I have, my female muscle lovin' friend tells me a couple of weeks before the Tampa Pro, a new crush - Barbie Titus. Do you know her? Well, yes, we do. As my friend was finding out, and many have found out before him, Barbie is not a muscle woman you come across and then forget about, and the fact she's never featured on the blog before today is, according to editorial, nothing less than a crime. Do her justice now, you hear! screamed JJ as I left his office to start work on this, our first Barbie post.
No pressure then.
She first crops up around four years ago as a Figure competitor, winning an NPC Europa show (left) then placing 4th in her class at the Nationals. Even between those two shows she appears to have come a long way, and the (sort of trademark) look - that look that you don't forget - is already established. "Barbie" - must be a fair bit of pressure on women given that name, pressure to conform to it, if you see what I mean.
And in many ways this Barbie does conform - the long blond hair, the spectacular enhancements, the flawless styling and make-up, and so on. But in so many other ways, she is as far from the "ideal" of her plastic namesake as it is possible to get. Big and strong, with that slightly-squarer-than-a-woman-"should"-have jaw (so beloved of female muscle heads). She's so Barbie-like feminine and yet so masculine, it's easy to imagine how many non-heads she has confused the hell out of as they find themselves both deeply repulsed by and deeply attracted to her at the same time.
2015 was a big year for Barbie. After another unsuccessful crack at a pro card in Figure at the Jr. USAs, she decided to switch to Physique. Back at the Nationals it was a case of too soon, but she made an impression - not least in the FMS office. It would be a whole year until we saw her on stage again, but it was well worth the wait. Again she was at the Nationals, but this time she was ready, won her class and turned pro. There's not nearly enough stage shots of her from the show, but she's spectacular in every one.
Interviewed just after she'd left the stage, Barbie already knew when she'd make her pro debut. Don't be fooled by her "I’m the worst decision maker ever, I just keep training..." IG persona. Her career to date would suggest she knows exactly what she's doing.
The pro debut was at the end of August last year at the Hurricane Pro. Barbie arrived among the IFBB pro elite and was good enough - even to my untrained eye obviously superior in every way to her Nationals' winning package - for 4th in a very strong line-up. Beaten only by Olympians Heather Grace, Michaela Aycock and Melissa Pearo, she finished ahead of hardened hard pros like Maria Rita Penteado, Angela Debatin and Olga Belyakova. She promptly disappeared back into her muscle-building bunker, but the female muscle lovin' world had been notified now.
One way of gauging just how taken the collective we are with a competitor is to see how many compilations of their Instagram clips are up on YouTube. Those channels where you find those kinds of clips, they don't - surprise surprise - necessarily do it for love but rather for the advertising possibilities. Many edits of the same woman suggests she's a nice little earner for them. She can be found on numerous such channels, with Fitness Instagram leading the way with six Barbie comps at the time of writing. It's also worth bearing in mind that Fitness Instagram tends towards Bikini and "Fitness models" - more mainstream-y in their appeal, and therefore more likely to get clicks. Barbie is one of their more muscular muses, combining muscle mass and mass appeal.
She "comps" well. She doesn't post that regularly, but when she does it's pretty much always a winner. Her IG has more clips of her training than anything else, and the faces she pulls and the noises she makes should be an editor's dream. Why they insist on putting (generally) crappy soundtracks over her I am at a loss to explain.
I'm also struggling to nail exactly how old Barbie is. Two fairly grown-up children have come out of her beautiful body - this much we know. And we also know that she doesn't, or at least hasn't, competed in a Masters' class when the chance to do so has been there - at the Hurricane Pro last year, for example, which was an over 40 Masters. So, if pressed, we'd have to say Barbie must be in her late-30s. Maturing nicely.
And so to Tampa and her second appearance as a pro. Not the most photographed woman on the stage - I get the feeling she has a limited number of poses, all playing to her strengths of course (again, she knows exactly what she's doing) - either by our hero Mr Rivieccio nor by J.M. Manion for NPC News Online, but every single one is worth a little of your time. And once again, for such a relatively inexperienced competitor, Barbie over-achieved. 6th in a 35-woman line-up, and interestingly the very first Physique routine from the show put up by Maximum Muscle Report - a nod to the broader appeal she has than some of her higher-placing rivals perhaps?
It's not shot from the greatest of angles, but glutemen won't be complaining...
As far as I know my female muscle lovin' friend won't be either. Last I heard he was still on his Barbie exploration trip, and still loving every image and clip of her he was clicking on (no doubt with his left hand). It would hardly be surprising to discover there are heads all over the world doing exactly the same thing, as well as a few non-heads, confused as to why, but finding they can't help themselves nonetheless.
For James
Enjoy!
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