Muscle in a Provincial City

So, yes, those of you who read it as a kind of cryptic version of the truth, the post from Sunday 21st about "the FMS campaign bus" having "a bit of a prang", it was. I really was in a car accident. Not, thankfully, anything too major, but the car I won't see again, I was injured enough to be off work for some days, and, at the time I wrote that 21/5 post, I was a little bit out of my gourd on painkillers. All better now, and back to work today (25th May - this is relevant - not the 31st, the earliest you'll be reading this).



So, although I am originally from London, these days me and the wife live out in the sticks, as they say, though my office is in the nearest city. It's not a big place, one of the smaller cities in Britain. Not a place I expect or see much female muscle. Lived up here for getting on six years now and I can count the sightings on, well, two fingers. Today, however, I've discovered things have changed in the week or so I've been off.



We've had a mini-heatwave here in the UK over the last few days. Hottest May day ever, apparently. So, bodies on display, and, to my delight, female muscle on display. I saw more of it today in about 30 minutes than I have seen in the preceding six years, more than I ever saw concentrated in one place in all my many years in London.

More, in fact, than I've ever seen in such quick succession in my entire life.



Now before you all email me for my postcode and a local estate agent that I would recommend, I should point out that I am not talking about what you or I would call Female Bodybuilders here. I am not talking about female bodybuilders in the wider mainstream media sense of the word either. But I am talking about muscle.



#1 - Not twenty yards from the front of the office, lady in her mid-30s perhaps, bare arms, nice tan, well-defined shoulders and a bicep that just popped up and said hello when she put her phone to her ear. BOOM! #2 - By the big department store in the city centre, I'd just finished chatting with my morning coffee guy and towards me comes a lady either on her way to or from the gym - sports bag, vest, lycra leggings, shoulders, a sensational wide back, and even better, properly big legs. She really did BOOM! as she passed - I could feel her power in the rush of air she left in her wake...



How long have I been off?

Did I die in that car crash and I'm now in some kind of slowly emerging heaven?



#3/#4 - I get lunch from the market and, like many other people, sit on the steps outside the city's signature modern building to enjoy the sun while I munch. I'm still reeling slightly from #2, so I don't even scope out the crowd and position myself accordingly. Within minutes though I realise I couldn't have placed myself better. BOOM! #3 is about five metres away from me, casually chatting with a friend. In shorts, she is, apparently, flexing her thighs as she stretches out her legs. I actually rubbed my eyes to make sure I wasn't imagining it (and/or dreaming!). I look her way again, she's leaning back, supporting her weight on her arms. BOOM! Nice shoulders. Visible triceps. Minutes later - I'm still ogling her but don't fail to notice a cyclist in full gear who is chaining up her bike on the racks opposite is a lot more than just her cyclist's legs. BOOM! She can't hide her arms in a cycling top, not this lady.



What is going on?

Legs and triceps gets up and leaves while I'm still sitting there. She's quite a sight standing, tall and lean, my guess would be a runner, possibly a serious, competitive one, but not thick like a sprinter, middle or long distance. Perhaps I'm way off, perhaps she, like the other ladies I saw today, like my wife, are just part of the strong is sexy zeitgeist. I'm already writing this post as I stroll back towards the office, mentally visualising each sighting in detail so I can better describe them. BOOM! #5 - The couple that works out together, well, a couple that works out together, he's big and lean and very impressive in his tight top, but she, she is quite something too. Tanned, short and stocky and quite the little powerhouse with her protein shake in her hand, two steps to every one of his strides. They're in front of me and I am totally not going to pass up the opportunity to perve on her tight, muscular bum a little. So I don't.



I have to wait a few hours and be on my way back to the car when I see #6. Having received all the blessings I could ever want for the day I was not expecting a #6, but there she is, mid-30s probably, tanned in her summer dress, waiting for someone it seems, toned arms. She's been doing some curls over the winter months.



Could those painkillers really be so slow to wear off? I'm still slightly reeling. I'm wondering if every day is going to be like this now, or have I just used up my allotted number of sightings for the next six years? More seriously, is this happening elsewhere? Has the new era finally dawned? Is this what we can expect from now on?



Enjoy? You bet I will!

Pics just illustrations, no relation to actual sightings.

Tube Watch

FMS picks a few of our favourite YouTube clips for the first time since the start of April as our (pleasingly popular and) irregular muscle in motion fest, Tube Watch, returns.

CANADIAN SPLENDOUR

First up, all 26 minutes of Ripped: Inside Women's Bodybuilding, an independently funded and produced documentary from Canada that follows the fortunes of Physique competitor Krystia Petrossie and Figure "Grandmaster" (ie. over 45) Teresa Popowicz as they prepare for and compete at last year's Canadian Nationals. Bodybuilding demands absolute discipline in every aspect of an athlete’s life, reads the blurb. But when does it go too far? And if that sounds like an all too familair tagline, rest assured this is actually much much better than that. The ladies' motivations, the boyfriend measuring out the meals and being ordered (nicely) to do the washing-up, highs and lows before during and after the Nationals, Helene Bouchard as Krystia's trainer, the concerned friend, and finally the insane quality of the Physique women who compete at the highest amateur level in Canada...



Absolutely fascinating, start to finish.

For Your Consideration

Keeping us busy while we awaited the pro FBBs to start their season last weekend in Toronto, the fine (and seemingly ever-expanding) pro Physique circuit has been well worth paying attention to recently. Head over to the NPC News Online channel for all sorts of treats, including interviews and (smell the ProTan!) pump room footage. Personal favourites include Ivie Rhein (see FMS passim), vascular fantasy Paloma Parra, 2017 Hot and Hard 100 #81 Victoria Flores and many many more pumping up before the Orlando Europa; and Gillian Ward, Margita Zamolova and Yeon Woo-Jhi, among many others pumping up at the NY Pro the same weekend.

GOT HARD (IF YOU WANT IT)

Any clip entitled "Crazy Abdominals" should be treated with caution. It's either going to be disappointing or they really are going to be Hreapca-like ridges of delicious hardness, and a bit of private time is going to be urgent. In the case of Muscle Girl World's offering from May 1st, it's most definitely the latter. And before you get all righteously indignant about me comparing Gülüzar Tüfenk's midsection to that of The Hottest Hard Woman in the World, why not take a good hard look first?



Applications for the post of Gülüzar's personal abs oiler are now closed.

For Your Consideration

In a similar preview-clip vein, HD/Premium Physques have put up some crackers recently, most notably those starring Sheronica Henton and Hanna Hallman, who I freely admit to having a major crush on right now. And there have been a slew of HerBiceps clips from the past couple of years going up recently, catering for all kinds of discerning female muscle heads. Fans of calves will find Tina Chinchic from 2015 hard to resist, if you are more about back control (it's a thing now apparently) you could do worse than watch Virginia Vargo (also from 2015). Abs men should not pass Go but go directly to Shanique Grant's abs control, and everyone should watch Lauren Quinn in contest shape, whatever bit of herself she is rippling.

Find these and many more on the Milly Biceps channel.

DENA'S TRIBUTE

And finally, Dena Westerfield playing Pachelbel's Canon in D.

No, really.



Not going to pretend it's the best rendition I've ever heard, but when you appreciate the sentiment behind it, well, there's not a dry eye in the house, is there? Nor, it seems, is there anything this amazing woman can't do once she puts her mind to it.

Bravo!

Encore!

Strange Fascination

Last week, I mentioned how much I enjoy clips of female bodybuilders walking, and illustrated the point with an FMC preview from 2012 starring Gillian Kovack.



In the clip, as you can see, Gillian is walking from one photo shoot location to another. She's in heels, wearing very little. She's oiled up, and absolutely magnificent, in her peakiest peak condition, so there's much to appreciate - so much in fact that I've found myself watching it over and over again again, just as I did when it first took my breath away five years ago. It never gets dull, and, I imagine, probably never will!

But last week I also found myself glued to a thirty-second clip of Figure phenom Sandra Grajales Romero. No photo shoot scenario, no oil, no bikini. OK, there a fair bit of Sandra's body on show, most notably her sensational back. And what's she doing? Pouring water from a big bottle into a small bottle. And I can't stop watching.

I've looped it a couple of times to allow better appreciation.



How mundane does what she's doing have to be before watching her gets boring?

Next week, Sandra does some dusting, and Lisa Cross adjusts the timer on her boiler to allow for British Summer Time. In her pyjamas. OK, I've made that up. Obviously Lisa would never wear pyjamas, but I am on the lookout for more clips of muscular women doing very mundane tasks. Any reader suggestions would be most welcome.

Enjoy!

Never Better: Aleesha - Las Vegas 2014

ALEESHA YOUNG
Heavyweight & Overall Winner, 2014 NPC USA Championships



As a contest, the 2014 NPC USAs was somewhat lacking in the drama department, which is not to say the Heavyweight class was short of fine female muscle. There was Theresa Ivancik - not at her peak, but good enough for 3rd. Mary Cain, who was to win the Overall title the following year, was also in the line-up, as was the sexy Jessica Harmon. Fine physiques indeed. The Lightweight and Middleweight classes only had four competitors between them and did not have the quality on show elsewhere, but Laura Richards, now doing well as a Physique pro, won a competitive Light-heavyweight class that included the beautiful Susanna Hand and naughty Brandi Mae Akers. But both the Heavyweights and the class winners in the Overall posedown must have known they were all battling for 2nd when they saw Aleesha.


Aleesha: 2008, 2009, and (enhanced) 2011

It was her first time on a stage for three years, and despite having risen to national level with ease, she really had no pedigree to speak of. A barely credible 15th in the Heavyweight class in 2008 at the NPC Nationals, she fared slightly better at the 2009 NPC USAs - 7th (out of 11 Heavyweights). Two years' later she returned to the USAs, her pecs adorned with new, mighty enhancements, and placed 8th out of 10.




But in those three years since then her massive muscles (and possibly those mighty enhancements as well) had propelled her to peak occupation of the female muscle brethren's collective consciousness. No surname necessary, Aleesha was melting screens all over the world. It wasn't just what Aleesha looked like, but what she did with all that incredible muscle that brought her so much love. Her skills have made her probably the most giffed female bodybuilder ever - her jaw-dropping pec bounce in particular. And she arrived in Las Vegas in July 2014 with a new blond look, and evidence from her preparations suggested that she was ready to rule.



The contest was over as soon as she walked onto the stage. They could have given the trophies to her than and spared the rest of the field the indignity of having to stand comparison with her. At least the other Heavyweights were big, in their own way. The class winners' posedown for Overall, however, was so ridiculous it was comical.


My imagination or have the others edged away from Aleesha?

At this show nobody else is even in her league, noted one forum member. Not only is she f***ing huge, she is ripped. Her muscle shapes are incomparable, and her rear bicep and back poses indescribable. She got it all together this year! Indeed she had. Two and a half hours of cardio seven days a week throughout her contest prep had resulted in her most conditioned look yet. She'd never been as ripped before or (and this is why I chose this particular show and not one of her two subsequent pro outings for her best ever) she's never quite achieved the same level of conditioning since.




There was no drama to the contest, but the sight of Aleeha that day must have had a fairly dramatic effect on the audience I imagine. Dave Palumbo - never one who hides his appreciation of massively muscular women very well - spent the entirety of his post-show interview with Aleesha sucking the drool back into his mouth and getting her to flex her various indescribable bits to camera. Steve Wennerstrom, FBB sage, and unlike Palumbo never one to get carried away, got very carried away. Bodybuilding crowds come to these big events to be entertained, he wrote. They thirst for a mind-blowing look in the building of a physique that few can accomplish. Aleesha Young, on this night, was something magical in the world of physical culture.




In a little under two weeks there is the distinct possibility that the crowd at the Omaha Pro will get their minds blown and witness something magical. Aleesha - uniquely among the women whose personal bests we have featured this week - is about to compete again. And recent evidence suggests she may well be ready to rule.



Stay bang up-to-date with her prep on Instagram.

Enjoy!

Never Better: Katka Kyptova - Madrid 2011

KATKA KYPTOVA
2nd, 2011 Arnold Amateur Europe



She's only 33 now, then she'd just turned 28. Katka had been lifting for at least three years and had come a long way from the very pretty and pretty slender girl she had once been. By 2010 she had hulked her way firmly into our collective consciousness. But it was in the 2010/2011 off-season that she really blossomed, dying her blond locks black, and so becoming the uber-muscle goddess who travelled with the Czech team to Madrid and the first Arnold Classic event to be held outside the USA.



I think I'm in the best shape I've ever been, she told Ronnie.cz shortly before she got on the plane to Spain. My preparation's gone much better than ever before.



Before the contest, her blog whetted the appetite with progress pics and training clips from her preparation, I wrote of the build-up to the show back in 2011 - the very early days of this blog. I vividly remember watching her training chest, a couple of months before the show - the first time I'd seen Katka Dark. She'd been dieting for just a week, and looked so damn good I became utterly convinced that she simply couldn't lose.



For the first time on FMS, and by no means for the last (although I have got a bit better over the years I reckon), I was wrong. Not by much - Katka bested the best of Britain, Brazil and Germany; Lisa Cross, Simone Oliveira, and Nina Loebert, respectively - but somehow just lost out to Russia's Elena Shportun and her dancing abs trick.



It was one of those decisions that sets the forums ablaze with much gnashing of teeth and many many exclamation marks. I weighed in on FMS, managing to come to terms with the result, I thought, because a) I'd been reading up on Buddhism, and b) I was right-clicking like a maniac on pretty much every pic of Katka posing on that stage that I could find (and back in 2011, download speeds were not what they are now). The fact was I was too busy drooling over Katka's muscles to maintain my indignation.




Suddenly I was the teenage boy in his bedroom with his copy of Muscle & Fitness unable to take his eyes off Anja Langer and her beautiful muscular body. Katka thrilled me like the very first time. I just couldn't stop looking at her. Her pecs, her abs, her legs, her arms... a beauty and yet she was just so big and hard, her muscles were so full and defined. Tanned, thrilling. Sexy but beyond sexy. MUSCLE SEXY.



Two images in particular mesmerised me. She's on the floor, leg bicep flexed. Everywhere you look - her legendary calves, the muscle around her knee(!), the definition all over her legs and her glutes - I can barely breathe now, how bad must I have been when I first saw this image?! But she hasn't finished with me yet. My eyes move up her body to her shoulders, her arms - so powerful. I'm gasping for air.
And then, finally, you see that half smile, and those deep, intense eyes...



And the second? Even better!



There were rumours even then that she had decided to quit Bodybuilding (more gnashing of teeth from the brethren), but in fact she returned to Madrid the following year and competed in Bodybuilding again. She finished runner-up again, this time to Jacqueline Fuchs, and then she became the Physique competitor she is today.


Katka at the 2016 Tampa Pro

In her dark-haired phase it's hardly surprising some of the racier female muscle paysites had come calling, and - as FMS noted in 2011 - Katka went through a phase of feeling less than shy about exposing that muscle sexy chest of hers in all its pectacular glory, leaving my Katka Dark folder (yes, I have a special folder for that dark-haired period) busting at the seams, and all of us with many many unforgettable images.



The fact that she's no longer one of the big big girls (and has a fair bit of ink) has led to many a female muscle head crossing her off their love list, but I have to admit I'm still a big big fan, and I don't ever think I'll lose my soft hard spot for Mladá Boleslav's finest.



Follow Katka on Instagram.

Never Better: Gillian Kovack - Toronto 2012

GILLIAN KOVACK
4th, 2012 Toronto Pro



Gillian was one of FMS' Women of the Year in 2012 on the back of her performance in Toronto (and her blond to brunette transformation, and a Female Muscle Clips preview where all she does is walk!). So, despite her having had some (all too rare but) very strong showings since then, most notably her two 4th places in 2015, when we think of Gillian's best, we can't get beyond her smouldering 2012 pro debut.



And, believe it or not, I'm pretty sure Margie Martin would agree. One and a half years ago, wrote Gillian in 2016, one of the 2014 Toronto Pro athletes approached me near the SkyDome to introduce herself and tell me that she had one of my pictures from 2012 in the album she keeps to help motivate her to perform at HER best! She was, of course, Margie, and some time later on her own Instagram, Margie showed us that picture. It was Gillian's back, on stage in Toronto two years before they met.




I doubt, however, me and Margie were the only ones squirrelling images of Gillian's beef away in our special albums. That year, Lisa Giesbrecht took the title, Kim Buck was 2nd, and Britain's own Wendy McCready a career best 3rd. All great, all looked fantastic on the day, but I've looked back at the pictures and the video available from the show (all in the name of proper research you understand), and honestly I couldn't understand then and I still can't understand now why Gillian didn't win.



She's big. A big girl, noted George Farah on the MD play-by-play during prejudging. She's thick, he noted during her routine. Anyone else get the impression the man had lost a little of his usual eloquence while watching Gillian? Can't blame him if that is the case. That's certainly how she generally affects me, and he's looking at her in the flesh!




For me (and probably Margie too), Gillian was magnificent here. Magnificent width on her shoulders and that back. Big, beefy quads and glutes, and thick, thick hamstrings. She hasn't got the smallest waist but with her shoulders and legs she doesn't need one. She's magnificent (did I say that already?) And those deep, dark, smouldering eyes...



We really like Gillian, said FMS back in 2012. We really like her a lot. And we've continued to do so since then, even when she hasn't been at her best (and gone back to being blond). She's got that thing, whatever it is. Her struggles - financial, mental - eloquently (if only briefly) documented by Gillian on her blog - have only made us admire her more. She spoke back in 2016 of wanting to focus more on the coaching side of things, of wanting to continue her education, and refusing to become just another "Instagram fitness bimbo". She updated the blog once. Then it went quiet. Gillian, so often so good, doesn't seem to be about to return to competition.



I think that is a real shame. And Margie would probably agree.

Watch FMC's Gillian walking preview here.