The Year in Review: July

KRISTY'S TREAT

Today's post is not so much about Kristy's first pro contest and first contest for four years as her first contest prep for four years, documented via her Instagram for myself and her five and a half thousand other followers in glorious detail...



It's been a treat. Kristy is not only stunningly beautiful, but also has real flair for showing herself off. Maybe she's done so with such gusto this time because it's been so long since she's done a prep, so long since she experienced, despite the downsides, the thrill of seeing her muscles gradually emerge. Maybe she's just a born exhibitionist.

#toobigfortheifbb?



The Aleesha controversy rumbled on...

And Virginia gave us a memorable (and star-studded) Sunday Sizzler...



CHICAGO

Lots to enjoy.




In the Prime Beef - sorry, Female Bodybuilding class, Margie Martin protégé Brittney O'Veal took her first pro title at her first attempt, while Hanna Hallman gave up trying to be a Physique competitor and made her FBBing debut. After flirting with Physique herself, naughty Victoria Dominguez came back to big, and Britain's Wendy McCready booked her Rising Phoenix berth with another 3rd place finish.



Diana Schnaidt and Katie Lee (among others) fuelled our Physique Dreams...



Swell dug (among other things) Selma's sexy routine...



And FMS readers' Hottest Hard Woman in the World gained her pro card.

SHREDZ

She's So Shredded returned for a week with 27-year-old Mariša Golob, "the most successful and decorated female in Slovenian powerlifting history", and a woman who doesn't conform much to what I, and probably you, imagine a powerlifter looks like.



This, as Corinne Ingman might say, "royally peeled" look is a fairly recent development and is all in aid of ensuring that Mariša makes a particular powerlifting weight class. She says she is "kind of diggin' these pre-competition shreds".

And we were kind of diggin' UK NABBA goddess Lindsay Angel.



Lindsey has become a shredded, thong-wearing freak in just over two years' of lifting. When they say it takes years, yes, it does, she says. But it's also possible to do this in two years, she adds, somewhat confusingly. So, two years then, and Lindsey is the living proof. I have spent my life training in a ballet school, then doing other sports and pole fitness, so they too were developing my muscles. Oh right, now I see.

DANI'S ARMAGEDDON

There's never much time between Dani's appearances on the blog, and she was back in July as our "YouTube Swoon of the Month" with an arm training (and posing) clip.

2.11 is a moment (and a pose) you won't forget in a hurry, I promise, I promised.



Was I wrong?

THE HISTORY GIRL



I'M GOING TO THE OLYMPIA!!!! I JUST FRIGGIN' WON!!!!!!



Beating women with Olympia and Arnold experience to their name, Emma Paveley made British female muscle history in Vancouver. She became, quite unexpectedly I think, the UK's first ever IFBB pro Fitness winner - on her professional debut too.

IS THAT YOU SHANNON?

And a familiar face and body returned to competition.



Just not the kind of competition we would like her to return to.

DREAMS COME TRUE

But we finished July with one woman who was definitely competing where she should.

With a "new look", and her body in its best ever shape, Theresa was, I think it's fair to say, somewhat excited about her pro debut at the recent Wings of Strength/Lenda Murray Pro in Norfolk, Virginia. And the FMS offices were pretty damn excited too. We have, after all, been following your 2017 Hot and Hard 100 runner-up as closely as any woman over the last three years or so, as has the vast majority of the female muscle lovin' world. And as we followed her trials and tribulations (so close so many times) as she inched towards that coveted pro card, we (or, at least, I) became more than a little emotionally invested in Theresa's career, sharing her disappointment and finally joy at achieving pro status at her seventh attempt.



Her dream didn't exactly become my dream, but my dream was for her to achieve her dream. And in Norfolk, her dream (and mine) came true. Theresa - pro debut.



All this competitive excitement, plus a sultry, glamorous and at times almost naked Theresa has been treating us to some previews of her forthcoming 2018 calendar.

All in all, I'd say July was a good month!

NPC Nationals 2017: Naughty and Nice - Jennifer Kennedy's Long Overdue Pro Card

Jennifer Kennedy's first crack at the Nationals was back in 2011.

These days a pro card is handed to each of the Bodybuilding class winners (the IFBB probably safe in the knowledge that except for the Heavyweight winner, they are more likely to see these women compete as pros, if they bother at all, in Physique rather than in Bodybuilding) but back then it was just the one, for the Overall Queen. That year it went to Michelle Cummings (last seen in 2015 in the Physique division, incidentally), who just about got the nod over Jennifer in the Heavyweight class.




Jennifer had arrived though. And little wonder schmotographer Tom Nine was putting her up there on a pedestal. The face, the tats - not for everyone. But what a body!



The following year Jennifer was, according to no lesser commentator than Steve Wennerstrom himself, even better. With striking thighs highlighted by a set of sartorius muscles that looked like the ropes you used to climb in gym class, Kennedy drew more and more attention with each compulsory pose of the prejudging, he wrote in his contest report. Her eventual victory in this class couldn't really be labelled a surprise considering the fact that she had been the runner-up at the [2011] Nationals. She improved on her overall, and as any bodybuilder will tell you, that isn't always as easy as it sounds. In Jennifer's case she did her homework and the result was an 'A' for effort. She's the USA Heavyweight champ – a nice title to hold.




Indeed. But not, as it turned out, a Heavyweight champ with a pro card. That year, at the USAs, just the two were handed out - to Tierany Chretien, the Light-heavyweight champ, and Denise Dinger, a "Bodybuilder turned Figure competitor turned Bodybuilder" who has not been seen again. But not to Jennifer, despite the overall improvement, "sartorius muscles that looked like ropes" and everything.



At the 2013 Nationals, Swell didn't need Wennerstrom's or anybody else's report to wax lyrical about the "Musclefoxx", a woman who he admitted "having more than a little soft spot for". Her beautiful taper - as sexy here as ever - her penchant for muscle control, that gorgeous muscle butt (and what she does with it), hell, I'm not about to start apologising for my taste! I wrote. I say she's one hot sexy muscle lady.




She placed 4th that year. And didn't compete again until last month.

Meanwhile, however, she was out there working and her legend among fans grew. Not only were the descriptions at her Clips4Sale site so good you almost didn't need to bother buying them - "I cannot help flexing when there is such a big mirror in front of me. I'm not a Figure or Physique girl, I'm a Bodybuilder! Big round hard muscles, and I love it all! You like big, ripped vascular female bodybuilders? You like abs and veins and tits and clits? Well so do I! Buy this clip. You watch it in awe and I will keep doing what I do best... being big, hard and awesome!" (Foxxy Flexing, in case you're interested) - but those lucky enough to have experienced the Musclefoxx in person are all too eager to let the rest of us know that Jennifer is indeed one very special lady.



"One of the coolest people you will ever meet", "a doll", "sensual, sexy, intelligent, funny and hot as hell", "she enjoys the company of the people she meets", and there are pages of this stuff - all of it offered for free. "Jenni is very comfortable in her own skin but the sexiest part of is what is between her ears - her intelligence and imagination. If you have the chance to session with her, run, don't walk, to Tampa or wherever she is."



She was in Miami at the end of November, returning to the stage for the first time in four years. I don't think her 2017 package would have won any of the contests she entered between 2011 and 2013, but it proved good enough for the judges on this occasion, and as every class winner gets a pro card now, Jennifer is, finally, in.




Better late than never, I guess. I do hope we'll see her compete next year. Jennifer, more than most, deserves to feel some of that Wings of Strength love that all the ladies seem to appreciate so much at the pro shows these days. And who knows? If she can improve on her overall like she did before, we may yet see this hot sexy muscle lady grace the Rising Phoenix. She'd surely be a very popular addition to the line-up.

Great Glootz of the 21st Century: Masterpieces

With apologies to Lora, and to Monica, Laura, Gracyanne and Debi (especially Debi, she was a striation away from making the Top 5), and to countless NABBA goddesses and their thongasmic displays of ripped glootage... Who else could it possibly be?!



Horizontal, lateral and vertical size. C. Moore has measured a few pairs of cheeks with my special virtual measuring tool, and trust me, Heather's glootz went both wider, deeper, higher and further out than any before or since. Massive MASSIVE meat.



You could - literally - rest your beer on them. (Although I imagine, if you were in a position to do so - the use of the Policky (I refuse to say any other name) masterpieces as an ad hoc table would be pretty much the furthest thing from your mind.)



Let's not waste any more time and go straight to the treat - here.

In total control of her muscles... and me!




Before Alina, she was the Great Uncrowned Queen of Female Bodybuilding.

Well, uncrowned no more.



Queen of Glootz!

Oh Heather...