One-Armed Wonders: WPW Legends

Truth be told, it was the women in Muscle & Fitness, Flex and Musclemag that set me on the path towards the raving female muscle head I am today. The majority of women who featured in Women's Physique World way back when I personally didn't discover until I got a dial-up and hopefully typed the magazine's name into the search field.

In memory of that moment the motherlode was revealed to me, a selection of five (I think not at all controversial) bicep legends from that time. Women who may not have been among my very first female muscle discoveries - even if a couple of them do go very very way back indeed - but who certainly did their bit to seal the deal.

SUSAN MYERS



She has no weak spots on her, says the commentator over Sue's 1988 Jr. Nationals winning routine. She's well-balanced, she appears to be thick all over, she's ripped, she has great skin tone, she poses well, and on top of that she's really pretty.



Sue was, indeed, much more than "just" her biceps, but the lure of those arms, those thick, bulging biceps in particular, has stood the test of female muscle lovin' time for myself, and many many others. Sue's baseball biceps are addictive, warns one.



Proceed with caution then to this WPW official preview. And you can also watch a much later Sue featuring on that Montel show (or one of them anyway) in the 1990s, before heading back to her 1988 routine (plus breathless backstage interview).

If I'd found better pics of Susan, by the way, you'd be looking at them.

PHYLLIS PADUR



She was, I believe, in the late 1980s only briefly a competitor who was in the WPW spotlight, but like Sue Myers, Phyllis Padur still gets talked about (by geezers like me, of a certain age!) when "Best Biceps Ever"-type conversations are had, and also when a more contemporary muscle woman's biceps jog the memory - I recall Michelle Gavin's beauties being referred to as Padur-like peaks, for example.



Phyllis' nickname was "Funky Peaks"!

CHRISTA BAUCH



A prolific subject for the WPW and Ray Martin lenses, a few years ago, Christa was still, well into her 60s, more muscular than she had any right to be and receiving offers from men less than half her age. In her 1980s-90s pomp, she was hot and hard all over, but I had a particular hard spot for her biceps, especially when they were threatening to burst right through the fabric of whatever classy outfit she happened to be wearing.



Personal faves include the dress with the sheer sleeves - Christa applying lipstick at one point, the kind of thing Ray Martin did so well, taking you into the FBB boudoir - and the white dress, apparently painted on - I may be misremembering but I swear you can see her abs through it! But any time spent with Christa was good time, including probably more hours than is healthy playing "Dress Me Up!" on her website.



Christa competed twice at the Olympia in the 90s, but you can go way back to the late 1980s (and the glory days of Eurosport) with this routine. There's also an offical WPW preview to enjoy here. When you've stopped playing at dressing her up that is.

JOAN LAUTH



Like Phyllis, Joan is still lauded on the forums by those who remember her bringing something truly unique to the late '80s female muscle lovin' world. Her biceps are not so much the greatest split-peaks of all time, more like the only biceps in history that grew extra biceps on top of them. Her peaks have nice peaks! a newer fan exclaims.



Back in 2013, it was rumoured that the (then) 48-year-old was thinking of competing again - and she still had plenty of muscle to show off. Around that time she was also a vocal critic of the IFBB's "plans to kill" Female Bodybuilding, penning an open letter to the IFBB bigwigs that accused them of trying to "send Female Bodybuilding back to the Stone Age". Joan knows - she was there, at the same high school as Cory Everson!



"Joan of Arms" was the title of her first WPW feature. Wennerstrom, as usual, nailed it.

MICHELE MAROLDO



But, if I had to choose just one pair of biceps from that discovering-WPW-on-the-internet era, I would have to choose this pair. I don't recall the exact moment my eyes bulged out of their sockets while a dial-up image of these "otherworldly" arms loaded line by line, but I'm pretty sure they bulged good (and weren't the only things bulging).



Remember the WPW clip of her being measured at 18 inches? And then the guy rubs oil all over it! writes one forum poster. Well, actually it's a Ray Martin production (oil rubbing was generally not done by anyone but the ladies themselves in the WPW clips). Not sure they were 18 either, looks more like 17 to me, but hey, how could I forget?!




She'd been training for a good ten years before she even started competing in the late 1990s - 5'4" and chiselled, according to the WPW blurb. Michele has the best biceps and triceps in the history of the sport. And they've seen a few! A picture of Michele "now" back circulated the forums a couple of years ago. Not such a meat feast as she was back then - how could she be? - but OMG her bicep was still thrilling, still "otherworldly".



Enjoy!

Prof. Pennypacker's Pectarium

Pennypacker on download limits
If there is anything more irritating in this new world than the ridiculous imposition of daily download limits then I have yet to find it. I pay my subscription, set my program in motion and within the hour it has all come to a juddering halt. 'You have reached your daily limit for download'. Incensed, I fired off several emails and received replies ranging from the unsympathetic to the downright rude. XXXXXX [name removed for legal reasons] simply refunded my membership and as good as asked me not to bother them again. The nerve! Now I have no option but to seek out their material through not strictly legal means via my ever-growing list of (ever-generous) contacts. A ridiculous state of affairs. In future, I will simply write to websites and ask them to quote a price for their entire back archive.

At the time of his death, the professor was a paid-up member of six clip and photo websites and no fewer than twenty-eight websites belonging to individual female bodybuilders. We can only guess at the number of photo websites he had been a member of previously, though his archives suggest that at one time or another he had subscribed to all of them, and had paid for access to the members sections of quite literally hundreds of individual websites.





from Pennypacker's diary 19th June 2011
Debit card blocked due to 'unusual activity' according to the peon I spoke to (no doubt in some call centre on the other side of the planet). Had to ring another peon to assure them that, yes, I had authorised the payments and would they please unblock my card. After I'd calmed down (thanks to some archived Sondra Faas), for no other reason than my own personal amusement I called the manager at my branch direct and asked at what point my spending had become 'unusual'.

Whether or not Pennypacker's spending was 'unusual' or not, it was certainly copious. A statistician by profession and calling, he noted, some time in late 2012, the amount of money he calculated that he had spent on website subscriptions, pay-per-view clips and private cam shows until that point. The figure he arrived at was £7,650. In addition, he had donated £2,500 to individual bodybuilders to help with expenses, and spent almost £5,000 on state-of-the-art IT with which to 'indulge my passion'.



But rather than that being a cause to rein in his spending, Pennypacker instead rejoiced at the fact that he had the means to not only continue spending this way indefinitely, but could, in fact, increase his outlay without the slightest worry. 'Since the success of the first book I have had money but never knew what (or who) to spend it on,' he wrote. 'Now, at last, its purpose is clear.'

And the spending did not stop there. It was revealed during the legal battle over his will that the final cost for the construction of The Pectarium from first surveys to the final electrical installations broke the £200,000 mark.



from Pennypacker's diary 13th May 2012
They [the builders etc.] wonder what this thing they have made is. Most of them believe it is a place in which I will conduct scientific experiments or has something to do with 'gaming'. I wonder, if I did tell them, would one or two (or more) want to come back and experience it for themselves? I would gladly let them. I find to my surprise that I have designed the whole thing to be a private yet (potentially) shared experience without ever once realising it. My subconscious obviously craves to have like-minded company to enjoy my archive with. Perhaps I should start advertising on the forums: "Come see The Pectarium. Available now for weekend breaks/long stays. Groups welcomed." Ha!

The idea of turning The Pectarium into some kind of holiday camp for female muscle lovers may or may not have been one that the professor would have pursued. We will never know. Within weeks of his first 'glorious' night within its walls, he fell ill...

gifs by
The Ankle (Christa Bauch)
Shirtrippers (Angela Salvagno)
Muscular Girls in Motion (Rene Campbell)

It's A Dog's Life

Want to be a female bodybuilder's bitch? Or maybe just their dog?
Coming back as one in the next life may be the only way...


This unknown hottie isn't just into exercising her own body. She's also sensitive to her pooch's needs. And what it needs is a bit of parklife.


A powerful lady needs a powerful lady to keep her under control. No problems here for Wilyporn Wannaklang then. They are probably both a little frightening when worked up and in heat. Frightening in a good way.


Tammy Jones, Fanny Palou and Lisette Valdes with their pampered pooches. Tammy's kitty seems to be slightly jealous of not being the centre of attention, while Lisette's looks particularly amazed with his luck.


Muscle girls next door. And their dogs.


I've posted this before, wondering whether this dog wouldn't rather chew on Christa Bauch's bicep than his rubber whatever. She's obviously having fun though.


The lovely Merle Mohr and not one, but two dogs. It's obvious which is her favourite though. Is it wrong to be jealous of a dog?


Merle isn't the only one who has more than one dog in her life. Here's Fanny again, with a different dog to above. One for out and one for home? Also, Dena Westerfield seems to be scaring the shite out of her Afghan, reminding us she is a doctor, not a vet.




A major hunkess like Tazzie Colomb can handle more than one. The lady in the middle is working her way towards that,starting small. KO could handle more, but chooses to stick to one for now. A big strong one.


Man's best friend? Not if you are losing out on your muscle woman time because she's getting naked with her canine! Sarah De Herdt and Annie Riveccio get intimate. Cross-species love can go too far! Not that the dogs seem to be complaining.


Look at him! He is checking out Brandi Akers' juicy bicep and licking his lips. Are we thinking what he's thinking? Lucky mutt!

Enjoy!