Every day this week, one of the women who competed in one of the Toned or Trained Figure classes at the NABBA Universe in Birmingham, UK, on October 29th. And from the NPC Nationals in Miami the following weekend, every day we'll enjoy one of the Female Bodybuilders or Women's Physique competitors, all trying to win their IFBB pro cards remember, taken from among the four classes in each division. I'm not trying to compare and contrast the women or federations, or make any points here, I just thought it would be a bit different. And it gives us the best of both worlds too. While footage of the NABBA ladies' routines is plentiful, there are few pics. From the NPC Nationals the reverse is true. Little video, many pics. So, by doing it this way we get to enjoy some muscles in motion, as well as a selection of contest photos.
We've been admiring Cinara - her ripped (and often twitching) glutes, and more recently that incredible pair of thighs - on FMS ever since she made her international NABBA bow in 2013. In Birmingham, for the second year in a row, the 2015 NABBA Ms World won her class but lost out to the class I winner in the overall posedown.
A week after the Universe though, happier news for Cinara at the WFF Worlds in Dublin, where she was crowned Ms "Superbody" (and awarded her WFF International pro card - whatever that is worth to her!). Watch the above routine from a slightly different angle here, and follow Cinara's glute-tastic adventures on Instagram.
And from Miami, a woman FMS introduced to readers just last month...
SUHA QASEM 2nd, Physique A
"Peakfection" was how one reader described Suha's amazing bicep when FMS featured her (see Peaks Week: Split Star), and their incredible shape was once again much in evidence as she took to the stage at the Nationals. Suha didn't win her class, but as runner-up did secure her pro card, and was very happy about it. Only the best go pro, she said (modestly!) afterwards. Earned, not given. More reward to come.
Less than two weeks before the show though, Suha suffered a head injury fighting off an attacker. He may now regret his choice of "victim". Suha defended herself so successfully in fact that she was "almost" arrested by the NYPD as a result. I took that SON OF A BITCH down to the ground! Yeah I got a bump on the head,she told her Instagram followers. But you should have seen his face! Blood everywhere!!!
The first of two clip-packed posts this week and the first of a few that focus on contests - Theresa at the NPC Nationals is one (I may have mentioned that before) and the other, well, the other is a surprise - takes us to what you might call the spiritual home of British amateur bodybuilding, Southport in Lancashire, for our annual overload of shredded female muscle in thongtastic posing suits. Yes, it's the NABBA Universe.
Toned Figure, Winner ALEX LARKIN (UK)
Alex is new to the blog, and new to me, but of course that doesn't mean she hasn't been up to much until now. She is, for example, the reigning NABBA Ms North-east and Ms England in her category, and she also finished runner-up this year at NABBA Britain.
And found time to get up close and personal with Kizzy Vaines on a bike.
Alex hails from West Yorkshire and trains at the same gym as another NABBA star we've featured on FMS before, Sally Knights. She only started competing last year - you can see her (ridiculously sexy) routine from her first show, the Open Yorkshire Classic, here - so winning so many titles in such a short space of time is quite something. And she was rightly proud. I competed against 17 other girls from 26 countries worldwide to come out on top!!! she gushed to her Instagram followers shortly after the show. I can't describe how I feel about this achievement.
Her friend and fellow pizza and peanut butter lover Natalie McKenna was runner-up, and Korean An Bokyung came third (click on their names for their routines). Alex is the third consecutive British NABBA Ms Universe in Toned Figure after Nicola Bentham (2012 and 2013) and Charlotte MacGill. And if you should fancy seeing a bit of Alex training her lovely bum, well, I know where you can find it - here.
Congratulations to our British winner!
Trained Figure
Class 2, 3rd SARAH MURA (UK)
Now here is a lady we've met before on FMS, Ms NABBA Britain Sarah Mura, who finished 3rd in the shorter of the two Trained Figure classes at her first Universe.
And damn was she looking good backstage.
Sarah, right, with someone vaguely familiar
And far from shabby once that tight little grey number had come off and it was time to get those glorious glutes onto the stage. Currenly enjoying a well-earned holiday in the sun with her beau, Sarah confirmed her status as one of Britian's most exciting NABBA athletes here - and her choice of backstage company hasn't changed my mind about what I wrote about her in July, either: You suspect Sarah has a cheekier, racier, side than most. She is, for one thing, sponsored by the same supplements company as Lisa Cross, and if some of the posts on her Instagram ("sarahsynthol") are anything to go by, she has a similar outlook on muscle and sex as Britain's naughtiest.
Gentlemen, betting on this year's Rear of the Year has been closed.
Class 1, Runner-up LINDA CASSIDY (UK)
Linda Cassidy gave the crowd a routine to remember and threatened our collective heart rates this time last year when she was finishing 5th in the taller Trained Figure class. And again this year County Down's funkiest Amazon gave another full body performance in a similarly minimal posing suit. No health warning was issued, but everyone seems to have survived, and Linda took home the runners-up trophy.
It's not always an easy task to find pictures of the NABBA ladies. Linda's on Facebook, but it's very much a page where she dishes out advice and motivational quotes to her personal training clientele rather than a page where there are pictures of herself and her lovely muscular body. If it were, you'd be looking at one right now.
Sarah and Linda were the top Brits, but before we move on to the winners, here are the rest of the ladies who finished in the top 6 in the two Trained Figure categories.
As above, just click on the ladies' names to view their routines at your leisure.
Trained Figure II (short): 2nd, NABBA legend Flora Conte (Italy); Sarah Mura in 3rd we've seen. Sadly the routines of Olga Permina (Russia, 4th), Mechelle Ihnat (UK, 5th), and, another Brit, Lindsey Angel (6th), aren't up yet, though you can see all the competitors in the class doing their thing in the comparison round here.
Class 2, Winner CINARA POLIDO (Brazil)
3rd in 2013 and runner-up last year, Brazil's reigning NABBA World champ Cinara Polido added the Ms Universe title to her collection here, and was well worth her win.
Cinara's incredible transformation, and many many more pictures of this Brazilian NABBA goddess, can be enjoyed further on her Facebook and/or Instagram pages.
Class 1, Winner & Overall Figure Ms Universe DARIA DIOSSI (Russia)
It's been quite a few months for the very un-Russian sounding Daria Diossi.
First, she won the NABBA Latvia-Lithuania Open (above), and then went on to claim the WFF Universe Superbody title. And since then, she's not only added the NABBA Universe to her rapidly growing collection, but also the WFF World title as well!
Daria with her WFF World trophy and tiara
Here's 7 magnificent minutes of footage of this stunningly beautiful woman performing her routine, winning her class, and finally outmuscling Cinara in the overall posedown.
More Daria? She's on Instagram, and you can see her WFF Universe routine here.
Time to bow down again. The Queen of Quads and the Bringer of Quadgasms dresses up in her "official" costume for our penultimate day of quadtastic Rolling Thunder...
(KNOCKIN' ME OUT WITH THOSE) BRAZILIAN THIGHS
1. LUCIANA ANDRADE
From the archive, Rio's fondly-remembered Luciana Andrade and her Brazilian thunder thighs. It wasn't that long ago that Luciana was on our screens and in our female muscle lovin' heads, but they were very different times - and I'm not talking about download speeds or clip resolutions. In Brazil, Luciana said at the peak of her fame, there is not much opportunity for female bodybuilders to get sponsors. And as a result, like other Brazilian muscle pioneers such as Monica Martin and Larissa Reis, she made her home in the USA. It's indicative of the extent of the rise of Brazilian female muscle that this would cerainly not be a necessary career move these days.
CLOSE-UPs
MARIA LUISA BAEZA DIAZ
Now I'm not the biggest fan of the Figure, but when I get to the time to sit down and watch the best the division has to offer strut their stuff, I'm always impressed by just how much muscle these women actually carry, not least Chile's (as far as I know only) Olympian, Maria Luisa. Watch her in action at this year's Olympia here - she's up first after the black screen at about 1.50. Sadly her walk-on, which is kind of the best bit for appreciating her thighs, is missing, but luckily you can appreciate Maria Luisa (and her thighs) from all kinds of angles in this Violate the Dress Code photo shoot clip.
REMEMBER MY NAME!
VICTORIA QUADROS
Now I did know that there are Iniut tribes who name their children according to their characteristics as an infant, but I didn't know it happened in Brazil too! Quadros. And it's not (as far as I can ascertain) a nom de fer, either, but her real surname. Sticking it through Google Translate, I was disappointed to find that it doesn't actually mean "girl with enormous quadriceps", but "pictures", "paintings", "frames" or "tables" (like cuadros in Spanish). But as languages are constantly evolving, who's to say what quadros might mean when this thigh phenomenon is finished with her evolution?!
Victoria's only 20 now, so there's plenty of evolution to come. And you can follow the most aptly-named woman in Porto Alegre on her Facebook and/or Instagram.
THIGHLIGHT
EMMA SUE
The forgotten beautiful beefcake of British female muscle, Emma Sue only competed twice as a pro after winning the (then) EBBF Championships in 1999. Those were the days! Jaw-droppingly huge women everywhere, and British female bodybuilders could get their pro cards by winning their national title. She was last seen at the NY Pro in 2010 (below), and you can watch her routine from that show with commentary by her sister - who, among other things, puts Emma's funkiness down to the fact that "she goes clubbing with her daughter all the time". Imagine walking into a club and finding Emma throwing shapes on the dancefloor... Maybe I should resurrect my DJing career!
But those gorgeous muscles weren't just for show on the stage and the dance floor though, as this clip of Emma shoulder pressing 100kg on each side demonstrates, she was a seriously super strong British Amazon. And there's quite a bit more of Emma in action on her YouTube page, and she's also on Facebook, updated (for the first time in two years) at the end of September with a request for info as to where she could find "that perfect warehouse" in South London in order to open a gym. Which kind of makes me think I should probably move back to South London with my dusted off decks...
CHLOE SANNITO
Chloe Sannito is going to be a competitor to watch in the NPC Figure Division, Physique Posing reckoned in April 2014. Leg development in any physique sport is the determinant of the best conditioning, the hardest worker, the one paying attention to the details. Chloe Sannito had the best legs I’d seen all summer, they added. And at the time of the show they were talking about, Chloe was just 17! By the end of the night, the buzz was all about Chloe Sannito, "the teen figure girl". Chloe's 19 now, still a teenage Figure phenomemon, and the buzz shows no sign of dying down.
Those thighs ain't getting any smaller. And nor is the rest of her!
(KNOCKIN' ME OUT WITH THOSE) BRAZILIAN THIGHS
2. CINARA POLIDO
Who am I? asks Cinara on her latest blog post. She calls herself a "Sports Consultant", an expert in the preparation of athletes for bodybuilding shows and in nutrition and training "for any purpose". She began weight training herself in 2000, and first competed in 2008. After a two-year break she competed again, and the last couple of years have seen her achieve spectacular results. In fact, since winning the NABBA Brazil title in 2013, she hasn't ever finished outside the top 3 in an international NABBA show, and is the reigning NABBA World Trained Figure (ie. Physique) champion.
On FMS passim, we've tended to get hypnotised by another part of Cinara's lower body, her spectacular glutes, but revisiting those clips now, it's hard to believe we missed how equally spectacular her thighs are. Marvel at how they come to life when she flexes down on them, each individual muscle rippling in glorious definition.
Now there might not be any beating "Quadros" as a name for a Brazilian female bodybuilder, but as I had the page open, I couldn't resist running polido through it as well. And the translation (would you believe?) is "polished". She's Ms Polished. Pretty apt as well I think you will agree, because "polished" is exactly how Cinara has looked every single time I've had the fortune to watch one of her NABBA performances.
And I expect we will next see Cinara at the NABBA Universe at the end of October, and I certainly wouldn't bet against Ms Polished adding that title to her World crown.
QUADS IN MOTION
And we leave you today, shakin' all over, with Brigita...
We've become rather enamoured by Cinara Polido over the last couple of years here at FMS, particularly by those twitching glutes of hers, so we were very pleased to see her take the NABBA Ms Figure World title on 20th June. She was 3rd at the 2013 NABBA Universe and 2014 NABBA Worlds, and runner-up at last year's Universe, so this is, as far as I know, her first international title - and very well-deserved it is too.
Here's her (brief, but thongtastic) routine from the show in Malta.
No, not another post about the World Cup (funnily enough I don't want to talk about that anymore!), but news and tubes from the 2014 NABBA Worlds, which was held in Belfast on 7th June, and where Brazilians triumphed in all three of the women's classes.
In Toned Figure (roughly the NABBA equivalent of NPC Figure) there were two Brazilians in the top 6, including the winner, Caroline Crozeta.
In 31 World Championships with the Toned Figure category, the only Brazilians to win the world title have been the beautiful Maite Bueno and... Carol Crozeta! she wrote on her Facebook page, proudly displaying her trophy. I'm the second athlete from Brazil to bring the trophy to us!!! And this was her first international contest, too.
If you are feeling generous and loaded, or know someone who is, Carol is currently looking for sponsorship so she can compete at the NABBA Universe in October.
In the taller of the two Trained Figure (equivalent Physique) classes, Brazilians made up three of the top four finishers. 2013 NABBA Miss Universe Carol Bittencourt finished 4th on this occasion, with Tereza Augusta in 3rd place.
It was the less experienced Regiane Moreira who won the class, despite (or perhaps because of) the technical problem during her individual routine...
And in the shorter Trained Figure class, it was a 1-2-3 for the Brazilians.
In 3rd, the very beautiful Cinara Polido, an FMS favourite from last year's NABBA Universe, when, you may recall, we were utterly hypnotised by her twitching glutes.
No involuntary muscle contractions this time, but we're hypnotised nonetheless...
Check out Cinara's incredible transformation on her website.
For my money the most ripped woman in the entire show, Brazilian NABBA royalty Dora Rodrigues rolled her abs and flexed her wonderfully striated legs and bum into second place in the class wearing a posing suit in the Brazilian national colours...
Now 33, Dora has been training (for the love of it, never forget the first A in NABBA is for "Amateur") for 19 years. She was crowned Overall NABBA Miss World as long ago as 2008, and won the Overall Miss Universe title the following year.
And it was Auren Malvestiti, last year's NABBA Universe runner-up, who won both the shorter Trained Figure class and took home the title of Overall NABBA Miss World.
After her victory thanked her followers on Facebook: Guys!!! I'm bit by bit writing and thanking everyone who wrote to me and cheered for me! Every word, every strength, every gesture of encouragement from you took me to the highest place on the podium! What's worse is that I cry a little bit every message I read... it's kind of funny! Though I'm away, I feel embraced and welcomed with every message I get. Thank you from my heart. Brazil! I'm coming back with the title for my beloved country!
The NABBA Miss Universe, the oldest female bodybuilding contest of all, was held for the 47th time last month at its usual venue, the Southport Theatre and Convention Centre in Merseyside. Though there has been no 'Bodybuilding' (called 'Physique' in NABBA jargon) Miss Universe since Valentina Yefymchuk was crowned in 2010, there are two 'Trained Figure' (ie. 'Physique' in an IFBB contest) classes, and one 'Toned Figure' (equivalent to IFBB 'Figure') class. So there's absolutely no shortage of quality female muscle to enjoy, and all presented in the thongtastic style that is, for me anyway, a large part of what gives the women of NABBA their enduring appeal.
The Toned Figure class was won by Britian's own Nicola Bentham for the second consecutive year (she also won the NABBA Worlds title in 2012). As we've mentioned before on FMS, it can be a frustrating job trying to find information about NABBA competitors, and this is most definitely the case with Nicola. We have managed to establish that she is from the same part of the world as teenage muscle sensation Georgina McConnell, the north-east of England, and that she works, or used to work as a fitness instructor. Beyond that, I'm afraid, we can only recommend following 'Nikki' on Facebook for more, though I am sure you don't need any information at all in order to enjoy her winning routine.
The other British success story was a second place for Sarah Hallett (like Nicola, previously featured on FMS) in the taller of the two Trained Figure classes.
Sarah, a 43-year-old mother and firefighter (yes, it's time to unleash the female muscle firefighter fantasy again) is the reigning NABBA Miss Britain. She has, pleasingly, received some love from local Welsh media after her second place finish, and the story was picked up and reported by the national media. So if you do want to know more about this amazing woman, read all about her in the original Wales Online article and/or the resulting Daily Mail piece.
The winner of the shorter Trained Figure class, and the Overall Miss Universe for 2013 was Italian NABBA veteran Flora Conte. Regular readers may remember we featured Flora previously on FMS (see Forza e Bellezza NABBA Italia). This was the second time she has gone home with the Overall title, having won it previously in 2010.
The mind boggles at the dedication of women like Flora, who, on top of her numerous appearances at the NABBA Worlds, was competing for the fifth consecutive year here. She could, if she had wanted to, become a pro - the Miss Universe title was a step on the road to pro status for, among others, Alina Popa (who won in 2007). But Flora obviously does it out of sheer love for the sport, turning up year after year in great shape and leaving with a top three finish at the very least. Now in her late thirties, there's no reason to suspect she'll be resting on her laurels and hanging up her posing suit any time soon. See you next year Flora!
And last, but not least, a word about the Brazilian contingent at this year's show, which, unsurprisingly for a federation that encourages the wearing of thongs, was about the largest apart from the Brits. Tereza Augusta (see her routine here) finished third in the taller Trained Figure class, which was won by her compatriot Carol Bittencourt. If you can keep your hands above the table after Carol turns round and flexes those gorgeous glutes at about the thirty-second mark, you are a better man than I...
Auren Malvestiti (routine here) was runner-up to Flora Conte in the shorter Trained Figure class, but I'll leave you today with the lady who finished one place behind her, Cinara Polido, and who, among all the gorgeously tight, thong-framed bottoms on display, wins Swell's vote for the Miss Universe 'Rear of the Year'. At around twenty seconds in, Cinara's left (as we look) cheek starts its own individual little posing routine, and I really can't tell you what happens after that!
