On Fandom: Chapter 5

Exposure.



A female bodybuilder with 'zero per cent body fat' has caused a debate over whether she is healthy after showing off her ripped physique in the gym.

The woman, who has not been named, filmed herself striking a series of poses to display her muscly figure - including her washboard abs.

However, some social media users suggested that it was 'dangerous' for her to sculpt her body in this way.

The video was posted on LiveLeak with the caption: 'Well this just went from hot to dangerous'. It shows the bodybuilder, believed to be from the US, pouting at the camera as she flexes her biceps.

One person commented: 'The dietary discipline to get very low is nuts ( nobody is at 0 especially a woman) but its unhealthy and ugly'. Another person described it as 'a step too far', while one suggested it was 'bad for her body'.

However, others said they admired her dedication, with one commenter writing: 'It's her life though, so more power to her.'

A healthy body fat percentage for women aged 20 to 39 ranges between 21 and 33 per cent, according to the Royal College of Nursing.

Mail Online, 12th November 2016



The female bodybuilder in question, one of FMS' Women of the Year 2015, Eleonora Dobrinina. Her location, as I'm sure you know, Toronto. That's in Canada. The video, hardly new. But The Mail was by no means the only news source to pick up on the LiveLeak post. Ella, without being named once, was suddenly all over the world.



This has happened before, of course. Georgina McConnell, teenage muscle girl, and Dani Reardon and her late-night shenanigans, to name but two examples. It goes from one media source to another, each one adding slightly less to the (already incredibly low) standard of journalism on display. Pure reproduction, with, perhaps, worse punctuation (The Mail's needed correcting) and more pictures.

But this week I'm not interested in the media. I'm interested in us.



Not a hard thing to be an Ella fan. Not hard to follow Ella on Facebook, or Instagram (where she's posted many many of these "shocking" clips). Not hard to type some encouraging (polite, supportive, not creepy and obnoxious - remember?) comments for her. Many do, maybe you're one of her 300,000+ followers already.

Good for you.



Not such an easy thing to tell the world that though, is it?

When your colleague at work or whatever suddenly shows you their phone or your friend sends you a link - "This is fucking freaky!" - and suddenly you're looking at Ella's "shocking video" or The Mail's article and you are expected to react.

What do you say?

Yeah, very freaky. That's Ella. E-le-o-no-ra Dob-ri-ni-na. I follow her on Instagram. Used to be a lot smaller but in the last year or so she's really muscled up. So dedicated, and such a show-off. She posts loads of clips like that, maybe not quite so extreme but yeah... Sexy as hell if you ask me, a woman so enjoying her own body. Look how proud she is of herself. Major turn-on. And she's from Canada, not the US like it says there. 0%? She'd be dead. It's bollocks. You read The Mail?! Damn.

Or maybe not.



My own recent history at such moments is mixed - see previously on FMS here and (most recently) here. You'll note that my finest hour involved being a bit on the drunk side and righteously indignant and not with people who I regularly spend time with, so I don't congratulate myself too much, and fully expect if someone had shown me Ella I would have reverted to type and just mumbled something vaguely negative (but not too negative) and got myself the hell out of the conversation sharpish.



Given the number of female muscle heads who, like me, choose to keep their passion largely under wraps, I doubt I'm the only one who tends to act so shamefully at the moments when I really should be more Brian Eno. I could, after all, really bore the pants off the next guy who discovers some female muscle in the mainstream and wants me to go "Eew! She's disgusting!" like a good red-blooded man should.

But instead...



She did pretty well this year in her debut pro season. Man, you should see her all tanned and oiled in her posing suit, she really goes for it on stage. Maniac poser! Believe the judges had to tell her to calm it down. Total exhibitionist.



Mad as a balloon too, her Instagram is hilarious! Check out her transformation, it's incredible what she's achieved in six years. Made herself extraordinary is what she's done. Look at that bottom! How sexy is that?! Oh man, you're not telling me you prefer her before? You are having a Turkish! Seriously?! You've got to be some kind of weirdo to prefer her before. And what with you being a Mail reader and all...



Will I finally stick my female muscle lovin' head above the parapet next time?

Will you?

to be continued...

FMS RP2016 Preview: The Queen

MARGIE MARTIN Ms Rising Phoenix 2015





A CHAMPION'S YEAR



3½ years ago I started this journey, Margie Martin told her IG followers just under a year ago. I loved lifting weight but I loved eating more. But once I made the commitment it was a labour of love. It came with its tears, joys, pains and rewards. This wasn't about just losing weight it was about living a dream. A dream that was so scary I would wake up in tears. The hardest part sometimes is believing in yourself.



And basking in her post-win glow, she had another message, To all my sisters in Iron in every division, every shape, every size... keep being you: fierce and wonderful!




Her off-season began with some time "cha-cha-chillin", and after having competed in all four pro events in 2015 before her triumph in San Antonio, she reckoned she deserved it. She ate chocolate, enjoyed the American football (as we say here) season, looked sensational in everything she wore - "Love how muscle just makes the dress pop!" - and had some wild hair days. But there was no break in her training, no big holiday from work. She was even already looking for improvements. It's Leg Day... Again, she wrote as the winter nights started to draw in. I spent yesterday working on my Deadlift form (I normally just do straight leg only). Now it's time to make them bleed!



At the end of January she was excited to be joining some of her "sisters in Iron" at the first Daily FBB Show in Paris, and after meeting and giving the fans a day to remember, and then "walking all the way up the Eiffel Tower... with my eyes!", she returned home from the City of Love feeling the love. Love yourself completely, she told her followers, reminding them on St. Valentine's Day that "you're the real MVP".



And then she was off on another trip, the FBB get-together put together by Wings of Strength. And the Champ was feeling honoured. And humble. If you had told me that I was spending the weekend with Alina Popa, Helle Trevino, Isabelle Turell, and The One and Only Lenda Murray, I would have told you to stop smoking that stuff, she said. Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think this could happen. But today is the day. Thank you to the wonderful people who put this all together.



Winter turned to spring. The temperature started to rise. I love that late night pump, she confessed, her dark skin glistening with sweat, the sight of which got FMS' temperature rising too, as I recall. I want to make these the biggest ear muffs in the world! was how she explained her latest quadgasmic selfie. Swoonarama!





She filmed those quads dancing in the gym, broke at least one heart (mine) showing off a new dress, and, once again, Margie took time to look back at how far she'd come, all the way back to her very first contest in 2007 while she was still working for the US Defense Department in Okinawa, Japan. I ate 3 cans of tuna for 8 weeks with some pop tart binging because I was starving myself, she wrote. It took a long time after that show for me to learn my body but I did and now I'm here.



And then, 12 weeks (81 days exactly) out from the defence of her title at RP2016, Margie starts to really count it down. When I first started I really enjoyed documenting the journey and I plan on doing it again, she explained. Stay tuned.



Just under six weeks later, she looked like this. The work she had been documenting was starting to show results. And she was pleased. Getting closer to the woman I want to see on stage, she said. I can almost taste it. But even before the first six weeks of her "journey" had passed, she had seen another woman onto the stage. Margie had a protégé, and when that protégé got up on the stage at the NPC USAs, it was a bit like seeing the future. Brittney O'Veal - "my client, my sister in Iron" - took the overall title and a pro card, and was immediately dubbed Queen of Glutes by her mentor.



And Margie very much enjoyed the time spent in the Las Vegas heat while she was supporting Brittney, and I for one very much enjoyed seeing her enjoying it. Love the vascularity, she said, providing us with one of our "Picture Perfect" posts in August.



Hard to know where to start with this picture, I wrote at the time. And unusually, I stand by everything I wrote then! As soon as you notice those mighty shoulders, your eyes are drawn to her big juicy pecs. Or her massive arms. Then you're back at the shoulders. Then you notice the quads, but you still can't take your eyes off those biceps. Or the pecs. Muscle everywhere. Prime championship beef.



Margie was not only looking like a goddess, but she was feeling like one. And acting on that feeling to the extent that she had made a little shrine at home. To herself!

And why not? Is that conceited? she wondered, before deciding she didn't care. The quads (becoming breathtaking fast) were getting some IG clip time, she was loving her heart-shaped delts, rating her "diet face" at "level 7" and "not letting up off the gas, keeping the pedal to the metal" with two weeks to go to Scottsdale.

The suit arrived. It's glorious. And as she showed off her current back situation (every bit as breathtaking as her quads) last weekend, Margie, I sensed, had reached the point where the message was no longer for her followers, but by herself to herself.

Just a quick snip on whatever blah blah days before the show, she wrote. I want to say some thought provoking shit but quite often there is nothing but the work. Don't think about it, don't analyze it. Just do the damn work.




Her win last year was unexpected but joyful. After Iris had dominated for so long, here was not just a new Queen of Female Bodybuilding, but a completely different type of champion. Margie is, absolutely, everything that a female bodybuilder should be, everything the fans (even the most so-called "hardcore" fans) could want. All muscle.

And at the same time, as I hope this retrospective of her year as champion has shown, she is every inch a woman, and a gorgeous, sassy, stylish, sexy woman at that.



Will she, can she, hold onto her title in the face of Alina's return? You've only got a day left to find out. It wouldn't be the biggest surprise in the world if she did. After all, champions in bodybuilding (and not just female bodybuilding) are notoriously hard to unseat from their thrones, and let's face it, she's always ready to fight.

But even if she doesn't repeat last year's success, she has been - for one year at least - just the new champion the sport needed. A GREAT champion. Fierce and wonderful.


And with that, FMS will be taking a little break. See you sometime after we've enjoyed Alina Popa, Margie Martin et al in The Greatest Female Muscle Show on Earth - The 2016 Wings of Strength Rising Phoenix IFBB Pro Women's World Championships.

She's So Shredded: Hayley Hirshland

I remember posting the picture on the left (above, right) in 2013 and all of the positive comments I got. Unfortunately, that physique was achieved by forgetting to eat, was fuelled by caffeine and cigarettes, and was supersetted with pretty dangerous Insanity workouts. Think what you want, but I love being strong and I'm hella proud of the work I've put into completely reconstructing my body. No special supps, no pills, no waist trainers, but whole foods and A BUNCHA HARD WORK.



Shredded Hayley Hirshland isn't backwards in coming forwards about her love of her own muscles and strength, and the key to that self-love is, I think, to be found in the story told in the above quote. The old body was loathed, the new body is loved. And Hayley is all about spreading that message to young women far and wide.



The 25-year-old from Wisconsin was a competitive figure skater in her youth, and comes from a golfing family. She started lifting initially at school, but became serious about it during her second stint of living in Japan - she had previously spent a term studying there - working for a Japanese golf channel. It was not uncommon to work for over 12 hours a day, she says. I would take the easy route when it came to nutrition by eating out constantly and not making the correct choices when at work functions. I was never overweight, but found that I had gained quite a bit after a few months of living abroad so I decided to make a change. I joined Gold’s Gym in downtown Tokyo, began lifting first thing in the morning before work. By August 2013, a matter of months after she had begun to train consistently, she was featured on the cover of Woman's Shape and Sport, a Japanese fitness magazine.



By 2015 she was also writing for a Japanese fitness magazine, and it was after a request from her editors there for a story that she first competed, "so they could get an idea of how the competitions in the United States work". She chose an NPC contest, Pride of the Midwest Championships, and finished 3rd in her Figure class. I didn’t enjoy myself, she says. I knew that I couldn’t succeed against athletes that may have been using PEDs, but I thought I would give it another chance in a drug-tested competition.



Whether you agree with her reasoning or not, without the opportunity to compete in a "natural" show, Hayley may have never competed again. Instead, though, she cleaned up at the Wisconsin Natural Championships, winning both her class and the overall title in the Figure and Fit Body categories, resulting in not one but TWO pro cards! I wanted to give bodybuilding competitively one more chance, she says, so I went into the competition solely for the experience. I honestly was so shocked!



Success there was followed by success at her first pro show, the Central USA Natural Championships, and most recently she finished 2nd in the Figure class at another pro show in Sacramento. And there will be no stopping her now. After meeting all of the incredible athletes, coaches, and attendees and feeling confident in my performance in the gym and on stage, I've caught the bug and can’t get enough! I'll forever be grateful to the WNBF for making competing one of the best experiences!



And while all this has been going on, this "truly mesmerising" beauty has not escaped the attention of the brethren. Some fans are just as all about natural as Hayley herself is, enjoying her "natural breasts" as well as her "natural muscles", but even those who are not can't help but love her "hard and sensual" bottom, her "electric smile", and those abs - "if I put my fingers in those grooves between her abdominal muscles, it would hurt like a vice if she flexed!" I'm no purist, but count me in for all of the above and those gorgeous delts she's fashioned. Hayley is one stunning young woman.




Her travels have taken her back to Japan again now. She speaks (and more impressively writes) the language, you know (as well as Mandarin and Spanish), and she's on a mission to spread her own version of the strong-and-shredded-is-sexy gospel. The bodybuilding scene is just starting to make waves in Japan, but it is still relatively underground, especially for Japanese women. Unfortunately, there are still social stigmas for women that do not have extremely "skinny" body types and much of the fitness industry targeted at women is still flooded with gimmicky "diet" products. I went from someone who was sickly thin to an athletic, strong woman with curves, strength, and confidence. I personally believe that weightlifting allows for a woman to build a beautiful physique, but more importantly, gives her the confidence to love and appreciate the body she has for what it is capable of doing as well as what it looks like. If you feel good about yourself, you begin to radiate confidence and can spend time and energy focusing on the things that truly matter!



She's an international traveller, a polyglot, a natural bodybuilding champion, a writer, and a female muscle advocate. Follow Hayley's Japanese adventures on Instagram.



お楽しみください！