Far From Routine: Slow & Sexy

A little while back we asked for your "all-time favourite routines", and, as always, many of you answered the call. This week we'll be seeing whose routines you nominated, adding a few of our own picks, and on top of that we'll be tipping our hat to a particular YouTube channel with an exceptional collection of female muscle contest clips.

"What's your all-time favourite routine?" is not an easy question to answer. As one reader rightly pointed out, it very much depends on what is available on YouTube, and many readers noted their natural inclination was to simply think of the best YouTube clip of their favourite FBB's most memorable performance. But even so, I think by the end of the week you'll agree that that has made for a pretty damn great collection of female bodybuilding at its most artistic, gymnastic, and downright muscle sexy.

Reader Requests

And today's two routines could very well serve as definitions of that. It should be done slow, reckons our Crossfit correspondent Aiden, who nominated both of today's routines. Poses held, when they go too quick it becomes a bit cheerleader for my liking. So, we're going slow and sexy today, slow and very very VERY sexy.

NIKKI FULLER
1997 Ms International




BONNY PRIEST
2003 NPC USAs




If it's still in your shorts, you are a more disciplined man than I.

For more (and more recent) Bonny see FMS from 1st July - Look Who's Back!

More reader requests tomorrow - maybe yours!

Look Who's Back!

While enjoying Rosanna Harte's Physique victory at the recent Dallas Europa, I couldn't help but notice a very familiar name behind her in 4th place.

BONNY PRIEST




Now when we picked Bonny as one of our Abs Queens back in 2013, we thought we really had seen the last of her. This is, after all, the woman who as long ago as 2004 had said, there doesn't seem to be much of a future for women's bodybuilding.



2005 Europa Supershow, Winner

Bonny had continued to compete until 2007, her best years probably being 2003-2006 when she won the NPC USA and turned pro, secured two IFBB pro titles, and finished a career-high 4th at the Ms Olympia behind only Iris, Dayana, and Annie Rivieccio. The package she brought to the stage then combined muscle and beauty with buckets of sex appeal. And then there was the 8-pack! A real favourite of mine.



2006 Ms Olympia, 4th place

Like a few other female bodybuilders from her era, she has decided to come back in the Physique division, choosing a home state contest for her return to the stage. I for one am absolutely over the swoon to see her once again tanned, oiled and suited. Probably she'll be staying in Physique, though one of our readers has a theory - Bonny is a powerful woman, he says. She won't be able to resist the lure of mass...




More of a prayer than a theory perhaps, but one thing does seem more certain, that this is unlikely to have been a one-time-only deal. I absolutely love being on stage, Bonny once said. At that point in the contest prep, I know that I look the best I've ever looked in my life. For that moment I feel more confident & happier than ever. My favorite part is the posing routine. I've worked a lot of years trying to perfect the routine and bring a little more entertainment to the audience.

So why don't we end with a little of Bonny in action? Sent in by one reader in response to our appeal for your "All-time Favourite Routines", here's Bonny (or should it be Bonnie? I'm never quite sure) feeling "more confident and happier than ever" and setting the stage on fire at - I think - the 2003 NPC USAs.



And if you missed Monday's post, yes, we're asking again! This time it's for your all-time favourite posing routines. Send (links if possible) to 6ft1swell@gmail.com

Abs Queens

Swell Pick:
JOHANNA DEJAGER
















Nicknamed 'Blonde Bomber', and a competitive bodybuilder for the best part of fifteen years, Johanna prided herself on being 'Naturally Built', giving her old website the title of her bodybuilding philosophy. Her biceps were rightly-renowned for both their size and shape, but Swell always loved her abs just as much, if not more.



Her obvious genetic gifts were, she thought, enhanced by a childhood on a dairy farm, and it's easy to imagine her building up her arms by carrying heavy old milk churns around. How this background helped her in the abs department is less obvious, but Swell can certainly imagine the stunningly-beautiful Johanna in her Daisy Dukes as a dream farm girl - for a female muscle head anyway!



Johanna always seemed to be in a permanently ripped state, which, given the sheer number of contests she competed in (many of them drug-tested) is probably not surprising. But it's one thing to have ripped abs, and quite another to develop the kind of deep deep ridges of muscle that Johanna brought to the party.



I believe anyone can obtain their desired look naturally through planned nutrition and exercise, she once said. And after many many years of competing as an amateur, Johanna became a pro in 2008, then made just one appearance (winning the lightweight class at the 2009 Ms International) before retiring.

And here's a taste of Johanna and her sexational six-pack from her old website...




As I'm a greedy man, and as I mentioned yesterday, it's not easy choosing just one Abs Queen, and anyway, it is my blog, so I'm going to give myself another pick today...



Swell Pick:
BONNY PRIEST














Flexing off with Melinda McNabb for the title of Texas Abs Queen, Bonny Priest wanted to be a bodybuilder from a very young age, getting her mother to buy her muscle magazines from about the age of ten or eleven. I thought those girls were so cool. I would look at the mags for hours everyday "dreaming" that someday I could be like that. Never thinking that someday I would be on the pro stage myself.



But she did make it, winning the NPC USA Championships in 2003 after five years of competing, and thereafter appearing at four Ms Olympias, her best placing 4th in 2006 behind Iris Kyle, Dayana Cadeau and Annie Riveccio. But Bonny was under no illusions as to what the future held for female bodybuilding. In 2004, she said, there doesn't seem to be much of a future for women's bb'ing. She continued to compete until 2007, but as a gym co-owner (with her husband), she had something to fall back on once she had hung up her posing suit.



I'm never quite sure if it really is the abs that I love about Bonny or whether it's the total package of muscle, beauty and oodles of sex appeal, but you never forget your first eight-pack, so that alone justifies her inclusion on our list.




Bonny once said, I absolutely love being on stage. At that point in the contest prep, I know that I look the best I've ever looked in my life. For that moment I feel more confident & happier than ever. My favorite part is the posing routine. I've worked a lot of years trying to perfect the routine and bring a little more entertainment to the audience. Decide for yourself if you think she succeeded as you watch her routine at the 2004 Ms Olympia.



Enjoy!

Abs Week: The Best?

Incredible as it seems to me that I have a blog that is now old enough to have established its own tradition, Female Muscle Slave is now just a little over two years’ old. We first brought you Abs Week in 2011, and then last year we had a week of Abs of the Day. So, tradition it is.

Welcome to Abs Week 2013.

And we begin with a question: Who’s the best?

Today FMS offers a selection of favourites to stimulate your thinking. Enjoy!


Perhaps you think your old school favourites have never been bettered and you'll be voting for Christa's cold, hard Deutsch Produkt or Valerie Gangi's Italian(-American) masterpiece midriff...


Delicious Bonnie Priest has always been a particular Swell favourite in the abs stakes. I guess it's true that you never forget your first eight-pack...



Perhaps sir likes them contest ready...



Nothing but ripped, tanned, oiled and flexed will do...


Quantity or quality? It's true that Alina's are probably bigger and better than Elena's, but is it just about the size? Surely the fact that on stage Elena does so much more with her abs counts for something...


Blond abs from Europe or deep tanned and deep cut from America...


Perhaps Karen Zaremba, favourite of many, is a favourite of yours too...


A veritable gorge down the middle, or something more classical...


Freaky vascularity and great slabs of muscle...


Beauty and beautiful abs...


Modern European Abs Queens Gabriella Bankuti and Elena Oana Hreapca...

But do they get your vote?

We want you, dear readers, to answer our question. Let us know who your Abs Queen is, or, if you find it impossible to choose just one (set of sexy abs), don’t limit yourself, and let us know who your Abs Queens are. It's up to you to vote for as few or as many of your favourites as you want.

Or maybe you have a favourite Abs Shot and you’ve never been able to tell or find out who the magnificent midriff belongs to. No problem! Vote for the image itself. Vote for a number of images if you want. Any number. It’s your choice.











Perhaps your Abs Queen(s) isn't (aren't) even real, the product of the imagination of one of the many wonderful female muscle artists like Edinaus, David C. Matthews, Tigersan, blackadder74 or TO, a selection of whose work we see here. Vote for a literally unreal set of abs if you wish.





Comment below or email 6ft1swell@gmail.com. Vote now!

I’ll tally up the votes and, let’s say, around this time next month, I'll post my faves, publish the results and reveal who the 2013 Female Muscle Slave Abs Goddess(es) is (are).

Enjoy! More magnificent mouth-watering muscular midriffs tomorrow...