Obsessions New & Old

What, I wondered as I first thought about this week's selections, are my particular female muscle obsessions? You would think I'd know after roughly 30 years. Two key points were easy to identify. One, "The New", I expanded on on Tuesday, and the other will be dealt with on Saturday. Apart from that, I had a few assumptions.



Abs would surely have to be one, but then a glance at the most numerous labels over the last five years or so revealed that I'd made more posts concerning Biceps.




What goes on backstage would have to be another. As someone who's never been to a show, let alone been granted entry to a pump room (aka the holiest of holies), I guess it could be something about the attraction of the forbidden. Perhaps I'm so obsessed with backstage pics and clips because I know it's the closest I'll ever get. Perhaps it's the knowledge that nowhere on Earth is there a greater density of female muscle.



And it doesn't even have to be the big girls. I can get excited about just about any backstage clip, including Bikini. As long as there's pumping and flexing and tanning and oiling, I'm all over it. Below is a recent example of a fine bit of backstage camera work. Mostly it's the Figure pros. Diana Schnaidt is just one of many highlights.



And while we're on the subject of the Figure ladies, there's a somewhat newer obsession I appear to have developed, regarding their lack of flexing on stage and their obvious desire to flex the hell out of their muscles almost all of the rest of the time. It started a couple of years ago when Alicia Coates flexed her biceps at the Olympia...



Since then I've been monitoring the amount of gratuitous flexing ladies of the Figure division do when their not on stage at contests - in, for example, the pump room. Seems to me it's a lot. As much as possible in fact, but it doesn't end there. What about when they get interviewed after they win? Again, there's a lot. Really.

Take for example the lovely Stephanie Rowe, interviewed below by Ashley Adams for HD Physiques. Now Stephanie, as all women with muscle seem to me to do, gesticulates a lot during the interview. Inadvertent flexing you might call it, just keep your eyes on the arm closest to you. But then, as is customary at the end of these interviews, Stephanie shows us a pose (for the impatient, it's at 2.20). A Figure pose.

Can Stephanie resist giving us another kind of pose as well? Can she f**k?!



So, I obsessively wonder, does this mean that Alicia and Stephanie would like to do a bit more flexing on stage? Are all Figure ladies, or at least the ones who post themselves flexing, fully-pumped on their IG feeds day after day after day, frustrated flexers? Is the only cure a move up to Physique à la Shanique Grant?


Shanique, Figure (left), and flexing

Perhaps. But for the classiest competitors, the fact that they don't get to do the double biceps or the side chest or the abs and thigh doesn't stop them sneaking a sneaky flex into their "presentations". And the best example of this I've found this year has got to be the ever-classy Cydney Gillon winning at the Miami Muscle Beach Pro. Check out the cheeky, blink-and-you-miss-it rewind-no-I-didn't-imagine-it tricep flex at 0.24.



Obsessed? Yes I am!



In an effort to bring some sort of sanity to this post, I wondered if the blog labels would reveal obsession with particular women. The top five were both predictable and surprising. Alina has more posts dedicated to her than any other woman - predictable. Lisa Cross comes a close second - also predictable, given that I'm a Brit and am ever so slightly obsessed with Lisa. Shannon in fourth and Marthe and Margie tied for 5th - also predictable. But I was genuinely surprised to find that my third most written about woman was the much-missed Slovenian she-beast Brigita Brezovac.



I don't regret a single post, I just wouldn't have counted Brigita among my top five of the past five years if you'd asked. And I guess that just goes to show how little I know! Possibly though it has something to do with the fact that the tip top number one label is "Muscle", and there can be no doubt at all that Brigita always had plenty of that.



And so, to another of my lasting obsessions. No, it's not the tongue, or the outfit - although in the case of that clip neither of those things hurt - it's the walk.

Honestly, I think if I ever saw a female bodybuilder, a real female bodybuilder, especially one who I recognised, out in public walking along the street, well, I think I would probably just keep on following her until I was either confronted, arrested, or had a door of some sort slammed in my face. I could watch clips of female bodybuilders walking all day. Every day. And I'm so enamoured by them that if a longer clip starts off with a walk before fading into something else, I'm gutted.



As George Harrison sang, something in the way she moves...

Right. Time to get this over with. I've already probably given the impression I am, if not mentally deranged, super-creepy. But if you share any of these obsessions, or indeed others - glutes, Brazilians, Brazilian glutes, Dani Reardon, female muscle hand bras, extreme vascularity, that bulge - then I'm sure we'd have something to talk about if we met at a place that has become another of my obsessions, the Girls with Muscle chat room. Look out for 6ft1swell joining the chat and say hello.

Or get the hell out of there sharpish. Your call.

Obsessions New & Old: I, Pinderette

What do you think about calling her female fans "Pinderettes"? Reckon they'd be proud to be Pinderettes. Hell, why not extend the term to all Jamie-lovers male or female? I reckon I'd be proud to be a Pinderette, and would say so to people (and later regret having done so). Anyway! The point I'm making here is that it's not just us red-blooded males who think that Jamie is the bomb. Really. WOW!!!
["Chicago 2014: Jamie Pinder's WOW Factor", FMS, July 2014]



Not a new obsession today. Rather an old flame. And on July 7th, that flame was burning brightly again. For the first time since she'd finished runner-up at that Chicago show in 2014, Jamie Pinder was back. At the same show two years on. And this time there was no mistake, no second place. This time she won. And for this old Pinderette anyway, her WOW factor was still very much in evidence. Very much.




The smile that had been growing bigger and bigger as the day of competition approached, her "happily shredded" smile as she calls it, grew even wider on that stage, and had hardly disappeared as she posed for photos with her victory shield afterwards. I did it! she told her Instagram followers. Or should I say "The Pinderettes"?



It was a back injury that robbed her of a second Olympia appearance in 2014 and kept Jamie out of the 2015 season. But she'll be back there this year all being well, and I have a feeling she's going to be improving on her incomprehensible 12th place there on her debut in 2013. I'm spending a lot of quality time perfecting my new "package" for the stage this year, she says. After a year off, I'm ready to prove all my doubters wrong. Eh?! She had doubters? Who was doubting her? Was it you?!




Nobody should doubt how hard she trains for it - see previously on FMS for a reminder - the results speak from themselves. From those big beautiful biceps to the detail in her legs. From her wondrous chest to her glorious glutes. Her make-up and styling planned and executed in equally meticulous detail - hardly surprising given that she is a make-up artist herself. The suit, the routine. Everything she does is pure class.



I would say that though, wouldn't I? Me, a raving Pinderette. I'm not alone though. Far from it. If you're not one of us already, why not follow Jamie on Instagram. Join me and her other 13,000 other admirers. The ever-growing Pinderette army.



Enjoy!

Obsessions New & Old: The Thrill of the New

There are those who remained utterly devoted to a single woman.



Take my virtual friend for example. As long as we've been in touch he's been putting together tribute after tribute to his favourite FBB. Sure, his head's been turned every now and then by other muscle women, but in the end he always comes back to his Yaxeni, and his devotion shows no sign of waning. Quite the opposite in fact.

And then there are those who are devoted to a type. Usually the big type.



They express their devotion on those Tumblr blogs where day after day they dutifully post pics and gifs and clips of the biggest muscle women ever for your viewing pleasure. Take Embrace the Size, for example, which actually has a lot more variety than some, and its parade of "classic" and new images of massive muscle women.



Compared to these fans, yours truly is positively fickle.

Sure I have my "favourites" from the past 30 years of female muscle lovin'. My "old school" faves, the first women who brought out the sthenolagniac in me. There's my "all-time" faves, and my "knock knock knockin' on the all-time faves' door" faves, women who are still active in the world of female bodybuilding and who will enter the "all-time" pantheon one day. Because you have to be retired to get in there you see.

My pantheon, my rules!



All pretty obsessive stuff. All my favourites compartmentalized into sub-sections. Rules about who gets to go where. I've obviously thought about this far too much, but actually it's worse than that. I hope you are sitting down because you know all these greats of the past - Anja Langer, Sharon Bruneau, Denise Hoshor, Gina Davis, Dena Westerfield, Marja Lehtonen and so on - they're not really my favourites.

My real obsession is with the new.



It's what drives me to obsessively follow what's happening in competitions at home and abroad, in federations big and small. It's what I find so addictive about following these women - usually on Instagram, sometimes on Facebook, rarely on Twitter - as they hone their physiques in preparation for an upcoming show. New everyday.



Discovering women I'd never heard of or seen before is as exciting - if not more exciting - than that. Again, obsessively checking the images of the unfamiliar name who finished 4th in Physique at an NPC state level show is something you will often find me doing, NPC News Online my preferred source. The forums too, Girls with Muscle and the one whose first rule is... are great places for discovering women you never knew existed. Fans even more obsessed with finding the next big thing are out there, and I truly appreciate that they really want to share their new discoveries with us.



A list of the women I have come across for the first time since I started the blog just over five years ago would be ridiculously long. Some of the biggest thrills I've had in those five and a bit years would include seeing Cindy Landolt (pre-enhancements), Kashma Maharaj, Shannon Courtney (now that really was a rush I'll never forget!), and Sexy Sophie Arvebrink for the first time. Aleesha, Dani Reardon, Theresa Ivancik, Cris Goy Arellano, Marthe Sundby, Margie Martin...




New, thrilling delights. New women to follow. It's what I live for.

I guess, and again I have probably thought about this a bit too much, that what I am realy after is that same thrill I once got from seeing a female bodybuilder for the first time. Carolyn Cheshire on UK TV, Anja Langer on the cover of Muscle & Fitness in my local newsagent's, the first GMV VHS I bought that had contest footage...



The rush of those moments is what I crave, the thrill of the new.

Of course it's a losing game. I'll never see a female bodybuilder for the first time again. I'll never buy a muscle magazine for the cover picture for the first time again. I'll never see footage of FBBs doing their routines for the first time again. Ever.



But sometimes, today's Instagram post by Eleonora Dobrinina, or a still from a camshow with Natalia Trukhina that turns up a Tumblr blog, or wondering what this Amanda Smith who won her class at the Canadian Nationals looks like, or coming across a thread on a forum entitled "The Incredible Cass Martin"... well, they don't quite hit the same heights as those very first experiences, but it's damn close.



And ultimately I think, this is what keeps me blogging. If all I wanted to do was write about my "old school" or "all-time" or some other group of past favourites, I - and I dare say you - would have got bored of this blog long before it reached its 5th anniversary. While I remain addicted, obsessed with chasing the thrill of the new, there will always be wonderful women - both known and as yet unknown - to write about.



And I hope you'll enjoy them with me.

Obsessions New & Old: "The One"

It was only as recently as April this year that pictures of Cassandra "Cass" Martin started to appear on the forums. And she's already quite a female muscle celebrity.



Her Instagram @casssmartin (the extra "s" is for "sizzling hot", one fan reckons), already has 92,000 followers, and not all of them are wide-eyed female muscle heads like you and me. Her social media popularity (and perhaps her looks) has quickly led to all sorts of fitness-related sponsorship - many of her Instagram posts feature some kind of product or other, everything from clothing to drinks containers.



She's clearly been lifting for a while but is just starting out in the industry. She's just 20, and although she describes herself with the one word we all love hearing - "Bodybuilder" - she has never (as far as I know) competed as a bodybuilder or anything else. Nor does she (again, as far as I know) have any immediate plans to do so.



Actually, she is quite mysterious. I have been all over her Instagram since I first found her on the forums and I can't tell you where she's from exactly. And I'm not the only one who's in the dark. There's a fan on the forum whose first rules is who asks, about once a month, if anybody knows what her plans are and has never received a reply. She keeps her cards close to her impressive chest. And somehow this lack of information, this mystery (on top of those looks perhaps) make her all the more alluring.



One thing that everyone knows about her though, mainly because she's quite happy to share it, is that she is freakishly strong. 130lb dumbbell rows, 90lb dumbbell chest presses, 315lb deadlift... Tried the 75s today, Cass told her followers a couple of weeks ago. Only got 3, so I dropped back down to the 70s for reps. Next time you are in the gym and there aren't many people about, try picking up two 70lb (just over 30kg) dumbbells and doing seated shoulder presses with them. Then try it with 60s.



If the above paragraph gave you the impression I have tried some of Cass's lifts myself, then I'm sorry to disappoint you but I've been lifting for a while and I know my limits and I don't want to be wheeled out of the gym and into an ambulance. Others , though, are not so savvy. I tried a few of her lifts, one fan revealed last month. A few I managed - with great difficulty. Other lifts I couldn't even do, especially the rows. I probably outweigh her by 100lbs [45kg]. She's so f**king strong it's mind-boggling.



And of course the other thing we all know about her, simply because we all have access to her photos and clips, is that Cass is a remarkable beauty. An absolute stunner.



She's so good-looking, in fact, that the thought has crossed my mind that she actually doesn't exist and is a sophisticated computer-generated avatar designed by a marketing company to get us to buy all those products she endorses. Kind of like that CG woman the guy falls in love with in that film (whose title escapes me).

 

Not, I grant you, very likely, but I have another theory about Cass, and I promise it's better than that. It concerns one of our collective obsessions - the "Obsessions" of the title of this week's posts are not only mine, you see - the emergence of a female bodybuilder who will take the sport back into the mainstream. AKA "The One".



Once upon a time, it was Cindy Phillips. More recently, it was Shannon Courtney. There have been others, those that combine a mainstream beauty with a truck load of muscle and remain - at least in our eyes - feminine with it. Now, I have some serious reservations about this whole idea, the first of which would be that even in the so-called Golden Age of Cory Everson et al, female bodybuilding was never really mainstream in the first place. But let's say it was, and let's say it is possible one woman can take it back there. It hasn't happened with any of the candidates we've collectively assigned that role to so far. My theory is that Cass Martin will be our next.

  

I haven't seen anyone tout her as the new "One" yet, but I bet it's coming. I don't like women with muscles but for you I'll make an exception, reads one comment on Cass's Instagram, the author no doubt intending to be a lot more complimentary than he actually is. More importantly though, this is exactly the kind of thing that makes us fans suspect that Cass could be on the verge of cracking the mainstream.



She isn't. Nor was Cindy Phillips, Fabiola Boulanger, Kris Murrell, Gina Davis and nor was Shannon either (see She's Not the Messiah, She's a Very Beautiful Female Bodybuilder for more of FMS' take on this). Cass, as far as I can tell, is not thinking much beyond new PBs for her lifts and bigger muscles all over as a result. She is, in her own words, just "putting in the work", and this is very much working for her so far.



She's already shown that she can create a very nice career for herself without ever stepping onto a stage. It's working for Sophie Arvebrink, for example, and coincidentally it wasn't that long ago yours truly was utterly obsessed with her.


 

So, tempting though it might be to think otherwise, Cass Martin is not "The One". Sorry to those who still dream of Rising Phoenix coverage in national newspapers or whatever "mainstream acceptance" means to you. It ain't going to happen via Cass or anyone else. But - however inappropriate it might be for me, a man of advancing years, to be so enamoured with a woman of 20 - definitely one of my latest obsessions.

Sorry Sophie.



Obsessions all week on FMS. Old, new, borrowed...