We continued our simultaneous look at two of the big end-of-year contests with, among other things, a reminder to some IFBB pro competitors that a wig is not necessarily necessary (ask Natascha Donald), and we took another peak at the spectacular, er, peaks of class runner-up and new Physique pro Suha Qasem.
The winners of the Overall titles - Emma Gormley at the NABBA Universe, and Chareece Johnson at the Nationals - deserved all the praise we heaped on them, especially so Emma Gormley, who'd already won Northern Ireland and Britain titles in 2016, and here became the first British Overall Ms Universe for 25 years.
But, if we had to pick a favourite from each contest, it wouldn't be the winners.
From the NPC Nationals, we just couldn't resist Pamela Hamman's liberal interpretation of NPC rules regarding posing suit coverage. Perhaps that's why she only finished 3rd in her class?! We can't think of another reason, and neither can she. As we write she's still going on about it on her Instagram, fully engaged in an almighty slanging match with the husband of one of the competitors who placed above her!
No such issues for Kay Goodwin competing in NABBA. Display as much of that perfect bum as you like. And she does. And that's why she is our pick of the show!
But really the star of the week (perhaps when we look back to December 2016 in the future, the British female muscle star of the year), was the subject of our first post of our FBBUK week, and also the subject of my (and many other female muscle fans') waking thoughts ever since images of her triumph at the WABBA International Ms Universe came to light. Sarah Williams, former UKBFF British Physique champion, has, it seems to me, just taken her physique to the next level.
Look. at. Those. ARMS!!!
That's all for the review, but, as is customary on FMS, we have two more posts to come in 2016. "Images of the Year" and "Women of the Year" will be on the blog next week, but not in that order. If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you have a lovely one.
It actually began on the last day of October, a week of posts about female muscle in lifts/elevators. It was all Valerija Slapnik's fault, and yes, that really is her name.
At the time I was a bit down on these posts, all "I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel" type self-doubt, but now, looking back (and it's only been just over a month) I find myself rather more impressed than I thought I would be because a) I didn't actually write too much more embarrassing nonsense than I tend to do most weeks, and b) there really are some quality pictures of quality women here.
Among them, were two Brazilians whose devotion to the elevator selfie (and revealing skintight gymwear) is seemingly boundless - Suelen Bissolati (below, left) and Claudia Bonavoglia - and they each got a deserving post of their own.
We finished the week acknowledging that Erica Blockman's firefighting skills (among other reasons) would probably make her the ideal female muscle elevator emergency companion, but as we couldn't find any in-elevator snaps of the lovely Erica, we had to settle for a dream elevator date with Dani Reardon. Hard times.
We decided it was time to "reevaluate and recharge", leaving FMS readers hanging for a whole fortnight. Yes, the "elevator selfie" week had not been, we felt, our finest hour, but as well as that, Marcie Simmons, who'd been "telling it like it is" on her YouTube channel for much of the year, had given us cause for some introspection...
Are we a fan, or are we a schmoe? Does it matter? Is there any real distinction between the two? Does being a fan mean being a fan of the sport? What does that even mean?
And who are we anyway, us female muscle "lovers"?
Well, at the outset of our week-long riff on some of the issues raised by Marcie we did say that we would have more questions than answers, and so it proved!
So, we wondered, what do you do when an office colleague shows you his phone and it's Ella and he tells you she's got 0% body fat apparently, and clearly wants you to agree with him that she's "unnatural", or "disgusting" or "manly" or whatever?
If there were any conclusions to all my yakking, they were these.
1. That I should be a lot braver the next time something like this happens to me and just proceed to "bore the pants" off whoever is asking because you know I really could go on about Ella for at least a couple of hours (before I even got started about the portrayal of muscular women in the media in more general terms).
2. Perhaps the change in perception towards "strong" women - the fact that it's slowly but surely becoming more common for women (especially young women) to not only go to the gym but also to lift weights while they're there - might also lead to a change in perception towards the men who love them. One reader was not convinced. It's true: "We" are socially awkward, weirdos, perverts; and we have mental issues. It takes some time to accept the way we are. Maybe he's right, but if I have learned anything about "us", it is that we are, just like the women we adore, not all the same.
For no reason other than I thought it would be interesting to do so (although I couldn't tell you why!) FMS decided to pair seven (FBB & WPD) women from the 2016 NPC Nationals with seven (Toned & Trained Figure) competitors from the 2016 NABBA Universe. One pair per day - a clip from the latter contest, pictures from the former.
In the few days left in November we had three of those pairs.
The legend that is Monica Brant (finishing runner-up in the Toned Figure class at the Universe) with the ever impressive FBB Heavyweight runner-up at the NPC Nationals, Pauline Nelson was our first pair. British NABBA star Lindsey Angel and fan forum WPD favourite Rachael Chaskey (3rd, Physique C) our second.
And we said goodbye to November with big girls Allison Chaidez from the Nationals, and (far too big for NABBA Figure and you have to love her for that!) Australian Aisling Hickey, who got the crowd showing their appreciation, and took Swell back to the days when the really big girls could be seen on the NABBA Universe stage.
A (brief) survey of (pre 2016 Review) FMS in December tomorrow.
Our final two dreamy Physique women were (above) Canadian Ceejay Byam - she kind of reminds me of Melissa Lesage in some ways - looks, attitude, and, it turns out, both are trained nurses, and, like Melissa, at contest time Ceejay is a vascular freakshow - and (below) top swoon Jessica Booker Williams, aka The Jessica Williams, the title we dubbed her in order to avoid confusion with any of the other women of the same name. I've got such a crush on her, I confessed. Again.
Also in the first week of October we paid tribute (again) to Wings of Strength after they announced a new addition to the Female Bodybuilding season from 2017. The new Ms Wings International event will give top amateurs from around the world the chance to become professional at the Toronto Pro next year. And we also doffed our cap to a new female muscle blogging voice from Ireland, a man with more than a bit of a thing for Chleo Van Wyk, a man not afraid of calling himself "The Schmoe".
If you like female muscle strutting in public, if you like an FBB in tiny tiny shorts, if you like to see a muscle woman's bullet nipples all but busting through her vest, if you like a large helping of cocky arrogance with your female bodybuilder...
Well, then you are going to LOVE this!
But we returned to the Arnold Classic Europe to pay tribute to the Overall Physique champion, and a woman we had first met (and fallen for) back in January - Russia's "Sadistka", Valentina Mishina. She is a dream, wrote one of her other fans in the build up to the ACE in Barcelona. Hard, curvy, beautiful striated muscle from head to toe. On this occasion at least the judges and the fans were in agreement.
And there was reason for Britain to celebrate (not that it did), as serial podium placer Emma Paveley won her Fitness class (though not the Overall title, unfortunately).
We inducted Bernie Price's determination to keep flexing despite a posing suit malfunction into our Hall of Fame, though given this had occured in 1990, it hardly deserves a place in a 2016 Review. Still, worth another watch - always!
More contemporary, and disappointing news arrived from Iran, and Swell confessed to getting a good old-fashioned dose of The Madness when sighting some proper female muscle. I had believed myself to be over that kind of thing. I was very very wrong.
And we swooned all over not one, not two, but three spectacular (and very different) pairs of glutes. There was Anita Herbert's Bikini bum, Corinne Ingman's - naked and ridged for his pleasure - and those belonging to new fan forum sensation Bakhar Nabieva, a young woman whose posterior (and other) charms have even made it onto the mainstream UK media, who have given her the moniker "Ms Iron Bum".
Feeling we needed a bit of structure to our posting, we turned to the Figure/Bodyfitness Division in a year when we have been increasingly impressed with the muscle on the ladies, pro and amateur, who compete in these categories.
We began our exploration with the (freaky) three women at the very top - Cydney Gillon (Survivor contestant, two-time Pro winner in 2016, 3rd at the Figure Olympia, left), Candice Lewis-Carter (Figure Olympia runner-up, centre), and, the biggest Figure phenom of all, two-time and reigning Ms Figure Olympia, Latorya Watts.
We met some Figure/Bodyfitness talent from Europe, including the vascular vascaRaquel Arranz, and (we reckon) the next big female muscle thing to emerge from Romania, Ramona Arseni. "A muscular version of Shakira", as one fan has put it.
We confessed our somewhat sketchy knowledge regarding the UK Figure/Bodyfitness scene, but our research suggests that Britain has got much Figure talent too (by this point we were out of the EU, so no reason to even explain why we hadn't included the Brits with the Europeans!). Among those we brought to the attention of your lovely readers were Kristina Vassilieva - for her progress in 2016 - and new UKBFF champ Natasha McFarlane. That's quite a chassis she's got to work with there, I had thought when seeing Natasha for the first time, and more sage commentators than I have noted that experience is helping Natasha highlight her natural qualities better and better each time she competes. Widely considered to be one to watch.
American Nay Jones (I don't really like wearing clothes, she says) and Canada's Victoria D'Ariano (best-loved for her "shaved and exfoliated" post-shower selfies) were names and bodies familiar to FMS, and probably to many readers as well from the many gushing fan tributes to them both that have appeared on the forums this year.
But we finished the North American leg of our Figure/Bodyfitness tour with two less well-known women, both of whom had enjoyed NPC national-level success in the past year - fomer Bikini competitor and NPC USA Overall champion Tonya Wheatfall, and Odalys Ferreira, who the Overall Figure title at the IFBB North Americans.
We finished our Figure journey in Australia, and a competitor from a federation that has, in the past, not featured much on FMS - World Beauty Fitness & Fashion, Inc.
More competitors like Rach White, and we might just pay more attention.
Beauties and their biceps were the (popular) subject for our last week of posts in October. Katie Lee's (above) and Suha Qasem's (below) - interestingly both compete in Physique - were just about the pick of a sensational seven women.
But perhaps the biggest highlight of the week was an uncannily well-timed and equally uncannily relevant release from the Ultimate Muscle YouTube channel...
The first part of September was taken up almost exclusively with the Rising Phoenix and the Arizona Pro - Bikini, Fitness, Figure and Physique making it a five-division feast of muscle in all its forms. First though, we previewed the FBBs who would compete at RP2016, though we don't need to go back there and check out my predictions.
Before our review of the show, however, we felt obliged to weigh in to the Wings of Strength v Iris Kyle controversy that had blown up across the wider muscle media.
Our conclusion? Well, if Iris isn't there, so what?
The people who single-handedly pulled pro female bodybuilding back from the abyss in 2015 and have nurtured a small but significant expansion in 2016 decided they didn't want the champion who retired from the sport at the very moment when it had no future, and who decided she wasn't so retired after all only after she had witnessed Margie Martin last year pick up the kind of prize pot it had taken her years to accumulate under the previous regime. Is it, is it really such a "damn shame"?
We couldn't ignore the ladies who had come out in support of Wings of Strength in the other divisions, and to a greater or lesser extent saw a piece of each one. Fit and fabulous mothers Deborah Goodman (Bikini) and Carly Starling-Horrell (Figure) (above), and Italian Fitness winner Giorgia Fironi (you know she's a winner 'cos she's got a big shield) all featured in our cross division celebration Five Women.
Also in that post was B (yes, it's just "B") Barnett from a Physique division that made up for what it lacked in top level competitors (the Physique Olympia took place the following week) with the kind of joyous on stage performances that B epitomised.
But I guess the big news from the Physique contest was the return of Thai muscle goddess Penpraghai Tiangkgok. And she was back with added muscle on that perfect frame, so it was no surprise when she picked up a shield of her own as the Arizona Pro Physique winner. Congratulations Penpraghai! I wrote (as if she would be reading). I'm very happy you're back, and I hope you're back for good.
With her track record, don't count on it!
The Rising Phoenix 2016
The Phoenix most definitely rose.
There were posing suits that could barely contain the excitement of the competitors. Helle Trevino brought so much damn meat onto the stage this viewer was utterly overwhelmed. Some competitors didn't have such good days placings-wise, others exceeded their expectations and had their day in the proverbial sun. Sheila Bleck followed up her Tampa win by finishing runner-up (of course, controversially), and Alina returned to competition and didn't - as many expected - carry all before her.
Ultimately, no one could touch the reigning Queen. There were no complaints.
Well, very few anyway.
I certainly wasn't complaining.
Gosh she makes me swoon. All that beautiful BEEF! The way her massive, rippling quads bulge outwards; the thickness and definition across her back; that hamstring drop (see how I'm learning the lingo!) curved like a mighty bow (and adding a bit of lyrical panache all of my own!) about to unleash its firepower...
It didn't seem possible, but she looked even bigger and better in the evening in her fiery posing suit - I felt like a Rising Phoenix, she said. As always, she seems to have gone all out for the finals, leaving none of her sass back in the hotel. I haven't seen any video of her routine as yet, but I'm 100% sure that when I do, I'm going to be watching it more than once. She looks so fierce and powerful, and yet, so feminine.
Exactly how I want my champ to be.
So there, it was all over for another year, the IFBB pro Female Bodybuilding season had reached its climax in Scottsdale, Arizona, and what a great climax it had been.
No rest for FMS though.
We turned our attention to the Physique division, and the Physique Olympia.
It's perhaps best to gloss over the fact that for a while in 2016 Theresa Ivancik (or someone close to her) was convinced she stood a better chance of gaining her long-cherished pro card by competing in the Physique division. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work out. I was a smidgen too big, she reckoned. Yeah. "A smidgen". Right.
More appropriate physiques were quickly sought and found in the shape of (yet another) Brazilian muscle goddess - Gilberia Cunha - and the UK's own new sensation Charlene Harvey, who along with Corinne Ingman, we highlighted as British WPD dreams to watch. By her own admission Charlene can't walk past a mirror while she's in contest shape without stopping to flex and record the moment, which pretty much sums up Corinne's MO when she's "truly, disgustingly, peeled" as well.
Then, we whetted our collective appetites for the mega-post that was to come from the Physique Olympia with three interviews with women who very much hoped to be doing more than hanging out at the Expo this time next year. Most appetite whetting of all, I reckon, was Jen Louwagie and her upper body in that vest. SWOON!!!
Wow this post goes on. Really. I could have got a week out of this material. "The cream of the Women's Physique Division", beautifully photographed by Igor Kopcek. If ever I needed an editor! The Olympia may have lost a few female muscle fans since 2014, I reckoned at the time, but for those lucky enough to attend I dare say that the problem was not so much where to find the muscle as how to hide the tentpole.
In my defence, the tone rose significantly after that opening paragraph.
Covering, as it does, the considerable gap between the outer limits of Figure and the cusp of Heavyweight Bodybuilding, the WPD at the 2016 Olympia saw many of FMS' personal and reader favourites doing battle in Las Vegas. And having them all in top shape in one post only serves to underline the incredible muscular sex appeal of these women to me. Erica, Asha, Dani, Jamie, and many many more. Incredible, and incredible-looking, women from the bottom to the top of the placings, and I think I managed to include at least one picture of every single one of them in the post.
Special mention, though, had to be reserved for Rosanna Harte - the first British woman ever to compete at the Physique Olympia (she placed a creditable 12th), and of course, the champion again, Juliana Malacarne, unbeaten in her last six contests now, and for the third time in a row, crowned Ms Physique Olympia.
And our week of Physique wasn't even finished yet!
See how it spilled over into October like big pecs in an ill-fitting posing suit, plus what we got up to for the rest of that month tomorrow as FMS' 2016 review continues...
