Well, Aloha! Jennie & More in Hawaii

First I heard of Alina Popa protégée Jennie Roosa's pro debut was when she posted these to her Instagram. And after that point I got quite excited about the prospect.

Turned out the show she (and Alina) had selected was the new (in terms of having a Female Bodybuilding class anyway) Hawaii Pro, which took place on March 10th.



Jennie is not what you'd call the most prolific social media poster, but what she did post from her prep only served to push my excitement levels almost to ticker-threatening. This was 4 weeks out!!! And then a check-in photo of her with Physique Dream Krista Dunn emerged, Jennie's perky pec pointers persuading me she was just as excited as anybody (even me) heightened my anticipation even further.



In the end, the (finally) glammed and tanned Jennie was only one of three in the Female Bodybuilding class, and with just five women competing in Physique, the show was not exactly overflowing with muscular treats. However, in both those classes and in a much better-subscribed Fitness class, treats there most certainly were.

FITNESS



That is quite a chassis on the winner Missy Terwilliger. I clocked her at the Arnolds (where, thanks to Kate Errington, I watched all the Fitness routines) and was impressed. You can check out just what she can make that chassis do here.



But the big Fitness interest of the day was Minna Pajulahti, back in the division where she started out after a break (by my reckoning) of about seven years. Check out her routine, and while you do so bear in mind that she can squat, bench press and deadlift a combined total well in excess of 500kg (well over 1,100lbs).



The judges placed her 4th.



And you can get a sense of just how big she really as from this Maximum Muscle Report interview with Mandus Buckle (for real). Now he may not be cut out for interviewing, but his presence in shot nonetheless provides a good sense of Minna's mighty scale.

PHYSIQUE



And talking of mighty scales, the aforementioned Krista Dunn was hardly dwarfed by Jennie in their check-in photo, making close inspection of her on-stage pics a must.




Krista looked every inch the two-time Olympian she is, and her incredible legs and overall "buff-momness" almost proved a winner (she was 2nd) with the judges.




The Physique class winner though was the (somewhat-less-ripped-than-Krista) Michaela Aycock, who, a week after she'd exceeded expectations at the Arnolds by placing 4th and doing some glamour work, booked her place at the Olympia.



I just had two of the most incredible weeks, she told her Instagram followers after her Ohio and Hawaii experiences. My heart is so full, and the year is still young!

BODYBUILDING



Jennie at last! But against the odds, and despite looking about as Popa as you can look without actually being Popa, she didn't take home the title on her pro debut. Instead, the very classy Nicki Chartrand claimed 2018's first Female Bodybuilding crown.



I was at the show, one (fortunate) forum member revealed afterwards. I was a little surprised by Nicki's win. She looked incredible, but Jennie looked absolutely amazing. Maybe I'm biased, or maybe that's why I'm not a judge, but yeah, I was surprised.



Clue is in the quote, no? "Biased", "not a judge" - and, you will be pleased (because you are so jealous of him), he wasn't in the front row either ("more in the middle/front"). So perhaps not the most reliable of observers. I don't want to make this a debate about the result, more a celebration, so let's just say it was a tough call because there were two absolutely amazing physiques on the stage. Nicki's was amazing, and so was Jennie's.



Four weeks' out was the last morsel she had offered, until the night before. Relaxing with my feet up, enjoying the carbs, she told us. She was wide-eyed, and so was I. That hint of glorious pec meat, that magnificent deltoid, those veins like ropes...



I'm a little disappointed with how Jennie Roosa looked compared to her progress pics from 3-4 weeks ago, moaned a forum poster before the results were in. She looks like she lost size while not really being any more ripped or in better condition.




Some people are never happy. Look at those LEGS... look at that BACK!!!



My only disappointment is that Jennie hasn't updated her Instagram since the night before. I've had to be content with scavenging some of her Awefilms and Muscle Angels work that has gone up on the boards recently. About as Popa as you can look...



Oh yeah, and watching this...


November 2017, and that's Alina giving the orders

What I've been doing while watching is between me and my conscience!

Enjoy!

Woman of the Week: Slava Galagan

She juxtaposes the seemingly incompatible: she has the shape of a seriously built amazon and the face of the prettiest, most innocent girl. Long shiny dark hair, big eyes with curly lashes and a charming smile somehow go along with the widest shoulders. (Vasilina Pazdnikova, "Vladislava Galagan, the Female Bodybuilder")



Not me gushing, but a female admirer, a would-be journalist and student at the Anglo-American University in Prague, where "Slava" (as she is more commonly known) was enrolled for a while. But it could have been written (though perhaps not so well) by pretty much any of the many female muscle heads who have fallen under her spell.


Young(er) Slava, already "selecting outfits that make sure her achievements don’t go unnoticed"

A teenage athlete, she had first found beauty in female muscle at local meets. There were girls in good shape with beautiful leg muscles, she says. If I saw them now I wouldn't be so impressed, but at that time, at 16, they amazed me. Weight training not only improved her as an athlete, it gradually became her obsession in life.



Slava is, like her Prague-based trainer Olha Zhelamska, originally from Russia. Specifically, she hails from what she calls "a tiny town in the God-forsaken Taman Peninsula" (which, if your Russian geography isn't all that it should be, is about as close as you can get to eastern Crimea without actually being in it), and it was there she first began to dream of becoming a pro FBB. I was on the phone with my ex-boyfriend while scrolling through Bodyfitness models on the Internet, she explains. Suddenly, as though something or someone inside me had put the words there, I thought: 'I know what I want to do with my life'. Item #1 on the agenda was escape from Taman...



Relocating to Prague gave her freedom from a family who failed to understand (and support) her. She became financially independent as well, but the demands of being a student and being a bodybuilder proved incompatible. Happily, she ditched the former. Bodybuilding requires a lot of investment, she says. I had to work and train. Studying was just too much. I loved it, but it stood in the way of my dream.



And one part of that dream was realised last week when she stood on stage for the first time at the IFBB Diamond Cup in Malta. Not as one of those Bodyfitness models she had been scrolling through when she had that epiphany, but in the Physique division. She was the Physique division actually, all of it. Perhaps not quite as she had dreamt it then, but still... Best experience ever! she told her Instagram followers. Even though I was the only one, I still stepped on the stage. It’s always so hard the first time.



Yep, she's already planning to do it again. And that is very good news for the female muscle lovin' community because, although a very select few have had her on their radar since late 2016, it has only been during the prep for her contest debut that Slava has really made a name for herself. And she's really made a name for herself.



On top of all that single-minded dedication (which is always a winner), she's an "Amazonian" 5'9", has the looks of "a buffer Aspen Rae", and has made the kind of progress every head with a 22-year-old skinny but athletic girlfriend dreams of on a nightly basis. To say Slava has slayed us all is (not easy but) no understatement.



We don't seem to be able to decide whether "to look into her eyes or at her pecs" for one thing. She is "huge, but still cute as a button", "growing like a weed", and "her sex appeal is off the charts". It's been said she is "the future of bodybuilding", and "the future sexiest woman on Earth". The reply to which was, predictably: "She already is."



It is, apparently, almost impossible not to get a bit carried away (as you gaze into those big brown eyes or at those beautiful beefy arms). Her student interviewer felt it, FMS is very much feeling it, and her fans, including her 20,000+ Instagram followers (Angelica Enberg and Yeon Woo Jhi among them) are no doubt feeling it too.



I build this dream, she says. I never had a doubt. Good, but by no means 100% perfect English. And that is both something of a relief and perfectly excusable considering just about everything else about Slava Galagan is, apparently, absolutely perfect.



Enjoy!

Tube Watch

FMS' (pleasingly popular and) very occasional muscle-in-motion fest returns for the first time since last July with our picks from YouTube over the last month or so.

PHYSIQUE DREAMS @ROYAL LONDON PRO

If you blinked you missed it, but there really was an IFBB pro show in London. Held in the Olympic Park in Stratford the week after the Arnolds, it combined a Saturday pro qualifying contest with a Sunday pro show. Five fine Physiques took to the stage on the Sunday - Britain's own Rosanna Harte, Hronn Sigurdardottir from Iceland (who had won qualifying the day before), the mighty Joanna Romano, Margita Zámolová (fresh from her 3rd place at the Arnolds), and American Shonita Wade. Perhaps not the biggest line-up in terms of numbers, but not short on quality either, as shown in the final judging, posedown and awards, thanks to NPC News Online.



Our Rosie was probably a little disappointed not to win on home turf, but Margita is a seriously classy act these days, and you can watch her routine from the show here.

For Your Consideration

We've long been able to rely on Best Muscle Video for quality (and no little quantity of) North American contest footage, and recently they got round to putting up what they filmed at the 2017 IFBB North Americans. The graceful, sizzling Jessica McKenzie (winner in the Physique division) is definitely a highlight, and we also highly recommend the glorious Jennie Gray - in Figure, but doubtless "too muscular". And for those who like their lady glutes more out in the open, NABBA have put two clips up in the last week or so that are well worth checking out. First we suggest Sarah Halkon (in the tiniest thong of all the finalists) winning the NABBA Britain title last year, followed by some archive footage of Flavia Crissos from the 2004 Universe. Less posing than dance routine, it turns the sexy up to 11 (and quite possibly beyond).

HDPHYSIQUES CUTS IT SHORT (BUT SWEET)

I'm sure their "preview" clips used to be longer, that we used to get a good minute of tease to persuade us to part with our hard-earned and subscribe. Nevertheless, as this teeny tiny glimpse of Sarah Fechter proves, length doesn't matter as long as the clip includes a bicep flex that sears itself into your brain and stays there until you click "PAY NOW" - and delts you could devote your whole life to don't hurt either.



For longer offerings from the channel, you'll have to be content with (some of the better) interviews from backstage and so on. Three well worth a watch from the recent Arnolds are a glammed up Katie Lee (interviewed for once rather than doing the interviewing), Natalia Coelho the day after she finished 2nd at the Physique International (feathery quads and all), and (double bubble) Figure Olympian Melissa Bumstead (pretty but sadly covered up) interviewed by none other than "Beefnuggette" Paige Sandgren (pretty and not at all covered up) - flex at the end!

For Your Consideration

In a similar vein, forum darling Yeon Woo Jhi was recently filmed at a Korean show expo, and although the first two minutes and eight seconds is a lot more interesting than the rest, she does look rather marvellous posing in a tight peachy dress and heels.

VIRGINIA SANCHEZ: REAL TRAINING

We noted how surprised we were that Virginia was absent from this year's Hot and Hard 100, and this recent Double Biceps preview only adds to the confusion. She pumps, she pouts, she makes her mighty striated pecs ripple from bottom to top...

And that's just the first twenty seconds!



Definitely our March viewing highlight. Check out double-biceps.com for preview pics and details of how to obtain the fully-pumped, sweat-drenched 38-minute clip.

Enjoy!

FBBUK: Fitness First!

BRITAIN'S KATE ERRINGTON WINS THE ARNOLD CLASSIC AUSTRALIA



I would love to say "so read the headline on the [insert name of mainstream UK news source, the BBC, for example]", but neither the national nor even the local media around Kate's Maidstone home has picked up on her achievement. Not yet anyway.



After Kate's remarkable 2nd place at the Arnolds at the beginning of March, FMS (not very boldly) predicted that "She's going to Australia for the Arnolds there next, and she'll be among the favourites to win", so her triumph Down Under was not a complete surprise. On top of that, the fact that Whitney Jones, who both coaches Kate and was the only woman to beat her in Ohio, had decided not to bother with the long trip to Melbourne served only to shorten Kate's odds and make her the favourite.



She still had to win though, and win she did, looking even better than she had earlier in the month on her pro debut to finish 2nd in the heels and turns round before blowing the rest of the field away with her routine to place first by some distance. What an AMAZING weekend, she wrote after it had begun to sink in. 2 weeks ago at Arnolds Ohio was a dream come true, now this???!!! I am on Cloud 9. THIS IS CRAZY.



Indeed it is. British women may have won Bodybuilding titles in both the distant and recent past. Lately we have also celebrated our first pro Physique win, but, they have never got close to winning pro Fitness titles. Then Emma Paveley became the first British woman to win one last year in Vancouver. It was against a much smaller field than Kate had to deal with though, and all of the women who Kate beat in Ohio and in Melbourne finished above Emma at the Olympia last year. Kate's win is, without question, the greatest British pro Fitness display ever (her 2nd at the USA Arnolds being the previous best!). Her pro career has had the most sensational start possible.


Looks like the suit's been upgraded too! Kate's amazing progress from (left) the Arnold Amateur 2017 to (right) her irresistible winning pro package at the Arnolds Australia, March 2018

And it was only around this time last year that she was winning the Arnold Amateur to gain that pro card. The improvement she has made in her conditioning is nothing short of incredible. She obviously chose wisely when she hired Jones as her coach.



But most important, I think, is the fact that Kate is a born performer. It's what she does as a day job, after all. Burlesque shows, fire-eating... Kate, it seems, is never happier than when all eyes are on her. There's a saying, 'Dance like nobody's watching...' but where's the fun in that? she wrote recently. I want EVERYONE to be watching.



This win makes her Olympia qualified, and everyone will be watching her as a potential champ there now. Meanwhile, we won't take our eyes off her prep on Instagram.



Enjoy!