The Dana Shemesh Story

You may recognise this woman. In the last couple of months rather a lot of content from Dana Shemesh's Instagram has been posted on the big fan forums, her striking looks and densely-muscled physique inspiring all manner of gushing compliments, and even comparisons with Denise Rutkowski. Though some fans claim to have been aware of Dana long before this recent flurry of interest, a lot of us have been left wondering where exactly this apparently fully-formed mature beauty has suddenly emerged from. So here's as much of the Dana Shemesh story as we know...

PART 1 - NATIONAL CHAMPION



We begin in Israel. All we know about Dana pre-2010 is that she "used to be a dancer", and somehow this led her towards Fitness (and comes in handy for her routines). She was the IFBB national champion in 2010, then nothing about her for a few years - maybe she took a break, maybe she was still competing - then in 2013, same championships, same winning result, but this time she's in the Figure class.



Now whether this is Fitness or Figure or even whether this is one of those national championships we don't know. Those heels could indicate either. What's confusing though is Dana seems to be wearing them while performing her routine!

PART 2 - INTERNATIONAL COMPETITOR



With her own "Ms Fitness Israel" personal training brand now well-established, in the autumn of 2014, Dana was in the US. She attended the Olympia, where she measured up very well against some of the more famous women at the Expo, got inspired by the Figure Olympians, and had a ball at the after show party "at the best club in Vegas".



She probably didn't overdo it that night, despite appearances to the contrary, because meeting, spectating, and partying were not her only concerns on this trip. She'd also come to compete - the first Israeli woman to do so in the NPC, she says.



The contest she had chosen was the Fort Lauderdale Cup, and so a couple of weeks after the Olympia, she tested herself outside of Israel for the first time. She won her class and placed 2nd in the over 30 Masters. It was amazing, she said, beaming with her trophies backstage. A big event with 220 competitors... and SURPRISE! I won!!!



Dana had plenty of experience behind her, but this was a whole new level and she knew it. She'd spent three weeks training with Debi Laszewski before the show, time during which she "learned so much". This was no novice coming to the US and getting lucky first time. This had been a well-planned smash-and-grab. Dana returned to Israel and found a little bit of celebrity status waiting for her, TV and other media keen to tell the story of an Israeli woman's international success. Especially the story of an Israeli woman with Dana's beauty and charisma. Now... How's your Hebrew?



2014 had been a very good year, but Dana had some new goals for 2015.



If you're thinking she doesn't look much very Figure in the above photo, you'd be right. Taken just a few months after her Fort Lauderdale success, Dana was "in transition". She - as so many of the women we feel compelled to feature here do - was moving up to Physique, and was packing on the muscle to achieve another Israeli female first.



And so, just five months after competing in Figure, Dana lined up at the Arnold Amateur, her first Physique contest. In the tall class, she failed to place, but was far from disappointed. I was extremely happy with the outcome because I was better than my last competition. I feel truly proud of myself what I've accomplished, she said afterwards. My class had 27 international competitors, and it was very exciting and challenging. To compete at the Arnolds, the first Israeli woman to do so, had been "a lifelong dream come true". She was looking ahead to her next competition.

PART 3 - LIFE AND THAT "NEXT COMPETITION"



And relocating. By the summer of 2015 Dana was based in New York, establishing her PT business there, while doing more and more photo shoots as a "fitness model". She married her long-time partner in Miami in 2016 (sorry to have to make you stop dreaming), and by the middle of 2017, they had settled down in Florida.



She looked good before, but she's starting to look absolutely sensational by this stage, and that's not just my opinion. Just glancing through some of your Hot and Hard 100 selections, I'm well aware that Dana's got more than a few votes - I may well be having to come up with even more words about her when we post the countdown soon! It's hardly surprising that by the end of the year she was blowing up the forums.



Having relocated, married, and relocated again, that "next competition" had obviously got shunted down the priority list a bit. Perhaps this was no bad thing. I'm pretty sure there are plenty of stories (none of which I can remember off the top of my head right now!) of women who had been successful in the early part of their career finding a move up in division or level leaves them in the hitherto unfamiliar land of lowly placings. So they go away from the stage for a couple of years, and put in the work. Then they come back bigger and better than ever, and the results follow.



If you noticed Dana was looking more and more shredded at the start of the year, there was a reason for that. That "next competition" she promised was now just weeks away.



She returned to the stage at the Topomania Classic in Miami this time last week. I suspect they put the WPD on just for her (what promoter wouldn't want her on next year's advertising?!) - the only other Physique competitor that day did rather better in her Figure class. Then again, Dana would have beaten a lot of amateur Physique women on this showing. It’s been 3 years since 2015 and the Arnold Classic, she reflected post-show. I didn’t compete for all kinds of reasons, but it feels good to be back!



It's good to have her... er, "back". Even if we didn't know she'd gone away.

Whatever she's gunning for next, she's already started putting the work in.



Follow Dana on Instagram and YouTube

תהנה!

Mixed Messages

Britain's big and beautiful Christal Cornick welcomes you to a selection of muscle women being kind enough to give you something to pretend to read as you gawp.



And it also occurs to me that another advantage for the Madness-stricken, tongue-tied fan faced with a goddess with something on her top might be that it might make you less tongue-tied. At least you have something to respond to. Christal's "Come with me..." is delivered through Arnold, who these days would probably have to add "Unless you're a woman actually interested in developing muscles bigger than a Physique competitor", and the only reasonable response to her invitation would be, "OK".



The same response would be suitable in other situations too.

RACHAEL CHASKEY



Some women really go for these printed tops/vests etc. Rachael Chaskey is definitely one of them. It's hardly news that someone like her is as interested in food as she is in weights, but I do like a good "I can [insert intimidating promise/threat]" message like the one Rachael has on the right. I'd like to think I wouldn't be timid. "I believe you could" sounds pathetic. "Go on then, prove it!" would be much more fun, and afterwards you could get your own T-shirt made - "Rachael can deadlift me".



Now most of these printed tops are fairly succinct, but what if there's A LOT of reading to do? Problems would include actually focusing on the text for long enough when you'd really rather be looking at bits of, for example, Paige, and how to read the whole message without looking like you're staring. By the time you got to the bottom of Phyllis Huang's warning, you'd have already committed the crime you're being warned against. Although I can think of worse fates than being womanhandled by her while trying to excuse my forwardness. "But I don't have my lenses in... Ouch!"



That's much better. Jacquelyn Hickerson and Alexis Ewers give you both barrels, and there's no need to ask what day it is or why they are doing what they're doing. Brief and informative. Side note: I'm impressed by the way Alexis manages to stand next to Jacquelyn and not be completely overshadowed. I've not seen many women do that.

COOL FOR CATS



"Meow" indeed. And I reckon there's not much else you could say in reply. Being a cat owner, I do have a pretty convincing "meow", although on second thoughts, I'd be sorely tempted to use my equally convincing solicitation purr instead, to Tamara Ring (ding ding) and the lovely Jamie. Especially to the lovely Jamie. PURRRR!



If you're going to look like this (ID anyone? - I'd be grateful), then you might as well be brazen as f***. I'd like to think I'd be cool, hold it together, come up with something witty and a perhaps little flirty. Something that would let her know I'm impressed, but not intimidated. If I'm honest though, I'd doubt I'd be capable of much more than a whimpering noise as my head spins, my legs buckle, and I fall at her feet.



Melissa really doesn't have to point. I'm sure she gets plenty of offers. The lady on the left - sweet_joly on Instagram - however, has probably had more offers than she wants. Hence the no nonsense approach. She's a heart-breaker, but then again, aren't they all?

JESSICA MARTIN



The more I see of Jessica Martin (and her wardrobe) the more I like her.



Who wouldn't want to lick every bit of sparkle off her? (Sorry, Jessica).



My donuts are sprinkled by sweaty muscle goddesses with an upper body I want to build my world around, fabric-threatening quad size and definition I can see through said fabric, so marry me Jessica. That's what it's going to say on my T-shirt.



Now these two, it seems to me, really are dangerous. Not so much for the ladies, who I'm sure can handle themselves very adequately, but for the female muscle lovers at their gyms. Struck down by The Madness, their higher brain functions disabled, how many have believed these messages were frank and truly meant for them? They say: And the next thing I remember was the manager saying, "Sir, please leave".



And we finish with the top they should all have. Modelled by Corinne Meehan.

Enjoy!

FBBUK: Anna Banks (An Apology)

Though some people might substitute "often" for "always" in the second half of this sentence, we don't always get it right. Having banged on over the last year or so about how much Bodyfitness/Figure talent the UK possessed and how we fully expected that soon some of them would be placing high at international contests, perhaps even gaining pro cards, we somewhat overlooked the woman who would realise that potential most quickly and become the latest of Britain's IFBB Figure pros.



I say "overlooked"... we did mention her at the UKBFF British Championships, which she won. However, we'd got rather enamoured with Danielle Osborn (who had won her class at the Arnold Classic Europe) at that time, and really wanted her to win. When Danielle placed 3rd, we ended up being rather rude about the new British champ.

If any of the UKBFF Bodyfitness judges would like to get in touch and explain exactly why it is that the woman on the right beats the woman on the left, I will be all ears.



It's taken a feature in the Mail Online to remind us that we should have been a bit more polite, and taken much more notice of Anna Banks. In our defence, her rise to the very top of the Figure game has been blink-and-you-miss-it. From her Bodyfitness debut at the East of England Championships in Leicester on September 17th last year to her IFBB pro debut in San Marino in November - (I make it) about 70 days!


Bodyfitness debut win: East of England Championhips, September 2017

The 30-year-old from Liverpool joined former British Bikini star Melissa Haywood on the pro stage having earned her pro card at the San Marino Olympia Amateur the day before - the first time the UK had two Figure pros on stage together since Maria Scotland and Louise Rogers went heel-to-heel in Toronto in 2015. Coincidentally, Anna had, like Melissa, begun her competitive career in the Bikini division.


Agata Banks (Poland), Bikini @EBBF European Championships, May 2017

Back in May 2017 though, when Anna did her last Bikini turn at the European Championships in Spain, she still "represented the Motherland" as she puts it. The scorecard tells us that Agata Banks (of Poland) finished 11th in her up to 169cm class that day, already convinced Bikini wasn't for her - I just wanted to lift, she says.



Interestingly, perhaps because they didn't think it was relevant, perhaps because it doesn't fit their anti-immigration agenda, the Mail make no mention of Anna being from anywhere other than Liverpool in their story. What they do focus on though is why she first began lifting. I wouldn't say I was out of shape, she tells them. I just wasn't completely satisfied with how I looked, especially my mid-section. I was very body conscious and would always wear a one-piece swimsuit instead of a Bikini.



Inspired by fitness models in magazines she began her journey, as they say. I remember thinking "Wow! I wish I looked like that, and is that even possible?" she tells her 17,000+ Instagram followers. But don’t let anyone tell you it can’t be done. Whatever your genetics, all you have to do is start. It's taken her around seven years, the last 18 months of which she's been competing - and now she's the inspiration.




And she certainly doesn't lack ambition. Of the three women who won their Olympia San Marino Bodyfitness classes, only Anna signed up for the pro show the next day. It was, after all, a qualifier for what she calls "the pinnacle". She placed 10th in a field that included women who had recently been at that pinnacle - (Las Vegas) Olympians Jessica Reyes Padilla and Adela Ondrejovicova. A very respectable result.


Pro debut: San Marino, November 2017

But resting on her laurels clearly isn't her style. I’m actually kind of a rookie again, she says of her new pro status. BUT "I’LL BE BACK", bigger and better [in 2018].



FMS is more than a little red-faced that it's taken so long to bring you the story of Anna's remarkable rise. We most certainly won't be "overlooking" her again.


Anna Banks, UKBFF British Champion, October 2017

Follow Anna on Instagram