her entire body. She was a little older (obviously) than I remembered her, but also blonder, more glamorous, more tanned. She had a definite glow about her.

I’d only ever seen one other female bodybuilder actually move at that time, my first, Carolyn Cheshire, also on British TV, so by the time Donna appeared on my TV screen that night, I had already been converted. So the excitement I felt when Donna took off that bathrobe to reveal her muscular physique in all its glory was an excitement I had felt before, an excitement I have become accustomed to.

She proceeded to go through her routine right in front of the (for once) speechless host, even (if memory serves) climbing onto his desk at one point. Every move she made was accompanied by her gleaming smile. She looked so confident, so sexy.

While Jonathan sat there open-mouthed, while the audience gasped, Donna hit pose after pose. I was in teenage female muscle heaven.

After the routine, she sat down, grinning. She teased the obviously stunned Ross, kind of mockingly flirting with him as he recoiled. She enjoyed the shock she had caused. At no point did she seem anything less than totally and utterly comfortable with her own body. It was intoxicating.

All too quickly it was over and the show went to a commercial break. But in those days I recorded everything. And once the rest of my family had gone to bed that night, I watched Donna over and over again, and continued to do so for weeks and months (perhaps years) afterwards, officially retiring that VHS from family circulation and stashing it away with my growing collection of muscle magazines.

And amazingly, footage of her guest posing has survived, and thanks to ‘Vivian Gregson’ on youtube, FMS can share Donna with you as he remembers her from that night in a suburban South London home all those years ago…

Donna competed for only two years, finishing 3rd in the NABBA Britain and Universe contests in 1987, and winning the Britain title and finishing runner-up at the Universe the following year.

With her superior sporting genes and athletics background, she had the potential to be one of the greatest female bodybuilders this country has ever produced, but the sport, it turned out, wasn’t for her. You could only get into terrific shape twice a year because of the dieting and were on stage for 10 minutes, so I didn’t think it worth the effort, she said later. But I learned a lot about nutrition.

It was during this time that she met and married her second husband, Bobby Knutt, a comedian and actor from UK TV who was himself quite famous at the time. When they celebrated their 25th anniversary in 2011, Bobby revealed he had been smitten instantly. She had the most beautifully shaped behind I’d ever seen, he recalled. Clearly a man of some taste.

Donna retired from the public eye, settled down with Bobby in the North of England, and went into hotel spa and leisure club management.

She was, by all accounts, a wonderful woman, and FMS’ thoughts go out to her husband, family and her friends.

Hot Hot Heat of the Day

Happy New Year to you, dear reader. Swell is back from warmer climes, and though it’s been a good break, it’s also good to be back. The one thing I’m struggling with, though, is the temperature. Having spent the last month and a bit in a T-shirt and shorts, the northern hemisphere winter has been a shock, to say the least.

I need some heat. And I couldn’t think of anything else when compiling this week’s daily picture post. So heat it is. Hot hot heat from the hottest of the hot…

The magnificence of Tina Chandler from a guest posing routine last year. I’m not sure if it’s the pose, the discarded whip or the way she’s eye-balling the guy in the front row that makes this image sizzle. Maybe it’s the thickness of her legs and arms, or the way her hair is hanging down just right that’s making it feel like summer in here all of a sudden. Maybe it’s all of these things. Whatever it is, she is smoking like Vesuvius the night before it buried Pompeii. Can you feel the heat?

Back Back in the Day of the Day

Diana Dennis

I wish the kind of artistry and grace Diana brought to the sport of female bodybuilding would return, so I’m not so much including her for the muscular development of her back, rather as a reminder of a time when the ‘routine’ was a chance for expression, rather than an opportunity to hit some poses (vaguely) in time to a popular song.

I can’t imagine that many of the ‘routines’ that we see today would provoke the kind of prose reminiscent of descriptions of artwork, which, of course, is how she sees herself:

Against a black pallet the spotlight captures an image of strength and beauty. Sculpted by years of disciplined training the physique is hard and chiseled. Each muscle developed and perfected as if designed by the hands of a bronze creator. 

The audience is captivated by the sight of perfection that stands still before them in a statuesque manner. The music electrifying, the thrill of suspense in the air, poses become fluent as classic dance and modern movement are incorporated into the unique and distinctive routine. The energy moves smoothly across the stage in a mesmerizing and tranquil fashion, unlike anything ever seen within this venue and sport.

Judge for yourself if the sport could do with a little more of this…

Diana’s website

New Tube Videos

A while back a reader asked me how many different female muscle genres or sub-genres there were. I can’t answer that question, but I will say the three videos I’ve picked for today certainly reflect different ways fans of female muscle might like to appreciate the women they adore.

First up is an example of what you might call the ‘FBBs In Public’ genre: Aleesha Young and Karen Garrett go to a shop. For me, part of the appeal of this particular genre is the reactions of the public, and the way the female bodybuilder deals with those reactions. This clip is an excellent example, with the stars of the show really being the two guys Aleesha and Karen meet in the shop!

Next is perhaps one of the oldest genres: ‘On Stage Posing’. This might be broken down into the sub-genres of ‘Contest’ and ‘Guest Posing’, and clip number two is in the latter category. The UK’s current golden girl of bodybuilding, Lisa Cross, looking amazing, only 3 or 4 weeks out from a contest herself, poses at a regional UK contest.

The third clip, I would say, belongs to a genre that might be called ‘Fetish Flexing’. A certain muscle or muscle group is showcased throughout the clip. Obviously you could break this genre down into sub-genres for the individual muscles or muscle groups. So, ultimately, this clip belongs to the sub-genre of ‘Fetish Flexing: Abs’. The abs in question belong to Melissa Buhl, and I have not seen a sexier abs clip than this for a long time.

Enjoy! And let me know what your favourite genre(s) of female muscle clips/pics is (are). As usual, comment below or contact me directly at 6ft1swell@gmail.com