Physique Dreams: Ceejay Byam

We had planned to focus on the 2016 Overall CBBF Women's Physique champion for today's post. This turned out to be Emilija Martic, but lovely though she is, Emilija's Instagram is just a little bit too focused on the "fit couple" thing. Nothing wrong with that, good luck to her (and her "gorilla") but a "swolemates" blog this ain't.



The happy upshot of that decision is that it led us to Ceejay Byam. And I say that because, with all due respect to Ms Martic, Ceejay is even lovelier. She kind of reminds me of Melissa Lesage in some ways - looks, attitude, and, it turns out, both are trained nurses. And, like Melissa, at contest time Ceejay is a vascular freakshow.



Ceejay won the "B" class at the Canadians, which didn't get her a pro card (by the way, did you know they have so many competitors in Canada that they split the Nationals over two events, one for Fitness, Figure and Physique, and the rest on another day!), and soon afterwards the Overall title at the Ben Weider Legacy Cup, which did.


Overall winner, Ben Weider Legacy Cup

It's only over the last couple of years that Ceejay has packed on the muscle and competed in Physique. Her early competitive experiences were in Figure, which was her initial motivation to get in shape. In May 2011 I attended a show, she explains. I was interested and wanted to see what it was all about. While there I noticed a competitor walking around who looked phenomenal! I had been through various stages of weight through my life, and at that time I was very active in the gym. I am a person who always needs a goal in life, one thing led to another and boom!



Ceejay @CBBF Nationals 2016

Apart from competing herself, Ceejay is a personal trainer who - as well as being able to help you with contest prep - specialises in weight loss. You can find a lot more of this beautiful woman on her Instagram, where, yes, you can also find her man, but he's not in every other post. Contest galleries with Ceejay will need a bit of sifting through at Muscle Insider, where they don't sort pictures, but her appearances in 2014 and again this year at the IFBB North Americans are on NPC News Online, where they do.



Now she's achieved what she called "the ultimate goal" of a pro card, it'll be interesting to see what the goal-oriented Ceejay does next, but the chances are it will involve "the division I love". When I'm competing I love seeing my body transform from all the hard work that I have put into it, she says. Nothing feels better than when you stick to plan and it pays off. Absolutely. Unless you're a female muscle blogger whose planned post isn't all you wanted it to be. Then it's best not to stick to your plan.



Enjoy!

She's So Shredded: Heidi Krochter

Been feeling like a superhero lately, says Canada's Heidi Krochter, looking every inch like, er, yeah, like she's pretty damn super. "Lately" has been the aftermath of her appearance at the Canadian Nationals, where she finished 7th in her class.



Lucky indeed is the country whose 7th best-in-class Physique lady looks like this!



Heidi - it's "KrocKter" by the way, not "KroCHter" - has been getting rave reviews on the forum boards for some time now. Her progress from circa 2014 through last year (when she became champion of British Columbia) to this year's preparation for the CBBF Physique Nationals has been nothing short of remarkable.




And she's not been difficult to follow. Her Instagram is, to say the least, busy. And on top of that, her YouTube channel has been charting her progress for over a year, with the "Road to the Nationals" series from the last couple of months filling fan's screens with Heidi's vlogs, workout clips, and hilarious Bodybuilding rants.



She is, without question, not shy about "putting herself out there" as they say. And I think part of her appeal to her fans is the fact that the bigger she's got, the more unapologetic she's become. She's never come across as what you'd call shy, but it seems like her infectious personality has come bursting out of her in much the same way as her big, vascular muscles threaten to burst through her workout tops.



She's not the most conventionally beautiful woman in Bodybuilding (some "fans" have taken this to mean it's OK for them to show that the percentage of eejits in the female muscle lovin' world is around the same as there are in the world) but I think the fact that she very much has her own unique beauty is another big part of her appeal.



But just as I'm about to fall over the edge of over-analysing why the 7th best-in-class Canadian Physique competitor has got herself so adored, I'll step right back from intellectualising and acknowledge that while her attitude and beauty are important, by far the biggest reason why we all love Heidi is that body, those muscles.



Fantastic! This physique beats anything I've seen in a long time, one particularly taken fan comments. We love her "V", we love her legs, and because of her penchant for posting post-workout most musculars, we love her bulging, vascular arms, her massive round shoulder balls, and especially that chest - we really love her chest.




My off-season will not be one to be played around with, she says, so don't expect Heidi to be competing anytime soon. Instead, she's already planning her assault on her nationals championships next year. I can see all the areas that need improving, so it's back to the drawing boards for me. I already know what it is I need to work on and improve. The next Nationals will be even more exciting.



Heidi is already, as one fan puts it, "so beautiful, so sexy, and so built", it'll be a joy indeed to follow this amazing woman through that off-season. And far beyond.




Enjoy!

Oh Canada! Jodi Boam

You might not expect Jodi Boam to have too much in common with Janeen Lankowski, but both began as gymnasts who reached national level, both had their gymnastics careers ended by injury, and both consequently took the discipline and dedication they had learned while competing in that sport into fitness.
The same drive for success that served me well for gymnastics has stuck with me, Jodi has said. I won my division at my very first show when I was 19 years old, then the following year, I placed fifth on my very first time hitting the national stage. I knew there was no quitting until I reached the top and in August 2010, at age 23, I earned my pro card. She was, at the time, Canada's youngest IFBB pro.



In 2011, her first year as a pro, she won in Toronto and went to the Olympia. The following year she won in Pittsburgh and again in Toronto and went to the Olympia for the second time. This sport fits my personality so perfectly, she said.



But just as with her gymnastics career, her fitness career was ended by injury. In late 2012, she was practising her moves. I landed crooked and the whole knee just kind of snapped, she says. Despite surgery, three years on the knee had still not recovered to the point where it would be able to withstand the demands of a fitness routine.



In the meantime, Jodi expanded her personal training business, building her own brand, KA-BOAM, with it's very own purpose built "prep house" training facility. According to her website blurb, she can help with everything from your basic weight loss to competition prep, and posing and choreography for your routine. Whatever the goal, I love helping others achieve and succeed, she says.



But though helping others might be one of her passions, her biggest passion remained competition. Being onstage is a ton of fun, and the adrenaline rush is unbelievable! she says. It’s the best possible feeling to hear the crowd, see the judges and know your extreme hard work is paying off. She decided to move into Physique, and nearly three years after her knee injury, she made her WPD debut in Vancouver last year.




We don't have the time to pay too much attention to what's happening in the Fitness division here at FMS - if you'd care to become our Fitness correspondent please get in touch - but when Jodi started adding more muscle to her 5'2" frame after her injury, we couldn't help but sit up and take notice. We first featured her here back in May 2014, stretching the definition of what a T-shirt is to include her in our Ts of the Day series.



What a difference a couple of years' training for Physique has made!



As I was saying to a (virtual) friend the other day, definition goes a long way with me. Sure, Jodi is never going to be the biggest woman in a Physique line-up, but lawdy she comes in in fantastic shape. And Toronto 2016 was no exception. In fact Jodi was probably in her best shape ever, and she looked like she felt she was too.



No wonder some of her peers are prepared to part with their money to have her help them fine tune their physiques in the final weeks of their own prep. And it's not just the conditioning. From the hair and the make-up and the tan to the (still fairly stressful on that knee I would imagine - careful Jodi!) routine, her package was pure class.



She's become a real beauty as well (if I may get all gooey for one last time this week), her younger, elfin-like prettiness blossoming into something altogether more womanly and stunning. She's strong, she's sexy, she runs her own successful business. Quite the role model for your 21st century daughters, and the latest of this fan's favourite Canadian women of iron. AND (have you noticed?) no WPD chest pose for Jodi. For her, in all her tanned, ripped vascular glory, it's the PROPER side chest.



KA-BOAM!


And finally, that 100 Canadian Muscle Goddesses list in full.

Top to bottom and left to right: Dawn Alison, Kim Birtch, Carmen Tocheniuk, CeaAnna Kerr, Michelle Russell, Tatiana Anderson, Mary Lynn MacKenzie, Jen Reece, Emily Zelinka, Melody Spetko, Louise St. Pierre, Roseanne Desmarais (Blackburn) 1975-2010, Astrid Falconi, Jill St. Laurent, Rhonda Lee Quaresma, Carmen Unger, Cassie Liberatore, Debbie Leung, Kat Sartor, Danielle Ruban, Sue Ling Yip, Amelie Bourget, Heather Manuel, Helen Bouchard, Laura Binetti, Wendy Lindquist, Trina Gillis, Sheila Burgess, Autumn Raby, Athena Signakis, Sophie Duquette, Laura Creavalle, Deanna Panting, Amanda Aivaliotis, Sheri McKnight, Steph Park, Jennifer Jewell, Joanne Williams, Maria Mikola, Nicole Ball, Sandra Blackie, Rita Dyutco, Leah Johnson, Tracy Beckham, Laura Carolan, Melissa Bumstead, Jodi Michaels, Nathalee Thompson, Nancy Richard, Nancy Clark, Marnie Holley, Emilija Martic, Johanna Dejager, Cynthia Benoit, Tamara Qureshi, Tananarive McGowan, Macey Boudreau, Marnie Power, Nadia Nardi, Negrita Jayde 1958-2009, Colette Guimond, Kailash Persaud, Pam Howard, Karen Smith, Eleonora Dobrinina, Sharon Mould, Wendy McMaster, Desiree Ellis, Gillian Kovack, Shawn Tan, Fabiola Boulanger, Melissa Coates, Christine Roth, Zoa Linsey, Robin Hillis, Mona Poursaleh, Iris Swatuk, Lisa Arksey, Jody Wald, Cindy Phillips, Shelly Yakimchuk, Melanie Noel, Aleisha Hart, Antonia Grady, Fiona Harris, Michelle Krack, Lisa Bavington, Tara Silzer, Myriam Capes, Jamie Senuk, Joy Nichols, Lisa Giesbrecht, Lyris Cappelle, Azaria Glaim aka Brooke Black, Emmanuelle Ethier, Mindi O'Brien, Sharon Bruneau, Julie Bourassa, Dayana Cadeau, and Cathy Lefrançois.

Thank you Canada!

Oh Canada! Janeen Lankowski

My entire life revolves around fitness, I’ve never known anything else.



She really hasn't. Born in 1974 in Kitchener, Ontario Janeen's parents got her enrolled at a local gymnastics club at the age of 2. She dedicated herself to her sport, trained hard. I won many titles in my early years, she says. Gymnastics showed me a way to success. She was good enough to have realistic expectations of making the Canadian team for the Seoul Olympics, but a training injury prevented her from actually competing at the trials. As a result, she needed to do something different, and she began weight training in her early teens, "playing around with the weights" as she puts it. Eventually I entered a bench press contest at my school and won. And that’s when I realized that I really had a passion for the way the body works.



She went on to obtain Personal Training and Fitness Consulting qualifications at university and to teach Gymnastics for 11 years, after which she decided the time was right for a change. She chose Fitness and began preparing to compete, but once again she was to have her plans thwarted by an accident. A very serious one. With my first show only two weeks away, I was involved in a head-on collision with another car. She sustained severe internal as well as external injuries. Doctors explained that her athletic background had probably saved her life, but recovery was long. Undergoing physiotherapy after the accident, she devised a plan that got her back to training with weights. This time her goal was to get to where she could start training seriously enough to compete. And in September 2003 she entered her first show.



It took about five years for her to reach national level, and it was around the same time that the female muscle lovin' community began to take notice of this "amazing", "very very hot" young bodybuilder from Canada. They raved about her "great big stripey delts", her "mega biceps". Such a fantastic, hugely-muscled physique! wrote one forum poster, reflecting the views of many of the silent majority. I'm just glad to see that pure bodybuilding (no implants, no toning down size) is still alive.



And it was Janeen in roaring contest condition that most impressed us. A REAL female bodybuilder, they called her, again referencing her lack of enhancement in the chest area. Her body looks like a sculpture, a masterpiece! wrote one fan after seeing her at the 2011 IFBB North Americans, the show after which this "masterpiece" turned pro. "A sexy beast", with "absolute power" carrying "raw muscle"... You get the idea.




The brethren were excited, and you might well be feeling quite excited yourself right now, whether you're revisiting these images or seeing them for the first time. But even if you're immune to her charms, make no mistake. Seeing Janeen Lankowski in 2011-12 was, for many fans, like seeing their muscle woman dream come true.




If fans were judges, Janeen would certainly have enjoyed a lot more success than the little she did as a pro bodybuilder. She was 6th in Toronto on her debut and a promising 3rd in Tampa the same year - with only Sarah Hayes and Sheila Bleck beating her, and the likes of Kim Perez, Tazzie Colomb and Debbie Bramwell trailing in her considerable wake. But in 2013 and 2014 she never placed better than 13th in the four shows she graced, and half the time she did not place at all.



But if fans were judges, the majority of female bodybuilding shows would, I guess, have different results. So just because Janeen wasn't getting much love from the judges in 2013-14, there was still plenty coming from her devotees, who continued to heap praise on their "smokin' hot goddess", her terrific pecs", her "back that could stand toe to toe with Iris" (you know what they mean). She's so underrated, reckoned one forum poster. One of my all-time favourites. One of the best physiques ever.



However, towards the end of 2014, Janeen had some news. From 2015 she was going to be competing in Physique. This was not what a lot of fans wanted to hear. But nevertheless, when she turned up for her first WPD show in Orlando, yes, OK, she was smaller than she had been, but saying anyone is smaller than Janeen Lankowski the bodybuilder is never saying much. She still had the shoulders, she still had the pecs, and the back. And she still didn't get much love from the judges. Her highest placing in any Open Physique class remains to this day a lowly 14th at that first show.



But Janeen still had the power to send jaws all the way to the floor. In the lobby I got high watching Janeen Lankowski, one fan who attended the show confessed. The V-shaped back, bulging glutes and monster calves. Another warned would-be audience members to be on their guard should they ever make it to a show. These women will literally drive you insane. I keep forgetting how big some of the Physique women are. In Tampa Janeen was the most impressive in terms of muscle, particularly her broad, deep chest. She looks like she could bench a Mini Cooper.



And this year, as I was looking through the galleries of the New York Pro, admiring Shanique and Asha and all and working my way down the placings, one fine woman after another, I clicked on Janeen's name, and her gallery came up. I was stunned, pure and simple. Here was female muscle at its most thrilling. Its most raw.




I've looked at the images of Janeen from that show over and over since then. And they thrill me every time. Her hands above her head as she prepares to hit her abs and thigh, she's not even flexing and her arms are impossibly thick, showing me her gorgeous muscle pits backed by her thick, wide lats. On her knees, back facing the judges at the start of her routine, her bronzed skin shimmering with oil, the straps of her suit straining to surround those lats, cutting into the muscle almost - as if they could! Lying back on her shoulders, her legs pointing skywards, toes curled, her glutes and thighs so thick and powerful. And the most muscular, her shoulders, arms and chest exploding, a bodybuilder's upper body in everything but name.




You may have wondered where Janeen was in our 100 Canadian Muscle Goddesses on Thursday. Well, I didn't forget her. How could anyone forget her once they've seen her? And here she is, competing as a Bodybuilder, competing in Physique... Whatever. Here she is in all her raw and raging muscular glory.