I will happily post pictures of my muscles, because I'm proud of being a strong girl.
Ellie Goulding has been flexing her bits whenever the opportunity has arisen for a few years now, and as the forum bods have noticed, "she's looking fitter all the time". She appears to take her fitness at least as seriously as she takes her songwriting, and while I'm not such a fan of the latter to be honest, I'm very much into such a properly famous celeb providing an acceptably muscular role model for her female fans.
And you know she's got proper muscles because a) she has proper detractors (who go out of their way to follow her social media to tell her she's "too muscly"), and b) there are not many pop ladies who make the cover of Women's Health and look the part.
I feel like I should recommend the music. Really I do.
Former "Scary" Spice Girl Melanie Brown, whose ripped abs were something of a talking point on the forums - I checked this and you are not going to believe it - eight(!) years ago, still knows her way to the gym. Now Mrs Belafonte Jr. or something, the LA lifestyle clearly suits her. But it will hardly come as a surprise to readers of this blog that it's the "sporty" one who has aged the best. Now 43, Melanie Chisholm does triathlons, still looks great in and out of clothes, and is rightly proud of her physique.
Always liked her best. Obviously.
And, perhaps most importantly, Melanie has never shown any interest at all in taking the reunion tour moolah. She's busy (and rich) enough already, and likes nothing better than "a chilled weekend to get some fitness in". Still my favourite. Obviously.
I have been doing ab exercises since I was 12 in a desperate attempt to lose the elusive (and wrongly named) 'belly fat' that so many stupid teas and websites tell you can be got rid of by drinking their shit/doing a certain exercise. It can't. And I wish someone had told 12-year-old me that! If you want them to seriously show then body fat has to be reduced. The only reason mine are showing so bloody much right now is because of the crazy amount of body fat I had to lose to compete (and I will soon gladly be gaining back!) and the way to do that is WEIGHT TRAINING YOUR WHOLE BODY. I guarantee if you start eating right and weight training rather than abusing the running machine (and yourself) by not eating and only doing abs, then they will begin to show. PLEASE STOP KILLING YOURSELF ON THE TREADMILLS FOR ABS!
Now I can't say Megan Prescott was a name I'd come across before today, but I have to admit that so far, I'm enjoying getting to know the 25-year-old "actress, writer and cool person". Her Instagram is a riot (in a good way), and among many other things charts her journey as a UKBFF Bikini competitor through last year, and tells us that we should watch out for her forthcoming documentary Dumbbells & Donuts.
That journey took her through regional qualifying all the way to 4th place at the UKBFF British championships and a box of those donuts about as big as she is. Megan had to stop training for a while to recover from a neck injury, but the good news is she's back in the gym now, and remains rightly proud of what she achieved last year.
Former party girl (apparently, I'm really not up on these things) and long-time presenter on some of the UK's biggest prime time TV shows (Big Brother etc.), Davina has established her own fitness clothing line, and released her latest (no I don't know how many have come before, many) fitness DVD just in time for Christmas 2016.
Yes, she is more fat burn than muscle build, but those abs look pretty good for a four-time mother who'll be fifty this year. I'm posting all these pics of myself scantily dressed because I want to show you that working out works, she tells her Instagram and (2.8m) Twitter followers. It changed my life and it will change yours.
And just because Davina doesn't pack masses of muscle herself, it doesn't mean she doesn't appreciate women who do. Back end of last year I had the good fortune to notice that one of the guests on Davina's This Time Next Year had promised she would come back "a competitive bodybuilder". Jody Poulter was as good as her word.
Cue all sorts of appreciation from Davina, who whipped the crowd into a veritable frenzy over Jody's bod, and could barely keep her hands off her muscles, or stop getting her to flex them. Or at least that's how I remember that bit of the show going...
Yes, I need some posts I can do quickly as I begin the task of compiling your 2017 Hot and Hard 100, and yes, these are not going to be the most muscular women you'll ever see on the blog but - serious point - famous women, very much in the mainstream, proudly displaying the fruits of their sweaty workouts is A VERY GOOD THING.
And we begin with a woman who has featured (briefly) on the blog before and the only celebrity muscle woman who actually got a Hot and Hard 100 vote - sorry mate, she didn't make the list - actress and heavy lifting advocate Gemma Atkinson.
Gemma sez: Ladies! Don't forget to work your back! It's an area often neglected. I train mine twice a week, my favourite exercise being seated row. Great for posture, plus it's always nice to see your results in those vest tops and backless dresses...
Most recently seen (great posture and all) in action in January in Cape Verde (celeb life, eh?) where the weights on the beach are, it seems, not small. At least not the ones Gemma chooses to work with. Lots more of this Mancunian Gem on her Instagram.
Enjoy!
For Aiden - again, commiserations my friend. You tried.
Around the World is an occasional series celebrating the female bodybuilders of a particular country, and examining any issues peculiar to muscle women there.
And one sure sign that that is happening came when Elle India featured seven "muscular women" in their May issue, announcing they were "overthrowing every feminine stereotype". Being strong is sexy, it’s empowering, claimed 23-year-old yoga instructor Natasha Noel (above left) in the article, while personal trainer and gym manager Nilparna Sen (above right) confessed that when I saw my bicep pumping for the first time, I wondered why I had ever wanted to be skinny.
The other five women included a nutritionist, a former athlete who now uses social media to change the way Indian women think about exercise, a Bikini competitor, and a make-up artist who is working towards her first Bikini competition.
And, there was MTV presenter and film actress Gurbani Judge, aka Bani J.
Of the women featured in the article, Bani had not only the best abs, but was also the most famous, the most high profile woman. Unsurprisingly then, after the issue in question had come out, it was Bani's body, Bani's muscles, that was the focus of most of the negative comments. Her response was nothing short of heroic.
I have drool-worthy abs and a muscular body by choice, and that has put me at the receiving end of so much body shaming, it’s unbelievable. India puts too much emphasis on a certain kind of a body. For a woman, thin is supposed to be good, and if there’s any deviation she hears no end of it.
Her counter-attack made quite an impression on the Indian media as far as I can tell. Before long, editorials were being written about what young women can learn from Bani's attitude and lifestyle, and how Indians more generally should start celebrating their very own strong women rather than trying to make them conform.
Whether by accident or design, Bani has suddenly become a bit of a figurehead, a spokeswoman. Fortunately, she plays that particular role rather well.
I always fight for what’s right; I don’t take anything lying down. And I wanted to be a strong person, both mentally and physically. What if I’m a woman and I have muscles? My plan was to unlock my strength - physical and mental and I am sticking to it. I love to work out. I am passionate about it. It gives me happiness, makes me feel secure and has netted me a body like no woman I know.
And while all this has been going on, back before Bani became the leader of the Indian muscle women pack, before the Elle India article, and even before FMS had brought you Ashwini Waskar and Shweta Rathore last year, one remarkable Indian woman had just got on a plane and gone and competed and won NPC Figure contests in both 2014 and 2015. She'd been so successful in fact that the IFBB had awarded her a pro card, and in May this year she made her professional Figure debut in New York.
Meet Deepika Chowdhury, India's first female IFBB pro.
Just a few years ago Deepika was doing research in molecular biology, and treating her fitness as a hobby. It's been an incredible three years, she said in an interview published earlier this year. I was doing some weights back in 2012, and around that time I visited the Sheru Classic and saw some of the best bodybuilders in the world and then I heard of the Figure category, which didn't and doesn't exist in India.
She spent 2013 preparing herself, and then took a deep breath and booked her passage to the US to compete at the NPC Battle on the Beach in Florida. It was March 29th 2014. It was a major risk of course, she says. It’s the US, and the ticket and stay aren't cheap at all, but when they announced my name as the winner, it was all worth it.
She returned to the US in 2015 and won the NPC Fort Lauderdale Cup. Then she won again at the NPC Steve Stone Metropolitan and then again at the NPC Atlantic States. Victory at the NPC Eastern USA Championships - where she left the stage to a standing ovation, apparently - gave her an amateur record of 5 contests, 5 overall wins.
Coached by Figure pro Gennifer Strobo, Deepika is now working on creating her own fitness brand and planning her route to becoming India's first ever female Olympian. But she has by no means turned her back on her own country, and is busy leading her own seminars to promote the fitness lifestyle to Indian women young and old.
Indian women are the most hard-working in the world, she says. Our success on the sporting front is a natural progression. However, we must not let negative factors and self-doubt distract us from our goals. Indian bodybuilding has been doing well of late, and I hope this will be a spur to female bodybuilders. The number currently in the country is between 10 and 20, but it is increasing. We have to take the responsibility to do well, so that people can see us and get motivated.
Here's RxMuscle's 2015 training vid and interview with her.
