My Aspen Rae

If there's a woman who slips more hair bra pictures past the IG police than Aspen Rae, I'd be surprised. Doubtless she doesn't have a body quite like Aspen's anyway.



They might not all be your "pure" one-cascade-of-locks-covering-each-orb type pics, but they are plentiful, playful, and often involve a pigtail and/or a well-placed phone.



She even does arty pop culture references...



Straight outta your television, is her description of her latest (above).



All in all there's a lot more to Aspen Rae than her adult-only "Play with Rae" website and her gorgeousness and her beautiful body. She likes a chopper for one thing.



Aspen is a helicopter pilot in training.



And, those muscles aren't just for show. Or rather they are. For shows. Contests.



She competed with moderate success in Bikini through 2015 and early 2016, but last summer she was preparing to make her Figure debut at the NPC San Francisco Championships. At the show she won every first place trophy (and big sword) it was possible for her to win - class and overall in both Novice and Open Figure.



For breakfast I'd have a glass of lemon water, lunch I'd lick an apple, dinner I would yell at myself in the mirror, is how Aspen describes herself five years ago. I was hungry, miserable, and I was a mess. I'm not that girl anymore. Today, I'm still a fucking mess but at peace with it. And with WAY BIGGER MUSCLES.

Tell me you don't heart that.



Find your Aspen on Instagram.

Hayley McNeff's Jacked Brain's Big Plan

Whatever happened to Hayley McNeff?



Once upon a time circa 2009 the then 21-year-old with a killer combination of looks, muscles and charismatic stage presence exploded across both fan and mainstream bodybuilding forums alike. She won her first two regional shows, and then went on to appear at the 2010 Team Universe, where she won her class. The following year at the same show she seemed a shadow of her former self, and then promptly disappeared.

No one seemed to have a clue what happened. I am guessing she is not competing because most young people do not realize that Bodybuilding is a MARATHON... not a sprint, was the kind of "informed" theory posted on the brah forums. Well, not long before Christmas, Hayley (who'd been posting on Twitter and Instagram this whole time, so you really didn't need to be guessing, brah) emerged to set us straight.

I am alive! I disappeared in graduate school for a while! Now my brain is jacked! I know so many school things! Bachelors in Psychology, with a minor in Sociology and Anthropology. Then 1 year in a Forensics Psychology Masters program (Psychology and the Law) and a few years in a Masters program in Professional Counseling. I still have one last internship left, then I will officially have my Masters degree. I lifted so many brain dumbells. I had to get my brain as jacked as my body had become.



However... (here's comes the good news!)

I am considering making a brief comeback to Bodybuilding, well Physique. But I would do it on my own terms, in a way that would remind everyone of how women looked in the 80s and 90s in Bodybuilding, the Golden Age, the Arnold era. I would not get shredded or try to win. But I would be representing what women looked like when Bodybuilding was mainstream. It sounds like a stellar idea to me! The UFC is mainstream now. Why can't bodybuilding be!? Let's do it!!!

I shouldn't get carried away. "I am considering", "a brief comeback".

But it's hard not to feel excited at the prospect of Hayley doing this again...



See also Hayley's contest debut, and Hayley at the 2010 Team Universe.

And Raising the Bar, a documentary featuring Hayley, is now available on YouTube.

Cindy's Before & After

One of the more momentous events in female muscle since FMS started posting in 2011 was Cindy Landolt's decision to enhance her look with 1000cc of whatever it is they put in those sacks these days. She's indulged mightily in the art of not quite showing us every square millimetre of her new friends, so it's easy to forget she was just as much of a tease when she was all about the pecs, the whole pecs and nothing but the pecs.



Enjoy!

Muscle Women Do It Better: The Hair Bra

The "hair bra" is, it seems, a thing.


Marcela Rivas

Search #hairbra on Instagram, and you'll be faced with all sorts of women letting it hang down so they can post their photo without fear of censorship. But be warned, you will also have to contemplate men who have shaved their bodies in order to fashion a bra-shaped chest rug. I tell you, for a few days after, every time I closed my eyes...


Not quite "pure" hair bras: Thaise Perichi, Cris Goy Arellano, and Daria Afanasyeva

Of course, if women are doing it, then muscle women are doing it better. We couldn't find as many examples as we had hoped for - and, as with some of the ladies today, not all of them are strictly-speaking hair bras but a combination of hand and hair - but we reckon we found enough to keep you busy for today, and for the rest of the week.


Lili Nikolaisen, and Paloma Aragao

Bikini Olympian Jessica Arevalo (below) is quite the alt. bra specialist as it happens. Variations on the hand bra or hair bra Jessica has come up with include the stole bra, the knee bra, and the frond swimsuit. Check out her Instagram for more.



Enjoy!

Sunday Sizzler

This week's sizzle comes from 41-year-old Russian Anastasia Motorina.



That's right. 41.

Unsurprisingly, she's got some social media and fan forum attention recently, and this has led to some mainstream media exposure back in her hometown of Murmansk.

Check out her VK page.

Just 17?!

Turning 18 on 1st July, Indian teen sensation Europa Bhowmik tells her Instagram followers (like it's next week or something). Began my journey 3½ years ago...



Europa comes from "a small town" in West Bengal, and is trained by, and romantically involved with, the considerably older, "several times" former Mr India Indrail Maity. Bit sinister? Well, judging by her Instagram, both Europa and her proud mother seem more than happy with the situation. I guess that's how they roll in West Bengal.



And she can certainly stand up for herself.

I get comments like "This is not attractive. This is not feminine. Why are you trying to be a man? I like girls with curves. I like girls with boobs" blah blah blah, she writes. Well, in case you people don't already know, I didn't choose this lifestyle to sexually appeal you. I chose it because I felt confident and stronger with these muscles. And the bigger they get, the better I feel. I don't care whether you find it feminine. Face the fact that some girls don't work hard to look like a sex doll. I love my muscles. And I don't wanna be any smaller or "curvier". I wanna get bigger and bigger.



Last year Europa finished top 3 at the national Mr India contest, and a couple of months later she went one better in the placings at another "national level" show, finishing runner-up at the marvellously named 9th Mr Satish Sugars Classic.



Granted, the national female bodybuilding standard in India is perhaps not quite what it is in many other countries, but as teenage starts to female bodybuilding careers go, Europa's has been a spectacular one. And she's already been at it for 3½ years!



The mind boggles what she might look like at 21.

Readers' Choice: The Best of Marja

What's your favourite pic of Marja?

We asked, you lovely readers, and you answered. Here, today, are the pics you've chosen as The Best of Marja Lehtonen. And what a lovely little collection it is.

Not a lot of off-season Marja here. Off-season she was like "Mmmmm", as one reader put it, but all ripped and pumped in contest shape she just makes you go "WOW!"



I did ask for a "brief explanation" as to why you had chosen your pic, and I wasn't expecting literature or anything, but the above is about as highbrow as it got. Seems that when we are thinking about Marja, it's all about the base thoughts.

Such an hard choice, another reader said. I looked in my whole collection and I did search, a lot. And I had to cum of course. A lot before I made my choice!



I knew it would be a pic of Marja on stage before searching. Her look is totally insane on this one: confident, smiling and... oh boy, SO HUGE!!! No prizes for guessing what that reader did right after typing that sentence. His personal choice is the hands on hips Marja at the 2008 Atlantic City Pro, above right, same contest as the another reader's pick to its left. Different suit, different expression, but the same HUGE!!!



Even the non-stage photos of Marja you chose show her very much in top shape, big, bulging muscles rippling everywhere you look. Similar poses too. Abs and thigh(s) to the fore, one from HerBiceps, another from WPW. The latter has the added bonus of her biceps ("as big as her head") being on show as well. Both readers followed the general rationale to make their choice - I simply can't look at this picture without my cock instantly getting rock solid and ready to go, as the WPW Marja lovin' reader put it.



Back on the stage, a very tanned Marja at the 2007 Jan Tana in slightly more than a posing suit got one reader's vote. Marja in blue at (I think) an earlier show was nominated by another, not so much for her muscles as her look. I fantasise she's looking at me in the audience, he says. As she flexes, she sees my eyes roll back in my head as I... - no need to be coy, son, we all know what you mean, paint the picture properly in future - and seeing me like that turns her on, having that power...



And finally, a picture of Marja I was especially glad to see nominated because it had been one of my own personal final two. All the usual Marja bits are there - abs, biceps, thigh - but here you get the calves and the veins all over her arm and the veins all over her inner thigh too. If this doesn't stiffen your cock, one reader reckoned, nothing will.

Thanks to all of those who chose their Best of Marja. Without them, today's post would probably have been poorer. But even more importantly, a massive thanks to Marja herself. Without her I reckon all us would be considerably less, er... stiff.

Enjoy!

Denise Hoshor's Good Stuff

Denise Hoshor is certainly one woman who would have been a contender had FMS been running our Hot and Hard 100 back around the turn of the millennium.




Her contest career was brief, the highlights being the Overall title at the 1999 North Americans and 2nd place in the Heavyweight class at the Ms International the following year, but her WPW and Ray Martin videos from around that time are, even today, among their best-selling products. And when older muscle heads (like myself) compile "best ever" lists, Denise more often than not appears at or near the top.



After a 6th place (out of 7) at the 2000 Olympia, she disappeared, returning after a six-year break not as the bodybuilder of legend we remembered but as a Figure competitor. At the 2006 Tournament of Champions she failed to place and that, for the best part of a decade, was all she wrote, but far from all that was written about her.



She really was my crush in the late 90s and the early 2000s, one forum poster admitted before asking the question we all wanted to know the answer to: I wonder what happened to her. Even the guys on the muscle brah forums confessed they had gone into withdrawal after her apparent retirement from the sport. She was a freak! I always loved her look, they said, I would love to see her back as a bodybuilder.



Now Denise Hoshor really is back.




Sorry to disappoint you, but she's not back as a bodybuilder, more as a kind of buff Home Economics/Crossfit guru. Good Things In Life Are Homemade is the name of her YouTube channel, and as one forum wag has pointed out, while we've all aged in the meantime, it seems Denise, who must be well into her mid-40s by now, has not.



Denise, apart from the workout clips (of which there are currently only two, plus one about climbing a rope), will show you how to make all manner of good stuff at home - protein pancakes, sourdough bread, Greek yoghurt, pumpkin pie, banana flour cornbread, and my personal favourite, New England clam chowder. And what's more, she'll also keep you up-to-date with Drake's recovery from surgery. Drake is her dog.



Not quite what I imagined when I imagined Denise's return, but hey, I'll subscribe to her YouTube channel and watch her harvesting sweet potatoes because for all the pleasure she's given me over the years, I feel it's the very least I can do for her.

When it comes to Denise, it'll always be all good.

The 2017 FMS Hot and Hard 100: Votes Please!

Yes, it's already that time of year again...

I HAD A DREAM...

Every year, in case you don't know, "gentleman's" magazine FHM carries out a readers' poll and publishes the results in a special issue. The UK edition even holds an awards ceremony in a plush London venue to publicise it. The subject of the poll and the title of that special issue is misleading: THE SEXIEST WOMEN IN THE WORLD.

Where, I wondered, is our list?

I dreamed about compiling an alternative list to FHM's. A HOT AND HARD 100. I could have just chosen 100 women myself, but I decided I'd much rather make it a collective effort and get the input of FMS readers. The call went out, and, I am eternally grateful that many of you, for the last three years, have answered that call.

THE WINNERS

HOTTEST HARD WOMAN IN THE WORLD 2014



ALINA POPA


HOTTEST HARD WOMAN IN THE WORLD 2015



SHANNON COURTNEY


HOTTEST HARD WOMAN IN THE WORLD 2016



CRIS GOY ARELLANO


HOTTEST HARD WOMAN IN THE WORLD 2017




THE VOTING

It's not complicated. There are just two rules...

1. You can vote for up to 100 women.

Want to vote for just one? Fine. 15? Fine. 50? Excellent! 100? Magic!

But don't vote for any more than that. Simples.

2. It's the Hottest Hard Women of NOW. Not Ever.

Don't vote for your all-time favourites who have fallen off the radar in "retirement".

Quite simply, it's a waste of a vote. It won't be counted. Not sure if one of the ladies you've voted for qualifies? Just put an alternate name next to hers in case she doesn't.

But you don't have to limit yourself to "bodybuilders". There were more WPD women than FBBs on last year's list, and there were women from the Figure, Fitness and Bikini divisions. Crossfitters always get a significent number of votes, and there are always at least a few votes for powerlifters, weightlifters and women from other sports.

All clear?

You are at liberty to rank the women from 1 (your favourite) to 100, rank some of them (eg. a top ten), or just list them in no particular order. Rankings are only taken into account if there's a tie on the number of votes two or more women receive.

Use the comment box below, or email 6ft1swell@gmail.com

Voting closes on the last day of February, so you have four weeks from now.

Now get busy making my dream come true for the fourth time!