Underrated: Karen Garrett

A new occasional series, Underrated is not intended to be about judging decisions - if it was, we could probably run a post about every single woman who's ever competed! Instead, we aim to (re)focus on women who we think do not enjoy the prominence they deserve in the collective female muscle consciousness - someone a new recruit to the female muscle lovin' world would not necessarily come across.

Readers' suggestions for future posts on the theme would be most welcome.

UNDERRATED?



Search for "Karen Garrett" on Girls with Muscle and you will find exactly 0 images. (And yes, I tried with variations on the spelling of "Garrett" and still nothing).

One thread devoted to her on the forum whose first rule is... contains a single post with a handful of images. Another is a poll asking members to vote "Yes" or "No" as to whether she bears a resemblance to Jada Pinkett(-Smith)(!) "No", unsurprisingly, is a clear winner. And a third, from 2015, wonders "Has anyone heard from her lately?"

CAREER



Karen competed from 1999 to 2012 but with huge gaps in between. According to Muscle Memory, her first and second contests were both in her native New England, and six years apart. On the back of her win at the latter, she went to the NPC USAs for the first time in 2006 and finished 7th in the Middleweight class. Sadly, we haven't been able to find any contest shots from that day, but on the back of that national level exposure she did do her first work with some of the big schmotography sites.



She next turns up on stage in 2011 at the NPC Los Angeles Championships, and wins. And the following year she's at the USAs again, this time as a Light-heavyweight. She placed 5th on that occasion, but sadly was never to be seen on stage again.

APPRECIATION



Karen had a killer smile, but could do smouldering with equal aplomb. She also possessed one of the great eyebrow raises, always perfectly timed to coincide with the pop of a mighty bicep or a rippling side chest pose. The muscle she packed on between her first and second USA appearances left her with a package that would consistently place top 3 at most pro shows these days, let alone amateur ones. That she didn't place higher back in the day was more to do with the competition and a lot less to do with any weaknesses in her physique. Check out the 2006 USA line-up here - you won't believe that so many legendary women were on the stage at the same time - and among the 4 (out of 14) Light-heavyweights at the USAs in 2012 that Karen finished behind, we find Tierany Chretien, Shannon Courtney and Christine Sabo.



At her 2012 peak, Karen possessed not just an amazing, ultra-thick upper body, but a lower half to match. Pics and clips of her from that time have a tendency to leave this viewer seriously overwhelmed, and (with the smile, the smoulders and the eyebrow) she shows off her many assets with exceptional flair. A schmotographer's dream.



NOW?



The latest news is that Karen is quite lucky to be alive actually. Just before Valentine's Day she had a bit of a prang. Her car (see above) is a write-off, happily Karen is all OK.



You can take the girl out of Massachusetts, as they say... She's now based in Las Vegas, where she runs her own Performance Sports Massage business - Fixed by KG.



So, you lovely readers, who's next on Underrated?

January Clearance! [L-N]

"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.

Five beautiful bods a day for seven days. Have fun!


LAUREN RIFFEL



This year I will be fierce, promised Lauren on January 2nd. Because Strong Is Sexy.



This 22-year-old Californian has only been sharing her "fitness journey" since October (clearly this journey began some time before that) but her grand total of 62 posts already she has attracted fan attention. Those arms, yes, but also for the attitude, the desire to "inspire our fitness ladies" through embodying the "Strong Is Sexy" mantra, but also to "be the chick in the gym who motivates every guy to push harder".



Her IG moniker - strongerthanyourboyfriendd (!)


MELINDA LINDMARK



21-year-old Swedish Physique dream Melinda first came to Swell's attention back in the summer when she was coming to the attention of a good few others too. A veritable goddess, wrote one - clearly impressed - forum poster. Look at that huge veiny bicep!



And as Melinda leaned down to compete (for the first time?) at last year's Tyngre Classic, female muscle lovin' pulses were set racing, the temperature in the FMS office soared, and Swell had Melinda (showing off her delts, her back and beautiful bum) as his screensaver (for a while, you know how easily my head can get turned).



Inappropriate though it may be for a man of my advancing years to be so ga-ga for a woman so young, I DO like Melinda. A lot. And I would guess I'm only one of many who have fallen under her spell in the last six months or so. Now it's your turn.


KIMBERLY MERCER



I have to admit that the first time I saw a Kimberly Mercer selfie it took me quite some time to realise I wasn't looking at Brooke Walker. Now I would hope Kimberly would take that as a compliment, which she should. This newly-carded pro seems, just as Brooke did in 2015, to be entering the next stage of her career already displaying the kind of quality necessary to succeed among the IFBB Physique elite.



Perhaps this is because she spent the best part of two years upgrading her body from Figure (where she did well enough to compete at national level) before entering her first Physique contest. At the IFBB North Americans last year she finished runner-up in her class, good enough to get the card, but also already looking every inch the pro.



She looks pretty damn good in or out of her her (Onslow County, North Carolina First Responder) work clothes too. Evidence since her contest suggests she'll be even bigger and better when she makes that pro debut - hopefully not in another two years.

SWOOOON!!!


SUSANNE NAAMANI



Oh, she's new, I say as the FMS work experience boy plops the Susanne Naamani file down on my desk. And then he tells me that she's been around since 2010. Ugh.



I console myself with the fact that I wasn't the only one who was taken by surprise. Susanne's popularity on the forums peaked around 2011-12, and has only recently enjoyed a resurgence. Damn! She got big! notes one forum bod who knew her earlier in the decade. Damn! She is big! says another on a different forum who didn't.



As well as admiring how pleasingly big Susanne indeed is these days, I've also been catching up with her past via her blog - SUZIE - which she kept up for a couple of years. Although it does also contain stories of everyday disasters like getting locked out of her own house, it is pretty much the story of her "fitness journey". Having said that though, I doubt you'll ever read a more wildly entertaining one. She crayzee!


SHEIKHA NGUYEN



New Nguyen on the block!



A fitness and lingerie model, (amateur) IFBB Physique competitor, and personal trainer, Sheikha is based in Singapore. She is, in her own words, "here to inspire".



Now there's a rather famous picture of Sheikha having the spray tan applied (version 1 - here, version 2 - here) which I'm sure has inspired all sorts of reactions from the brethren... Meanwhile though, Sheikha posts equally impressive (if a lot less naughty) updates on her IG and Facebook on a somewhat irregular basis, and fans can also contact her on HerBicepsCams, where she's Asian Iron. A lot of them do, I'm told.


Five more muscle women for your viewing delight tomorrow!

Diana in New York

My bro-in-law is about to start a secondment in the Big Apple. One of two main reasons why I am ever so slightly jealous is the increased chance this provides him of running into (perhaps literally, he does actually run) the divine Diana Schnaidt.



Glorious whether glammed up or showing of her sexy, hard and veiny body in more functional attire, here she is in and under New York during the last year or so.



Bulging calves, and ballistic shoulders and biceps all looking especially yummy.



Diana on Instagram.

The Year in Review: October

THE OLYMPIA(S)




Our Olympia review began (a little tardily, I admit) with a reminder that these days there isn't A Ms Olympia, but four. The Ms Olympia was last held in 2014, and since then we've had four Ms Olympias each year and yet no [one with the actual title of] Ms Olympia. And the four from 2017 - two new, two recrowned were: Oksana Grishina (Ms Fitness Olympia), Cydney Gillon (Ms Figure Olympia), Angelica Teixeira (Ms Bikini Olympia), and Juliana Malacarne (Ms Physique Olympia).

And then there was Natalia...



It is indeed scary to think how excited I might be getting looking at Natalia three years down the road. My ticker barely made it through her Olympia appearance this year. I really should schedule a check-up, but you know, it's finding the time to do it...



Britain's Emma Paveley took full advantage of her first Olympia experience, keeping the party going long after she had taken her place on stage among her sport's elite.




And we confessed to enjoying the Physique Olympia so much we ended up actually sympathising with the judges. Fact is, there were 26 amazing women on that stage, and it can't have been an easy job choosing between such a magnificently muscled line-up. You have to go on something, and if that something is "she looks to have made improvements from what I remember from her last year", then there's not much we can do about it. Relax. Enjoy the muscle. There's plenty of it.



We did reserve a special mention for our favourite Physique swoon though, especially given the pasting some forum twazzock had given here earlier in the year: Well, I think it's safe to say this opinionated forum member's nice little half-baked Dani demise theory (posted mid-August) hasn't exactly turned out to be 100% accurate. He's clearly not a Dani fan, whereas I'm proud to say I am. Anytime Dani's got a posing suit on I'm happy, and given the doom-laden predictions (our forum posting friend offered one of many) I was very pleasantly surprised to see she'd lost none of her sparkle and that bod is as spectacular as ever. Love the hair too! I could thank him for making my expectations so low I couldn't possibly have been disappointed by Dani's package, but that would suggest I had paid his fantasy theory some mind. I didn't.

[you so obviously did - ed.]



Collectively though, there was general agreement on the one debut Physique Olympian who should have placed much much higher - Jill Diorio. And those calves of hers.



She was in the sort of condition where even her cheeks looked ripped. "At the Olympia she looked SICK!" a forum poster noted, "Too cut for the judges, but I LOVE IT!" He was not alone. She was, we collectively decided, "exceptional", "flawless", "breath-taking". Her back double biceps in particular got the boys' attention. "Rock hard, symmetrical, big and sexy!" wrote one fan. "One of the best physiques I've ever seen."

BARCELONA

Events came thick and fast in October. We'd barely got our breath back after Jill and those calves before we were swooning all over the place for some of Europe's best amateur talent, with our focus at the start of the week on the British contingent.



We have a new champion. Rising British Bodyfitness star Danielle "Dani" Osborn won her "up to 168cm" class, and though following in the footsteps of Carly Thornton ("short" Physique, 2015) and Emma Paveley ("short" Fitness, 2016), she's the very first British Bodyfitness athlete to be a class winner there.

And there was Linda Gartside. Always a pleasure.



2017: The girl who was once too embarrassed to join a gym and instead worked out with dumbbells in her garage as Arnold looked on from the cover of his book is about to go on stage at his event and perform under his banner. Her "soul dream", she calls it, is about to come true. She's 47. And (once again) happy in her own skin. "Linny had been lost for some time," says Rochdale's finest, "the Arnold Classic Europe was where I found "me" again. The moment I gave up the chase for winning, I regained my inner freedom, and found my happiness. I have found the "me" that I lost."

It wasn't all about the Brits though.



Spanish champ and Overall Physique winner Laura Pintado and "the big and beautiful Czech dream" Alena Hatvani gave us plenty to swoon over.

As did Hevumisa.



Check out Part I here.

"THE NERD BEAST"

A brief pause in contest reporting for this year's breakthrough swoon.



Paige is suddenly everywhere, "The Female Hercules" (with girl-next-door looks), she reminds of Monica Mollica, Lauren Quinn, and (no higher praise, surely) Heather Policky "only hotter" (?!). She's "The Nerd Beast", and "the female muscle find of the year". Where did she come from? I think I'm in love. So, that's you, me, and just about every other head who's been turned on to Paige so far - 8,000+ IG followers and I'm guessing they are not all budding WPD competitors.

CZECH IN AT THE BRITISH CHAMPIONSHIPS




Absolutely unprecedented, and most welcome - FMS' favourite female muscle contest lensman, Eastlabs' Igor Kopcek, was at the recent UKBFF British Championships doing what he does so well. For once, I am able to put together a report on the show where my problem is not where to find images without big f*** off watermarks saying DO NOT F***ING COPY all over them, but how to choose which of the 2,799(!) images of the female classes to include. I've been in heaven for the last few hours, and I don't mind admitting it. Mr Kopcek, I doff my chapeau to you, sir!



The judges chose a pretty exciting champ too!

FANCY A DATE?



Any excuse to post gorgeous muscle women like Victoria Puentes in their little black dresses, but this time it was a website promising "Female Bodybuilder Dating" and the advice of a forum bod who'd loved (and lost) three different muscle women that got us righteously indignant. Don't seek their help, don't follow his advice - he lost them, remember? Go to a gym. Trust me, it's where they are. They'll admit it, too.

TALES OF THE TOWEL



And we finished October and entered November with, depending on who you believe, an inspired addition to the collection of female muscle niches we have collated over the years, or a new low for a blog that's hardly had its most a stellar of years.

[dude! you've got to start letting these things lie - ed.]