The good ol’ days of female bodybuilding

maybe it has to do with how society’s opinion on the ideal body has changed? i know in the 70s and 80s it was about bigger guys and girls, but maybe they felt that they were getting too big? if you look back on big the girls were 30 years ago, they look tiny compared to now and maybe mainstream media doesn’t want to go for the bigger girls. so yes, i believe its many factors like how the sport has evolved, that the girls are bigger yes, but get less coverage. if you count the bodybuilders back then as fitness, then yes, fitness girls are still in the mainstream

I think changing attitudes toward drug use are a significant factor. At this point, drug testing is certainly a necessary, though probably not a sufficient, condition for bodybuilding to be viewed as a legitimate pastime.

But I think it’s also true that as BBers (of both sexes, though especially women) get bigger, they get farther and farther from mainstream standards of attractiveness, and hence less and less tolerable (I don’t think that’s too strong a word) in mainstream entertainment.

On the women’s side, I think that fitness and physique will (continue to) grow in popularity as female strength becomes more universally accepted and praised. (Which I think is basically inevitable: culture, like science, advances one funeral at a time.) If BBing ever returns to the limelight, it will follow upon that.

I was born in the mid 60’s ansd loved femuscle as a little kid. I never imagined it would grow to where it did when I was 10 or 12. Tha amazing Charonne and the Popeye episodes were about it. A few other TV shows, but nothing like what came later. I remember ‘Real People” on NBC when I was a kid doing a feature on FBBS. Then came more. We had Jan Todd and the Women’s powerlifting championships start and there were some nice looking amazons in that. Vicky Gagne and Jan to name too. Ben francis also began there. The magazines started picking up the women’s scene more and more about 1980 and then we had WSP which was mail order…the start of the WPW company. The shows were also a novelty. Femuscle was new. It was first on ESPN with Cory, Kay Baxter, and Carla Dunlap.

Lets not forget ESPN had much less pro and college sports in those days. Women’s armwrestling was on too with the MLB players and the NFL players having a toruney. That would never happen now….MLB players armwrestling. Bodybuilding was in the rotation. There was musclemag show each week…which aired 2-3 times.

The talk shows were not around as much until the late 80’s and 90’s and loved fbbs. Most covered it. Some used the freak angle. Others had wrestling. Others were serious. The whole thing exploded. It was popular too. Guys would leave it on for a few minutes in college. Some would say gross, but they woud keep it there for a bit. We had the WSE and sponsors. All the best girls came. It was a WPW thing. Then came the next level of musclegirls with more roids.

Sponsors left for the reasons discussed and more. First, there was no issue with roids. Then..as baseball records fell and the feds became involved…..guess what? Drug enforcement vs roid went up about 4 times. Coleete Nelsons fiancee was jailed. Sherry Smith was arrested. lets face it….drugs were a huge part of the sport and still are. A top fbb may need a huge amount of that. You need a dealer…or to be a dealer and those guys are drying up in the US. Candada does not enforce it as much. That is why you see athletes travel to docs in Canada….or use them Tiger Woods and Arod. Every major dealer here is now in danger of jail. That was not nearly the case years back. They were sold easily at any top gym. It is now not like that. You have to work to find them.

Take the laws and the media scrutiny and public scrutiny vs all cheaters like Lance Armstrong, Bonds, and a zillion others. Why would endorsers stay with a sport everyone knows is big on roids? They would not. Why would you put such people on TV? You would not. The few girls I have seen on the last 6 or 7 years are usually playing the role of a freak. The exposes done on the sport by CNBC, MSNBC, Discovery, and others all had women admitting they use roids and that the only way to make money as sessions.

Mix all that up and fbbing is dead. Strongwoman and things like that have potential as does women’s weightlifting. Even men’s bodybuilding is dead. I have no idea who is a famous male bb now. No Lou Ferrigno or Arnolds these days. The sport has become underground. The few women who are active are as good as ever. ‘Nutrition” and training have improved. However, way less girls. I used to just go to my gym and get a surprise show 10 times a year with some amazing monster…and we had a few world class fbbs. Nothing now.

I agree that fitness is not mainstream. It has some backing, but it frowns on very muscular bodies.

The good news is girls are more involved in strength sports than ever before and thus getting bigger and stronger. Times have changed alot. Think of how DWI enforcement has changed over 30 years. The same thing has happened recently to roids. MLB players use creams that are out of your body in 12 hours now. No more hardcore stuff with testing always possible.

The best girls now and over the past 10-15 years have also known how to mix the right things together and thus are much stronger than the girls of the 80’s and even most of the girls of the early 90’s. More volume back then too. It is not new now either. People have seen it. They can go to youtube. There is no point to putting it on a talk show. I would like to see an FBB get a role as a female bully or cagefighter type thing more often. There are so many fights on TV, but the girls can’t even get those parts like they once did.

I used to get up early in the morning to watch Cory Everson and Kiana, then go right back to bed! Other nights I would love to watch the female bodybuilder documentaries which showcased some pictures of quadra blu.

Man I miss those days!