Not just today, but the whole of this week on FMS, our posts are dedicated to a single (and singular) woman: the self-titled "Original Fit Girl", Overall Physique winner at the recent NPC Jr Nationals, and new IFBB Physique pro, the lovely Lauren Quinn.
And at the risk of going too hard too early in the week, we've decided to open proceedings by taking up three minutes and eight seconds of your precious time.
Now I probably shouldn't be posting this, it being clearly marked as the property of HerBiceps and all (and it's not even my edit), but I really wanted to make sure all of you lovely readers were just as enamoured as I am before we got on with the business of paying tribute to this remarkable young woman. I wonder if my plan has worked...
Enjoy!
Showing posts with label Most Muscular. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Most Muscular. Show all posts
Monday, 26 June 2017
Monday, 5 June 2017
Marvellous Maria
One of the most pleasing aspects of the Wings of Strength-led mini-resurgence in pro Female Bodybuilding is that women who seemed "retired" for one reason or another feel that the time is now right to compete again. Isabelle Turell is probably the best example in that she had roughly seven years' off before her comeback, but there's also Cathy Lefrançois, Bonnie Switzer (Pappas), and Laura Carolan to name but three. And a few days before the Toronto Pro, I noticed yet another familiar name who I hadn't heard of in a while was there on the competitor's list - Maria Mikola.
As is so often the case, the fact that I hadn't heard anything about her didn't mean she'd not been "active". Far from it, in fact. It's true that she did take 2014 and 2015 off, but having competed every year for the 17(!) years previous to that (at least 17, it may be more but the earliest record I can find of her in a contest is 1997), I reckon she was due a wee break. But she was back on stage last year, competing twice.
When she'd last competed in 2013 it was in the Physique division, winning her pro card at the IFBB North Americans, and it was in that same division that she competed last year. Looking at the images of her from both those shows, but particularly from the Europa Phoenix (above), where she placed 11th, I have to say that 1) I'm sorry I missed them at the time, and 2) that she doesn't exactly look very Physique!
Canadian Natural National Champion - 2009
Previous to 2013 Maria had always been a Bodybuilder, with her career (to date) probably peaking around 2009 when she won the Overall title at the Canadian Natural Championships. By that time she'd been a pro in other natural federations for some years - her IFBB pro card is, I believe, the fifth of her career. She was forum famous for her arms, a killer most muscular (not, apparently frowned upon in natural bodybuilding!) and for looking about 20 years younger than she actually was.
She was also famous for picking up more than her fair share of Best Poser awards. The best part of competing for me is getting on stage and being able to perform my routine, she told Promoting Real Women in 2010. Audiences and judges alike who have seen Maria perform would probably agree it was the best part for them too.
So she arrived in Toronto, "my own backyard", with plenty of pedigree behind her, but absolutely none of it as an IFBB pro Bodybuilder. And proceeded to steal the show.
I'm not saying that the judges' favourite, Kim Buck, wasn't worth the decision, nor that any of the other six women in the line-up were better or worse than Maria. But I am saying that in her pleasingly old-school-style posing suits (not too blingy, and more importantly not covering half of her upper body - what is it with this fashion nowadays for covering up?!) with a physique honed to perfection over a period of twenty years and the knowledge and commitment (still) to make sure that magnificent physique was shown off at its absolute best, Maria was pure class. No contest best abs and thigh in the show. In any division. By some distance. I've checked so you don't have to.
She's pushing 50, you know.
And the best news is she'll be back this weekend at the Omaha Pro, and I have absolutely no doubt she will flex those muscles as marvellously as ever.
Follow her prep on Instagram.
Enjoy!
Thursday, 1 June 2017
Woman of the Week: Alyssa Kiessling
They say Female Bodybuilding is dying, and to be honest, there are times when you have to admit that, despite the best efforts of Wings of Strength and so forth, it ain't looking good. The women competing at the majority of the pro shows, as in Toronto last weekend, are fewer in number and - with the greatest respect and some notable exceptions - not of the quality of the line-ups even just five years ago. Meanwhile, opportunities for FBBs from outside North America have dwindled to the point where only a handful of amateur federations now run their category, none of them within the IFBB umbrella that was once the means by which FBBs could progress to pro status. And even in the US, NPC shows all too rarely feature a Female Bodybuilding category, and when they do there is almost always only one, maybe two competitors.
Meet the good news - 23-year-old Alyssa Kiessling.
Alyssa recently won both the Physique and Bodybuilding titles at the NPC Orlando Europa Games. She didn't have to beat a lot of other women - two in fact, and that's combined for both categories - to do so, so perhaps one shouldn't get too carried away, but the sight Alyssa before, during, and after her triumph has convinced me that perhaps the future of Female Bodybuilding is, after all, really rather bright.
Now I'm not getting over-excited just because of all Alyssa's lovely lovely muscles. A little digging and you will find that she is quite the unique young woman. For one thing, she is a total junkie for the sport, not just its present but also its past. And not just the past of Female Bodybuilding, either, though she takes much inspiration from the likes of Juliette Bergman and Lenda Murray, but also the past greats of the male side of the sport. Her Instagram moniker, The Classical Queen, is perhaps an allusion to her admiration for the bodies and posing styles of a bygone era, the same era that the newest male BBing category - Classic Physique - is attempting to hark back to.
And she uses her research into the sport's past to great effect, using the slow, measured posing style of those women (and men) who had more than sixty seconds to perform their routines in her own, as well as incorporating poses - not just her fantabulous most muscular - previously unknown in Female Bodybuilding, and not common in Men's Bodybuilding since the days of Pumping Iron. Add a truck load of self-assurance to the mix and the overall effect she manages to create is absolutely mesmerising.
If you are going to work so hard on your physique, Alyssa says, you've got to show what you built, bring it on stage. It's art. It certainly is when she does it.
From her pre-contest double biceps with bonus stomach vacuum gym shots to her mouth-wateringly beefy hotel room posing in her suit. From the incredible pump room back footage shot by her friend, mentor and fellow freak of muscle Michaela Ayccok to the way she stands, hands on hips - so manly, so cocksure - throughout most of her NPC News Online interview with Ariel Khadr. And all the rest of it. The way this young woman goes about her bodybuilding business is, I find, quite irresistible.
Next stop, the Jr. Nationals, just under four weeks away.
See more of Alyssa in Orlando on the Bodybuilding and Beyond channel.
And apologies for the tardiness of today's post.
Meet the good news - 23-year-old Alyssa Kiessling.
Alyssa recently won both the Physique and Bodybuilding titles at the NPC Orlando Europa Games. She didn't have to beat a lot of other women - two in fact, and that's combined for both categories - to do so, so perhaps one shouldn't get too carried away, but the sight Alyssa before, during, and after her triumph has convinced me that perhaps the future of Female Bodybuilding is, after all, really rather bright.
Now I'm not getting over-excited just because of all Alyssa's lovely lovely muscles. A little digging and you will find that she is quite the unique young woman. For one thing, she is a total junkie for the sport, not just its present but also its past. And not just the past of Female Bodybuilding, either, though she takes much inspiration from the likes of Juliette Bergman and Lenda Murray, but also the past greats of the male side of the sport. Her Instagram moniker, The Classical Queen, is perhaps an allusion to her admiration for the bodies and posing styles of a bygone era, the same era that the newest male BBing category - Classic Physique - is attempting to hark back to.
And she uses her research into the sport's past to great effect, using the slow, measured posing style of those women (and men) who had more than sixty seconds to perform their routines in her own, as well as incorporating poses - not just her fantabulous most muscular - previously unknown in Female Bodybuilding, and not common in Men's Bodybuilding since the days of Pumping Iron. Add a truck load of self-assurance to the mix and the overall effect she manages to create is absolutely mesmerising.
If you are going to work so hard on your physique, Alyssa says, you've got to show what you built, bring it on stage. It's art. It certainly is when she does it.
From her pre-contest double biceps with bonus stomach vacuum gym shots to her mouth-wateringly beefy hotel room posing in her suit. From the incredible pump room back footage shot by her friend, mentor and fellow freak of muscle Michaela Ayccok to the way she stands, hands on hips - so manly, so cocksure - throughout most of her NPC News Online interview with Ariel Khadr. And all the rest of it. The way this young woman goes about her bodybuilding business is, I find, quite irresistible.
Next stop, the Jr. Nationals, just under four weeks away.
See more of Alyssa in Orlando on the Bodybuilding and Beyond channel.
And apologies for the tardiness of today's post.
Wednesday, 24 May 2017
Never Better: Rene Marven - Toronto 2013
RENE MARVEN
8th, 2013 Toronto Pro
Rene started out in Figure a decade ago, and Figure is where we have seen her most recently, at last year's Dayana Cadeau Classic (above). She was, she said, "less nervous on stage", and loved being in heels again. She was happy with her new look. Not so some of Rene's many fans, who were doubly offended that she'd dropped not one, but two divisions down. Not even another Physique class sell out! raved one such forum poster, managing to offend two divisions-worth of competitors in just seven words.
Three years earlier she had made her professional IFBB debut at the Toronto Pro, and at the time she seemed to be on a one-woman mission to bring back the supposedly outlawed "most muscular" pose to Female Bodybuilding. The judges had overlooked this indiscretion as she'd won her pro card at the Nationals in 2012 hitting the pose, and here it was again, bigger and better, this thrilling eruption of female muscle.
The Muscular Development play-by-play from the show, however, mentions the pose not once, instead complimenting Rene on her back development and her "great quads". Compare that to Real Female Bodybuilding's take on Rene's showing: Serious female muscle! Rene Marven treated fans to an eyeful of one of the best most muscular poses in the world. She didn't make the top 3 and may not have been the biggest girl on stage but as she hit the classic hardcore pose she looked magnificent!
Ironically too, given that we now know she felt much more nervous when she was posing as a female bodybuilder than as a Figure competitor, the MD commentator, Adina Zanolli, makes a point of saying that Rene's seems to "love being on stage", and I certainly get that impression too, as always with Rene on stage during her FBB years.
I wonder what her next move might be. Since pro FBBing did away with weight classes no amateur FBB from outside the Heavyweight class has made much impact in the Pro League, and Rene was a Middleweight. She is way too bulky for Figure it seems, so she might find Physique provides her with more opportunity for success, if that's what she's after. Meanwhile, happy and healthy, she continues managing Iris Kyle's Bodicafe in Las Vegas, and recent evidence suggests that no matter how hard she tries to "downsize", those biceps of hers are never going lose their thickness or peak.
Follow Rene on Instagram.
Tomorrow, we stay in Toronto for another personal best. Guess who!
Enjoy!
8th, 2013 Toronto Pro
Rene started out in Figure a decade ago, and Figure is where we have seen her most recently, at last year's Dayana Cadeau Classic (above). She was, she said, "less nervous on stage", and loved being in heels again. She was happy with her new look. Not so some of Rene's many fans, who were doubly offended that she'd dropped not one, but two divisions down. Not even another Physique class sell out! raved one such forum poster, managing to offend two divisions-worth of competitors in just seven words.
Three years earlier she had made her professional IFBB debut at the Toronto Pro, and at the time she seemed to be on a one-woman mission to bring back the supposedly outlawed "most muscular" pose to Female Bodybuilding. The judges had overlooked this indiscretion as she'd won her pro card at the Nationals in 2012 hitting the pose, and here it was again, bigger and better, this thrilling eruption of female muscle.
The Muscular Development play-by-play from the show, however, mentions the pose not once, instead complimenting Rene on her back development and her "great quads". Compare that to Real Female Bodybuilding's take on Rene's showing: Serious female muscle! Rene Marven treated fans to an eyeful of one of the best most muscular poses in the world. She didn't make the top 3 and may not have been the biggest girl on stage but as she hit the classic hardcore pose she looked magnificent!
Ironically too, given that we now know she felt much more nervous when she was posing as a female bodybuilder than as a Figure competitor, the MD commentator, Adina Zanolli, makes a point of saying that Rene's seems to "love being on stage", and I certainly get that impression too, as always with Rene on stage during her FBB years.
I wonder what her next move might be. Since pro FBBing did away with weight classes no amateur FBB from outside the Heavyweight class has made much impact in the Pro League, and Rene was a Middleweight. She is way too bulky for Figure it seems, so she might find Physique provides her with more opportunity for success, if that's what she's after. Meanwhile, happy and healthy, she continues managing Iris Kyle's Bodicafe in Las Vegas, and recent evidence suggests that no matter how hard she tries to "downsize", those biceps of hers are never going lose their thickness or peak.
Follow Rene on Instagram.
Tomorrow, we stay in Toronto for another personal best. Guess who!
Enjoy!
Sunday, 16 October 2016
Clip of the Week (& Channel of the Year!)
VALYA ARN
Now in a normal week, this compilation of the best of FMS fave Jessica Williams' Instagram from World of Muscle Girls would be a shoe-in for Clip of the Week, but this has turned out to be far from a normal week. Alerted to a completely different compilation on one of the forums - an edit one of the members rated as "the best collection I've ever seen" - I was so impressed I surmised the creator displayed such craft they must have been in the FBB compilation business for some time.
And I hoped that they still were.
Second time this week my dream has come true!
Gentlemen, I give you the latest slice of fried gold from the genius that is Valya Arn.
Подборка Женщины качки (FLEXING SELECTION)
At the time of writing there were seventeen such quality edits on the channel.
Each is between ten and fifteen minutes long.
Don't forget the fluids now!
Now in a normal week, this compilation of the best of FMS fave Jessica Williams' Instagram from World of Muscle Girls would be a shoe-in for Clip of the Week, but this has turned out to be far from a normal week. Alerted to a completely different compilation on one of the forums - an edit one of the members rated as "the best collection I've ever seen" - I was so impressed I surmised the creator displayed such craft they must have been in the FBB compilation business for some time.
And I hoped that they still were.
Second time this week my dream has come true!
Gentlemen, I give you the latest slice of fried gold from the genius that is Valya Arn.
Подборка Женщины качки (FLEXING SELECTION)
At the time of writing there were seventeen such quality edits on the channel.
Each is between ten and fifteen minutes long.
Don't forget the fluids now!
Wednesday, 24 August 2016
The Strong Arms of the Law
After yesterday's Bad Girls, today it's the Good Cop. A bikini-clad Swedish police officer has been praised for tackling a suspected thief while she was off-duty sunbathing with friends in Stockholm, said the BBC, while The Sun (as you'd expect) somewhat more dramatically headlined the story: The incredible moment swimsuit-wearing off-duty cop pins down thief who stole sunbathers’ mobile phones.
He seemed a poor homeless guy trying to do the right thing, selling newspapers rather than begging, said the "bikini-clad Swedish police officer" who posted the pic to her Instagram. When we didn't buy his newspaper he tried to steal my cell phone!
He had picked the wrong woman to steal from. Mikaela Kellner is not just a police officer who has appeared on the Swedish version of Ninja Warrior, but also describes herself as an athlete, a powerlifter and a Crossfitter - "toughest competitor alive". This was the first time in my 11 years as a police officer that I have intervened while wearing a bikini, she said. I must say it was pretty good fun and rather pleasant.
The BBC made no mention at all of Mikaela's athleticism. Not so The Sun. There can be no dispute about who came out on top, exclaimed reporter Danny Collins, with the muscle-bound cop holding the man in an arm lock. He may have thought twice had he known that the sunbathing policewoman was a champion bodybuilder!
Mikaela and friends, including (top left) Amanda Almroth and (bottom right) Jenny Adolfsson
Mikaela's muscles hadn't escaped the attention of the fan forums even before the incident, but after the story broke she was dubbed "the sexiest superhero alive", and her collar "the luckiest thief". This guy just wanted a gorgeous woman to handcuff him, claimed one fan, and offers "to play the bad guy next" have been plentiful.
Mikaela's back in training after a summer break. Thieves beware!
He seemed a poor homeless guy trying to do the right thing, selling newspapers rather than begging, said the "bikini-clad Swedish police officer" who posted the pic to her Instagram. When we didn't buy his newspaper he tried to steal my cell phone!
He had picked the wrong woman to steal from. Mikaela Kellner is not just a police officer who has appeared on the Swedish version of Ninja Warrior, but also describes herself as an athlete, a powerlifter and a Crossfitter - "toughest competitor alive". This was the first time in my 11 years as a police officer that I have intervened while wearing a bikini, she said. I must say it was pretty good fun and rather pleasant.
The BBC made no mention at all of Mikaela's athleticism. Not so The Sun. There can be no dispute about who came out on top, exclaimed reporter Danny Collins, with the muscle-bound cop holding the man in an arm lock. He may have thought twice had he known that the sunbathing policewoman was a champion bodybuilder!
Mikaela and friends, including (top left) Amanda Almroth and (bottom right) Jenny Adolfsson
Mikaela's muscles hadn't escaped the attention of the fan forums even before the incident, but after the story broke she was dubbed "the sexiest superhero alive", and her collar "the luckiest thief". This guy just wanted a gorgeous woman to handcuff him, claimed one fan, and offers "to play the bad guy next" have been plentiful.
Mikaela's back in training after a summer break. Thieves beware!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)