Barbara & A British Winner in San Marino

The start of June saw the second of the new pro shows in Italy. Well, sort of new. The San Marino Pro has been held before, in 2014 - men only - and then last year with the chaps again but also Figure and Bikini classes. This year though, just as with the Galaxy Pro in Bari in May, the only female division missing was Fitness, and amateur contests held on the first day fed the class winners into the pro show the following day.



In Bari, the new Female Bodybuilding pro had been Cristina Maffeis (see FMS passim). In San Marino, another Italian won the right to compete with the pros.



Barbara Carita won both the amateur Physique and FBBing classes. An asterisk by her name on the list of pro card winners revealed a line at the bottom of the list that should warm the cockles of any fan of big time female muscle - "The athlete chose to compete in the pro Female Bodybuilding class". Barbara prefers her double biceps close-fisted. I liked her already. And it was also the smart choice. In Physique she would have competed against Cris Goy Arellano, Paloma Parra, Joanna Romano... The sole entrant in Female Bodybuilding was Cristina Franzoso.



By the end of the weekend, then, Barbara had three first place trophies and an invite to the Rising Phoenix. I won everything! she exclaimed afterwards. I've achieved the biggest goal of my career... and more! I'm finally an IFBB pro and there will be a tricolor [Italian (flag)] flying among all those prestigious athletes [at the RP].



She may not be among the favourites come September, but mio Dio! she does get freaky. And - again, this should warm the cockles - she is by no means backwards in coming forwards to show that freakiness off, testing the limits of Instagram censorship on a regular basis during her San Marino prep, and providing us with (for my money) the most thrillingly repugnant leg vascularity since Lisa Giesbrecht's pomp.



She does the showing off in clip-form too. Here we see the eye-popping state of her legs "the night before the exams" as she put it, one day before she took to the stage.



Delicioso!

And while this veteran Italian was making her dreams come true, in the Figure class, Britain's sole female representative at the event was having her best ever pro day.



It was exactly 10 years ago today that Louise Rogers became British Figure champion. Since then she has turned pro, competed on an (almost) annual basis - in Europe, Australia and the States as well as at home in the UK Bodypower Pro event. Until she placed 2nd in Bari at the Galaxy Pro last month, 3rd at Bodypower (twice) had been her best pro placing. But this win beats everything. I'm so thankful to have these new opportunities for pro athletes in Europe, she said, beaming with her medal after the show. Dreams do come true. We are going to the Olympia!



Louise's long overdue triumph is the latest in an ever-growing list of British IFBB pro wins. Lisa Cross in Bodybuilding, Rosanna Harte in Physique, Emma Paveley and Kate Errington in Fitness, and Nina Ross in Bikini have all won over the last few years. And now Louise, the first British pro Figure winner? I don't have the time to check very thoroughly, but I don't recall a British pro at the Figure Olympia before.



There have been high points in the past, courtesy of Andrulla and Gayle, but those wins, amazing as they were, were few and far between. Are we enjoying the Golden Age of British Female Muscle right now? Hopefully, it's just the beginning.



Enjoy!

FBBUK: Emma Takes Miami

The (obviously fit but otherwise pretty unassuming) young lady waiting to board at Heathrow was excited. Can’t wait to arrive in Miami and get this weekend started, she told her 15,000+ Instagram followers. My peanut butter made it through security!



Emma Paveley (in case you didn't recognise her) kicked off an unprecedented period of British success in Fitness this time last year when she won on her pro debut in Vancouver, and subsequently became the first British woman to compete in Fitness at the Olympia since Kizzy Vaines in 2012. This year, Kate Errington - the other half of the UK's pro Fitness attack - was runner-up at the Arnolds in Ohio, then Arnold Australia champion. At the start of this month, it was Emma's turn to shine again.



And shine she did. Miami Muscle Beach Pro Fitness champion. "Goal achieved" as she put it. She'll be joining Kate in Las Vegas in September for her second Olympia.




First time round she was a bit rabbit-in-the-headlights by her own admission. A fantastic experience, but 11th was not the result she wanted. I'm going to be bringing more than last year, she promised after Miami. I'll work harder and I will be better.



Such ambition, determination, and hard work has taken her to the top of British then European amateur Fitness, and now into the ranks of the pro elite of her sport.

Why change that formula now?



We can't confirm her "battle axe" trophy (handed over by the previous year's champ, Ariel Khadr) made it through customs like the peanut butter did going out!



Congratulations - once again - to Emma!

On Instagram

Media Watch: Boots & The Pole Dancer

The "Boots" in question are not something a pole dancer need not wear, but rather the well-known UK high street "beauty, health and pharmacy" retailer. That Boots recently brought out their own range of "natural plant protein" for women - "MBody".

Now the very fact that a high street retailer such as Boots is going into the female fitness nutrition market is a sure sign that market is believed to be a goldmine.



And that is undeniably great news, but not what we're concerned with today.

Instead, let's look at the ad Boots (originally) lined up to market their new range.



The problem with the ad is - did you spot it? - the "tone up not bulk up" tagline, deemed "shocking" and "appalling" by "furious" social media users according to the Mail Online.



That so many got so riled is largely due to the efforts of the wonderfully named Peach Lee Ray, a pole dancing instructor and confidence coach from the Wirral, who was so incensed by the ad she went public with her ire. Disappointed that Boots UK is spreading this misinformation to women, she wrote on her Facebook page. So many women are scared to invest in their health and fitness because they worry about 'bulking up', gaining 'too much' muscle and not feeling feminine. The fitness industry has used the idea of 'toning' to spread and continue to support the stupid idea that women should not be muscular or take pride in a certain body aesthetic.



If you have the type of body type that gains muscle then you should be proud of who you are and what you look like, she went on. It isn't bad for a woman to be muscular. It doesn't make you less feminine or desirable, we should embrace ourselves in all of our variety. Screw this noise. Bulk up if you want to. Be muscular if you want to. It's your body and this BS fitness industry shouldn't be spreading these messages.

We like Peach. We like her a lot.



The Mail article led to other media sources contacting Peach direct.

'Toning' and 'bulking' are synonyms for the same concept: building muscle, she told Today a couple of weeks after the Mail had run its story. To create a differentiation is misleading. 'Toning' plays on women's insecurity of needing to be skinny or small, I just want people to know I think being a strong, muscular woman is a good thing.



The social media furore that led to Boots pulling the ad suggests Peach is not alone in her thinking, and on top of that, the evidence of my own eyes during the recent hot spell tells me that more and more women in Britain have been hitting the gym this year, and fewer and fewer of them are shy about displaying the results of their efforts - particularly their 'toned' (or should that be 'bulked'?!) arms and shoulders.

The female muscle radar has never been so busy!



Kudos once again to the Mail as well for bringing Peach's rant to an even wider audience, and once again - I'm more and more convinced there's a raging female muscle head on the editorial team there! - supporting women's right to build muscle.



Read the Mail article and Today's follow-up with Peach in full here and here.

You might also want to follow the pole-dancing confidence-building female muscle advocate on Instagram. She is currently "super busy" (understandable) and has "nowhere to train properly", which is a bit of a crime. If any of you lovely readers are, or know of a gym owner in the Wirral area with room for a pole at their premises, perhaps you might like to help our new heroine solve one of her two problems.



Enjoy!

FBBUK: Ade Bishop's Arnold Africa Adventure

Our final lady of the week with a reason for a post-contest celebration is Britain's Ade Bishop, who was rewarded for making the unusual (for a Brit) move of competing at the Arnold Africa with an amateur win and brand spanking new IFBB Elite Pro status. Don't ask me the difference "Elite" makes, but it allowed Ade to compete with the Elite Physique pros the following day and actually earn some money for her 3rd place.



Time for some well-earned R & R.



Follow Ade on Instagram.

And speaking of R & R, FMS will be taking a break for the next couple of weeks.

FBBUK: Anita Tryc Counts Her Blessings

UK Physique competitor Anita Tryc started her fitness journey back in 2009. Despite having studied at the Academy of Sports Education in her native Poland, she admits she "went downhill". I smoked, and I used to drink too much, as students do, she says. It was after finally giving up cigarettes and gaining 20kg in a month that she decided to get back the fitness she had lost. I was size 16/18, quite a big girl, she remembers. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror! (She doesn't seem to have that problem now...)



She began running again, and was soon looking to move to England. Beforehand though, a medical check-up revealed a tumour on one of her ovaries. It was borderline, she says. I was told that if it hadn't been found for few more months, it could have turned cancerous. I consider myself a very lucky human being.



Relocation to London complete, Anita set about changing her training as well - I wanted to have muscles and be stronger. Lifting at home progressed to lifting at the gym, and before long she began wondering whether one day she might be able to compete. I wanted to be like Dana Linn Bailey, she says, but when I told people I want to do Women’s Physique one day, they all said I would do OK in Bikini. And, it turns out, nothing could have been more motivating to hear than that. If someone tells me that I can't do something, she says. I will prove to them and myself that I CAN!


Hanging out at the 2016 UKBFF British Championships with her "sweet friend" Linda Gartside

And she did. Her first show was in 2015, a qualifier for the UKBFF where her runner's-up placing took her to the national championships. She's been at those British finals every year since, but last year Anita broke into the top 6 for the very first time.


UKBFF British Championships 2017, 6th place

2018 has seen a new approach from Anita though. A new coach - "much stricter than I am used to" - and a prep that has been harder than she has ever known. This is how the professionals do it, she says, and the results are mind blowing! I don't even recognise myself, my conditioning and posing. I have learnt so much, it's like being at school!



And the first sight we have had of this new, improved Anita was at the PCA contest held during the BodyPower Expo. This was her first ever non-UKBFF show, and also, as she lined-up in the Trained Figure class, the first time she'd ever been on stage in heels.



Anita didn't win the show, but there are ways to judge a performance other than by placing. I loved every minute and I couldn't be prouder, she said after seeing herself up there. My best condition ever, my best posing ever... I actually shocked myself!



Not surprisingly, she can't wait to do it again, but in the meantime, that beautiful smile will be staying put - I'm so blessed that I am able to wake up every single morning to work towards my dreams, she says. I'll be coming back and coming back better.



Follow Anita on Instagram