FBBMTV

You might not have otherwise given the song much attention, but when female muscle features in music videos it's difficult not to leave your personal tastes aside and get excited. One day, a better man than me is going to make an exhaustive list of every example of FBBMTV, but for today I've picked four of my own favourite examples.

CAROLYN CHESHIRE in Pump It Up by Melle Mel



DOROTHY HERNDON in Reach by Martini Ranch



Shall we have a little break?

Spot the female muscle superstar burning up the screen in this gem.



Back to the music.

MARTHE SUNDBY in Sing (The Night Is Still Young) by Camp Sounds



JILL RUDISON in Baby Blue by Action Bronson feat. Chance the Rapper

A History of FBBUK @Ms Olympia

Let's begin with a question.

How many British female bodybuilders have graced the Olympia stage?

I posed myself the same question before I began to research the post. Having made my own list, which included only the most obvious candidates - Andrulla Blanchette (of course!), Gayle Moher, Carolyn Cheshire, Paula Bircumshaw, and Joanna Thomas I was sure about. And I reckoned Joanne Lee must have competed. Reasoning that the lack of names on my list was probably due to my own ignorance rather than the fact that only these six women had represented my country in the 35 years of the Ms Olympia, I was absolutely convinced that I would find more.

I did. But only TWO.

The answer to the question, then, is eight. And here are ALL of them.

Ladies and Gentlemen, FMS proudly presents...

BRITAIN'S OLYMPIAN WOMEN




CAROLYN CHESHIRE 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984 & 1985



The very first female bodybuilder I ever laid eyes on, and the sole British woman to appear at the very first Ms Olympia in 1980. Her best finish was 7th in her fourth appearance in 1983. No other British woman has more Olympia appearances than Carolyn, and it wouldn't be until eight years after her sixth and final appearance that the second British woman to compete at the Olympia stepped onto the stage. Such facts kind of put the magnitude of Carolyn's achievements into perspective, don't they?



You can watch Carolyn posing at the 1981 World Championships on You Tube, and those of you with time on your hands might like to play the 'Spot Carolyn Cheshire in Pumping Iron II' game. A 'like new' copy of her book, Body Chic, is still available to buy on ebay, and as of about two years ago she was still offering personal training via her delightfully old school website. And while we're on the subject of 'old skool'...


And, like the proverbial London bus, you wait eight years for a British female bodybuilder to appear at the Ms Olympia, then THREE come along at once!

1993

KIMBERLEY-ANNE JONES



If you were in Britain in the late '80s and early '90s, you were aware of Kimberley-Ann Jones, even if you didn't know her name. If, like me, you did know her name then you probably also enjoyed walking past the VW and Virgin ads on billboards, at bus stops, tube stations and so on. Then there was her video, On the Wild Side, with her chained up and in sort of bondage gear on the cover (some years before Muscle Elegance began). For a while, my route to work took me past her Catford gym, Skyline, my femuscle radar always set to maximum as I went by (I never saw her). She retired the year after this one and only Ms Olympia appearance and, as far as I know, still has the gym and is still looking as good (if not better) than she was 20 years ago.




LORETTA LOMAX



Loretta Lomax is almost certainly the least well-known of Britain's Olympians. From, I believe, the North-West of England, her late '80s to early '90s career was relatively short. She did compete at the Jan Tana in 1992 and 1993 as well as at the Olympia, although her best international showing was at the 1991 IFBB Italian Grand Prix - those were the days, IFBB pro female bodybuilding in Europe! - where she finished 5th, ahead of Debbie McKnight, Sandra Blackie and Janet Tech.



Like Andrulla Blanchette, Loretta was a martial artist before she was a bodybuilder. Apparently, she was a second grade black belt in karate, and in this guest posing routine from 1991, her athleticism, balance and flexibility are clearly evident. Watch and you'll no doubt end up, as I did, wishing that there was more (much more) of Loretta around for us to enjoy and remember her by. A very VERY sexy lady.



Watch a shorter guest posing clip here.


PAULA BIRCUMSHAW



Is it a disadvantage to be the last to present your routine? asks the male commentator on my copy of the 1993 Ms Olympia evening show. Not if you have a package like Paula Bircumshaw, replies co-commentator Carla Dunlap. Trouble is, Paula was presenting her undeniably awesome package at a time when judges seemed obsessed with rewarding the so-called "more feminine look". A couple of years earlier Paula had finished 4th at the Jan Tana, but after the debacle at the 1992 Ms International (see FMS passim), she never placed in the top 10 at an IFBB pro show again.



If she had been competing at any time in the last ten or fifteen years it's not inconceivable that Paula would have been challenging Yaxeni, Iris et al for the top titles. She was, unfortunately, a victim of the prevailing IFBB climate, but her place as a fan favourite remains as firm as ever 20 years after she hung up her posing suit. Class, it seems, is permanently remembered. And better still, you'll be pleased to know that these days, Paula's winning competitons - even if it is on horseback - check it out!


Sadly, none of these British female bodybuilders at the Ms Olympia in 1993 ever competed at the contest again, but the period 1995 to 2001 was something of a golden age for UK female muscle, at least as far as the Ms O was concerned. With British women competing at every Olympia during that period, this golden age culminated with Andrulla Blanchette's win in 2000 and, in 2001, the second (and so far only other) occasion when three FBBs from the UK competed together at the show.

GOLDEN YEARS



JOANNE LEE 1995 & 1996

At 14, she was a county level athlete, encouraged to train with weights to strengthen her legs. Three years later she was competing as a bodybuilder. People ask me 'what did you look like before you started training' and the truth is I really don’t know, I’ve always trained. One of the blessings of my life is that I started so young, she says. Young enough to have turned pro in her 20s, competed for a few years at the highest level, and retired at the age of 30. Age will not wither her and all that!



Now Joanne is a sought-after personal trainer working out of the "Mecca" that is Gold's Gym in Venice, California. She is known for her nutritional expertise. My work changes lives, she says. For the last 20 years I have walked the walk and lived the program that I am proud to promote today. And Joanne is the best advert for that program, looking better than women half her age, though still not nearly as jaw-dropping as she did at her most muscular peak, we think you'll agree...




ANDRULLA BLANCHETTE 1996-2001, MS OLYMPIA 2000



Hackney's greatest export and Britain's one and only Ms Olympia started training in the mid-80s as a means to improve her strength as a judoka. It was, apparently, obvious from the get-go that she had exceptional strength, and this enabled her body to develop so prodigiously that within a year she was the British Junior champion, and within three she was competing at European and World level. She turned pro in the early 1993 after winning her class (lightweight) at the World Games, and competed at the Ms International four times and at 6 Ms Olympias - equalling Carolyn Cheshire's number of appearances, but far surpassing Carolyn in terms of placings.



As much as Paula Bircumshaw was unfortunate to have been competing when she was, Andrulla had the good fortune to have been reaching her absolute peak just when weight clases were introduced. Consider this: at the 1999 Olympia she finished 7th, with 5 of the top 6 all giants (Chizevsky, Gates etc.). A year later, when Valentina Chepiga was crowned Heavyweight champ, Andrulla beat Brenda Raganot, Renee Casella, Cathy Le François and Jennifer McVicar to win the Lightweight title. It was the only occasion there was no overall posedown for the title. Would she have beaten Valentina? Maybe, maybe not. The point is, she didn't have to.



So, our only Ms Olympia was, in many respects, more than a touch lucky, but I don't want you to be in any doubt that I absolutely lurved (and still absolutely lurve) Andrulla. Look for a flaw in her magnificently muscled physique, and you'll be looking forever. Try to find a posing routine of hers that isn't artistic, powerful, unrelentingly sexy, and totally and utterly captivating - you'll never find one. She had it all, and quite simply was, and, for me at least, remains, the best of British. Our Queen!



There's plenty of Andrulla on You Tube, but sadly only one or two of her routines, and only one which is taken from the Olympia, and this one has no sound. But fear not, you can pay full tribute to the Queen thanks to Ozzy's Female Muscle blog! Andrulla's 1997 Ms O routine - with sound - AND Ozzy's own inimitable description of its effects on his younger self. I'm sure you will be able to relate to it, especially if you are, like me and Ozzy, of the female muscle on VHS generation. Ah, the memories!!!


GAYLE MOHER 1997, 1998, 1999, 2001 & 2006



And at the same time as Andrulla was peaking towards Ms Olympia immortality, the most successful British professional female bodybuilder ever had emerged from the East of England to take top placings in US shows such as the Jan Tana: Gayle Moher.



Where Andrulla had been all frentic, funky and raw animal power, Gayle's posing had a much slower, more poised, almost balletic grace to it. And, generally speaking, it was a style the judges of the era liked. But her long and successful career was possible only because she effectively adopted the US as her home (and as far as I know she still does live in Arizona). By moving across the Atlantic she was able to compete so much more regularly than any British woman had before (or has since). But I'm not judging her success solely on the quantity of pro shows she entered. Between 2000 and 2005 she competed in 15 pro shows and never once finished outside the top 5, a record unrivalled by only a handful of other FBBs of the period from any country.




JOANNA THOMAS 2001, 2004



And so we come to the last of our British Olympians (the last to make her debut, anyway, if not the last to compete at the Big Show). If you've seen it, you will probably never forget Joanna Thomas' 2004 Barbie Girl routine (why would you want to?). And if you haven't, you should probably watch it right now (click here!!!).



An asthmatic child, Joanna became interested in bodybuilding as a teenager, and at 22 was the EFBB British champion. A few years later and she had a pro card, and was finishing 10th in the lightweight class at the Ms Olympia. Like Gayle Moher, she decamped to the USA and stayed, using those Barbie Girl assets to become one of the most photographed female bodybuilders in the world over the next few years. That routine you have just (re)watched helped to earn her a fourth place Olympia finish in what must be the highest quality lightweight field ever. It proved to be the high point of a pro career that promised much, but never quite got there. Like Paula Bircumshaw, she was in the right place but at the wrong time, a 5'3" FBB reaching her peak just as the weight classes disappeared from competition. 2004 was her second and most successful appearance at the Olympia, but also, sadly, it was her last.




So, the 2014 Ms Olympia will mark the eighth year since Gayle Moher's last appearance there in 2006, the longest period without British participation since the contest began in 1980. And it's not getting any easier for UK female bodybuilders to make it there. Gone are the IFBB shows held outside the USA that qualified winners for the Big Show, meaning that British women with Olympian dreams have to travel to the States to compete in the handful of pro shows there. In 2014, apart from Lisa Cross (who made her pro debut in Tampa), only Wendy McCready made the trip, achieving a creditable 8th place finish in Toronto and an even better 6th place in Omaha, neither of these placings gaining her a single Olympia qualification point.

I hope I'm wrong, but it seems to me that despite Wendy's Olympian efforts, it's highly unlikely that this very exclusive eight-woman club of British female bodybuilders will be getting a new member any time soon unless they are prepared to follow the Moher-Thomas blueprint of, to all intents and purposes, 'becoming' American. It's a sad thought, but one which makes all of these eight British Olympians seem even more special and worthy of remembering. National treasures, every one of them.

FMS vs Ryan Takahashi: The Conversation I

Today, Female Muscle Slave and The Adventures of Ryan Takahashi are posting, simultaneously, the first of a series of Q&A 'conversations' had between the authors which explore different aspects of our mutual love of female muscle...

So, I guess we should begin at the beginning. Who was your first female bodybuilder? And how did you react?

FMS: For me it was Carolyn Cheshire. She was the first female bodybuilder I ever saw. I must have been 13 or 14 maybe – it’s funny I really can’t remember exactly when it was, but I can recall every detail of ‘the experience’! Carolyn was making an appearance on a popular science show, a show I watched every week just out of interest (and in those days we had only 3 or 4 channels in the UK, so there wasn’t much choice). So, I’m watching as usual and this week it’s about how muscles work or something, and suddenly it’s ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, Carolyn Cheshire…’



She comes onto the set through the audience in an orange posing suit, and I was immediately – and I MEAN immediately – transfixed. I remember how bronzed she was, tanned to absolute perfection and glistening with oil. And she had muscles. And she clearly liked her muscles because she didn’t stop flexing them until the applause died down and the presenter introduced her properly. And after the introduction, she did a lot more flexing.



How did I react? Well, let’s just say Carolyn was by far the most ‘exciting’ woman I had ever seen. I was 100% excited, yeah. She was beautiful, glamorous in a kind of American (ie. exotic!) way, and she radiated vitality and, above all, confidence. And I had never seen a woman with a body like hers. So strong, and so so sexy. Definitely ‘not normal’. But she was showing it off, pretty much all of it, in a studio full of strangers - not to mention the whole country’s living rooms – with total self-assurance.



My excitement quickly turned to utter intoxication. I hear my heart pounding. I feel the throb between my legs. I get a huge rush of adrenaline. And even if I wanted to, I couldn’t stop watching her. I can’t stop looking at her muscles. For the first time, I was feeling what I call ‘The Madness’.

RT: My first ever memory of seeing a female bodybuilder was opening up the 1999 issue of the Guinness Book of World Records and seeing a full color photo of Cory Everson. The picture wasn’t the most sexually appealing of her because it was a contest photo, but that image just burned into my 12-year-old memory. She looked freakish, unhuman and completely different from any woman I’d ever seen before. Like all pre-teen boys, traditional underwear and bikini models – in all their bony, skinny glory – caught my attention. But Cory Everson totally altered my paradigm. My perspective of the aesthetic diversity available within the human female form radically changed for good.

My reaction was a mixture of awe and mild disgust. Her oiled physique, bulging muscles and vascular body slightly repulsed me because I’d never seen anything like that before. But my eyes could not turn away. I intrinsically knew that although I didn’t exactly find her “attractive” in the traditional sense, I knew I had stumbled upon something special, something that would make me look at women differently. I always found myself sneaking peeks from that book and looking at that photo years and years later. There was something about Ms. Everson that burned into my mind. Her body was grotesque, but so damn appealing. Today, I don’t find bodies like that gross anymore. Of course not! But at a very tender pubescent age, my hormone-charged brain struggled to process the unique sexuality Ms. Everson exuded from that singular image.

What is your favorite female muscle-related fantasy? And why do you think you find this so appealing?

RT: Like most female muscle fans, we have many fantasies about our lovely ladies. For me personally, my favorite consists of me and a small army of strong female muscle warriors fighting alongside (in either a post-apocalyptic world or a nondescript medieval kingdom) against a vicious enemy. This enemy could be zombies, other muscular warriors (both male and female), interplanetary space aliens, killer cyborgs attempting to take over the world, dinosaurs, etc. The exact circumstances change, but I can’t stop fantasizing about me and my legion of gorgeous muscular Amazons battling in action.



Many men who love strong women have fantasies related to domination and submission. Not me. While I don’t knock that sort of thing as being “ridiculous” or “just not my thing,” my personal female muscle fantasies don’t have anything to do with me being dominated or me doing the dominating. Instead, I value these strong women as allies and, more or less, equals. Besides, after a long, epic battle to save the human race from total destruction, how else will I and my hundreds of beautiful Amazonian warriors pass the time?



I’ll let you fill in the rest! But rest assured, it would be pretty amazing!

FMS: I'm going to seem like the smart arse who gets granted a wish by the genie and his first wish is to have an unlimited number of wishes! I totally agree about having a lot of fantasies, and I guess my favourite fantasy is I get to have them all, simple as that.



I want to be a muscle woman's man. The whole thing. Train with her, eat with her, just be with her.



And the sex. Yes, I imagine, I fantasise there would be a lot of it. In my mind muscle women are the horniest women alive. So there would be more than I've ever had with any other woman I've known, and I have had a bit. There would be a lot more in fact. Yes, of course I want to worship her, to submit to her, but not only that. She's a woman, sometimes she'll want me to be a man, to be dominant and strong with her too. All in all, I want us to explore both our sexualities as fully as possible.



I want her to compete, so I get the whole contest prep deal too, watching her body change, the muscles emerging as she diets, watching her get more defined, more perfect every day. I want to be there for her, through that incredibly demanding process. And I want to be there to witness her moment in the spotlight. Give her all the help she needs, be it practical, emotional or anything else. And when she's got herself that trophy, I want to give her a night worthy of her achievements, a night to remember.



When we're out in public, I'd watch people react to her. I'd defend her if they were rude, but mostly I'd revel in the admiration they gave MY hot and sexy muscle woman.



I'm greedy, I want it all. Holidays, body hair, mood swings, aggression, self-doubt, self-love, sweat, the chicken breasts, the protein shake farts, watching her muscles swell, feeling her muscles swell, massages, the things in the fridge that are not legal, the single-minded determination...

And best of all would be if I was her man BEFORE she got into it. And you might have read on my blog that the wife IS getting into lifting. Lately I've been pinching myself to check it's really happening. Suddenly, I'm faced with the prospect that (at least some of) my fantasy is actually happening!

to be continued...

What's your answer to the above questions? Comment below if you care to share. Or perhaps you have a question you would like to pose the authors? Again, comment box below or email either 6ft1swell@gmail.com or ryantakahashi87@yahoo.com and we'll be sure to discuss it in future installments of the conversation.