Biceps! A New Golden Age?

A little acorn, and a perfectly formed little acorn at that.

They come in all shapes and sizes. Some of them belong to women as yet unknown, others are more familiar. Let others call them 'gross' or 'manly'. I love them all, every single one of them. Can you remember seeing a flexed bicep you didn't like? No, me neither. Every single one of them is the result of hard work and dedication. It takes a special kind of woman to build them, and every single one of them is a winner.


In case you missed it, Andrea Brazier shows you where you should be looking.


Up close and personal with the muscle and veins of rising star Selma Labat.

More and more women are rejecting the mainstream idea of the ideal body shape in favour of a toned and/or muscular one. More and more are venturing into the weights room and lifting heavier and heavier. Whether it feels like it or not, there are more women building muscle now than ever before, and that means there are more female biceps in the world than at any other time.


I've already got my tickets pre-booked for the new Little Red Riding Hood movie.


Does it feel good to have guns like these? Does it look like it feels good?

Last year, the Olympian bodies of women at the London 2012 Games attracted all-round admiration and positive media reporting. This year we have had a female fitness model used in a marketing campaign for a major cosmetics brand. The sport of Crossfit continues to grow in the USA and is now gaining popularity, and, most importantly, air time on major networks in Europe, and now, finally, in Britain. All these examples are signs that athletic women are no longer seen as unmarketable.



Sexy Suzy Kellner revels in her muscular physique.


Both Kortney and Courtney are doing exactly what it says on the sign.

History books will tell you that from the 1880s until the start of the First World War 'strongwomen' acts drew large audiences to their shows, becoming the pin-ups of the day as well as making themselves rich. You might be old enough to remember the so-called 'Golden Age of Female Bodybuilding', usually seen as being around the time when Cory Everson ruled the Miss Olympia and mainstream coverage of female bodybuilding contests was at its height.


Guys like us like Rene Marven's ravishing arms almost as much as she does.


I doubt very much Michaela Schaar's shirt saw another sunrise.

Nowadays, women participate in sport and exercise more than ever before. It seems to me that it is the women who take no form of exercise at all who are starting to be seen as the freaks. Perhaps we are entering (or have already entered) another 'Golden Age', confined neither to vaudeville feats of strength nor specifically to the sport of female bodybuilding, but to a growth in and acceptance of female muscle in general.



Kashma's biceps and a bottle of oil. Questions?

The world might not yet be ready for the likes of Kashma just yet, but everyday, every hour, maybe every minute, somewhere in the world another woman begins her own personal mission for muscle and the sum total of female biceps in the world goes up by two. A 'Golden Age'? Perhaps. Perhaps the dawning of a new era!

And finally, a joyful seven-minute celebration of some of the biggest and the best...




Love and peaks,
6ft1swell

Future Goddesses

In my virtual life (and I dare say yours too) the vast majority of women I see have muscles. All I have to do is power up, go to one of my favourite sites, and there they are. Hundreds, thousands of them. But when it comes to real life, I almost never see a woman with any noticeable amount of muscularity.



I’m not expecting to walk out of the house and bump into a Sarah Hayes clone at the corner shop (nice as it would be), I’m under no illusions that pro female bodybuilders are everywhere. I’m thinking more of the unknown women, the women often referred to as the ‘Muscle Girl Next Door’.



I don’t live in London anymore, but neither do I live in the middle of nowhere. Surely you would think I’m going to see a few of those from time to time. But sadly, I don’t. And if I think back to when I did live in London, I didn’t see a lot of them there either. So who exactly do they live next door to?

Despite my (quite understandable) scepticism, they really are out there somewhere. Back in the days when trips to the newsagent’s was the only way to get my fix of female muscle, the women I saw were only ever big name bodybuilders or fitness competitors. Now, any woman who wants to share her newly-developed muscles with the world can do so, and fortunately for the female muscle head, lots of them are so inclined.



So they really are out there somewhere. And they’re not just posting images of themselves proudly flexing their new bits for our enjoyment, on muscle forums they’re asking for training tips, discussing nutrition, giving each other support and encouragement, and (as women are so good at doing) talking about how they feel about themselves and their bodies.

I just noticed a few days ago that my under arm jiggle went away! Now, my entire arm is firm.

A few weeks ago I frightened myself in the bathroom while I was washing my hands...I saw my arms in the mirror and there were these two balloons of biceps and flexing muscles in my lower arms.



My arms have always been wimpy, like I'd flex and tell my boyfriend to feel my bicep and he'd say "well, flex it!" AND I WAS FLEXING ALREADY! Haha. Pathetic little arms! NOW They are getting much more defined, and you can actually see them get BIGGER when I flex!



For the first time ever, I can actually see my abs in the mirror now thanks to re-working my diet and doing a lot of cardio.



I love when I find new lines. My biceps have recently begun to show more and my inner thighs... the sexiest muscle!



I've just recently noticed that I'm starting to see my triceps, and my shoulder muscles are more defined. I just realized this last night and I'm sooooo excited!



This morning while I was brushing my hair I noticed that I could see the muscles moving. Then I spent a few shameless minutes flexing and watching in the mirror.



Women feeling positive about having muscles and sharing that feeling can inspire others to do the same and add to the amount of female muscle in the world, which is, I’m sure you will agree, just wonderful. But there is another reason to celebrate the ‘Muscle Girl Next Door’.

Last month, I came across an article in the Mail Online that reported that Faddy diets and fears that muscles aren't feminine have left modern women weaker than their grannies. In the article, London-based physiotherapist Sammy Margo says we are facing a massive epidemic of weak women who have no muscle strength. Both skinny and overweight women face health problems in the future. The skinny have no muscles to support their skeleton while the overweight women have no muscles under the fat. Lack of muscle may lead to problems such as osteoporosis and fractures, arthritis and back pain.

It takes only a cursory comparison of the covers of men’s and women’s magazines to understand the differences in what motivates men and women to exercise, says the article. While men strive to get ‘the ultimate six-pack’ and ‘more body bulk now’, women’s objectives tend to be negative - to lose fat and burn calories rather than gain strength. The majority of young females want to look thin. They don’t eat much, they don’t exercise much, and because of that they have weak musculatures - it’s really not a healthy way to be.

The ‘Muscle Girl Next Door’ then, is not only looking better (although that’s just our opinion), and feeling better, but they are also more than a few sets ahead of the vast majority of their peers when it comes to strength and future health.



As a reflection of this, I think I’m going to stop using the phrase ‘Girl Next Door’. It’s not only inaccurate in the specific sense that it doesn’t apply to my neighbours (past or present), but it’s also inaccurate in the general sense that the vast majority of women are, according to the article anyway, totally lacking in any muscle at all.



I propose ‘Future Goddess’ as a better description. Again, for two reasons. Number one is that, well, every muscle goddess started out as a ‘Girl Next Door’, so even if only one of these hundreds and thousands of budding muscle babes make it to the pros, they are all potential goddesses. Secondly, well, if the research reported in the article is to be believed, these women will, in the future, seem like goddesses compared to their peers: strong and dynamic as opposed to hunched and arthritic.


Theresa Ivancik (from Area Orion)
Every goddess was once a ‘Future Goddess’

They’ll be a breed of super women. Super women who bucked the trend and encouraged others to do so too. They will grow in number, and with a bit of luck, one of them might move in next door!



Hail the Future Goddess!

Ts of the Day

Just Do It: Muscle Babe Imperatives

left: Harden the F*@k Up
If she keeps standing there looking at me with that smile and those shoulders,
there will almost certainly be some hardening going on.

right: Marie Samperio: Kiss My Abs!
Talking of hardening up... I've posted this smouldering sex bomb before, and I dare say you'll be seeing the same photo again. If she had any more sex appeal, she'd need a truck to carry it around in. 'Kiss My Abs'? For starters I might!

Grip This

A man could get into trouble when bodies like these wear such messages. But her T-shirt told me to is not, I believe, a defence that will impress the judge much.

Proceed with caution my brethren.

Ts of the Day

We begin a week of muscle babes and their informal attire with a look at some of the more popular printed slogans for the discerning female fitness freak (and her man).



We begin our survey with the slogan that, if our research is to be believed, is by far the most popular choice for the lady who wants to not only show off her hard-earned muscles, but also wants to let the world know that those muscles are doing wonders for her self-confidence.

Now, we here at FMS, and quite probably you too, never held 'skinny' in much estimation, but if you think about the mainstream media's obsession with skinny beauty, then replacing it with 'strong' makes a lot more sense.

Interestingly, the models for the vests below (top left and bottom right) look a whole lot less strong than, say Sophie Arvebrink (bottom left) who really does have some lovely muscles. So it seems that even those that market the shirts tend to shy away from using really strong and muscular women in their advertising. But hey, you can't have everything, and even those models are an improvement on the norm, and thus definitely a step in the right direction.



Another extremely popular slogan (based solely on our research that is, we have no actual proof) seems to be a message to those men and women who treat the gym like a place to socialise. These iron-pumping babes are here for one reason and one reason alone, and they don't want to hear anything from you (or anyone else) except a few grunts and some heavy breathing. It also serves as a way of having to avoid talking themselves. Should they need to communicate with you, they can just point at their own chests. Or perhaps just inflate them, making the lettering clearer.



Having shut up and trained, we're back to the strong/skinny thing again. I couldn't find an image of this on a T-shirt, but I assume that is what it's intended to be. Now, once again, Swell feels duty bound to take issue here. The fact is, although naked, or nearly naked is always preferable, I think strong girls look good clothed or naked. And look better than skinny girls in either case. I freely admit to being something of an extremist on the subject, and would go so far as to say that a strong girl who has just woken up after a hard weekend's partying having forgotten to take off her make-up looks better than a skinny girl who's been at the beauty spa all day and is wearing her best dress.

On second thoughts, perhaps that's a bit too much to fit on a T-shirt...



I love these 'Strong and Proud of It' type slogans, even if they don't stand up to analysis, it's the sentiment that counts, and FMS will, as regular readers, will know, get behind anything that praises fit, muscular women. Let's not fight about which slogan is more or less appropriate. They're all good, although the consensus around here seems to be that 'Fit Babes Do It Better' is hard to beat.



And now I'm sitting here with my coffee wondering how best to scrape the 'THE' and the 'NEW' off the cup when I've finished up here.



This week we'll be looking at a variety of 'messages' on T-shirts and vests worn by muscular women from the famous to the unknown.

To purchase Strong Is the New Sexy items for the muscle woman in your life, FMS recommends Spreadshirt.

Enjoy!

And for more Sophie Arvebrink and her strong, sexy Swedish bod, look here.