Never Better: Skadi Frei-Seifert - Essen 2011

SKADI FREI-SEIFERT
Runner-up, 2011 FIBO Power Pro Championships



Once upon a time, the best female bodybuilders in Europe could strut their stuff in a pro show on a European stage. Six years and one month ago, ten of them - including a returning-from-career-threatening-injury Helle Nielsen, Italians Giusy Caputo and Claudia Partenza, big beasts Daniela Sell and Roberta Tuor Zazzaron, and Greek beauty Elena Kavva (plus Cathy Lefrançois, whose name is kind of European anyway) went glute to glute at FIBO Power. Just six years ago.




It was a triumphant return for Helle, but she has gone on to bigger and better things (and a name change). However, for Skadi Frei-Seifert, ex-basketball player, Sports Science graduate, former manager of the Swiss national cycling team, mother, PE teacher, and namesake of a Norse goddess, this was by far her finest hour.




Pretty beefy in pink for the prejudging, Skadi seemed to have had several more applications of Pro Tan before the night show, where she was absolutely spell-binding with a flower in her hair, showcasing her her beautiful body with a routine that lives long in the memory - for me, one of the best of the decade. Let's remind ourselves...



An edit (albeit a skillful one from friend-of-the-blog jlelmariachi), and obviously not the original music, but you get the idea. Reminiscent of the down-and-dirty posing routines of the late '80s and early '90s, before the IFBB (in their infinite wisdom) told the ladies off and ordered them to downplay the sexy. Skadi's not for that though, her finger to her lips, those legs-across-the-body moves on the floor (I'm so jealous of a judge's POV sometimes), gyrating hips, the steamy looks over the shoulder...




She'd started out in Bodyfitness seven or eight years before this, graduating to Female Bodybuilding around 2007. By 2010 she was a German champion and competing in pro shows in the US, her best result a top 6 finish (in a field of 19) at the Europa Battle of Champions in Hartford. Her runner-up spot at this show qualified her for her one and only Olympia appearance. She briefly returned as a Physique competitor in 2013, reviving the same routine as she had performed here, the same gorgeous, sexy woman, but wearing a lot less muscle (and Pro Tan). Something of a forgotten woman, I would say, she's now Skadi Töpken, but she's still the same damn fine-looking woman.



Tomorrow, Rene Marven. Can you guess which contest?

Enjoy!

BODYBUILDER! Moe's Muscular

OK, hands up who else fully expected Mmmmonique Jones to walk off with the Omaha Pro title last weekend. I mean, I don't know anything about judging and stuff, but as I mentioned earlier in the week, of the ten women on that stage, only Monique had previously won a pro show, so if you think about how these things usually go - bodybuilders, female or male, who win something tend to win again and again - you see where I got the idea. And it wasn't just me thinking along those lines. One preview of the show confidently predicted that it will be Monique Jones and everyone else, and furthermore that even an 80% Monique could walk away with the win.



But the main reason why I expected her to win was that I follow her Instagram, and amid all the inspirational quotes and amusing picture captions (she's a bit of a one for that sort of thing) her progress pics had been jaw-to-the-floor-worthy for some time before the show. It takes size to win, and Mmmmonique always has plenty of that, but it also (they tell me) takes conditioning. And to my untrained eye it seemed that Mmmmonique had been all conditioned and ready as hell for weeks.



Check out that back. Take your time, click on the thumbnails, have a good hard look, you shouldn't rush your admiration of such monumental muscle. In fact it's so wide the single "a" doesn't really do it justice. It's not a "back" but a "baaaaaaaaaack". Words failed me when I first saw the pictures, they're failing me now, and they probably always will do whenever I revisit them in future (they went quick snap to the "Special Favourites" folder, naturally). I don't know about you but I am in full swoon.



Granted, Mmmmonique's back - sorry, her baaaaaaaaaack - is kind of a given when it comes to swoonworthiness, but in the past she'd lacked ever so slightly against the very top women when it came to the leg department. But this time around those lusciously long pins (at over 5'7" - 1.75m - she is taller than most of the big girls) looked both bigger and more chiselled than I remembered seeing them before.



Clearly, Mmmmonique had been putting in the work - and not just with the heavy shizzle, either. Stretching, for example. As an aside from the main event here I just want to have a little dig at those of the "I am sexually attracted to female bodybuilders but I am derisive at the same time because all they do is take steroids" brigade (which, rather annoyingly, seems to be growing in number every day on the boards and so on). Look at the effort, hell, look at the position she has got that mighty physique into. I wouldn't care to comment on whether Mmmmonique (or any other female bodybuilder) was using certain substances or not, but I will say that it seems to take a whole lot more than just "using" to achieve a body as spectacularly thrilling as hers.



Anyway, back to Mmmmonique. In a lift, days before Omaha. If I had got into that lift they would have had to clean me up with a mop and bucket because I would have just melted. Like chocolate. Or something. And it was these images that led me to get a post all ready to go with her as the winner. This isn't a diatribe against another poor judging decision - I couldn't be happier about the result - but because Mmmmonique came second that post has morphed into one about why I thought she was going to win.


Mmmmonique "being silly backstage", with her medal, and with her idol

After the show, she was as philosophical as ever. What truly matters to me more than winning is to have that individual approach you and tell you how much of a positive inspiration you have been for them, she wrote. Impacting on others is my biggest reward and always keeps me motivated to do more within this sport.



And she's been making that impact on many many others, both as one of the sport's inspirational elite and, more personally, as a coach to the women she calls "my girls". They call me "Momma Moe", she says. Not because I'm old (because I'm totally not) but because they trust me and look up to me. I try to be as good a role model as I can for them. I have their best interest at hand. They also know I'm honest, tell it like it is and never sugarcoat anything. That's just tough love! I love what I do and it shows.



And even more than Wings of Strength and Mr Gardner, the thing that keeps female bodybuilding alive is love like Mmmmonique's. Gigantic. A big BIG love.

No room for a separate Gif of the Week post this week. Will this do?

Her Back: A Fantasy

Slowly but surely you've made your back into a thing of beauty. Once it was like all the others. One-dimensional, flat, featureless. Now there are curves, there is shape, there is detail. There is MUSCLE. It seems that every week there is a new feature for me to explore. Flex it for me. Make a muscle and bring your back to life.




Years ago, back when I was first enthralled by female bodybuilders, I used to stare for hours at the WPW "back page". Zuzanna, Denise, Lesa, Paula... I'd stare and trace the curves and lines of their intoxicating backs with my fingers, trying to imagine how the muscle would really feel. Now, as you sleep, it is your back and your muscle I lie awake and stare at. I gently trace the curves and lines of your beautiful muscles across and down and up your back. I don't have to imagine anymore, and the funny thing is it feels even better than I ever thought it would.



I've given some half-arsed back rubs in my time. I'd have barely started and I'd already be thinking how long I'd have to go before I could finish. With you, with your back, I can't wait to start, and I never want it to end. Those other backs I rubbed were all the same - soft, featureless. Yours has shape. Yours has definition and detail, mounts of muscle and valleys between. I want to explore it all. I get deep into every fibre of every one of your hard muscles. Time stops. I could do this forever.



I learn the names of every muscle. Trapezius, rhomboids, etc. I whisper sweet nothings like "I love your teres major" and "Your spinal erectors make me hard" whenever and wherever. At first it just made you giggle, but now you proudly flex whatever muscle I've mentioned, or, when you are covered up in public, you whisper back that you are, and tell me how good, how sexy it feels to do so.



You're getting so damn wide at the top you've had to throw out half your wardrobe, and at this rate the other half will be getting replaced before long as well. Sometimes I walk behind you just to admire your shape. You taper so beautifully, the width at the top making your waist look tiny in comparison. At the gym I can't wait to get you home and run my hands down your sides as you flare your lats.



You're standing in front of the mirror. "Squeeze them," you say as you spread your beautiful wings. "Squeeze them hard." I obey, and the size and the power of the muscles make me giddy. You moan as I tighten my fingers around them. I feel you flex again, resisting my grip, inviting me to press ever harder against the muscle.




And you keep on growing. And the bigger you get, the vainer you get and you spend more and more time in front of the mirror, more and more time admiring yourself. But it's not easy to see your own back, is it? You've got quite proficient at the over the shoulder selfie, but you're frustrated you can never see your back fully flexed. I'm only too happy to help. It's important to have a regular back check, and it's important to check that back in lots of different poses and from lots of different angles.



Your top was so tight in the gym today I thought - I wished - your back was going to explode right through it. My alpha female, my muscle goddess, your power was visible to all and didn't you know it, strutting around like the Queen you are. Let them stare in shock and awe. Let them see the power of your rippling muscles beneath the straining fabric of your top. Let them feel the power of your presence.




The only dresses you'll wear now are backless, and when we're out I watch other women watching you. They watch you in admiration, they watch you in envy, and they watch their own men as their own men watch you. On our winter break you stood in your bikini and flexed by the pool on the first day and no one else in the hotel looked at you again for the whole two weeks without gasping a little. I sat behind you in the canoe and you turned around and smiled at me and then peeled off your top and suddenly I was living a fantasy I never even knew I had.




You're so confident now, so comfortable in your body, so big and powerful. They want you to compete and you think you feel like you're ready. I dream all day of what it's going to feel like to be in the audience and see you up there. You dream all day of what it's going to feel like up there, the rush you'll get from being in such peak condition, all eyes upon you even as you turn away from the audience, flex with all the power you have and let them see that beautiful back of yours in all its glory.



Your curiosity gets the better of you, it's time to push your body to its limit. You tell me what I've dreamed of hearing for so so long. "Better strap yourself in," you tell me as your contest prep begins. "By all accounts this is going to be a wild, wild ride."




It's a ride I never want to get off.

Enjoy!