Size Matters

Although I can find any amount of muscle on a woman attractive, it’s the big girls, the elite bodybuilders, that have always turned me on the most. A well-developed calf spotted in the street, a pole vaulter, a gymnast, a dancer, even a bikini competitor can get my juices flowing, but sooner or later I return to the prime female muscle beef. I am, after all, a self-confessed slave to female muscle, so it’s only logical that I should find the most muscular women sexier than any others.

Zuzana Korinkova and Fabiola Boulanger
From different eras but equally big (and hot)

People say that female bodybuilding is dying. In fact, people have been saying it for years. As long ago as 1999, ABC news in America made a report on its decline (watch it here). Commentators have often pointed at the post-Lenda Murray era for the start of the decline, some blaming Kim Chizevsky herself as being responsible for ‘the end of female bodybuilding’.

Kim Chizevsky
Wanted for the killing of female bodybuilding

The recently-introduced IFBB Physique class is supposed to be the latest nail in the coffin. Doomsayers claim there are fewer and fewer competitors in female bodybuilding, and the women who do compete are too big and too masculine to retain the level of appeal to the public that promoters need to generate the funds necessary for shows. Prize money is consequently negligible, and it is said the biggest women spend more on steroids than they could ever possibly hope to win back. In short, the picture has been bleak for some time and is getting bleaker.

Bev Francis (v Rachel McLish)
Who was the real star of the film for you?

But is the sport really in as bad a state as all that? There have always been women in the sport who have been criticised for their masculinity, remember Bev Francis in Pumping Iron II? Moreover, if female bodybuilding has been dying since circa 1996, surely it should be dead already. And if it really is in its death throes, why are new stars still emerging?

Yaxeni Oriquen
Miss International 2012, her fifth win in the competition

Cathy Le François and Debi Laszewski
Female bodybuilding legends still in top shape

Female Muscle Slave finds it hard to believe that female bodybuilding is dying when looking at the competitors at the most recent Miss International. Won by the peerless Yaxeni Oriquen, the field was, in my opinion, among the best ever to grace a bodybuilding stage. Apart from Yaxeni, who was possibly in her best ever shape, it was a truly international field with a wide variety of top-level experience. Cathy Le François seems to have been around for as long as I’ve been a fan, and Debi Laszewski seems to get bigger and better each year. More recently-established stars from the US like Monique Jones and Kim Perez rubbed their considerable shoulders with Alina Popa and Brigita Brezovac, their European counterparts.

Top: Monique Jones and Kim Perez
Bottom: Brigita Brezovac and Alina Popa
Surely one of them is a future Miss Olympia

The entire field was unapologetically big and ripped. There was South American freakishness from Maria Rita Bello, and Kim Buck in her best-ever showing as a pro. There was the gorgeous Tina Chandler making my heart go all a-flutter (and not just mine I’ll bet). There was the thickness of Mexico’s Maria Segura, and the feline sexuality of Canada’s Zoa Linsey.

From top, left to right: Maria Rita Bello, Kim Buck,
Tina Chandler, Maria Segura and Zoa Linsey
From Canada down to Argentina there’s some serious female muscle in the Americas

And to top it all, Alevtina Goroshinskaya from Russia and the Chilean Geraldine Morgan provided proof that there is a younger generation of female bodybuilders who aspire to the kind of muscularity necessary to compete with the biggest girls of all. Can the sport really be dying when it can produce a line-up like this at one of its flagship shows?

Alevtina Goroshinkaya and Geraldine Morgan
The next wave of professional female muscle is here

It may well be true that in the future female bodybuilding will be forced to detach itself from bodybuilding and other female physique classes. Why hang around when you’re not wanted and not getting what you want? And if it is to develop separately from other physique sports, then it is the women, specifically the elder stateswomen of female bodybuilding, who should be stepping in and helping their successors. Female tennis players were responsible for setting up the Women’s Tennis Federation, and the sport has gone from strength to strength since. Why shouldn’t female bodybuilders do the same?

Serena Williams and Iris Kyle
Serena enjoys the rewards of a sport she and her peers control, Iris, though at the top of her sport for many years now, has little or no say in the way it is run.

But my ill-informed opinion on the future of the sport is not what this week is going to be about on Female Muscle Slave. What I’d like it to be is a celebration, a celebration of female bodybuilders. Not self-snapping amateurs, not physique competitors, but proper female bodybuilders. A celebration and a small but determined stand against those who have already buried female bodybuilding.

Too big for you? Too ‘man-like’? Then look away now.
This week on Female Muscle Slave we shall be gorging ourselves on the biggest and the best. This week, size matters.

Enjoy!

The Marsh Effect

Back in October, in my post about Jody Marsh’s new bodybuilding career, I wondered if Jodie’s physique may or may not inspire one, ten, a hundred, a thousand, or ten thousand women to go to the gym. Well, I haven’t had to wait very long to find tangible evidence that at least one woman has indeed taken up bodybuilding because of her. At least partly because of her anyway.

Ms Marsh, good-time girl turned Mrs Muscle, this is all your fault. You and Fit Guy, alias Will Sturgeon, my personal trainer, who during one routine session randomly suggested I might like to try bodybuilding.

The quote above from Ruth Walker’s bodybuilding diary in The Scotsman online serves not only as proof that The Marsh Effect is real and working, but also reads as a ‘You Should Totally Take Up Bodybuilding’ sermon for the ladies. And here is the author…

If you can’t be arsed to read the whole thing, my favourite bits are below. And as a reward for not clicking away, I’ve broken up the quotes with some pics of muscular lovelies putting in the kind of effort Ruth describes.

Week one was the worst. It almost broke me – physically and mentally. “I can’t do this,” I cried, my feeble arms wobbling, 40kg of weight on a 10kg bar, commonly known as drop-set bench presses. “Yes you can,” said Sturgeon. “No I can’t,” I cried, pleadingly. “Yes you can.” It turns out he was right. Just.

So, I suppose you want to hear that things got easier in weeks two and three? That I started to notice a difference? But the honest answer is no, it didn’t. It was pure, relentless hard work. I was tired. I was fed up eating smoked salmon and cottage cheese and scrambled eggs and grilled chicken. Those four sessions were taking a huge chunk out of my week and I wanted my life back. And maybe some chocolate.

But I kept going. I’m not even sure when the turning point came. Maybe it was the moment Sturgeon turned to me and said, “Not bad – you realise you’ve just bench-pressed your own body weight?” Or, mid dumbbell chest-press, when he said, “Most men can’t lift those weights.” Or maybe it was the e-mail from a (female) colleague that read, “Your delts are looking RIPPED!”

I lifted weights that had previously made me weep just to look at them, I grunted and grimaced in an unladylike fashion and, I’m embarrassed to say, I did stop to admire my developing delts in the gym mirror (only when I thought no one else was looking). Marsh has created a monster. The thing is, I rather like her.

Four weeks into the challenge, while on holiday, a stranger walked up to me and told me she had arm envy. And that was it, I had the bug. I liked feeling strong and toned and, perhaps surprisingly, powerfully feminine.

The challenge is all but over and, in a fairly elastic six weeks I’ve lost a mind-boggling 32.7 per cent body fat (eat my sweaty gym shorts, Jodie) and gained 5lb of lean muscle. The increase in my resting metabolic rate means I now burn an extra 112 calories a day. I have gone from chest-pressing a feeble 40kg to a much more impressive 60kg. My bicep curl has increased from 20kg to 30kg and my shoulder-press max weight has gone from 50kg to an incredible 80kg. When I do a tricep dip, I do it across two benches with a 20kg weight on my stomach.

I feel strong, healthy and physically confident. I won’t be standing on a stage in my swimwear any time soon, but I’m wearing my calloused, weight-ravaged hands with pride. As for the rest of the stuff 2012 throws at me: bring it on.

So, in summary, through pumping iron, Ruth has greatly increased her physical strength. It has also given her a body she is proud of, a body that attracts admiration and envy from other women, strangers and colleagues. This, in turn has led to greater self-confidence in her ability to tackle anything life throws at her.

Now, I know a few women who would love a bit of that! I might just have to email them the link to Ruth’s blog ‘by accident’.

Marsh Effect Scoreboard (21.01.12)

Jodie Marsh 1
People Who Think Women in the Gym Have No Business Lifting Weights and Should Stick to Running Machines and Spinning Classes 0

And don’t forget UK readers, the first episode of Jodie Marsh: Make Me A Bodybuilder premieres on DMAX this Tuesday at 9pm.

Fingers crossed the airing of the documentary will further serve to inspire British women to muscle up. And I look forward to the next installment of Ruth’s blog.

Enjoy!

Muscle and Beauty

It’s one of the wonders of life that two people’s perception of the same thing can be totally different. In fact, certain things seem to cause almost polar reactions. Marmite, for example. You can love or hate it, but hardly anyone says they don’t mind it.

Muscular women get similarly opposing reactions. I, for one, find them the most attractive women of all. I spend a significant amount of time eulogising them right here in this blog. But if you take even just a cursory glance at some internet polls on female muscle, you will find that there are a lot of people who are disgusted by them.

Now, I’m not saying these people are wrong, variety is the spice of life as they say. But take a look at the pictures below and the comments I’ve taken from the polls I’ve found. Are beauty and muscle really as mutually exclusive in women as some people think?

‘They look like men. They look downright awful.’


OK, maybe some of the biggest steroid-abusing bodybuilders do sacrifice their femininity for muscle. But Szilvia Czine, Aleisha Hart, Jennifer Rish and Heidrun Sigurdardottir are clearly all woman.

And with her lovely, dark eyes and beautiful smile, would you really say that Yenny Polanco‘s bicep makes her look like a man?

This comment is similarly typical: ‘Feminitiy [sic] and female bodybuilders have nothing in common whatsoever.’

So this person can’t spell. Or run a spell check. But, hey, f-e-m-i-n-i-n-i-t-y is a tough word, and anyone can make a typo. Let’s not be overly critical of their English. But looking at the Middle Eastern beauty of Mercedes Khani and the natural beauty of Erica Cordie, I for one disagree with their conclusion.

‘It’s not like any male on earth finds them attractive.
And they make even fat woman shudder in disgust.’

Having seen Reagan Brenner, the lady on the left is so disgusted she has to get some food down her quick. Imagine how much more she would have to eat if she saw the Asian beauty of Lyen Wong or Rebekah Kresila!

And then there is this old chesnut: ‘I think dating women bodybuilders is one step away from being queer.’
Now, I have to admit, I did not know there were steps to being queer. Do they go up or down? And it does beg the question of being attracted to what kind of bodyshape on a woman is two steps away from being queer?

Well, if fancying Valeria Ammirato or Heather Dees makes me ‘one step away from being queer’, then I am very proud to be on that step. And what’s more, I think that’s going to be a very crowded step. Unless I’m the only one who finds Sheila Beavers attractive!

Enjoy!

Female Muscle Pride

When I first saw a female bodybuilder, one of the things that struck me was the fact that she seemed so proud of her body, and obviously loved the attention it got her. And muscular women have every right to feel proud, given the dedication, discipline and hard work it takes to achieve their goals. And why shouldn’t they show it off?
Who wouldn’t?!

Here’s a few choice quotes and some photos to illustrate them. But keep reading after the pics, because I’m getting on my soap box again.

The development of my body has made it more toned, and more curvaceous.
I think I’m more feminine now than before I had muscles.

From how I see things, women with great physical shape are at an advantage in the dating game. They weed off insecure, puny boys who aren’t man enough to stand beside a strong woman without feeling inadequate, and attract men who are self-confident enough to accept the better package.

Most women at the gym wouldn’t even dream of using the dumbells that I use. When I do shoulder presses at the gym, the newbies tend to look because they aren’t used to seeing a woman with biceps and shoulders, and they really show during shoulder presses, it amuses me.

I love working out and watching my muscles develop. It gives me greater confidence and I feel sexier. Yes, I can lift more weight than some men but that should be a motivator for them, not a turn off.

I actually catch more criticism from other women than the men in the gym, probably because the majority of them go in all dolled-up and not breaking a sweat, and I hang out in the free weight room and am there to actually do something.

I’ve worked out with some pretty massive female bodybuilders and heard the snide remarks that were made about us lifting weights, yet those same guys would try to hit on us when their ‘posse’ was no longer present. Go figure.

So what about a Female Muscle Pride rally? No, really! Muscular women deserve to be celebrated in my opinion. Imagine, women from local gyms and fitness clubs parading through your city, showing off their muscles, flexing for the crowd. ‘Celebrity’ muscle babes could be invited to lead the parade or give posing or workout displays. After the parade, when the sun goes down, the clubs and bars are full of muscular women, and guys (and girls) wanting to meet them. There could be posing shows, feats of strength contests, even female muscle karaoke…

And all with the aim of spreading the good word of the female muscle gospel. Women, some brought along by muscle-loving boyfriends, others just curious to see what it’s all about, might get inspired by the sight of a parade of hard, toned muscular bodies and subsequently hit the gym. This would not only make their boyfriends happier, it would also make the women themselves feel sexier. On top of that, as the parades became annual events, attitudes would change and prejudice against female muscle would gradually be eradicated.

As far as I can see, everybody wins! This may be the best idea I’ve ever had (though it is late and I’m a little high, so this may just read like the confused rantings of a madman).

Tell me, what do you think?