Tube Watch

Our irregularly regular (and happily popular) feature rounding up some of the best new(ish) clips of fine female muscle on You Tube returns for an August installment.

SHAME?

Featured quite heavily in the media here in the UK, the (US) TV show What Would You Do? recently broadcast an episode in response to the (apparently common) practice of "fit shaming". Actors, one male one female, abused a muscular woman as she worked out in public places, with the reactions of passers-by under scrutiny by hidden camera. The muscular woman, also an actor in the show, was identified only as "fitness trainer and competitor Jennifer" in the ABC network blurb for the show, aired on 27th July.



Part 2 you can find here.

Now I know what you are probably thinking, "Yeah, but I'd like to see what happens when they do a show with a proper FBB," but I think you'll agree it is an interesting watch. The reactions to the "bullies" are often passionate, and overall I was left with the feeling that the perception of female muscle has certainly changed for the better.

For Your Consideration

Meanwhile, in the British media, BBC Hindi did a two-minute news piece on "Muscle Woman Madhu Jha" just last week. "Bodyshaping" rather than "Bodybuilding" is what she defines her mission as, and Madhu is muscular in the same unthreatening way as "Jennifer" is, but still, as a glimpse into the life of a muscular British-Indian woman, and the transformation she has made to both her body and her sense of self through weight training, it's no less fascinating than the What Would You Do? experiment.

ANOTHER INSTAGRAM EDIT CHANNEL...

Last Tube Watch, we brought you just some of the many channels that are popping up with edited Instagram clips of our favourite muscle goddesses, all in the name of advertising clicks. Unsurprisingly, now we're looking we've found even more.



Pick of the (new) bunch is HW Motivation, and four plus minutes of the truly huge NPC Physique(!) competitor Courtney Mitten is the pick of their bunch by a distance.

FMS always recommends more Brazilians in your life, and HW Motivation clearly agree. After you've calmed down from Courtney, get that pulse racing again with the help of Leyvina Barros' brand of rather masculine femininity, then for the really big finish Alessandra Alvez: Workout For Massive Legs will, I'm confident, do the trick.

AND FINALLY, AT LAST!

I don't have too many bad words to say about NPC News Online - after all if they didn't exist this blog would be a bit short on contest images to say the least. However, it did take them a while to get their 2018 NPC USA backstage edits up. Happily, they were worth waiting for, none more so than the Women's Physique Backstage Part 1.



I wasn't as bowled over by the line-up at this year's USAs as I have been in past years, but there's something so deliciously erotic about being a spy in the holy pump room.

Sadly, no sign of Part 2 as yet.

However, NPC News Online's tardiness pales in comparison to NABBA's - who only now are putting up some of the female routines from the WFF Universe last year.

Again, though, it's hard to stay angry as you watch the Figure Pros or even the Figure Juniors (Figure girls wear heels and thongs and hit poses in NABBA/WFF contests remember). And as the show was held in Brazil this year, more Brazilian thunder than even we recommend was on display, not least that of Flores Neide in the Extreme Body class, a clip that I had every intention of making my highlight of this post.



Then a few days ago, they put up Gilberia Cunha's routine...



Ai, meu Deus! (as they were probably saying throughout the auditorium and are probably still saying as they flashback to the evening they witnessed this prodigiously uninhibited display of muscular female sex appeal). How's that for your big finish?

FBBUK: Our Girl

This week's Figure-dominated theme with a bit of a coincidental military presence continues with former British Army corporal and Iraq veteran Melissa Haywood.



Whilst deployed on an exercise, I came across a copy of Muscle & Fitness Hers, she recalls. On the front cover was a curvy, tight and toned woman who looked fit, healthy and strong. Inside, I saw sample weight training programmes and diets that consisted of 6 meals a day and lots of protein. And I just thought "Hey! I can do this!" and started from there! The cover model, she later discovered was Amanda Latona, and Melissa went on to be a major force in (the then-nascent) Bikini division in Britain. She won her first British title in 2012 while still serving in the army, and took runner's-up medals from the Arnold Classic Europe and European Championships back home. Then at the 2014 English Grand Prix, she became one of our very first IFBB Bikini pros.



The following year she travelled to Miami for her first pro Bikini show. Looking a tad on the pasty side, she finished 12th out of 20, and then she pretty much fell off our radar completely. Having left the army, she set up an online training/body transformation business with fellow Bikini babe Jamie Alterton. Was she too focused on helping others achieve their Bikini dreams to compete now? Already married, was she starting a family? Turns out neither were true. Melissa was taking time out to grow.



Some of these Figure pros are absolutely stacked! Melissa exclaimed in a blog post this time last year. They are dry and they are hard and they are grainy and their shoulders... are out here! At this point, Melissa indicates where a huge shoulder would go out to, comfortably twice the size of her own impressively built deltoid. They are MASSIVE! she exclaims breathlessly, and I'm never going to look like that...



Fortunately, however, Melissa also noticed that not all the Figure pros looked so intimidating. Name-checking Stephanie Hammermeister and Chelsea Larson, Melissa talked about a more attainable - and for her more desirable - "lean, athletic" Figure look with "good muscle shape and symmetry". I could tell what was coming - can you? Barely a minute of the blog post later and she's announcing that she would make her pro Figure debut in San Marino that November. And that's exactly what she did.



Up against the cream of European Figure (Adela Ondrejovicova and winner Zulema Duran to name but two) plus Olympians such as Georgina Lona and Jessica Reyes Padilla, Melissa placed 8th out of 22, two places above UKBFF Figure champ Anna Banks. Now she was in arguably the most competitive division, and at such a competitive show, this was most satisfactory as far as debuts go, but there were definitely areas she could sharpen, she felt. Might need to work on my walk, she confessed after seeing the photos. I look like I’m marching to the shop to get milk!



The Melissa that emerged form her winter work was determined she would be better next time. It feels so good to be back! she wrote at the start of May. Eight weeks to get as lean as possible. Her goal was the new Portugal Pro in mid-July, another European event, but one not nearly as subscribed as San Marino. This time Melissa would only be up against European competition - nine women including veteran British division jumper Carmen Knights, and rising star Samantha Forbes. The real competition though was against herself, her San Marino package, and the day before the show she obviously felt she had achieved that. The venue is incredible (our stage rises out of the floor!), she told her Instagram followers. Whatever happens tomorrow is out of my hands so I’m just going to enjoy the whole experience and have fun on stage.



She placed 5th out of 10 - I would have had her 3rd, but then I'm biased and what do I know anyway? The post-show smile as she wielded her medal needed no caption.



And I kind of expected that to be that as far as Melissa was concerned for the year, unless another visit to San Marino before Christmas. Once again, I was completely wrong, in fact I'm not even sure she went home first or just went from Portugal direct. Melissa was going Stateside for her next show, you see. Los Angeles to be precise.



The line-up is stacked with so many amazing and inspiring athletes, she wrote on the day, and she was not wrong. As we've seen already this week on FMS, the (Figure-only) LA show is most definitely the IFBB pro Figure big time. This was easily the best line-up Melissa had ever been part of, many of them, as she was, coming off a show the week or two before. I’m just going to have fun and enjoy every second, she said. Again.



Here at FMS, we thought Melissa looked absolutely sensational. She'd certainly nailed the "lean, athletic" look she wants. Great definition, great muscle shape, great symmetry. We were all very pleased for her, but British Figure in the US historically, and in that line-up... we weren't exactly holding our breath for a top 10 placing.



But what do we know?! Amazing to find myself amongst Olympians in the first call outs! she wrote midway through the contest. And ultimately, Melissa achieved one of the best British Figure results ever. 4th place!!! she gushed afterwards. So happy!



And then it was back to the grind. No rest for Melissa, even when she's had something to celebrate. It's only Wednesday, she wrote, on Wednesday. My first full week of training since before the Portugal Pro and I am literally feeling BATTERED.



I think that really is it now for Melissa this contest year. It's time for what she calls her "reflection" season - looking back at what she's done well, could do better etc. (rather than my initial idea that she would just be spending a lot of time in front of the mirror!). Clearly, and despite all my observations to the contrary earlier in the week, there still is a place in the division for the "lean, athletic" package, and those already taking inspiration from the likes of Stephanie Hammermeister and Chelsea Larson could learn much from what Melissa Haywood has done over the last 36 months.



The rise of UK Figure continues...

Figure Phenoms (Vancouver & LA)

Q: Feast your eyes on Joanna Jean (top), and Susan Clark - but what do these two incredible (and incredibly muscular) Figure beauties have in common, do you think?





A: They both finished outside the top 10 at a recent IFBB pro contest.

The point I want to make though [and you're making it rather clumsily if I may say so - ed.] is the standard of conditioning necessary to take some of the paltry prize money in IFBB Figure shows now is insane. And, even better, the level of muscularity acceptable, even desirable in the division seems to be on the up too.

To my eyes at least.

While first FBBing and now, apparently, Physique competitors suffer the ramifications of "not-so-much-muscle-please-we're-the-IFBB" policing, the Figure ideal - embodied by the women taking top prizes at top shows - seems to be getting bigger and bigger and more and more ripped. And to prove my point - and perhaps also have the fact I am not dreaming about this confirmed in the process - here are just some of the swoonworthy Figure ladies from recent pro shows in Vancouver and Los Angeles.

BODACIOUS BOJANA



Winner in Vancouver was the always impressive Bojana Vasiljevic.

And for those still under the illusion that Figure - especially pro Figure - competitors really aren't all that muscular, ask yourself how many women you've ever seen down your local gym with abs and shoulders and arms all covered in veins like Bojana's. Ask yourself - if she did miraculously appear there - whether you really would hardly notice her, wishing there were some real FBBs at Fitness First Basildon...



So much beautifully conditioned muscle on that petite frame had proved good enough for judges in Los Angeles last year, and proved good enough for the 2018 Vancouver judges too. So this was Bojana's second pro title, and she'll be back at the Olympia for a third consecutive year in September, hoping to improve on her 2017 10th place.

PERFECT PARTS



Also from Vancouver, the superior legs of 9th place Catherine Lavoie and 6th place Martina Yebekova. Incredible, thrilling muscular development and definition.

MUSCLE BEAUTIES

When muscle women look like models...



It's always good. And especially so when they flex with such glee. "Yeah, I could have been a regular model, but I wanted MUSCLES!" they say (in my imagination).



Two such beauties graced the stage in Los Angeles - classy 2018 Hot and Hard 100 debutant Tonya Wheatfall (9th), and the statuesque Dallas McCormick (8th).

MMMMELISSA



Two women appeared at both the Vancouver and LA shows, the first we'll drool over today is Canadian beauty Melissa Bumstead. I thought she looked sensational in coming 4th at the former show, but a couple of weeks (and apparently several applications of pro tan) later in LA, Melissa turned the muscle sexy up to 11.



And she was rewarded with her second 2nd place of the season.



She's already promising to be even better in Tampa this weekend, which could be bad news for my ticker. Hopefully in Tampa there will be some cleaner mirrors...

PERFECT PARTS



Also doing well in LA was veteran Julie Mayer, whose 3rd place was as good as any placing she's had over the last few years. Amazing, sculpted, muscular legs were just about her standout feature but by no means the only thing she has going for her.



She made sure the judges got a very good look at them too, both from the front, the rear and side on. I do love the bit where they stride forward, their mighty (yeah, mighty) quads rippling and popping in their heels. There may not be a whole lot of "poses" in Figure, but to think that means there isn't any flexing going on is a mistake.

MUSCLE BEAUTIES



Azaria Glaim (right) and Maggie Watson go about their muscle and beauty businesses pretty much the same way these days, although that was not always the case. Once upon a time, you may recall, Azaria, known first as Crimson Rose then as Brooke Black, had a very lucrative career as a very naughty cam performer. Maggie, meanwhile, is a former WBFF Figure model whose past was all about the kind of not-very-muscular (and less lucrative) modelling on the fringes of the mainstream.



Their journeys took them both to the same place at the start of July though, their (very different styles of) beauty shining on the Vancouver stage. The (younger) Azaria (7th) finished a place above Maggie, who has really packed on the muscle over the last year.

BRAZILIAN THUNDER



Spot the difference?



Is it just the quality of the on stage lighting or some difference with the photography? Or was Brazilian Figure phenom Michele Da Silva Pinto - as we saw with Melissa Bumstead earlier - really just a whole lot darker and a whole lot bigger AND a whole lot more pumped, vascular and shredded in LA than she had been in Vancouver?



The - some would say inevitable - Brazilian takeover has already started happening in the Physique division. Michele, meanwhile, is leading the way with the Figure takeover now. Runner-up in Vancouver and the Winner in LA off the back of a 3rd at the Arnolds earlier in the season, and bigger and better every time, this year Michele could well be a threat to the usual Figure suspects at the Olympia. And she does like a proper pose.



"Only" Figure? Watch this.

Is Michele most likely to follow Shanique Grant and Natalia Coelho into Physique? Some of these Phenoms - Michele very much included - might have to think about dropping a bit of muscle mass and/or definition if they "step up" to the WPD!

Enjoy!