Diana Schnaidt's Optimum Physique

As well as being a good day for winner Tome Ameko, the Optimum Classic Pro was also a good day for 4th place Diana Schnaidt, by far the best result she's had this year.



But as impressive as these stage shots are, you only really get a sense of just how Amazonian Diana is when you see her next to the other first callout ladies - even compared to the pretty damn Amazonian Valentina Mishina, Diana looks large.



But best of all would be to see Diana up-close and personal. Perhaps going through her compulsory (and some not strictly encouraged) poses in her hotel room before she thundered up onto the stage. All those gorgeous muscles right there in yer face.

Something like this perhaps...



Best Muscle Video - the name gets more accurate with every new clip they post.

Underrated: Karen Garrett

A new occasional series, Underrated is not intended to be about judging decisions - if it was, we could probably run a post about every single woman who's ever competed! Instead, we aim to (re)focus on women who we think do not enjoy the prominence they deserve in the collective female muscle consciousness - someone a new recruit to the female muscle lovin' world would not necessarily come across.

Readers' suggestions for future posts on the theme would be most welcome.

UNDERRATED?



Search for "Karen Garrett" on Girls with Muscle and you will find exactly 0 images. (And yes, I tried with variations on the spelling of "Garrett" and still nothing).

One thread devoted to her on the forum whose first rule is... contains a single post with a handful of images. Another is a poll asking members to vote "Yes" or "No" as to whether she bears a resemblance to Jada Pinkett(-Smith)(!) "No", unsurprisingly, is a clear winner. And a third, from 2015, wonders "Has anyone heard from her lately?"

CAREER



Karen competed from 1999 to 2012 but with huge gaps in between. According to Muscle Memory, her first and second contests were both in her native New England, and six years apart. On the back of her win at the latter, she went to the NPC USAs for the first time in 2006 and finished 7th in the Middleweight class. Sadly, we haven't been able to find any contest shots from that day, but on the back of that national level exposure she did do her first work with some of the big schmotography sites.



She next turns up on stage in 2011 at the NPC Los Angeles Championships, and wins. And the following year she's at the USAs again, this time as a Light-heavyweight. She placed 5th on that occasion, but sadly was never to be seen on stage again.

APPRECIATION



Karen had a killer smile, but could do smouldering with equal aplomb. She also possessed one of the great eyebrow raises, always perfectly timed to coincide with the pop of a mighty bicep or a rippling side chest pose. The muscle she packed on between her first and second USA appearances left her with a package that would consistently place top 3 at most pro shows these days, let alone amateur ones. That she didn't place higher back in the day was more to do with the competition and a lot less to do with any weaknesses in her physique. Check out the 2006 USA line-up here - you won't believe that so many legendary women were on the stage at the same time - and among the 4 (out of 14) Light-heavyweights at the USAs in 2012 that Karen finished behind, we find Tierany Chretien, Shannon Courtney and Christine Sabo.



At her 2012 peak, Karen possessed not just an amazing, ultra-thick upper body, but a lower half to match. Pics and clips of her from that time have a tendency to leave this viewer seriously overwhelmed, and (with the smile, the smoulders and the eyebrow) she shows off her many assets with exceptional flair. A schmotographer's dream.



NOW?



The latest news is that Karen is quite lucky to be alive actually. Just before Valentine's Day she had a bit of a prang. Her car (see above) is a write-off, happily Karen is all OK.



You can take the girl out of Massachusetts, as they say... She's now based in Las Vegas, where she runs her own Performance Sports Massage business - Fixed by KG.



So, you lovely readers, who's next on Underrated?

The (Mis)Adventures of C. Moore Glootz II

Catch up with Part I here.


Not the object of my teenage affections - she was way better-looking!

School did not end well for C. Moore. In retrospect, my attempts to win the heart of the only female P.E. teacher under 40 were, though heartfelt, rather misguided. I was asked to leave before taking my A-levels, and, somewhat understandably, there wasn't much enthusiasm among local schools to welcome C. Moore into their communities.



At home my bedroom was adorned with pictures of muscular goddesses carefully cut out of muscle magazines (I always bought two copies of everything - one to destroy and one for the files), so you can probably imagine what my own family thought of me.



I sweated out that summer working all hours in a dry cleaning shop, saving almost every penny - I even stopped buying magazines, although I did steal a few. It was time for C. Moore to follow his passion. And so, on an unseasonally chilly September morning, with my father, mother and sister dutifully (but cheerily) waving me goodbye, I boarded my flight to the Land of Female Muscle. Destination - New York.


Central Park - but not in my experience

I'd like to say the States were everything I'd hoped they would be, but sadly my act - illegal (after my tourist visa had run out), unskilled, secondary school dropout with questionable social skills and probably too many questions about where the local gyms were - didn't play very well in New York, and nor did it play well in California, Hawaii (though I swear I saw Marjo Selin drive by while I was there) and Phoenix, Arizona.



But down in Florida, which was my last hope - I hitched there from Arizona, sleeping on gas station roofs when the weather allowed, bus stations when it didn't - I finally found some work with accommodation thrown in, and C. Moore became the handyman at a small resort complex just outside Tampa. I didn't see any female muscle there, but at least I wasn't destitute anymore, and the season was pretty much neverending.



I stayed - for two years. I got good at fixing pretty much anything, and even developed some social skills. I went running along the beach (never saw a single muscular bum, not one), but I got a great tan. I experienced my first hurricane. And my second. I lost my virginity, but not, as I imagined I would, to a female bodybuilder who I'd marry.


Tera Guzman, a good few years later

And I went to my first Bodybuilding show. The 1998 NPC Florida Championships. Kerri Crotty won the Overall, though Tera Guzman and Christine Wan are probably the most familiar names from the eleven who I saw compete that day.


Christine Wan, not in her 1998 Bodybuilding shape

To say that this was the excitement and experience I had crossed the pond and suffered so much hardship for would be a little wide of the mark. Looking back now I wonder at my naivety - I really did think I would be able to just saunter into the pump room, and I really did think once I was there that it would be OK to just feel up some prime female beef. I honestly thought they would be grateful to meet a true fan.



My last few nights in the US were spent in a hospital with a cop sitting next to my bed. As soon as I was discharged, I was deported. C. Moore was driven to the airport at the expense of the county taxpayers, and a big black X was stamped into my passport to ensure I would never return to American soil. I've never tried. But as soon as the plane landed me back in Blighty I set about planning the next contest I would attend.



For a brief - a very brief - moment (and as totally wrong and inappropriate as my behaviour was) (how's that?) [fine - legal dept.] I had laid my hands upon a muscular female body. Everything that happened next - the shouting, the bleeding, the pain, the handcuffs, the mugshot, the hospital food, the piss-taking cops - had been worth it.

Marthe Sundby: The Final Flex

Marthe wouldn't compete again for another three years after her trip to California.



She continued to work as a property developer at Colliers in Oslo, where she had started her professional career in 2007. I have a regular life, and feel completely normal, she said in 2015. I go to work in normal clothes, and act like everyone else. I have a normal job in a normal office where fortunately there is room to be yourself, whether you have hard muscles or a belly that hangs over the waist edge.

But on social media, the pictures that Marthe was posting when she was out of her work clothes (or even sometimes completely out of her clothes altogether) were alerting female muscle lovers to the fact that Marthe was actually really rather exceptional.



Or as one fan put it, she was "the most beautiful muscular woman in the world".



A dazzling muscle goddess.



The perfect woman.



I've been doing the muscle admiration thing for a LONG time, wrote another of her fans, and this is the most extraordinarily beautiful site I have ever laid eyes on.



Her bulging muscles and exploding veins ooze strength and sexuality.



Images like this ensure Marthe will be a legend.

Tomorrow - those legs.

FMS @NPC USAs 2017: Joella Bernard

The other day we were bemoaning the lack of competitors in Female Bodybuilding at the 2017 NPC USAs, and comparing the line-up in that division this year with the class of 2007. Amazingly though, there is one woman who competed at both these shows - a decade apart. Joella Bernard is that woman. Today, we tell her story.

JOELLA BERNARD
Winner, Physique Class "D"



The 2017 NPC USA champion in Physique Class "D" has been waiting for that pro card for longer than most. Ten years ago this July, Joella was making her first appearance at national level at the USAs. She had won two regional titles in California the previous year, and at 5'8" (1.72m), she was to stand on stage with Michelle Neil, Sheila Bleck et al, one of more than twenty women in the Heavyweight class. She placed 7th.



At the time, Joella had just graduated (a double major in Psychology and Theology from William Jessop University in San Jose, California), and over the next five years, she competed annually, not the USAs, but at the NPC Nationals - in 2008 as a Heavyweight (9th), and then from 2009 to 2012 in the Light-heavyweight class.



Joella @NPC Nationals: (top) 2008 & 2009; (bottom) 2011 & 2012

She finished in the top 6 three time from 2010 to 2012, her best placing coming in 2010 when she was runner-up in her class to the mighty Monique Hayes.


Light-heavyweight runner-up, 2010 NPC Nationals

It was around this time that Joella, now a registered nurse and jobbing actress, relocated to New York City, and in 2013 she stopped making the Nationals her contest of choice, and returned to the show where she had made her national level debut back in 2007, the USAs. It was also the start of what we might call Joella's "hair years"!

2013 - RED!




The year Margie Martin took the Overall title, Joella was back with the Heavyweights and hard to miss. She placed 5th (out of 10), with Margie, Anne Sheehan, Victoria Dominguez and Susanna Hand (in that order) finishing above her.

2014 - BLOND!




Joella went blond for her 8th consecutive year of national level competition and just missed out on her pro card. She finished higher than rising star Theresa Ivancik, but was runner-up to the dominant Aleesha Young in the Heavyweight class.

2015 - PURPLE & SILVER!




Only three Heavyweights at the USAs in 2015, and runner-up again. Joella finished above Wendy Watson, but the judges went for the meaty Mary Cain for the class and Overall titles. This was Joella's last appearance as a Bodybuilder.

She switched to Physique for the 2016 season (and went back to her natural hair colour!) and warmed up for yet another NPC USAs by winning her class at the Contra Costa Championships in California - just as she had done back in 2006 before she made her USAs debut. With the top two in each class winning pro cards, she came as close as ever - 3rd! Old habits die hard - note the close-fisted biceps posing.




And so, finally, 2017 has proved to be when, after 10 years of trying, Joella got the judges' nod and finished top of her class of 6. Joella was resplendent - once again we are reminded how muscle women get better with age - and with an all-natural hairdo too. FMS approves.




Congratulations Joella!