Vive la Différence!

Spot the difference.



Well?

Clue: look down.

This is Edilma "Dee" Vasconcelos, winner of both the Figure (left, in case you hadn't noticed the heels) and Physique titles at the NPC Midwest Championships in April this year. Physique is my favourite division because I love old school posing, says the Brazilian. Not that I don't like Figure, she adds. It's so classy too. I tried both!


"Vascularconcelos" - a quad worthy of Figure, or Physique?

One way of looking at this - and Dee is by no means the only woman to have doubled up in this NPC season so far - is as a damning indictment of the NPC/IFBB's obsessive "downsizing". Physique has become nothing more than Figure without the heels.

And it's true, there are Physique competitors who look as though they would do well - better even - in the Figure division. But there are also those who wouldn't look out of place in a Female Bodybuilding line-up, albeit an amateur, light-heavyweight one.



Take two of the Physique competitors from the recent St. Louis Pro. On the left, Emily Bethany, who placed 9th. Emily had been a Figure competitor before switching to Physique in 2015 and gaining her pro card. On the right, the considerably bigger Amanda Slinker, who was 5th. Most of Amanda's career has been in the Physique division, but last year she moved "up" to Light-heavyweight Bodybuilding for the IFBB North Americans, won her over 35 class and was able to turn pro as a result.



You might recognise Amanda better with her previous hairdo.

This - if you want to put a negative slant on it - disparity, or - more positively - breadth of the Physique division makes it what it is. You could call it a curse - how are the women supposed to know whether the Figure end or the Light-heavyweight Bodybuilding end of the scale will curry favour with the judges at any given contest? But you could also call it a blessing, as it allows in both Figure women who want to add a little more muscle and smaller Bodybuilders who are unlikely to succeed in the most Heavyweight environment of them all, the IFBB Pro Female Bodybuilding ranks.


Ashley Weimer @NPC Jr. Nationals - v.2014 Figure & v.2016 Physique

Shanique Grant and Diana Schnaidt are two of the best-known examples of Figure women who have recently made the transition to the Physique division - in Shanique's case with stunning success - but they are just two of many. Ashley Weimer, who also competed in St. Louis, and finished 4th, is another. And don't forget that once upon a time a certain Juliana Malacarne was a fair to middling Figure competitor...




And coming the other way are Angela Debatin, Sherri Gray, Geraldine Morgan, and Zoa Linsey - all previously competitive Bodybuilders, all competing in the Physique division in 2017. The three Ks, [since when? - ed.] Katka Kyptova, Karolina Borkovcova and Kira Neuman have decided, more or less recently, to seek their competitive fortunes in Physique, and even a former Ms Olympia, Valentina Chepiga, has spent the autumn of her competitive career there.



So, to go back to the earlier question about what the judges are looking for, I'd say that based on the evidence of the three IFBB pro winners so far this year, the answer is, not surprisingly, neither extreme but rather somewhere in the middle. Shanique, Sheronica and Candrea were not the biggest, nor the smallest among their respective line-ups in Fort Lauderdale, Charlotte, and St. Louis. Shanique was definitely the best conditioned for her win, but then few achieve her freakish level of muscular definition. Sheronica has been better conditioned, perhaps the softer look was deliberate, and Candrea seems to have trimmed her muscle down a bit. So, are we any clearer?!




Perhaps not, but one thing is plain - like the Figure division, and very much unlike Female Bodybuilding, the pro Physique ranks are constantly being swelled by up-and-coming talent from the amateur NPC shows in the US. Laurel Fredette (winning the recent NPC North Carolina Championships), will be just one of the fresh talents to look out for in the Physique division at the national level shows to come this year.




At the end of the month, finally, Female Bodybuilding returns in Toronto, the last of the IFBB Pro divisions to begin its competitive season. Physique is not the same, but while we wait, I could think of worse ways to spend the time than following Joanna Romano, or Hanna Hallman, or Nicole O'Neal, or Margita Zamolova.



Or discovering the likes of Laurel.

Jill Diorio

I competed in Figure, says Jill Diorio, and the feedback from the last show I did was that I was too lean and muscular, which to me is not a bad problem to have.

Like her already?



I'd already been thinking about making the switch to Women's Physique anyway, she continues, so for me that kind of just sealed the deal. So, a few months after that I hopped on stage, took a shot at Physique, and I placed 2nd in that show.


2014: WBFF Figure Pro & NPC Physique Novice

Jill, who hails from Worcester, Massachusetts, had got her Figure experience in the WBFF, and though she may have been too lean and muscular for that federation, her Physique credentials needed some work. Fifteen months of work to be exact.

Her new, improved Physique body returned to the stage last year, "conditioned, hard and JACKED" as the subtitle to her thread on the forum whose first rule is says (and you know when a lady gets a thread subtitle there, she really has got something special). She'd been a pro in her WBFF days, now she was on a mission to be an IFBB pro.


2016: NPC Vermont Championships; NPC Jr USAs; NPC Jr Nationals

Having won the NPC Vermont Championships in April, she went to the Jr USAs in May (finishing 3rd), the Jr Nationals in June (2nd), and then the NPC Team Universe in July, where she won her class, and pro card. And it was around then that no little chatter about her started up on the forums, much of it about her jaw-dropping calves.



2016: NPC Team Universe

A lot of people have come to know me by my calves, she says, before dropping what we might start calling a "Policky bombshell". I don't actually train those much.



They really are glories. And it is quite clearly unfair that she does little to grow, or even preserve them, both for all those other women who have such a hard slog just to make their calves look like muscles at all, and for all us female muscle heads, drooling so uncontrollably for those bulging beauties and never wanting to stop!

But perhaps they are "no training" proof.

Evidence from Jill's pro debut in St Louis recently certainly suggests as much.




Good news! And (I've been looking closely) there's also that freaky tendon that has grown into a sort of shin muscle adding even more below-the-knee droolworthiness.



But none of this should detract from the fact that Jill is quite obviously much more than the (considerable) sum of her calves (and freaky shin tendon/muscle things). She had that 15-month off-season before April 2016, and again took a break between the NPC Universe last July and her pro debut in April, and the improvements after each of them is astonishing. But even in the short months between her 2016 shows, despite the dieting, she was exponentially better on each occasion. And she's quite the fox.



From WBFF Figure to IFBB Physique, calves she doesn't train that won't stop growing, from brunette to blond, and back again. And, we might as well throw in, a qualified and working accountant, as thorough with the figures as she is with her Physique.

You can follow Jill on Instagram and/or Facebook, or via her YouTube channel, where she has posted more about her dogs than about herself recently, but that may change.

Enjoy!

Around the World: Libya

Around the World will be an occasional series celebrating the female bodybuilders of a particular country, and examining any issues peculiar to muscle women there.

Today, the "only Female Bodybuilder in Libya".



Libya's "only Female Bodybuilder", is, according to Africa's Independent News Online, "an observant Muslim who wears the headscarf". So don't expect any muscles today.

Still with us? Good! Let's find out a little more...

The woman in the gym in the headscarf is the 48-year-old Fathia Al-Amamy from Benghazi, and she's Libya's first ever national Female Bodybuilding champion.

Presumably, given she "the only", she competed for that title in a field of one, and her one previous stage experience, the "Eastern Region Championships" in 2012, was the same. But field of one or not, her national champion status qualifies her for international competition, and the recent spate of media reports about her have all been focused on her need for funding in order to represent her country abroad, specifically at "an international contest" in Minsk, Belarus in July.

Two things most strike me when watching Fathia in action in this Euronews report.

1. Those are not heavy weights and that is not great form. And 2. Judging by the only thing we've got to go on - her face - she looks pretty good for a 48-year-old.



One wonders how she competes at all, given the headscarf. In all seriousness, female only judges in a private room would seem to be about right, but hardly likely.

Quite honestly, I haven't been able to find any confirmation at all of an international bodybuilding contest in Belarus in July, IFBB or otherwise, but if this story is legit, and if Fathia becomes the first Libyan woman to compete abroad, then we can only hope she will inspire many more Muslim women, in Libya and elsewhere, to follow her.

#transformationtuesday

It's Tuesday, and that means that all over social media, women of all muscular shapes and sizes will be cutting and pasting and posting their before and after pics for Transformation Tuesday. They aim to inspire, to motivate, to show what is possible, either by showing off their new, improved selves, or - increasingly common - by bigging up a woman they've helped transform in their role as trainer/coach.




Before they were overweight, perhaps after giving birth (perhaps multiple times), perhaps after living the party life a bit too hard in their 20s. There are also those who have triumphed over eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia. Melissa Wee and Lisa Cross are two better-known women to have done so, and their, and many other such stories are the ones that tend to make it into the mainstream media.

Each woman has her own unique story though.



Alex O'Hanlon (above) was a PA, "bored out of my brain, wondering what my next move should be". She joined a gym and "fell in love". She wanted to be there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. She went on to compete a few times in 2013 and 2014, and then last year, after being made redundant from her PA job, she got herself qualified and now she runs her own training and nutrition business. Fat loss, better skin, more energy, better sleep, more power, increased strength and bags more confidence, are what she promises, her own transformation an advert/reference for her services.



Diana Schnaidt, former Figure now Physique pro, and previously, from the age of 13 into her late 20s a fashion model, doesn't necessarily look back on her former self with totally negative feelings. Exchanging clothes for weight training was "swapping one passion for another", she has said, but she has also exchanged a diet of "some lettuce and a maybe protein bar" for "healthy balanced meals throughout the day", and ultimately this had led her to becoming "happier and stronger, inside and out".



Gabrielle Tongol, a national level Figure competitor from Canada was a teenage binge-eater, who started off by following workouts and diet plans she found on Bodybuilding.com, and by her 18th birthday she was standing on stage as a competitor. That was in 2013, and since then, as well as sculpting what Fit Gems has called "one of the most eye-catching physiques in all of figure", she has graduated college, become a graphic designer, social media consultant, and make-up artist.



As well as the muscles, there are often other "improvements" that take place as well. Cast your eyes over these two comparisons of Tina Nguyen before and after and see if you can spot the difference between the two befores. As one Tumblr wag puts it, the recipe for "hot" is "build muscles and buy tits". I would never be so crude.



More seriously, these transformations are always, it seems to me, accompanied by a more general transformation in appearance. Better hair, make-up, accessories, dress sense, more attention to appearance full stop. This is, I suspect, partly because the girl is becoming a woman, but even among the more mature transformers such details, as it were, complete the transformation, and for some, tattoos, piercings, and breast enhancements - whether you love them or loathe them - are a part of that.



Every fan seems to have their own most beloved transformation, though I think I'm right in saying that probably the most popular - and the most likely to be put together by the fan rather than the woman herself - are the ones where the motivation for the transformation is not immediately obvious. Before we have either the good-looking (in the conventional sense) young woman or the competitor in one of the less muscular divisions, even perhaps already a competitive Bodybuilder. After, she's HUGE.



I’ve always wanted to be there when one of them decides, "I want it that badly, I know there will be no going back, I'm willing to do whatever it takes", confesses one Tumblr blogger, shedding some light on the appeal of these fan-created juxtapositions. I want to look deep into her eyes when she decides she wants to be huge. Every single FBB has had to have had that moment. Just the thought gives me a huge erection.



You know, however, there are actually some guys who would honestly prefer the picture on the left. "At least she looks like a woman," they say - some of them, rather pointlessly, on fan sites. You can admire the musculature all you want, commented one, er, fella re: before and after Brooke Walker (above), but the squaring of her jaw, dried-up skin and loss of feminine curves is not an improvement in any way.




Seems there are two types of people. There are those who prefer the picture on the left, and there are those who prefer the picture on the right, and not only prefer, but also project all kinds of fantasies onto it. I, you can probably guess, am totally, firmly, and deeply committed to the RIGHT on this issue. And it's not often in my life I say that.



Enjoy!

Lots more of this sort of thing here.

May Day Mmmmonique

A big beautiful muscular woman in a cute sexy dress. It doesn't get much better.



Indeed not. And, according to Mmmmonique, this is no one-off. The first of many more pin-up shoots to come, she recently promised her Instagram followers.

It's the juxtaposition that makes it such an instant classic. The contrast between that very feminine dress and her massive, muscular physique is simply astounding, one forum poster writes, impressively articulate given the circumstances.

And it's given us our theme for the week - contrast (or lack of it). Can't say I've totally thought it through, but there we are, I've committed to it now. We'll see how it goes!

Enjoy!