Woman of the Week: Destinee Bruch

When the shirt you want is on sale but they only have smalls, but you have a medium upper body and a small waistline so you just get the small and show the guns - Bam!



Destinee Bruch (pronounced "Broo" as far as I know) pretty much passed the female muscle lovin' world by in her previous incarnation as a Figure competitor a couple of years ago, but with Instagram posts like the one above and a new Physique division body that's heading for the Jr. Nationals this weekend, she's really grabbed our collective attention now. Grabbed it by the throat. The tighter the sleeves, the weaker the knees! as one weak-kneed new member of the Destinee fan club puts it.



Once upon a time not so long ago, however, Destinee was neither Figure or Physique but, in her own words, "a train wreck of a girl". How long her transformation from two packs of hair extensions to six-pack and triceps extensions has taken I'm not completely sure, but she's "very glad to be the woman on the right - she's a beast!"



And this beast muscled her way into first place just over a month ago on her Physique debut at the NPC Mike Francois Classic in Ohio. And this was not one of those two competitors in a line-up, one of them looks like they know that you are supposed to diet and apply tan before a show pushovers. Destinee beat off much more experienced women like Tracy Smith, Michelle Grissom and Lisa Janusz (who has since been an NPC Physique winner herself) to claim the title and book her Jr. Nationals' berth.




And looks as though she enjoyed every second of it. Been here since 8 and I'm just now about to go up! It stinks that Women's Physique is always last... OK, so maybe not every second. But it's been a great show, so many awesome competitors. What an insane feeling being up there, truly life changing. I'm hungry for more.



And that's what we love to hear.



Now thus far I haven't said a damn thing about the tats, partly because so much has already been said. There's a very nice body hidden somewhere under that artwork, and so on. Well, I think if you really can't see Destinee's beautiful muscles because of the "artwork" then you should probably go to Specsavers. Or clean your screen. Or maybe you should just look at one of the other thousands of muscle women on the site where you left your comment and not bother with it next time. And besides, there's no hiding those epic shoulder curves no matter what she covers them with.



I have this insane dream, this dream to get my pro card, she says. My chance is just days away. It seems impossible but I'm going to give it everything I have.



She's going to run into (a previous WoW) Alyssa Kiessling in Chicago. Miss Buff Nugget (as Destinee calls herself) v. The Classical Queen. Print the poster now! More seriously, it's good to know, in a week where we've had a bit of a blow, that - in Women's Physique at least, the future remains bright and will continue to do so as long as there are young beasts like Destinee and Alyssa so committed to being better and bigger.



New fave, great build and beautiful, reads a comment I related to much much more than the twat's I quoted above. Spectacular! Just look at all those muscles!



Oh, I am. I AM!

#transformationtuesday

It's Tuesday, and that means that all over social media, women of all muscular shapes and sizes will be cutting and pasting and posting their before and after pics for Transformation Tuesday. They aim to inspire, to motivate, to show what is possible, either by showing off their new, improved selves, or - increasingly common - by bigging up a woman they've helped transform in their role as trainer/coach.




Before they were overweight, perhaps after giving birth (perhaps multiple times), perhaps after living the party life a bit too hard in their 20s. There are also those who have triumphed over eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. Melissa Wee and Lisa Cross are two better-known women to have done so, and their, and many other such stories are the ones that tend to make it into the mainstream media.

Each woman has her own unique story though.



Alex O'Hanlon (above) was a PA, "bored out of my brain, wondering what my next move should be". She joined a gym and "fell in love". She wanted to be there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She went on to compete a few times in 2013 and 2014, and then last year, after being made redundant from her PA job, she got herself qualified and now she runs her own training and nutrition business. Fat loss, better skin, more energy, better sleep, more power, increased strength and bags more confidence, are what she promises, her own transformation an advert/reference for her services.



Diana Schnaidt, former Figure now Physique pro, and previously, from the age of 13 into her late 20s a fashion model, doesn't necessarily look back on her former self with totally negative feelings. Exchanging clothes for weight training was "swapping one passion for another", she has said, but she has also exchanged a diet of "some lettuce and a maybe protein bar" for "healthy balanced meals throughout the day", and ultimately this had led her to becoming "happier and stronger, inside and out".



Gabrielle Tongol, a national level Figure competitor from Canada was a teenage binge-eater, who started off by following workouts and diet plans she found on Bodybuilding.com, and by her 18th birthday she was standing on stage as a competitor. That was in 2013, and since then, as well as sculpting what Fit Gems has called "one of the most eye-catching physiques in all of figure", she has graduated college, become a graphic designer, social media consultant, and make-up artist.



As well as the muscles, there are often other "improvements" that take place as well. Cast your eyes over these two comparisons of Tina Nguyen before and after and see if you can spot the difference between the two befores. As one Tumblr wag puts it, the recipe for "hot" is "build muscles and buy tits". I would never be so crude.



More seriously, these transformations are always, it seems to me, accompanied by a more general transformation in appearance. Better hair, make-up, accessories, dress sense, more attention to appearance full stop. This is, I suspect, partly because the girl is becoming a woman, but even among the more mature transformers such details, as it were, complete the transformation, and for some, tattoos, piercings, and breast enhancements - whether you love them or loathe them - are a part of that.



Every fan seems to have their own most beloved transformation, though I think I'm right in saying that probably the most popular - and the most likely to be put together by the fan rather than the woman herself - are the ones where the motivation for the transformation is not immediately obvious. Before we have either the good-looking (in the conventional sense) young woman or the competitor in one of the less muscular divisions, even perhaps already a competitive Bodybuilder. After, she's HUGE.



I’ve always wanted to be there when one of them decides, "I want it that badly, I know there will be no going back, I'm willing to do whatever it takes", confesses one Tumblr blogger, shedding some light on the appeal of these fan-created juxtapositions. I want to look deep into her eyes when she decides she wants to be huge. Every single FBB has had to have had that moment. Just the thought gives me a huge erection.



You know, however, there are actually some guys who would honestly prefer the picture on the left. "At least she looks like a woman," they say - some of them, rather pointlessly, on fan sites. You can admire the musculature all you want, commented one, er, fella re: before and after Brooke Walker (above), but the squaring of her jaw, dried-up skin and loss of feminine curves is not an improvement in any way.




Seems there are two types of people. There are those who prefer the picture on the left, and there are those who prefer the picture on the right, and not only prefer, but also project all kinds of fantasies onto it. I, you can probably guess, am totally, firmly, and deeply committed to the RIGHT on this issue. And it's not often in my life I say that.



Enjoy!

Lots more of this sort of thing here.

Woman of the Week: Caitlyn Terry

Giving some fasted training a try... feels like my skin's gonna rip. I love itttttttttt!



There are, as we shall see today, several reasons why FMS, the fan forums, and perhaps you too, dear reader, have fallen for Canadian Physique competitor Caitlyn Terry. Personally speaking, the fact that she's the kind of lady who loves it when it feels as though her muscles are going to burst through her skin is not the least of them.



Welcome to reason #2. That chest! You gotta be doing something right when your cleavage goes all the way up to your neck! says Caitlyn. And the crowning glory of all her magnificently striated pec meat are those throbbing veins. Yes YES YES! A big fat pec vein will do it for ol' Swell here every time. Caitlyn has got a bunch going on.



But let's not make this all about me. I know some of you lovely people like nothing better than a great transformation story. Well guess what? Caitlyn has two. For real.

Transformation #1 Figure to Physique



On the left, Caitlyn in March 2014 at her first Figure show. And on the right - and yes, it is the same woman - Caitlyn on her Physique debut at the 2016 Ontario Physique Association (OPA) Gala Championships last November. She won, of course.




Transformation #2 Blooming to Shredz



Just eleven months between these two. ELEVEN months. And even more astonishing, this transformation took place during the previous one. Picture left, November 2015, and picture right, October 2016, a month before she picked up the short class and overall titles at that OPA Gala Championships. The most badass transformation I've accomplished as of yet, reckons Caitlyn. For real... Wait a minute! "As of yet"?!

So just to summarise, the tranformation from (let's face it not the greatest) Figure competitor in 2014 to a rock hard trophy-winning Physique phenom took place over a two-and-a-bit-year period. And she was pregnant for nine months of that.

Clear?

Good. Let's move on, or rather, why don't we just go back to last November for a moment? Caitlyn's Physique debut, or just before it anyway. Let's talk tan...



And the feeling lasted through a second application, and on. Dry ab belly, claw hands, and a muddy brown tannnn... I love being a mud-coloured protein princess!



I think my swoonometer just went off the scale and started smoking.

Time for a bit of a calm down.

Caitlyn is, as previously mentioned, Canadian, but has very recently moved "south" as she puts it, to live in the US with her husband and son (see Transformation #2 above). Along with the fact that she will be busy establishing herself and her family in her adopted country, qualifying for her Green Card will mean she won't be able to return to Canada for the CBBF Nationals in 2017, so sadly, we won't see her so shredded again for a good while yet. However, she still has plenty of body goals.



All I wanna do is get bigger and better.

And, more specifically, I just want delts the size of my heeeeaddddddd!



The swoonometer is now actually on fire.



Follow Caitlyn on Instagram. You really should.