PCA TV

With over 20 shows this year alone in the UK, the Physical Culture Association can rightly claim to be "the largest bodybuilding and fitness organisation in the UK".



Last year, UK Bodyfitness swoon Danielle Osborn - a class winner at the Arnold Classic Europe - tried her luck in the Athletic Figure class at a PCA show after not doing so well at the UKBFF British Championships. She won - and got to flex her lovely muscles while doing so. A really incredible experience, she said afterwards.

On the forums, fans were starting to appreciate the PCA's female classes - everything from Wellness and traditional Bikini to Trained Figure (like NABBA, but flexing in thongs and heels), with classes like Athletic Figure and Trained Bikini (basically like trad Bikini - in heels - but ripped, and in thongs!) adding to the curiosity value.

"Shame the videos are such low quality," lamented one fan.

Well, the PCA have fixed that this year.

Their YouTube channel, PCA TV, seems to have no lesser ambition than to bring you every routine from single British show in 2018. There are, I make it, 60 female routines across 8 classes in glorious HD from the early April PCA Saxon Classic alone.

Trained Figure winner there - and also later on in April at the PCA Scottish Championships - was Karen Gibson, also a NABBA Trained Figure athlete.

Here's her Saxon Classic winning routine.



Currently being put up are routines from (what I believe is) the biggest PCA show of the year so far, the PCA UK East Coast, which was held in Hull at the very end of April.

And there in the Trained Figure class another name (and body) familiar to regular FMS readers - Fay Ellis (aka Fay Simone), another woman who has found a home in the PCA after not really getting on with the UKBFF (in her case as a Physique competitor).



I'm not sure if Fay won - one thing the PCA still aren't very good at is getting their results out quick. However, I'm confident they'll fix this failing before too long.

They've certainly done a terrific job of fixing the quality of their clips!

Explore the PCA YouTube channel here.

And you can follow Danielle Osborn, Karen Gibson, and Fay Ellis on Instagram.

Enjoy!

Igor Kopcek @UKBFF British 2017

It's absolutely unprecedented! Krish Kataria (centre, 1st), Livia Melo (right, 2nd), and
Zulmira Woodrow (left, 3rd) flex their muscles after the up to 163cm Bikini class awards

Yes yes YES! It's 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!


Jo Griffiths, 6th, Masters Bodyfitness

Of course, I'm still going to have whine about the paucity of information available regarding the results. Were it not for John Plummer's excellent reports on the UKBFF Facebook page (I ask you, what kind of federation has its results released via Facebook by a third party?), I'd know even less than the top six in each class that I do know.




Many of the winners and high finishers from Nottingham (the show's now traditional setting) were those who had competed and in many cases done so well for Britain in Barcelona at the Arnold Classic Europe a few weeks before. Sandra Mackie became Britain's first ever "Wellness" Queen, and Marta Mila the new Junior Bikini champ. Connie Slyziut won her second consecutive Junior Bodyfitness title, and Samantha Forbes the up to 163cm Bodyfitness class before being crowned Overall winner too.




However, Danielle Osborn, Britain's big Bodyfitness winner in Barcelona, didn't fare quite so well. In the over 163cm Bodyfitness class, she placed only 3rd. Now I've got nothing against class winner Anna Banks, good on her, but if any of the UKBFF Bodyfitness judges would like to get in touch and explain to FMS exactly why it is that the woman on the right beats the woman on the left, I promise I will be all ears.



There was a tense few days after the photos from the Saturday had gone up on Eastlabs before Sunday's were added. Tense because Women's Physique was the sole female event on the Sunday. Had Igor just come for the Wellness and Bikini bums and flown home early? I wondered. Thankfully, the answer was no, and while he took more photos of just bums (and I mean "just", whole frame = a bum) in the Wellness and Bikini classes than all of the Physique division put together, by the following Wednesday, our Linda and her UKBFF Physique sisters had been added to the gallery. Phew!


Physique Dreams: FMS fave Hayley Brylewski (left), and Anita Tryc (6th)

And talking of bums... Linda had a bit of an issue on and off stage. I couldn’t contract my quads or lower back, and I was shaking like a shitting dog, she explains. People have said it was because I was posing too hard and nerves, but no, it was my ASS. It had locked up and trapped my nerves in my back and legs. And despite the pain and the "locked up" glutes, and her inability to flex her quads or lower back properly, and the "shaking like a shitting dog" (don't you just LOVE her!) she still placed 3rd!



The contest marked the UKBFF British debut of the current NABBA Trained Figure Ms Universe Emma Gormley. Like Linda before her, Emma has made the switch to Women's Physique from the most venerable federation of them all. A lot less peeled, and somewhat more covered in the bum area than she was when she won last November, she placed 5th here in her first UKBFF national level appearance.



4th in the Physique class was UKBFF vet Ade Bishop, who FMS knew of (thanks only to Mr Kopcek and Eastlabs) from international contests such as the Arnold Europe and various Diamond Cups over the last couple of years. This was Ade in by far her best ever shape, and she was perhaps a bit unlucky not to be rewarded with a top 3 placing.


Ade Bishop (left, 4th), and Andrea Corbett (right, 2nd)

A lot happier - probably the happiest woman on stage even though she didn't win - was runner-up Andrea Corbett, another UK Physique trooper in European contests who rarely gets placed near the top. Again, nothing against Andrea, congratulations to her, but while I've got the UKBFF judge on the line educating me about the Bodyfitness criteria, perhaps they could also fill me in as to why Andrea finished above Ade.



And the winner was...

Tune in tomorrow for a dose of serious star quality.



Isn't it a shame we - and more importantly all the wonderful UKBFF British ladies - have had to wait until 2017 to get top-notch, comprehensive, and freely available photo coverage? I can't help wishing Igor had been there in 2014 to see your Hot and Hard 100 #5 Sarah Williams win the Physique title, or Ria Ward the year before that, or he'd been there back in 2011 to see Rene Campbell become the UK's Queen of Muscle, or indeed the year before that, when Rene was runner-up to Lisa Cross... [seriously? 2,799 photos and you're still not satisfied? tut tut - ed.]

Full galleries here. Enjoy! It may be the one and only time...

FBBUK: Danielle Osborn

We have a new champion.

In the Amateur contest at the Arnold Europe recently, 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.



Congratulations Danielle!

We can't, sadly, say we know a whole lot about our new champ, but we do know that she hails from the north-east, the Middlesborough area (Wendy McCready country!) and while details of exactly which shows she has done is sketchy, particularly her early shows, we can say that ever since her career started - either in 2014 or 2015, depending on where you get your information - she's been a serial winner.



After just six months of training, Dani started competing in NABBA "Athletic Figure" (don't ask, just look!), and won British Classic title in 2014 - her very first show.



2015 saw her add the NABBA Ms Athletic title to her nascent collection, and then in 2016 she has switched to the UKBFF and Bodyfitness. One show she didn't win was in Leicester late that year, but she did finish high enough to qualify her for international competitions in 2017 so looking back now, her 3rd place there was somewhat crucial.



And the next time she pops up is in UK muscle scribe John Plummer's report from the North-east Championships in August. It seems Dani made quite an impression.

Bodyfitness champion Danielle Osborn was the day's standout female athlete, he wrote on the UKBFF's Facebook page. Her classy shape and condition immediately caught the eye in the front poses and she looked equally polished in the side and rear poses, where her back, glutes and calves were all spot on. Lots of people were talking about Osborn and she definitely looks like a British finals contender.



Turned out she was much more besides.

Quite honestly I have no idea if she'll be competing at the UKBFF British Championships this weekend, competitor lists being somewhat hard to come by and all. But I do know this. British Bodyfitness has been threatening to give us a worthy successor to Louise Rogers and Maria Scotland for some time, but never quite delivered. Danielle seems to have the coach, the genetics, and the class to succeed where others have almost succeeded. Trust FMS to be following her in future as closely as the information that floats out of the UKBFF from time to time allows.



And you can follow Danielle on Instagram.