Amateur Week @NPC Jr. Nationals

There was a grand total of only 14 Physique competitors at the recent NPC Jr. Nationals. This, compared with 22 in 2017, 28 the year before, and over 40 in 2015, might indicate that it will not be long before the WPD goes where the FBBing division at this show went in 2013 - off the bill. However, and much to my delight, what the Physique line-up lacked in quantity, it more than made up for it in quality.

We saw the Overall winner - the gorgeous Jessica Booker Williams - on Tuesday. Today, it's the best of the rest plus some news about one of the more well-loved competitors which (if you haven't already heard about it) is liable to have you punching the air with joy - or at least that's what happens in my experience.




Among the many beauties who left without pro cards were she-hulk Teneacia Smith (top left) and Amanda Martin - who looked good from the front but even better from the rear. Blond beauty Jessica Uthe surely has the thickness to nail her pro card at some point this year if she comes in with better conditioning, and then there was the very appropriately named Gentry Manley - not that Gentry is very manly herself, you understand, it's just a great name for any muscle woman to have!



One woman who did leave with a pro card and a big beaming smile was D class winner Alyssa Isley, whose glutes alone were probably worth the price of admission.



I woke up this morning still in shock, Alyssa wrote the morning after, before asking the question that many a new pro must ask themselves? Now what, what is next?



Even more shredz on the glutes, perhaps Alyssa? Just a suggestion.




And then there was the other Alyssa - Kiessling - bringing her own unique style to the stage, posing like a dude of yore, and going home a pro after winning the A class.

Here she is, "ready to bring back that pro status to room 2533!"



This is what I loved most about the weekend, she said afterwards. Posing to some music with my best friends watching and hyping me up. Vibessss man. Vibes.



More than a little crazy (in a good way), and certainly at least as crazy about female muscle as the most vehement among us, I don't ever see her stopping. The self-styled "Classical Queen" will be lighting up stages for years to come. Pro stages.

And so to the C class, where it was "buff" v "beef", a "nugget" v "nuggette", and former FMS Woman of the Week, the beautiful Destinee Bruch fulfilled her destinee.




It's time to relax, recover, eat a lot of food and have a lot of fun, "Miss Buff Nugget" told her Instagram followers, and while we didn't get to see so much of the relaxing and recovering, she did give us some eating, and seemed to be having a lot of fun doing so!



Destinee's victory, however, left C class rival Paige "Beefnuggette" Sandgren feeling rather deflated, which coincidentally is how she had been feeling at the start of the week before the show - Bloated, flat, tired, blah blah blah... although she looked absolutely sensational both then and at the end of her week in her red posing suit.






"Reflecting on the show and judging feedback", Paige came to a decision.

Get ready for the air punching thing... Since I’ve already come this far, she wrote. I’ll be doing another show in 3 more weeks to try again for my pro card... but this time, it’s in a division I think will better suit my thicker-then-a-snicker shape and size.



Need a translation? Paige will be competing in Bodybuilding now. Watch out for the Ms Wings International Classic, July 1st, Chicago. This feels right, is Paige's current take on her preparation. If things go well we could be seeing her at this year's Rising Phoenix.



Imagine!

Amateur Week: The History of Jennie Gray

FMS was under the impression that our own history with the gorgeous Jennie began this year, when we recommended Best Muscle Video's edit of her at last year's North Americans in April's Tube Watch. "In Figure," we noted, "doubtless 'too muscular'."

Just in case you didn't take notice then...



During the course of our research for today's post, however, it turned out that we had previous with Jennie long before that - perhaps as long ago as 2015, when this picture made it into a week of dressed-up muscles. We didn't know Jennie was Jennie then, we just loved the pic (and still very much do). And judging by the size of that beautiful, big, bulging bicep, she was probably 'too muscular' for Figure even back then.



Jennie's contest history goes back a little beyond that - the contest history we can find anyway. She was competing in Over 35 Masters classes in 2014, which I personally find amazing looking at her now. She made her first North Americans appearance that year, qualifying by winning Masters and Overall titles at an NPC show in New York.


NPC Powerhouse FX New York Classic 2014

Three more North Americans - 2015, 2016, and (as seen in the Best Muscle Video edit) 2017 followed. She made the top 3 in her (now) Over 40 class in the last two of those years, but never better than that. Again, I'm flabbergasted - such a vision of mature muscular beauty, were the women in her class really better than her for four consecutive years? Probably, as they say, 'too muscular' (and a cursory - and very far from objective - check of some of the women who finished above her at her four North Americans has, I am proud to say, confirmed my own pet theory 100%).



Jennie, 2014-2017

What is such a womanhunk of gorgeousness to do?

Clearly she had improved year-on-year, and the overall trend during this time in the division was undoubtedly towards a more muscular look. Her placing by 2017 was by no means low, but given the sheer number of pro cards on offer at the North Americans (in 2015, for example, 18 were awarded in Figure alone), Jennie was, by the end of last year, probably a bit fed up that she hadn't got her hands on one yet.



The answer, delightfully, was heels off, posing on.

Earlier in the month she made her Physique debut at the NPC Battle at the River in Tennessee, and it went rather well. Two class wins - B and Over 35, plus the Overall title. That made two samurai swords plus a real Excalibur of a weapon to get home.



Cue celebrations and all sorts of comedy opportunities.

The smile on my face says it all - my backside looks like this! she wrote, proudly displaying her epic body before finals. No more reining in the training to avoid getting 'too muscular'. I can't wait for the next chapter in The History of Jennie Gray.



Watch Jennie take the Overall title at the Battle at the River.

Follow Jennie on Instagram.

Enjoy!

Amateur of the Week: Jayne Tingle

Keep going, the caption reads, no matter how you feel.



There may be other women who personify the "amateur" in British female muscle quite as gloriously as Wigan's Jayne Tingle, but right now, I can't think of any who do.

She's been at it for some time - as long ago as 2007 she was the NABBA British Toned Figure champion - 13 years chipping away, as she puts it, a single mother personal trainer clearly doing it for the love. She hasn't exclusively competed at NABBA shows - she has, for example, appeared at the Arnold Amateur and Amateur Olympia, and at UKBFF British and IFBB European Championships in the past. But NABBA is the place she seems to be most at home, and the place where she gets the most love. However, she has never got as much love before as she has had from the NABBA judges this year.

She started her competitive season at the NABBA North-west, lining up in the Athletic Figure class - a bit more muscular than Toned, not as muscular as Trained.



And from there, she went on to the NABBA Britain.

Now, unlike some other federations where you get the judges telling you you were in the wrong class after you've competed, in NABBA, you are placed in one of the classes before you get on stage. And so, at the Britain this year, Jayne turned up expecting to feature in the Athletic class again, but was told she had to compete in Trained instead.

I was in absolute awe at every girl, Jayne said of the competition she suddenly found herself up against. I wondered how I could measure up to any of them.



You can probably guess what happened next...

11 years after she'd won the British Toned title, Jayne was now the British Trained champ. OMG, was her (understandable) reaction. Did I get moved from Athletic to Trained and win?! Lots of bitching, she confided. Sorry to those I've upset.



Nice of her to say that, but she probably wasn't very sorry. And anyway, in her decade and then some of competing, Jayne seems to have made a lot more friends than enemies. There were plenty of smiling faces ready to celebrate with her.

Next stop, the Worlds, and once again she arrived thinking "athletic"...



Time for me to accept I am more muscular than I realise! she said after once again the judges had moved her up to the more muscular class. I am actually hench!



Hench enough to place 4th anyway. People said I'd be a laughing stock internationally at Trained Figure - clearly NABBA (or is it Bodybuilding generally?) is a bitchier world than I would like to imagine! - If this is a laughing stock, she continued, defiantly, I'm rolling with it! 15 stacked girls, best line-up in a good while. I am so over the moon.



And ironically, none of this might have happened this year.

I wasn't going to compete 'cause I wasn't in a good place, she told her Instagram followers recently. Some mental abuse floored me, and I lost a lot of weight. But I needed something, so from January I put food in as I was struggling to eat from stress. Then I decided to try to aim for a show just to keep myself focused...



And last weekend, she did one more - the IFBB pro qualifying event in Coventry. She only won her class, and came within a few points of actually ending the year with a pro card, but ultimately the Overall title went elsewhere. This year is definitely my year! she concludes, despite the near miss. Feels great being in a good place again.



Long may that feeling continue.

Amateur Week: Miss Boxing

*APOLOGIES FOR THE LACK OF A POST YESTERDAY - THIS WAS NOT ENTIRELY DUE TO THE FACT THAT FMS WAS CELEBRATING ITS 4,000,000TH PAGE VIEW (THANK YOU!) - WE HOPE THAT TODAY'S DOUBLE WILL MAKE UP FOR IT.*



The German-based NAC federation is not one that most fans know a lot about, and with the possible exception of a serial champion like Italy's Monia Gioiosa, the majority of female muscle heads would be hard-pushed to name any of its leading ladies. In that respect, it appears to have much in common with its British equivalent - NABBA. There's much to appreciate - the ladies appear drenched in oil and tanning products, they are often magnificently ripped, and they pose in thongs - but they hardly ever get the kind of attention (here and elsewhere) that IFBB/NPC competitors do.

Over the next couple of days [actually just today now thanks to yesterday's no post - ed.] we'll be spotlighting two competitors with extensive contest histories, both of whom have enjoyed recent success in one of those two less celebrated federations.

First up, it's the Romanian-born Hungary-based NAC Figure legend Judit Palecian.


Judit in her kickboxing days

Judit was a dancer in her youth, but later began a very successful kickboxing career, and she still uses the nickname "Miss Boxing" for her Facebook page. She was a World Champion in 2002 and again in 2003, after which she began to focus solely on Bodybuilding. She has won World and European titles in NAC, IBFA, IBFF, and WBPF contests over a period of many years - one article from last year claims she had held as many as 11 World and 3 European titles between 2014 and 2016 alone!




Most recently though, she defended her NAC Over 40 Figure title at their World Championships in the Philippines at the beginning of June. And thanks to German supersite Frey Nutrition, we have (literally) thousands of images of the ladies from that contest to enjoy, including many of the beautiful and beautifully-shredded Judit.



Frey also captured Judit's winning routine - thong, heels and all!



I doubt the IFBB/NPC bigwigs pay much attention to how other federations do things, but watching Judit performing her routine here (as well as previous routines, which are not difficult to find, by the way) I can't help but dare to dream that one day in the not-too-distant future we might see - for example - Cydney Gillon or Maria Luisa Baeza Diaz flexing on the Olympia stage like this Figure World Champion.


Relaxing in Cebu after her NAC Worlds victory

Perhaps even in thongs!

Enjoy!