Mrs Swell's Easter Surprise: Stronger Than Me

Mrs Swell is a competitive sort. From big contracts to trivial knowledge, she likes to win, and she very much takes that spirit into her workouts. Me, I don't seek to up my PBs, it just kind of happens, but the lady is always looking to go heavier, for more reps, with better form. Is she stronger than me? No. Not even close, but she does make more progress more quickly, so perhaps I should be looking over my shoulder a bit more!



Today I thought we might dip into the world of powerlifting, where you will find women who are shifting the kind of weight that others can only marvel at. If, as people are always saying these days, strong is the new sexy, then women like Crystal Tate (above) could make a reasonable claim to be the sexiest women in the world.

Tate weighs in at 198lbs (just about 90kg), which makes her about 10 kilos lighter than yours truly. However, she did a 700lb (317kg) squat at the end of last year, and in March at the Arnolds performed a world record 600lb (272kg) deadlift.



Tate is one of eight women "who squat weight that makes spectators' jaws drop" recently picked by the powerlifting blog BarBend. "These are female athletes who can be described in many ways, but usually incredible is the best word for it."



These include Kristy Hawkins, familiar to FMS readers (most recently seen here on Then & Now: 2007), and Becca Swanson, also (briefly) once a competitive bodybuilder, who has deadlifted more weight (672lbs/304kg) than any other female on the planet, as well as performing an 843lb (382kg) squat back in 2010.



And among BarBend's picks from the lighter weight classes, we find women who don't conform to the popular image of a powerlifter, but can nevertheless squat between three and four times their own bodyweight. Sweden's Isabella von Weissenberg, for example, is a two-time European champion with the looks of a model and a squat of 424lbs (just over 192kg), a world record for her under 72kg weight class.



My personal favourite though weighs in at just under 60kg (132lbs), not much heavier than Mrs Swell. From Austin, Texas, Nicole Gonzalez, aka Nikki Gunz, has a competitive 410lb (186kg) squat, Erica Blockmanesque looks, AND abs!



Sthenolagnia - sexual arousal from displays of strength or muscles.



Replace the "or" with an "and" and Nikki's appeal is very apparent.



Enjoy!

Then & Now: 2007

In the days before the Hot and Hard 100 voting closes (and you've only got 5 left by the way), FMS likes to avoid influencing your decisions unduly by bringing you some historical, rather than contemporary, female muscle. This year we've come up with a kind of time machine idea, used a random date generator, picked a contest winner from that year, and tried to find out what that special lady from the past is up to now.

Today, 2007, and Light-Heavyweight Kristy Hawkins is preparing to take the stage at the NPC Nationals. It's her third time at the show, and the competition is fierce.

THEN



In all, there were 60 women who competed in Bodybuilding that year. Kristy triumphed in her class against (check this out for a line-up!) Britt Miller, Karen Choat, Elena Seiple, Amy Neal and I could go on. To win the Overall title, she posed down with (again, this is mind-blowing) Lightweight winner Beni Lopez, Middleweight Tina Chandler, and Heavyweight Beverly DiRenzo. Fans certainly got their money's worth at the NPC Nationals that year, n'est-ce pas?




Anyone winning a national title around that time had to be an exceptional bodybuilder. Kristy was, and is, clearly exceptional, and not just as a bodybuilder either. The year after her win at the Nationals - her first as a pro - she became Dr Kristy Hawkins when she completed her PhD in Chemical Engineering.



Her pro career was short and lasted just two more years. 2009 was definitely its high point, with a runner-up placing in at the Atlantic City Pro, and a 7th place at her one and only Olympia - and yes, the line-up that year was truly exceptional.

NOW



Staying in California after graduating from the Masters program at the California Institute of Technology, Kristy worked as a metabolic engineer, then as Director of a yeast engineering company. Most recently, she is one of four female partners who have set up Antheia, Inc., whose mission is "to make and fairly provide medicines to all who need them". I'm very proud of the company we are building, says Kristy.



And if you think she still looks like she lifts a weight or two, it's because she does. She really lifts. A lot. Kristy transitioned into Powerlifting soon after retiring from Bodybuilding, and within a few years she was breaking world records for her weight for the squat, deadlift, and total. Her personal bests are currently listed at a hernia-inducing 496lbs (225kg) for the squat, and - don't try this at home - 537lbs (almost 244kg) for the deadlift. She can bench 319lbs (145kg). She's about 165kg herself.



But Powerlifting doesn't even get top billing on her Instagram. The pugs do.

Kristy's got a few years before she hits 40. Again, that word - exceptional.

100 Biceps: Day 6

KRISTY HAWKINS: 059, 060


You'd recognise that arm anywhere, wouldn't you? Particularly from that angle, from behind. If I'd cropped out the face, you'd still know who that incredible peak belonged to, wouldn't you? Sure you would. There are peaks, and there are peaks, and then there's Kristy Hawkins' peak as seen from behind. One of the great images of female muscle. Not just the above image, but any image of that peak taken from that angle. I'm not saying that Kristy's mouth-watering biceps looked bad from other angles, it's just that only from behind do you get to see them in their fullest glory.



2005. Kristy appears at the NPC Nationals for the first time. She finishes 4th in the light-heavyweight class behind winner Dena Westerfield, runner-up Debi Laszewski, and Elena Seiple. Imagine that. 2006. Kristy is back again. So are Debi and Elena, and they beat her again, with Debi winning. Angela Salvagno came 4th. Talk about line-ups! 2007. Kristy's 3rd appearance. She wins her class ahead of Britt Miller, and Karen Choat (Elena comes 4th this time). In the posedown for the overall title, she's up against middleweight winner Tina Chandler and heavyweight Beverly DiRenzo. Kristy wins. At her third attempt she gets her pro card.




Her Nationals win was the culmination of a nine-year amateur career. It [bodybuilding] was something I always wanted to do, she has said. I always used to play around in the weight room while my mom did aerobics. At 16, she was able to stop playing around and start lifting consistently, at first primarily to control my weight and because it made me feel good about myself. A year later and some local promoters took her under their wing so she could appear in a show they were putting on. Kristy was still only 17. She won her class in her second show later that year, and was also awarded the Best Poser prize. By 2003 she had claimed a number of regional NPC titles and set about preparing to make her Nationals debut.



She began her pro career at the age of just 27, with a decade of competition behind her and a physique that was (and still is) truly mind-boggling. Yet this was a time when weight classes had all but disappeared from professional female bodybuilding shows. And it was a time when giants like Iris and Yaxeni were reaching their peak, when Heather Policky came close to winning the Ms O. It was a time when legends like Dayana Cadeau and Betty Pariso were still competing, and, as mentioned above, the likes of Dena Westerfield, Debi Laszewski, and - a year after Kristy - Sheila Bleck were joining the ranks. The number of shows with a female bodybuilding class was dwindling, and the competition was at its fiercest. Kristy's pro career peaked in 2009 with a second place in Atlantic City and a 7th place at the Olympia (behind - check this out - Kyle, Policky, Laszewski, Lisa Auckland, Yaxeni and Pariso!) One competiton in 2010 and she officially called it a competitive day in 2011.



And during all those years of competing, Kristy was working towards and getting her PhD in Chemical Engineering. A female muscle interviewer who once asked her about her area of research got this answer: My focus is on metabolic engineering in yeast, specifically developing inducible promoter systems to control gene expression. The ultimate goal is to be able to synthesize complex molecules (i.e. pharmaceuticals) in yeast and to optimize these pathways for industrial-scale production. Quite.



Golden. It's a word that often springs to mind when seeing/thinking about Kristy, and not just because of the resplendent blond locks she had towards the end of her career. She always seemed (and seems) to me to be almost shining in her photos. Maybe her aura, her eyes, her beautiful tanned skin, or a combination the three. She just shone.



2011. Three years ago. Seems longer to me. Seems like Kristy is a female bodybuilder from another time, and in some ways she is. Back then there was no physique division. Back then Dena, Debi, Elena and Kristy made up the top four in ONE of the weight classes at a national show. No disrespect to the wonderful women who have battled it out at the Nationals since then, but that is a top four of legend. A top four from what seems now like a little golden age. And Kristy was very much a part of that.




Check me out getting all misty-eyed for the not too distant past! Don't get me wrong, I LOVE the present too. But I don't think I am alone in looking back on those line-ups in near disbelief at the quality on stage. And when I decided to do another week of biceps, the stunning, golden Kristy Hawkins came to mind almost as fast as Marja did.



And what of Kristy now? Well, no surprise that the chemical engineer became a chemical engineer. But she maintained her physique, and these days you'll find her controlling her weight and making herself feel good at her local Crossfit gym. She was ranked 91st in the Northern California region in the 2014 Open, that's 583rd worldwide! There was a little flutter, well, a BIG flutter if such a thing is possible, on the forum boards a while back when one fan located a lonely hearts ad she had placed.



Unsurprisingly, the ad wasn't there for long.

Enjoy!

Prof. Pennypacker's Pectarium

The passing of Prof. Philpott Pennypacker, who died, according to his obituary in the New Scientist, ‘peacefully, surrounded by family, friends and colleagues at his Berkshire home’ on October 28th 2012, was of little apparent interest to all female muscle fans (excepting those who study or work in the field of applied mathematics). However, the ensuing legal battle over the fate of the late Prof. Pennypacker’s estate, and yesterday’s High Court ruling that brought an end to that battle, is quite a different matter, revealing as it does, the nature of the professor’s final project.

The challenge to the will, brought by members of his immediate family, focused on one clause Professor Pennypacker had inserted into the will in 2010. The clause made provision for a fund to maintain, in the state in which he left it, a converted out-building on his property, and for members of the public to be allowed access to it. Initially, his executors had assumed the professor had used the building as a study/workshop, and his wish was to allow future applied mathematicians a glimpse of his working processes. Only after entering the building did they realise he had designed it for a purpose they could never had imagined.

They found the building is divided into six rectangular rooms of roughly equal size. In each room there are six large screens, two on each of the longer walls, and one on each of the shorter sides. [There has some speculation as to the significance of the 6 rooms and the 6 screens in each. In his 1972 work It’s Magic: How Anybody Can Prove Anything with Selective Statistics, Pennypacker noted that ‘If 3 is, indeed, as is claimed, a “magic number”, then surely it follows that multiples of three should possess that “magic” incrementally.’ However, it may simply be that the building lent itself or was previously divided along similar lines and that the size of the screens Pennypacker chose to adorn the walls were simply large enough to allow no more than six of them to fit comfortably along each wall.]

In the centre of each room sits a reclining swivel chair, apparently specially designed for the professor according to his specifications. From the chair, the screens can be operated by means of a touch screen control panel which is fixed to the left arm of the chair and can be lowered across the lap of the sitter. And it was once the executors had sat down in the chairs and used the control panels to turn on the screens that the true purpose of the building, the rooms and the screens was revealed.



Images of female bodybuilders, specifically, the pectoral muscles of female bodybuilders, started to appear on the screens. In some rooms, there would be six different images, one on each screen, followed by six different ones again, then six more and so on. In another room a single image travelled from screen 1 to 2 to 3 and so on around all six, followed by another image, and another. In yet another room the six screens all displayed a looped clip of a female bodybuilder performing cable flyes. Another room had combinations of each of the above, and it was soon established that the user/viewer could control the images exactly as they wished.



And on they went, images, loops, clips both long and short, some speeded up, some slo-mo. There was contest footage, even some artwork, and what they all had in common was the pecs of female bodybuilders and other muscular women.



The executors were, quite understandably, stunned. The final project of Professor Philpott Pennypacker had been nothing to do with the work he had made his career. Rather, it had been the result of his secret passion, kept private from all who knew him until after his death. His final project had been to construct his own personal temple of female muscle, a place where he could privately enjoy and worship his favourite part of his favourite type of women. He called it ‘The Pectarium’.




The fund he put in place to pay for the upkeep of The Pectarium naturally put a considerable hole into the inheritance of his beneficiaries, and consequently the will was challenged, ultimately unsuccessfully. In his summing up yesterday, Lord Justice Laws explained that ‘While a feeling of incomprehension at the curious uses to which an estate may be put is, in this case, quite understandable, there is no basis in law for revoking a will on those grounds.’ Fortunately, the FMS legal department is on hand to simplify that to ‘Just because you don’t understand why he wants his money used in this way, it doesn’t mean you can change it.’ And as a result, you, me, and anyone else who wishes to do so will, as soon as all the legal bureaucracy has been cleaned up, be able to arrange their own personal visit to Professor Philpott’s Pectarium.



If you can’t wait, FMS will this week be giving you a taste of what you might find there in the rough and ready way we can. And even more exciting perhaps, is the fact that we have also been granted access to Professor Pennypacker’s private diaries. In these diaries, he put down his thoughts on female bodybuilders, being a female muscle worshipper, and the place of female muscle and those who follow it in society as a whole. We are both honoured and delighted to be able to bring you some extracts to accompany a selection of items from within The Pectarium.



Enjoy!