She's So Shredded: Natalia Da Costa

As soon as I saw this, I had to know more - and for starers that meant finding a name. Why this picture, and this woman in particular is hard to say - it's not like I'm starved of images of beautiful muscular women! Something about her though, something more than her beautiful (I guessed, correctly, Bodyfitness) muscles and her striking beauty. Perhaps it was the snake, its tongue exactly where I'd like to mine to be as I begin an abdominal exploration that will ultimately reveal exactly where its coils travel...

It took a few days to get the name, but I get it I did: Natalia Da Costa.



Despite the Brazilian sound, Natalia is actually from France. She is 32 years old, and was a "former athlete of the highest level in the field of combat sports" according to her Facebook bio - perhaps I sensed her deadliness and I liked it! Now her passion for Bodybuilding has led her to a career in fitness, health and sports nutrition. As well as competing herself - firstly in Bikini in 2015 and for the last two years in her preferred class Bodyfitness - she is a personal trainer and remote coach to both competitive athletes and those seeking to transform their bodies (and lives) for the better.



She finished 3rd in her class at last year's French championships, and the reason why she is currently looking so shredded (although she hardly ever seems to look very unshredded as far as I can tell) is that she is preparing for the European championships at the start of May. It will be (again, as far as I can tell) her first international contest.



And the other day Natalia gave us a reminder of exactly what it takes to look as freakily ripped as she currently does. Patience... she wrote. Zero. Fatigue... Maximum. Determination... full on! And she signed off that particular Instagram post as she always does, sending bisous musclées - "muscle kisses" - to her followers.

If only!



I love the fact she's French - and not just because, not unusually, I tend to melt at that accent - when spoken by the right woman, and a woman with a body (and face) like Natalia's definitely qualifies as the right woman. No, it's more because in the seven years of this blog, I could count the number of French women we've featured on (not all) the fingers of one hand. France has punched well below its female muscle weight for far too long. Hopefully, Natalia is the first of many femmes françaises to come.



But most of all I can't help but love her obvious love for what she does.

One more experience, she writes of this contest prep. I've already made a lot of progress but I'm still learning about this body, going headlong towards a new physique, the best I can possibly have, like the ram I am. When my energy fails, my passion keeps me going. This is so important to me. Muscle kisses...



Oh là là!

She's So Shredded: Anna Ferrer Flos

"Wow" reads the first comment, and the second as well. The third is a little more eloquent - "So lovely her eyes her smile, gorgeous!" The eyes, the smile, and her gorgeousness get more mentions, and then the posters start to "scan down". And they see the "bulge" (of her bicep), they see her "amazing chest". "Oh my!" they say. "Beautiful!" they say. "Stunning!" they say. For this single image there's been more comment in less than 24 hours than most GWM posts get in their lifetime.

The female muscle lovin' community has just "discovered" Anna Ferrer Flos.



What FMS has learned about Anna in the last two days since that image burned us too could be summed up as 'not very much'. It's never very easy getting information about athletes who are a) amateurs, and b) not from English-speaking countries, but on top of that, it's not even easy to look for information when you are so distracted by beautiful brown eyes, the loveliest smile and a ripped, vascular body that looks (if not harder) every bit as hard as what's keeping at least one of your hands below keyboard level.


Final preparations for "war", autumn 2017

What we do know is that it is Anna (the double "n" - not as common as "Ana" in Spanish-speaking countries - is correct), and that one reason for the double "n" might be that Anna is Catalan (rather than "Spanish", if that's not too controversial a thing to say). She competes in the Bodyfitness (ie. Figure) division, in the "up to 163cm" class, and she finished 3rd in that class at the Spanish National Championships last year.



Most of her at her most shredded seems to have been from around that contest, even if they weren't posted then - either on GWM, or by Anna herself on her eponymous Instagram. She seems to like looking back at her body then, nostalgic for the look, using the images as motivation for her now as she prepares for another season of competition - "war" as she calls it (or at least that's how guerra literally translates).



There are days when you want to give up, she says, but when I look at these photos I say to myself, "I have achieved that already, and I will become stronger than ever".


With Spanish IFBB pro Noelia Segura
"My sister, helping me from minute zero, supporting me every day," says Anna

Spain (including Catalunya, I really don't know how to express these things and stay on the right side of both sides!) appears to suddenly be enjoying something of a female muscle boom, and women like Anna can't fail to inspire yet more to take up the pesas. Si todo va bien (if all goes well), according to Anna, the next "war" for her won't be until this September. This year though, it seems she will be followed on her journey to even more thrillingly vascular shredz by a whole lot more fans than she was last year.



¡Disfrutar!

FBBUK: Anna Banks (An Apology)

Though some people might substitute "often" for "always" in the second half of this sentence, we don't always get it right. Having banged on over the last year or so about how much Bodyfitness/Figure talent the UK possessed and how we fully expected that soon some of them would be placing high at international contests, perhaps even gaining pro cards, we somewhat overlooked the woman who would realise that potential most quickly and become the latest of Britain's IFBB Figure pros.



I say "overlooked"... we did mention her at the UKBFF British Championships, which she won. However, we'd got rather enamoured with Danielle Osborn (who had won her class at the Arnold Classic Europe) at that time, and really wanted her to win. When Danielle placed 3rd, we ended up being rather rude about the new British champ.

If any of the UKBFF Bodyfitness judges would like to get in touch and explain exactly why it is that the woman on the right beats the woman on the left, I will be all ears.



It's taken a feature in the Mail Online to remind us that we should have been a bit more polite, and taken much more notice of Anna Banks. In our defence, her rise to the very top of the Figure game has been blink-and-you-miss-it. From her Bodyfitness debut at the East of England Championships in Leicester on September 17th last year to her IFBB pro debut in San Marino in November - (I make it) about 70 days!


Bodyfitness debut win: East of England Championhips, September 2017

The 30-year-old from Liverpool joined former British Bikini star Melissa Haywood on the pro stage having earned her pro card at the San Marino Olympia Amateur the day before - the first time the UK had two Figure pros on stage together since Maria Scotland and Louise Rogers went heel-to-heel in Toronto in 2015. Coincidentally, Anna had, like Melissa, begun her competitive career in the Bikini division.


Agata Banks (Poland), Bikini @EBBF European Championships, May 2017

Back in May 2017 though, when Anna did her last Bikini turn at the European Championships in Spain, she still "represented the Motherland" as she puts it. The scorecard tells us that Agata Banks (of Poland) finished 11th in her up to 169cm class that day, already convinced Bikini wasn't for her - I just wanted to lift, she says.



Interestingly, perhaps because they didn't think it was relevant, perhaps because it doesn't fit their anti-immigration agenda, the Mail make no mention of Anna being from anywhere other than Liverpool in their story. What they do focus on though is why she first began lifting. I wouldn't say I was out of shape, she tells them. I just wasn't completely satisfied with how I looked, especially my mid-section. I was very body conscious and would always wear a one-piece swimsuit instead of a Bikini.



Inspired by fitness models in magazines she began her journey, as they say. I remember thinking "Wow! I wish I looked like that, and is that even possible?" she tells her 17,000+ Instagram followers. But don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done. Whatever your genetics, all you have to do is start. It's taken her around seven years, the last 18 months of which she's been competing - and now she's the inspiration.




And she certainly doesn't lack ambition. Of the three women who won their Olympia San Marino Bodyfitness classes, only Anna signed up for the pro show the next day. It was, after all, a qualifier for what she calls "the pinnacle". She placed 10th in a field that included women who had recently been at that pinnacle - (Las Vegas) Olympians Jessica Reyes Padilla and Adela Ondrejovicova. A very respectable result.


Pro debut: San Marino, November 2017

But resting on her laurels clearly isn't her style. I’m actually kind of a rookie again, she says of her new pro status. BUT "I’LL BE BACK", bigger and better [in 2018].



FMS is more than a little red-faced that it's taken so long to bring you the story of Anna's remarkable rise. We most certainly won't be "overlooking" her again.


Anna Banks, UKBFF British Champion, October 2017

Follow Anna on Instagram

January Clearance! [V-Z]

"Too many to feature here" is a phrase I seem to have typed a lot over the past year, referring to the vast number of women and/or images the female muscle head is faced with in these instant information times. On the upside, you never go short. The downside for the blogger is there are far too many to feature here - there I go again.

It felt wrong just to forget about the women we intended to feature at some stage during 2017 but didn't. Firstly, the fact they have come to our attention at all is the result of some pretty solid sifting by the FMS research team, and it would just be plain rude to ignore all that hard work. And secondly, it's not the case that we once thought these women were worth posting about and don't anymore - we still do.

The solution we came up with is The FMS January Clearance - we're going to feature all the women who are taking up space in the "TBC" folder on the 2017 planner. And you're getting them all together in a sort of but not really alphabetical order (you'll see what I mean). Further your enjoyment by clicking on the names.

Welcome to our final selection!


VIKA POGRIBNIAK



I do remember Vika almost making it onto the blog last spring, when just before she took 3rd at the European Championships a plethora of pics went up on the forums of her looking very hard and veiny. Throw in a few clips of Vika teasing us with her charms, and the combination of freaky vascularity and "irresistible girliness" was the cue for a mini fan hysteria, which, although brief, was hysteria nonetheless.



Despite appearances to the contrary though, the 2016 Ukrainian Bodyfitness champ is quite a bit more womanly than you might think, and is in fact going to be 30 this year.



Vika certainly seems to love showing it off, and that confidence (/arrogance) is also apparent in her contest shots, I think. She looks very comfortable and very happy up there. You wouldn't know the Europeans was her first international competition.


WENDY GRANADOS



Good Venezuelan news stories have been hard to come by in the last year, but for Wendy Granados, 2017 was as good as it gets. She was South American Bodyfitness champ as long ago as 2014, but in 2017 she added three more titles to her collection, including the Overall titles at the NAC and Amateur Olympia South America.



The above was FMS' introduction to Wendy, and the staff toilet was a tad busy for a while after it did the office rounds. Just another reminder that I will probably get arrested for indecent exposure if I ever get to stroll along a South American beach.



An essential IG follow.


KRISTA WHARTON



Another Figure competitor, and another different look.



Krista actually came pretty close to winning a pro card in 2016 with a 3rd place at the Jr USAs. Despite winning her class at the amateur show that takes place around the Tampa Pro, she only just made the top 6 at the IFBB North Americans in 2017.



Still, when your transformation story is as complete as Krista's, every day must feel like a win. Three years it has taken her to go from the lady on the left to the goddess on the right. And she's not finished yet. I love the sport even more now than I did when it was all brand new and exciting, she says. And my goals are so much bigger now!


YVETTE AGOCS



Another of the seemingly endless supply of muscular Hungarian women who come to our attention through the work of the mighty Zoltan Veigh, Yvette Agocs has only recently started to crop up on the forums, and we know next to nothing about her.




But we do like the direction she's heading in!


OLHA ZHELAMSKA



Our 35th and final never-seen-before-on-FMS tribute is to the Physique dream and EVLS Prague Amateur champ Olha (or Olya or Olga) Zhelamska (or Zhelamskaya) (depending on where you are searching - such confusion is exactly the sort of thing that prevents us bringing you women like Olha/Olya/Olga sooner you know).



She is, we think, originally from Russia but is now pumping away in Czechia (perhaps the name change(s) have something to do with that. Although the EVLS was by far the biggest win of her career to date, she's been competing for at least 8 years, which is not hard to believe looking at her very meaty and well-balanced physique.



A beautiful way to end the week.


And, unfortunately, to end daily posting for a while. Work commitments have been piling up so FMS will be a little irregular for the time being - hopefully not too long.

But that doesn't mean you'll be completely FMS-less. Watch out for the odd post, including a very important one on 1st February which you won't want to miss.

Thank you all for your continuing support!
6ft1swell