Amateur Week: Rachel Reid

And finally for Amateur Week, Rachel Reid, the very beautiful Rachel Reid, personal trainer, massage therapist and nutrition coach from New York state.


2014 - Figure & 2016 - Bodybuilding

Over the last four years, Rachel has competed mostly in Physique, but has also featured in Figure and Bodybuilding. Her shows have been somewhat irregular, and though she has enjoyed success in the past (in Bodybuilding and Physique, not so much in Figure), her placings have been almost as irregular as her appearances.




So I for one was delighted to see her return to the stage after she had taken 2017 off and win at the NPC Connecticut Grand Prix. 1st place! Still sort of in disbelief, she wrote afterwards, thanking (among others) the contest's photographer Chris Hayden "for getting some good pics of someone that's not so stage photogenic".



Mr Hyaden is clearly very talented, but I have to disagree with Rachel assessment of gorgeous, muscular herself there. I doubt she could look un-photogenic if she tried.



Follow Rachel on Instagram

2016 Review: May

The FMS Hot and Hard 100 countdown reached its climax...



The first post of the month had a lot of British flavour. Corinne Ingman made her Hot and Hard 100 debut at #40, the highest new UK entry, and Lisa Cross (#32) took over (just) from Rene Campbell (#34) as your most popular Brit of all.



Meanwhile, shurely shome mishtake. FMS spent ages checking and re-checking and still didn't quite believe this was the first time "Fit Rock Star" Isabelle Turell had appeared on our list. Still don't quite believe it but there she is, a "new entry" at #33.

And as we raced into the top 30 we found Diana Schnaidt, the second highest new entry of all, and some massive risers - Tanya Hyde (#71 to #23), and Eleonora Dobrinina (#79 to #22) among them. But new (lawd knows how) IFBB pro Nataliya Kovalyova enjoyed an even bigger rise, from #90 in 2015 to #25.



Hot and hard women who had appeared previously in the top 20 were back again. Minna, Kashma, Heidi, Suzy, Cindy etc. Ms Rising Phoenix herself finally cracked the upper echelons of the list, and not before time, as did Virginia Sanchez Macias, much to the delight of her fans (if not Virgina herself). Marthe Sundby (#84 in 2015 to #13) was the biggest riser of all, but the biggest surprise, perhaps, was Dani Reardon "only" at #14 when I, and one or two shocked readers, would have put a fair bit of hard earned cash on her improving on her #4 position in 2015.



And we also met the highest new entry on our 2016 list at #12...



Which left the top 10. Mavi Gioia was there for the third year in a row, as were Elena Oana and Alina. And it was also another top 10 finish for 2015 winner Shannon Courtney, who, despite doing more Spartan Racing than Bodybuilding in 2015, made #7 on your list. FMS faves Melissa Wee (the world's sexiest chaste Christian) and Erica Blockman (the world's sexiest fire fighter) made their top 10 debuts, and 2015 highest new entry Theresa Ivancik muscled up to #4 on the countdown.




The top 3 was as much of a mix of the familiar and the surprising as the rest of the top 10. RP2015 runner-up Helle Trevino smashed her way back into the Hot and Hard 100 after slipping off the list in 2015 at #3, and for the second successive year the muscle fantasy that is Aleesha Young came second by just a single vote.



And so, when all you lovely readers had voted, it was Cris Goy Arellano who became the Hottest Hard Woman in the World. Rather unexpected, but there was no argument that she was a worthy winner. Interestingly, she's the first Physique competitor to take the title after Alina in 2014 and Shannon in 2015.



Who's your money on for next year?

With the countdown done, FMS paused for breath, and then it was on with the show.



We ruminated a little about the number of "Fat to Fit" stories that had been appearing in the UK online media, as well as identifying and welcoming the growing trend for so-called "glamour" models in the UK to be showing off their gains with pride.

And having piddled around with the media definition of "bodybuilder" for a week or so, we launched into a couple of weeks where there was nothing but muscle on show. We struggled to define the theme of the first week of this meat feast, but a few pictures of Michaela Aycock were worth more than the proverbial thousand words.



A theme that has cropped up again and again this year has been the increasingly impressive amount of muscle worn by Figure competitors, particularly in the IFBB pro ranks. Perhaps it's always been there and we just didn't notice, but when Natalia Coelho had flared her thighs at shows in Miami and Orlando during the month of April, well, jaws were floor bound and we learned some muscle lingo: "feathered".



So many muscle women, so many haters. We liked Rachel Reid's response.



We liked it a lot.

And as May drew to a close, the meat turned up to 11 as the new super star of Brazilian female muscle made her FMS debut, some months after her seismic entry into the collective female muscle lovin' consciousness via Selma Labat's Instagram. Hottest new FBB! She's stunning, commented one reader. Flores ist unglaublich heiß und sexy, hoffentlich wächst sie noch weiter zu einer wahren Muskelgöttin mit wahnsinnigen Deltoidmuskeln und wird, dank ihres Mannes, noch muskulösen und Sexier! said another. And if your German ain't up to it, allow me: "Flores is incredibly hot and sexy, hopefully she'll grow even bigger into a true muscle goddess with insane deltoid muscles and become, thanks to her husband, more muscular and sexier still!"



Amen, Bruder.

Der Morgen, Juni.

Rachel Reid: She Likes That Shit

A forum (the one whose first rule is...) has been running periodic "Best Selfie" polls. From a selection of 30 nominated selfies in either the Bikini/Fitness or Physique/Bodybuilding category you vote for your favourites. In the latter of those categories, Rachel Reid's selfies (above, below) get a lot of votes.



And why not? As one of the forum members there points out she is "gorgeous and huge", a combination guaranteed to get the brethren excited. And those pecs in particular get a lot of attention and praise. Chest day, she reveals, is her favorite training day of the week. And she's rightly very proud of her "lady pecs". I don't have implants, she says. Nor will I get them.



She started as a powerlifter - which is perhaps why those pecs look so damn powerful - and ended up competing only by chance. I had a good friend bet me that if he lost 30lbs in a month then I had to do a figure competition, she says. He won! After her first (natural) bodybuilding show, she says she "became hooked".



It took me a long time to build enough muscle to compete at the NPC level, says Rachel, and initially she competed in Figure, reaching national level and 9th in her class at the 2014 IFBB North Americans. But in 2015 she switched to Physique. I plan to compete in the WPD this fall, she said at the start of the year, and battle for my pro card at the NPC Nationals in Miami in November.



She did compete in the fall, but despite all the attention that she and her pecs were getting on the forums, despite feeling "gloriously veiny" on the morning of the NPC Baltimore Classic, a 6th place was not enough to get her to the Nationals.



See how Rachel always seems to say the right things? No implants, loves the veins. And she loves the right quotes as well. Example - Things I have in common with Victoria's Secret Models: 1. Being Hungry...

Well, here's the best example of all, a response to - almost unbelievably - negative comments about her magnificent physique.



And as she prepares for her 2016 season - she calls the shredding process "de-fluff" - she's saying all the right things again. And she seems to be taking continued pleasure in those upper body, pec-focused selfies. Time to get back to these abs and veins, she recently exclaimed on her Instagram next to one of those "gloriously veiny" images of her from late 2015.



She's one of the most beautiful girls in the world, according to one (highly typical) forum post. Quite possibly the most beautiful woman alive, according to another, seducing us with both her physique and her smile. Rachel clearly doesn't need to say all the right things to convince us female muscle heads of her magnificence, yet the fact that she does makes her all the more thrilling.




And nor, on the evidence so far, does she need to succeed in competition to build her (fanboy) fanbase. But we wish her well and sincerely hope that when November 2016 rolls around we'll be talking about Rachel Reid (and her pecs) at the NPC Nationals.



Follow Rachel's de-fluff for 2016 on her Instagram, and if you want to compare Rachel now with Figure Rachel, check out her 2014 IFBB North Americans package on RxMuscle and/or NPC News Online.

Enjoy!

Pic of the Day

SIZE MATTERS II

Size has very much mattered to Rachel Reid over the last year or so as she moved up from Figure to Physique with startling results. In turn this has lead to the size of her female muscle headed following growing just as her muscles have. Exponentially!



This particular pic was posted only recently but dates from last October (she was five weeks out), which means that this year she'll have a whole 'nother off-season on top of the size she has here. So come join the Rachel Reid party on Instagram!