FBBUK: Sarah Williams @UKBFF 2014

One of the saddest things I’ve read this year is the news that Female Bodybuilding had been “phased out” of UKBFF events. No Female Bodybuilding class in the regional qualifiers, no Female Bodybuilding class at the national championships. The federation that brought you the world class muscle of Lisa Cross (2010 UKBFF champion) and Rene Campbell (2011) has turned its back on British female bodybuilders.

However, come competition time at the UKBFF British Championships recently, hope for the future of female muscle within Britain’s most important bodybuilding federation was provided by the triumph of the VERY muscular Sarah Williams.

Sarah had previously competed at the championships as a bodybuilder. In 2012, in fact, she had been runner-up to the smaller and considerably less muscular Rosanna Harte, and many had felt she’d been the victim of a judging travesty. Then, last year, having been a pre-contest favourite given her placing the year before, her appearance on stage apparently having forgotten to apply the pro tan was met with confusion, and, despite her size, she slipped down to fifth in the final placings.

Sarah, robbed at the UKBFF British in 2012

“Looking ghostly” – her words – in 2013

So Sarah got busy “sizing down” as they say, preparing to compete in Physique. It was a bit daunting at first, she says. But I made it simple like I always do, just started dieting a bit earlier, played with my diet a bit, and then just made sure my legs – I didn’t train them the same way to get them to be proportionate to my top half.

Given that she is already more successful as a Physique competitor than she ever was as a bodybuilder, it shouldn’t be too surprising that she already sounds like a true believer, that Physique was the home she had always been looking for. It [Physique posing] felt much more feminine, much more natural to me, she said after her win.

And it’s good to know that being covered in rock hard muscle – she “shredded the competition” according to Flex Online – and getting that feminine feeling are not mutually exclusive. She was, by all accounts, the clear winner from the moment she stepped on stage. The only debate, writes John Plummer, centred on whether she was too muscular for women’s physique. Some felt she was a bodybuilder by another name; others felt her physique was perfectly suited to the international stage.

Thankfully, the latter of these two views won the day among the judges, and it seems likely that the theory that Sarah will be a strong representative for the UK in European competition will soon be tested. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do, she says.

Check out Sarah’s 2012 nemesis Rosanna Harte interviewing the new champ backstage after her win. Sadly, Sarah’s fabulous body is all covered up, but if you like your muscle goddess’ voice basso profundo, listening to Sarah will more than make up for that. And all delivered in Swell’s own South London-Surrey border brogue.

Congratulations to Sarah!

Haway the Lass! Georgina Wins Again

Delighted to report that while it was all going down at the Olympia in Las Vegas, FMS‘ favourite 20-year-old from the north-east of England was winning the Women’s Physique Division at the UKBFF North-West Championships in Leeds. In doing so, she qualified for what will be her second crack at the British Championships, which take place in a couple of weeks in Nottingham. Congratulations Georgina!

On stage pics of the event are thin on the ground at the moment (or have a big watermark across them saying DO NOT COPY), and there’s no report or official results as yet, but from the little I have, there were at least two other women competing in Physique for Georgina to blow away with her size, and, particularly at this show more than any of her previous outings, her insane conditioning. And still only 20!

As the show approached, Georgina was clearly feeling her legs looked better than ever, posting selfie after selfie of ever more shredded pins on her Instagram. So many, in fact, that she actually felt the need to apologise (sort of) for the glut. Sorry for all the leg pics, she wrote in the week leading up to the show. But look at me calve!!!

Freaky! And it seems those legs, along with the rest of this remarkable young woman, are providing inspiration to other bodybuilders male and female within and outside the UK. Georgina’s had her problems with social media abuse in the past, but these days the messages of encouragement and admiration are all over her Instagram.

And since the contest, it’s been back to work, getting a “crazy pump” on as she begins her preparation for the British Championships. Last year, regular readers may remember, that show didn’t work out so well for her (see FMS passim). I get the feeling that this year she’ll fare much much better in the biggest UK show there is.

Haway the lass!

And we leave you with a tiny bit of video of the mighty Georgina winning in Leeds.

[Word of warning – to save your ears you might want to turn your sound down a touch before watching, them’s some serious bellows of support she’s getting!]

//www.youtube.com/get_player

Read Georgina’s recent interview with RxMuscle here.

Enjoy!

Media Watch II: National

As well as the stories we found in the regional media (see Media Watch I), there was also some positive UK national media for female bodybuilding. Although it was picked up by other UK and foreign-based media sources, it should come as no surprise that it should be the female-muscle-friendly Daily Mail that ran the story originally.

Also probably no surprise that the subject of the piece, curvaceous blond student nurse Sarah-Louise Hawkins, is actually a bikini competitor rather than a “bodybuilder” as you or I would understand the term, but nevertheless, in the British media, you take what you can get as far as female muscle is concerned. So I, for one, ain’t complaining, especially as Sarah-Louise has definitely got a bit of a Chelsea Hagan/Alyssa Loghran vibe going on – at least in the contest pics…

At her heaviest, the petite 5′ 2″ [1.57m] blonde tipped the scales at 12st 2lbs [170lbs, 77kg] and was a size 16 [oh, hell, I don’t know, LARGE!], the article tells us. It’s a weight loss story, albeit one that ends up competing in the UKBFF North-west this year. Sarah-Louise, we learn, struggled with her weight for many many years.

I battled with these fad diets, even in school. I was always looking for that quick fix – to see the scales move, all rubbish. It has taken me years of battling to accept that I don’t have the frame to be a skinny girl and I’m not built like catwalk models. I have thick thighs, a bum and abs. I’ve realized that I can use these attributes to my advantage and I’ve built something incredible with what I was born with.

Indeed. And particularly given she only joined a gym in March 2013, and at first, by her own admission, she had a few “hiccups” with the nutrition plan her trainers had outlined for her. I decided to get into shape after the usual scenario of seeing myself in holiday pictures and going into changing rooms and just feeling absolutely awful about myself, she says. But now, 15 months later, Sarah-Louise feels rather different. My muscles are nice and full, she says, and I feel strong and powerful.

The piece couldn’t be any more positive, nor could it be any clearer in its message that diets don’t work (some of the more “famous” diets Sarah-Louise had followed get named and shamed in fact), while weight training and a proper nutrition plan can transform “chubby” into an impressive “burly” physique. And, the article doesn’t forget to show that as a result you can consign your self-esteem issues to history. In night clubs, I like to wear dresses that show off my toned physique. However, a few men have come up to me saying I’m too masculine or that girls shouldn’t look like that, says Sarah-Louise. I’m happy knowing that I’ve done everything to become the best version of myself now. I don’t want to be average or just like everyone else any more. Standing out in the crowd is great. I hope I can inspire and help others in the future.

And the Mail also doesn’t forget to mention that Sarah-Louise has achieved all this while doing 14-hour shifts as a student nurse. Leading up to my first competition in May, I was lucky enough to be working with some incredible nurses that let me sneak off for a quick break and shovel a bit of rice and chicken in my mouth! she tells us.

At that “first competition”, Sarah-Louise didn’t make it into the top placings and qualify for the British Championships. But although ultimately that is where she would like to be, where the judges rank you is by no means the only way of judging your success as a bodybuilder. I had to really push myself to get up on that stage in next to nothing. I still can’t believe I achieved that, neither can the chubby child in my head still, she says. But once I was up there, I told myself, enjoy this moment!

FMS hopes that the Mail will continue its sterling efforts in the promotion of weight training for women (and the dissing of fraudulent diet plans to boot). But we also very much hope that Sarah-Louise will be enjoying the moment on stage again before long, because we will certainly be enjoying her enjoying it (really, Chelsea Hagan/Alyssa Loghran vibe, don’t you think?). With her obvious dedication and her mouth-watering looks, we doubt that it will be very long before Sarah-Louise does make it to the national finals, or that with her natural thickness and curves she will make a move into a more muscular category and be extremely successful there.

I honestly think the Daily Mail may have uncovered a little future British star here.

Big thanks to Aiden for the heads up.

Enjoy!

Contest of the Day: UKBFF British I

UKBFF British Championships
Physique
20th October, Harrogate

In what was the first ever Physique contest at the UKBFF British championships, FMS favourite Ria Ward was the clear winner. Ria reigns in Harrogate, the headline in Flex Online UK read, calling her performance ‘stunning’, and adding that Ria epitomises the blend of muscularity and femininity that women’s physique is all about.

Last year’s UKBFF bodybuilding champion, the lovely Rosanna Harte, was commenting live on the show on the Muscular Development forum. Rosie reckoned Ria was a clear winner, [she’s] already got such a polished and pretty look. Judging by the photos I’ve seen, Rosie’s assessment was spot on. [It’d] be nice to see how well she’d do in the European’s or World’s, Rosie added, and FMS quite agrees. If the first UKBFF Physique champion is indicative of the quality of future winners, then Britain can expect to be well-represented internationally in this division.

And among the other competitors who made the top six on the day, Michelle Williams is FMS’ top tip for future Physique champion. Like Ria Ward, Michelle has come to the Physique class via unsuccessful outings in Body Fitness in competitions past, but unlike Ria (and so many other UK muscle women) Michelle is actually from the South of England (!) training herself and clients at the Resistance Gym in Bognor Regis.

I’m liking this girl more and more, wrote Rosie Harte. Nice feminine shape and classic, almost ’80s look to her presentation. Once again, we can’t fault Rosie’s trained eye. We’re liking Michelle a lot too, and if you agree with us and Rosie you might want to start following this potential future star via her Facebook and Instagram pages.

Attention-grabbing as Ria and Michelle were once the photos of the contest had started to go up, while I was glued to Rosie’s play-by-play descriptions as the contest was actually taking place, it was two women whose names didn’t appear among those who made the top six who were in my thoughts.

Northern Ireland’s Lesley-Ann Armstrong, NABBA World champion in 2012 (see FMS July 2012), had, along with Ria Ward, been a pre-contest favourite with most commentators. She had the contest experience, and a proven track record of getting her prep right for showtime. Just two weeks before the finals, she posted these images on her Facebook.

Unfortunately, attempts to actually find a picture of Lesley-Ann during the show have proved fruitless, so we’ll just have to go on another of Rosie’s comments that it was a shame that Lesley-Ann wasn’t in tighter condition. But even during the pre-judging, Rosie Harte had Ria Ward, Michelle Williams and Lesley-Ann as the ‘standouts’ in the class, and was surprised when Lesley-Ann wasn’t called out with Ria Ward for the first comparison round. A mystery indeed.

Meanwhile, FMS had been whipping themselves (and attempting to whip readers) into a frenzy of anticipation over teenage female muscle sensation Georgina McConnell‘s appearance at Harrogate for months now (see FMS posts past). However, we waited in vain for her name to appear even once on Rosie’s commentary. But Georgina herself cleared up the mystery as to why that was almost immediately.

The day after the contest, she posted this to her Instagram, bemoaning her body’s lack of timing: Aye just full up now! Not show day tho stupid body.

And a few days later, this mission statement appeared.

It’s comforting to know that Georgina isn’t too disappointed by her experience, and very exciting that she is still determined to ‘get hyoooge’. At the time of writing, Georgina says she’s Getting massive n fat n stuff, and her most recent Instagram post suggests that the ‘massive’ part is true, anyway.

But however great we continue to think Georgina is, this is, after all, a post about a contest, and it would be wrong of me not to finish by giving the last word to the winner. It feels amazing to be the first champion, Ria said afterwards. This class is perfect for me. And we think Ria’s perfect for the class!

In the year ahead, FMS is looking forward to seeing Georgina continuing her development, and to seeing Lesley-Ann Armstrong and Michelle Williams coming back next year better than ever. But most of all, FMS is really looking forward now to seeing Ria representing the UK internationally in the Physique class.

We reckon she’ll do us proud.

Tomorrow, UKBFF Part II, Bodybuilding.