Gif of the Week

From one of our 2013 Women of the Year (Georgina) to another as Sexy Sophie Arvebrink pumps up (Look at her! OMG!!!) in this week's gif selection.

Doesn't that just set off all sorts of bad bad thoughts???

What's that? More you say? Well, OK then...

Had enough?

Thought so, but seeing as you've had the two, you may as well have the full set, but like the online poker ads say, just remember to enjoy Sexy Sophie responsibly...

Genius by Female Fitness & Bodybuilding, whose no nonsense tagline tells us These women are bigger and stronger than you. You are a pathetic excuse for a man!

Yikes!

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!]

Read Georgina's recent interview with RxMuscle here.

Enjoy!

The Art of Wreckage International

Today the art of female muscle returns to FMS after a considerable time away, and I think you will agree it is quite a return. Alex "Wreckage" Wright aka Wreckage International is best-known for his huge moving sculptures that have featured at such high-profile events as this year's Burning Man, Glastonburys passim, and the Closing Ceremony of the 2012 London Paralympics. But he is also a graphic designer and, of most interest to the female muscle fan, no slouch with the oil paints.



This huge painting in Whitecross St. (near Old St. in London) that was originally made for The Rise of the Non-Conformists annual Whitecross Street Party last year is still there for all to see - or at least it was until about a month ago as far as we know.

Imagine a world where one of Wreckage International's big muscular beauties hang huge, proud and half-naked on EVERY street corner! My kind of world...



Prints and further information on the Wreckage International website.

Enjoy!

"My Olympia": Contributions Wanted!

I'd LOVE to be able to say that I spent much of the Olympia weekend glued to the Bodybuilding.com webcast, enjoying uninterrupted coverage of the finest female bodies on the planet for hours and hours on end.

And I'd LOVE to be able to say I watched it all with my wife beside me. She wet herself laughing at the physique MEN with their funny Bermuda shorts (is male physique just bodybuilding for leg day skippers or what?), but she had wet herself in a very different way by the time Juliana Malacarne performed her Saturday evening routine.



And I'd LOVE to be able to say that when all the physique routines were over, and we'd put some of our clothes back on, she turned to me and told me that while she could never imagine getting as big as the women we'd watched together on Friday (and she had enjoyed how turned on I'd been by them, by the way, LOVED it), Juliana, Dana Linn, Tycie et al had impressed her so much that she wanted to build a physique competitor's body, "though I may have to start out by competing in figure".



Well, my Olympia weekend didn't quite pan out like that. Saturday was my favourite uncle's 70th birthday, celebrated with a big family lunch near his home. I wouldn't have missed it for the world, but the eight-hour round trip to get there and back in a day made it impossible for me to see more than twenty minutes of the show live.



This was on Saturday morning (so Friday evening in Vegas), when I got up a tad earlier than was absolutely necessary in order to surreptitiously catch some of the precious live stream while the wife was still slumbering. What I saw was the fitness competitors getting their awards (which was fine, though it wouldn't have been my FIRST choice) - sound off, of course - and then, with the big girls imminent... the wife's alarm goes off.

By the time we got back from my uncle's - and don't get me wrong, a smashing time was had by all - it was late, and I was exhausted from the driving. The wife crashed immediately, so the opportunity was there for a little indulgence, but it would have meant injecting caffeine into my own eyeballs to stay awake, so I made do with a quick check of the results - Iris again... Nicole Wilkins again... Alana Shipp 4th!!! - and, knowing full well the webcast replays would be available soon, I hit the hay.



I drifted off, wondering how other female muscle heads had spent their weekends.

And so, as is so often the case when FMS takes a little break, we're back with a question for you, our lovely readers - and we really really want to know the answer...

HOW WAS YOUR OLYMPIA?



Obviously, if you were actually there we'd like to hear all about it - and let's face it, if you were there you would probably want to tell because then you'd get all the brethren writing to let you know how jealous they are: you'd be THE MAN!



If you weren't there, was it the webcast + box of man-size tissues scenario some of our readers were kind enough to share with us in the week before the Olympia? (see comments on Ms Olympia 2014: The Line-up). If so, how was it for you? Did the single box prove sufficient? Who was responsible for the biggest mess? Did you manage to get through it all without passing out and/or needing medical attention?



Or did you have a similar experience to mine - surreptitiously snatching what you could while getting on with all the other real life stuff that most weekends consist of?

Or, best of all (I do sometimes wonder how many - if any - of the women read this!), might as well ask, one never knows... were you competing? Would you care to share your Olympia experience, whether it was your first time or not?

Whatever your story, whatever "Your Olympia" was, please do get in touch.

What I'm hoping for is a snapshot of what the female muscle lovin' world was doing while the beautiful female muscle elite were doing their elite female muscle thing.

If that's something you'd be interested in contributing to, then go ahead and use the comment box below, or just email directly to 6ft1swell@gmail.com.

As ever, complete anonymity is guaranteed if you want it that way.

You've got till Friday - to be honest, any time will do - but I'd really like to be able to post some of your stories the week after this one, so that's the deadline for now.

Looking forward to hearing from you,
6ft1swell

Ms Olympia: Posedown!

We thought the best way to bring our Ms Olympia countdown to a climax was to feature the climactic moment of the contest itself (or any contest for that matter - any contest with more than one competitor, anyway!) Yes, it's time to pose down!



OLYMPIA STYLE!

The primest exhibition of female muscle meat at its most primal and joyous moment...



The contest as a contest is over, and you've all finished in the top six anyway... Now whip that crowd into one final frenzy as your glorious muscular body transcends its exhaustion and reveals all of its stunning beauty!!! (Or at least that's how Swell might put it if he was ever in charge of the MCing at a female bodybuilding show!!!)



Where the hell do you LOOK if you are in the audience? It's hard enough taking it all in even when you can replay the video clip over and over and over and over and over. Being there must bring on some kind of sthenolagniac overdose or something.



And while there must be more than a few brethren in the audience experiencing some kind of female muscle lovin' nirvana, there always appears to be bucket loads of female muscle ecstasy pouring out of the competitors - of any year, or indeed, any ERA...

Yes, Rachel, YESSSSS!



It's one big female muscle love-fest up there. All sorts of mutual muscle admiration kicks in, and, easily my favourite bit - true posedown GOLD - is when the admiration spills over into actual touching up, into actual on stage MUSCLE WORSHIP!



Who will be posing down at the 2014 Ms Olympia? Only one way to find out...

So, wherever you are, work out the time difference between yourself and Las Vegas (we're 8 hours ahead here in the UK), and get yourself comfy and organised. The live webcast on Bodybuilding.com begins 2.30am on Saturday for the Ms Olympia finals in the UK - finess and bikini finals are also scheduled for the same evening.

And FMS will be having a little break next week (watching the re-runs of the webcast perhaps!) but we will be back and posting again on Saturday 27th. Have fun now!

Ms Olympia 2014: The Class of '13

Two of the women making their Ms Olympia debuts tomorrow were, this time last year, barely on the FMS radar. Obviously, this had more to do with the failings of the radar than anything else, but in 2014 they have made such a big noise in the world of IFBB pro female bodybuilding that even our rusty old radar (not to mention our rusty old radar operator) couldn't fail to notice Margie Martin and Alana Shipp.



Both Margie and Alana gained their pro cards last year. In June Margie beat Annie Sheehan and Victoria Dominguez to win the heavyweight title at the NPC USAs, and then saw off the challenge of a certain Shannon Courtney to claim the overall title. After winning a three-woman middleweight class at the NPC Nationals in November, Alana was awarded her pro card despite losing out in the overall posedown to one of the women Margie had beaten in Las Vegas, Victoria Dominguez.




Their qualities were noted at the time (not by FMS, smack wrist smack wrist) but they were noted. Only eventual runner-up Anne Sheehan mounted a serious challenge and the final tallies showed Martin scored a unanimous win, noted Steve Wennerstrom in his report from the 2013 USAs, admitting that he was more than a little excited at the prospect of following Margie's progress as a pro bodybuilder. She has blossomed [from a 2011 physique competitor] into a very good heavyweight with enviable muscle shapes and bodylines on her 5'5" [1.65m] frame, he added.




And Wennerstrom's appraisal of Alana Shipp at the Nationals was even more effusive. Some might say it's easy to stand out in a group of three competitors in a bodybuilding line-up, but in the case of Alana Shipp it may not have made much difference what the size of the middleweight class was considering her overall physical qualities, he wrote, before going on to list those qualities in no little detail.

Dynamite detail in her back double biceps poses, equally impressive separation in her frontal quads, 8-pack abs, and gluteal/hamstring tie-ins to further prove her head-to-toe completeness... When Steve Wennerstrom starts getting carried away with the descriptions, you know he thinks that he's witnessed someone special.




And we didn't have to wait long to see that The Sage had predicted correctly (yet again). By the end of the frantic first eight days of FBB pro competition this year that included the Toronto Pro and the new Omaha Pro show, both Margie and Alana had enough qualifying points to be able to book their tickets to Vegas months in advance.




In Toronto they made their pro debuts. Alana's razor-sharp conditioning gained her second place behind Simone Oliveira and ahead of - as predicted by Steve Wennerstrom - much much bigger women, including Margie, who was impressive enough in fourth. The order was all but reversed in Omaha the following week - Margie was runner-up this time (to Anne Freitas), while the judges placed Alana fifth.



No 20-year Christine Envall-like wait for Margie and Alana, then. Just two pro outings each and they were bound for the biggest show of all. Their rise through the amateur ranks had been swift enough, their transition from debutant pros to elite Olympians has been even more rapid. Both are ex-marines, both mothers (Alana has two children, Margie four). Backstage snaps suggest they share something of a bond, perhaps due to shared experience before and after their competitive careers began.

I can't help thinking that if either gets a decent placing tomorrow, the other will too!


MARGIE MARTIN



California; 35 years old

On Facebook, Instagram (recommended - she's hilarious) and previously on FMS



Did you know? Margie has ALWAYS wanted to be a bodybuilder (since I was a little girl, she says), and apparently accosted serial Mr Olympia Lee Haney at church when she was 12 to ask for his advice. Her role model now is FMS heartthrob Juanita Blaino because, according to Margie, she has the most beautiful physique.




ALANA SHIPP



Born in Barbados to Guyanese parents, moved to New York aged 11; currently living in Israel (her husband is a diplomat at the US Embassy there); 31 years old (I think)

On Facebook, Instagram, her own website and previously on FMS



Did you know? Alana has only been training since 2011, when she went to the gym hoping to get into better shape for a Marine Corps ball! I went from being that girl who felt out of place in the gym (especially in the weights section) to becoming completely at ease there, she says. I enjoy the process of sculpting my body... the better I looked, the better I wanted to look, which drives me to work even harder.




It's almost time...