The A-Z of HUGE
F is for...
FABI
This year, Fabiola Boulanger joined the pro ranks, her victory at the Canadian Championships no surprise as her body has been a thing of wonder for the last couple of years. There are few women in the sport now (and not that many women in the sport ever) who have the ‘total package’. Fabiola is most definitely one of them. She is covered, top to bottom, with the kind of bulging, rippling muscularity that I am more used to seeing in female muscle art than on real female bodybuilders themselves. She’s like a fantasy superheroine. A sight to set a female muscle addict’s heart racing.
FMS, Women of the Year 2011
And you know the rest. Fabi never competed as a pro FBB, instead taking a couple of years off before returning, that fantasy body "downsized", in the Physique division (not the only big beast who'll feature today who followed that particular path).
FANNIE BARRIOS (1964-2005)
With Yaxeni and Betty, Fannie Barrios flew the Venezuelan female muscle flag at the Olympia in the early 2000s. She was the "Lightweight" of the three, but you wouldn't know it to look at her in her prime. Fannie was very much still competing when she died, of an apparent stroke, while helping out backstage at an NPC show in 2005.
FEMPOWER
I was born in Poland in 1982, says Fempower artist "Tigersan". I started to develop a crush on muscular women at about 12, and later decided THIS is what I want to do when I grow up - take photos of female bodybuilders, and create art involving the same subject. At 21, he emigrated to the US and gradually made his dream come true.
Some of the best and most popular female muscle art there is - I can't be the only fan who has their favourite Tigersan character (Switch in case you're interested). Fempower is still going strong after many, many years, and you can see some of Tigersan's most recent work in his regularly updated Deviant Art gallery.
HEATHER FOSTER
Amazing body, big, wide and so so thick, reads one fan's tribute to this Caribbean great. Those biceps to me were among the best of all time. Few would disagree. For all her (many) charms, it is probably those mighty peaks for which Heather, whose career spanned almost two decades before her final show in 2011, will be remembered.
For more, check out Ultimate Muscle's Heather tribute.
FREAK(S), FREAKY
Defined as "physically abnormal" persons (or animals, or plants, by the way), on one level, ALL female bodybuilders, and the big girls especially, are "freaks", with us fans glorifying them for just that, their "abnormal", exceptional, sculpted physiques.
For many, it's a case of the freakier (ie. the more abnormal), the better. So for female muscle fans, "freak" has come to mean something like "abnormal even for a female bodybuilder"! It's also often used to describe women with, among other things, abnormal strength or vascularity, a woman with extreme conditioning, or indeed one who has a particular muscle or set of muscles that she has developed above and beyond those of her peers - as in "I just loved Heather's freaky legs", for example.
And then there's the other, more modern usage - "a person who likes to do kinky shit in bed or have sex a lot", the Urban Dictionary tells us. Again, we'd like to believe that applies to all female bodybuilders, but even if it's not the case, there has been many a big girl over the years who has mined the "freak pound" (us), flaunted this type of freakiness, and has amassed a not inconsiderable fortune as a result of doing so.
Not easy to choose a handful of images to represent female muscle in all its fantastic freakishness, by the way, so apologies if I have omitted your personal favourite freaky photographs. Any submissions from you lovely readers would be more than welcome. I'll put them together and we can have a(nother) Freak Week on the blog.
ANNE FREITAS
And talking of freaks... I always thought she looked other-wordly, like an alien from a more female muscle planet had come amongst us. Not so much the size of her (though by the end of her Bodybuilding career she packed as much muscle per square inch onto her diminutive frame as any competitor she went up against) as her shape and conditioning. The striated glutes, the separation on her quads, and that super freaky Christmas tree lower back thing. And even her face, so strange - yet so appealing.
Such a uniquely freaky look led to Anne being the object of some serious love from the female muscle lovin' community, as one man's experience of the effect her 2014 Olympia package had on him illustrates. I quickly went online to check if there were any vids or pics of the event... And they were all available!!! I immediately looked at them, of course, but I had to go back to work, so I only looked at what was most important to me: Anne's ass! And, oh boy, it was really, really difficult not to wank immediately but I had to wait... (Ozzy, My Olympia, FMS October 2014).
Like Fabi, Anne competes in Physique now, and she still looks pretty freaky. She's been pretty successful too, although not quite as successful as she was as a Bodybuilder. She won IFBB pro Bodybuilding titles in Harford in 2012 and Omaha in 2014 and graced the last three ms Olympias, finishing 8th, 9th, and (in 2014 with that "ass") 6th.
JAY FUCHS
Big, intense, and (given her kickboxing background) carrying more than a hint of danger about her, Jay is pretty much a hardcore female muscle fan's dream. Deadly but sexy! as one points out. You certainly wouldn't want to mess with her, and if she wanted to have her way with you I guess the only thing you could do would be to just give in and hope you'd survive with enough strength left to get yourself to A&E.
More seriously, Jay will be back in action again in Tampa the weekend after this, and while she isn't one of the big favourites, she's always there or thereabouts at the pro shows - top 5 and Best Poser in Tampa two years ago, winning last year in Chicago.
Nikki FULLER
Nikki, whose career ran from the late '80s to the late '90s, was the star of one of the most iconic images in Female Bodybuilding history, the cover of Bill Dobbins' game-changing The Women. Less well-known, perhaps, is the story of how that metal "bikini" came into being. The idea came to me one night about midnight, Nikki recounted in 2012. I did not let the image slip out of my mind, and went to the only store open that late and bought whatever materials I could find to immediately begin sculpting the shapes my imagination was demanding I design. With some pie tins, electrical tape and automotive dent filler, I sat down and made the molds for the silver (aluminum) pieces. I found a couple of long necklaces at Nordstrom's that later became the chains that held the pieces in place. I believe this is one of my greatest achievements.
Nikki Fuller was as big, beautiful and sexy as almost any other pro female bodybuilder, Dobbins reckons - and he should know, he's seen a few.
Again, sorry if I have glaringly omitted a favourite of yours, whether a woman or an aspect of the female muscle lovin' experience. Could have had Fantasy here, and probably should have had Flexing, for example. However, this has always been intended to be a work in progress that can always be updated later. So, if you've any gripes (or words of praise, they are always nice to get!) please do get in touch.
Suggestions for G also very welcome!
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