Marja of the Day

Happy Birthday Marja!

For no reason other than it's her 49th birthday today, we start 2017 by looking back.

Her contest career spanned two decades - she first competed in a provincial competition in Finland in 1990 and retired after the New York Pro in 2010 - and, like many of the best-loved FBBs, was somewhat short on first places - apart from that first contest, her only other title came the following year at the Finnish Nationals.

But we begin our plunder of our Marja archive with her professional debut. At the Jan Tana Classic in 2001 she finished 3rd in the six-woman Lightweight class behind Joanna Thomas and Jennifer McVicar (those were the f***ing days, eh?!).




Hair up for the prejudging, down and wild for the routine.




Hyvää Syntymäpäivää Marja!

Arnolds 2016 Review: Hotter and Harder?

With voting for the FMS Hot and Hard 100 2016 well under way - see here for more details - today we have two gorgeous pro Physique women who made the list in 2015.

Perhaps their Arnolds' shape might help them make the list again...

Toni West



In 2015, Toni was #70 on our Hot and Hard list (and had been #95 the year before).



As high as 4th at the Ms Olympia three years ago, Toni had to settle for joint 11th place in Ohio this year, and - as you can probably tell from our selection of pictures - got more love from the snappers backstage than on it. Will she get some from FMS readers again?

Minna Pajulahti



Minna just made our Hot and Hard 100 last year, appearing at #93 having been as high as #29 the previous year when she was still competing in Fitness. Will the flexible Finn's brand new Physique division muscles impress FMS readers into voting for her once again?



Here she finished - yes, you guessed it - tied 11th.

A big thank you to everyone who has voted so far, but don't panic if you haven't - the closing date is much later this year, APRIL 15th to be exact, so you still have plenty of time to compile your list of up to 100 of your favourite Hot and Hard women and send it in.

6ft1swell@gmail.com

Get busy!

While the Slave's Away: Day 10

PECTISSIMO!



Anu Lehtoranta

Enjoy!

100 Biceps: Day 2

021, 022


A week of biceps. How could we not include Marja Lehtonen?




I always liked her legs better than her biceps, commented one of readers the last time FMS paid tribute to those legs last August. Whether you agree with our reader or not, it is probably safe to say that you do agree that, along with her massive quads, her biceps were Marja's standout muscles. If there are better biceps in female bodybuilding, please post them so I can see them, as one forum member has put it.



Honestly, I've found it hard to think of many women in the same class as her in the bicep department. I came up with Christa Bauch and Klaudia Larson and then kind of ran out of ideas. Who would you have in the same "peak club" as Marja?




Whoever else you could name, and if I have offended you by forgetting your all-time bicep favourite, I apologise, but I think we can probably all agree that the biceps numbered 021 and 022 in this week's journey to 100 are, if not the best, certainly among the best we female muscle lovers have ever had the privilege of seeing.



Although just "seeing" isn't, of course, the full story for female muscle lovin' brethren. And there's something about Marja that makes even those of us who are more than a little coy about these things divulge the kind of information about their Marja-loving activities that is normally the exclusive domain of a certain Mr JL El Mariachi.




Marja is by far one of my favourite ladies to jerk off to, says one of our readers in a typically open and frank comment on blogs and forum posts about her. And when Marja makes us open up, mention of her biceps never seems to be far away. One female muscle lover's admission that I would sooooo love to kiss and lick and suck her biceps sums up my feelings, and probably does so for a lot of Marja's admirers.




It has occurred to me though, and not only me, that Marja's massive peaked beauties were simply so freakish that they unbalanced her whole physique and were therefore responsible for her lack of victories as a pro. However, and even though she was probably quite frustrated by her pro career, and probably did deserve better, I think we can be confident that her one-of-a-kind (well, two-of-a-kind really) biceps will ensure she will be remembered by fans long after her contemporaries with more first-place trophies have been forgotten. A thousand years from now, muscle fans will still jerk off to Marja, one reader who responded to last August's FMS tribute put it.



Enjoy!

Marja Lehtonen

Marja Lehtonen, the Finnish mega woman, was a competitive bodybuilder for twenty years from 1990 to 2010. So much about her is legend that it barely needs repeating here. Her incredible biceps, her Changing with Marja clips for Awefilms, her contest routines (especially during her early years as a pro), her 45-minute clip for FT Video/BluRay Muscle in 2010... I could go on and on. She was, is, and probably always will be, one of the top female bodybuilders among fans, myself included.



Marja had the total package. Striking facial beauty, massive muscle on a small frame, absolutely ageless, piercing blue eyes, a smile to die for, bis bigger than her head, perfect quads. How she didn't win every event she was in amazes me. She might be the most beautiful FBB ever! is a not untypical comment from a board devoted to her.



Today, though, we're not going to get into the whys and wherefors of how she failed to win a single pro show. Nor are we going to focus on her legendary biceps.

Today, a selection showcasing Marja's magnificent, massive legs...

And some of the things the guys who love her say.



When she was 15, a teacher recommended she try sprinting. The weight training involved in preparation for her sprints ultimately led her to discovering her love of bodybuilding, but I imagine it also meant that she had developed her legs as a sprinter before she started to develop them further as a bodybuilder. Perhaps this was how her legs got the head start they needed in order to become so special.



I've just got to say it, Marja is the best FBB ever! From head to toe everything is PERFECT about this woman. Huge beautiful muscles aside, Marja still has the sexiest eyes, smile, skin tone, hair, etc. You name it this woman's got it!



One of the things I always loved about Marja was her penchant for the quad shake. Now I love the quad shake no matter who is doing it nor how big her legs are. But when Marja shakes those mammoth quads then suddenly flexes them, well, for me, it's quad shake heaven. Nobody does it better.



She did have a website about 5 years or so ago, but it was never updated (it was a free one with "promises" of more if I recall correctly) and wasn't that good. Weird how she had (has) so many fans and no website - it's not as though she didn't like doing photo/video shoots!



She talked up her website in interviews around 2005, although it never really materialised into what it promised to be. Consequently, she never had the online presence that her legions of fans would have wanted. This may have saved many a female muscle heads' bank account from ruin, but it also means that Marja never quite made the sort of money she could have out of the sport she so obviously loved. As noted above, the website is still promising lots of things are 'coming soon'.



She may have dropped off the face of the planet, but she's still my favourite.



Where Marja is now nobody seems to know. But it still doesn't seem to matter in the sense that she is still absolutely as popular as ever. I don't think it would be too wide of the mark to say that her appeal will be proved to be timeless, and as each new generation of female muscle lovers discovers her, her legend will continue to grow.



Marja was definitely the lady that made me realize I liked 'em BIG!



And we will leave you today with one of Marja's many many training clips. Ten minutes of her blasting those big and beautiful legs with the kinds of weights that make you rewind to check you counted the poundage correctly. As another fan has said, All those muscles aren't just for show. Her training videos are some of the best EVER! Girl lifts a ton and rarely shows any effort doing so.



Enjoy! or Nauti! (as Google Translate tells me they say in Finland.)
Please correct me if I'm wrong!