[Mimi]

[font=Times New Roman]~Mimi[/size”>

[cpbell0033944]

Video of Annie at the Ms O.  Note the snooty comment by the commentator about her "carrying a little water this year".  For the love of god, where?! ???  I presume it's because we can't see striations in her cheeks. >:( ::)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kCBsLupcng

To me she looks like a goddess.  She gets my vote as Ms Olympia any day – i'm afraid the first three do nothing for me, as their appearance is too extreme for my taste.

[AlexG]

It's one of the reasons I vastly preferred the WPW/RM Strength Extravaganzas (do they even still hold them?) over the Ms O.  The women were, generally speaking, in off-season condition (bigger, stronger, faster  😉  ) and the judging criteria was based not on arbitrary surface appearances, but something actually measureable.

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[Grandmaster]

Video of Annie at the Ms O.  Note the snooty comment by the commentator about her "carrying a little water this year".  For the love of god, where?! ???  I presume it's because we can't see striations in her cheeks. >:( ::)

I don't think it's a slight on Annie R. to admit that she wasn't in her best contest condition here.

To me she looks like a goddess.  She gets my vote as Ms Olympia any day – i'm afraid the first three do nothing for me, as their appearance is too extreme for my taste.

Are you talking about faces? Because Annie R. has been in similarly ripped condition before.

[cpbell0033944]

I don't think it's a slight on Annie R. to admit that she wasn't in her best contest condition here.

Are you talking about faces? Because Annie R. has been in similarly ripped condition before.

I think you're misunderstanding me here, Grandmaster.
I agree that, yes, when compared to the top three, Annie wasn't ripped.  My argument is that such an extreme, dry appearance is unhealthy and unattractive to all but the most hard-core of schmoes.  I know from his posts previously that AlexG agrees with me, and Mimi (Annie #1 fan here) also loves the slightly less shredded look.  My comment about cheeks relates to a YouTube video of a competitor (can't remember who) at a contest giving an interview for one of the femuscle sites and the interviewer commenting that she was so shredded that even the muscles in the cheeks of her face were showing striations.  I don't like the pinched-cheek appearance of FBBs faces in extreme contest condition, so my reaction to this was "Yuck!"  Pro FBB judges now seem to only consider two things: size and conditioning.  Symmetry, the balance of a physique and the aesthetics ofthe body seemingly count for nothing.  In trying to drop to dangerously low bodyfat %ages, and in trying to build 17-18" arms, many of the women are taking strongly androgenic steroids, because of the judges' obsessions.  If judging returned to a more aesthetically-pleasing ideal, interest would slowly recover, as the women would look more attractive (not just sexually, but aesthetically) and therefore people would be more inclined to watch the contests. 

In addition, the lack of bodyfat combined with extreme dehydration today means that the ladies no longer have the energy or strength on stage to perform much more than a glorified version of the Figure quater-turns; the days of Michelle Ralabate going from a sideways splits into a handstand with her muscles popping and the crowd going wild are long gone.  This means that they are replacing spectacle that the crowd want (great posing routines) with the spectacle that they don't (blocky muscle, unbalanced physiques with little flow or shape and square jaws) and thus, Pro FBBing's popularity has dropped.  Annie at this year's Ms O was more marketable than the eventual champ, IMO because her physique was not that much less muscular, but was much more pleasing to the eye, and she therefore represents a more marketable image than Iris Kyle, great athlete though she is.

[stmercy2020]

Pro FBB judges now seem to only consider two things: size and conditioning.  Symmetry, the balance of a physique and the aesthetics ofthe body seemingly count for nothing.  In trying to drop to dangerously low bodyfat %ages, and in trying to build 17-18" arms, many of the women are taking strongly androgenic steroids, because of the judges' obsessions.  If judging returned to a more aesthetically-pleasing ideal, interest would slowly recover, as the women would look more attractive (not just sexually, but aesthetically) and therefore people would be more inclined to watch the contests.

Boy, this is one I go round and round about.  On the one hand, personally I prefer balance and aesthetics.  That's not a shocker to anyone who's ever chatted with me, read my posts, or even glanced with one eye half-open at any of my writing.  On the other hand, I think AlexG hit something right on the nose- Bodybuilding competitions tend to be judged pretty arbitrarily.  If muscle size and conditioning are the new standards, at least they can be somewhat objectively viewed.  This means that it takes less training and knowledge to judge a competition, because there is less judgement involved- there is simply quantifying and comparing.

There needs to be a consensus on what FBB is really about and what standards are going to be used to judge it.  Those standards then need to be communicated to the competitors and to the fans and spectators.

[cpbell0033944]

Boy, this is one I go round and round about.  On the one hand, personally I prefer balance and aesthetics.  That's not a shocker to anyone who's ever chatted with me, read my posts, or even glanced with one eye half-open at any of my writing.  On the other hand, I think AlexG hit something right on the nose- Bodybuilding competitions tend to be judged pretty arbitrarily.  If muscle size and conditioning are the new standards, at least they can be somewhat objectively viewed.  This means that it takes less training and knowledge to judge a competition, because there is less judgement involved- there is simply quantifying and comparing.

There needs to be a consensus on what FBB is really about and what standards are going to be used to judge it.  Those standards then need to be communicated to the competitors and to the fans and spectators.

Nicely put.  I do agree that judging has been chronically inconsistant – see the 20% rule of a few years ago.  I do, however, fear for FBBing's future if they go for size and conditioning above all else.  The drugs will take over and the sport(?) will become ever more marginalised.  The men's category isn't as popular as once it was because the guys are getting more huge than most people's taste can cope with, and again, blocky muscle is damaging the aesthetics.  I do agree, though, that consistency must be the priority.  Whilst there are two different approaches by competitors ( the flowing forms of the Rivieccios vs. the mass and shredded appearance of the Kyles) the public and half the competitors will lose-out.

[Grandmaster]

I think you're misunderstanding me here, Grandmaster.
I agree that, yes, when compared to the top three, Annie wasn't ripped.  My argument is that such an extreme, dry appearance is unhealthy and unattractive to all but the most hard-core of schmoes…I don't like the pinched-cheek appearance of FBBs faces in extreme contest condition, so my reaction to this was "Yuck!"

Me no misunderstand (or should that be "Me misunderstand"?), Superman. You are talking about the affect on faces!

I know from his posts previously that AlexG agrees with me, and Mimi (Annie #1 fan here)

Mimi, I demand to know what makes you #1! 😀

…also loves the slightly less shredded look.

That's cool. I won't say a harsh word against the Annie R. I, too, think she's an attractive woman (an acquired, specific taste–let's not pretend otherwise). But none of that "Oh, mama" has anything to do with what that is ostensibly a sport with expectations of the participants. I think the other athletes would have been cheated for Annie R. to have placed higher than they did, in the condition she was in–but it's not because I like how the others looked better in the sense that I want to hold them in my arms. I don't mix my personal preferences with my enjoyment of the competitive aspect of the sport. I realize for some people, women and men's bodybuilding is nothing more than an amplified beauty contest, but having attempted bodybuilding myself, I know that's not what it means to the athletes. If there had been an edict announced beforehand for the athletes to compete smoother/smaller/better hydrated (it has occurred once or twice before), then that would have been a different contest, and your incredulity over Annie R.'s placing would be appropriate.

Pro FBB judges now seem to only consider two things: size and conditioning.  Symmetry, the balance of a physique and the aesthetics of the body seemingly count for nothing.  In trying to drop to dangerously low bodyfat %ages, and in trying to build 17-18" arms, many of the women are taking strongly androgenic steroids, because of the judges' obsessions.  If judging returned to a more aesthetically-pleasing ideal, interest would slowly recover, as the women would look more attractive (not just sexually, but aesthetically) and therefore people would be more inclined to watch the contests.

I don't know what today's score sheets look like, but unless there's no slot for symmetry points, saying the judges are not noting symmetry just because their evaluation of its presence or absence doesn't match up with y/our estimation of it on y/our TV and computer screens is just "armchair judging" (which we've all done–I realize it's part of the fun). I don't disagree that Annie R. has excellent symmetry, but I would have to see some proof that it wasn't calculated in the scoring before I could cry foul.

In addition, the lack of bodyfat combined with extreme dehydration today means that the ladies no longer have the energy or strength on stage to perform much more than a glorified version of the Figure quater-turns; the days of Michelle Ralabate going from a sideways splits into a handstand with her muscles popping and the crowd going wild are long gone.

cp, I'm sure you know Michelle Ralabate was a gymnast, somewhere around 130 lbs. (kg), and about three feet tall! 😆 No amount of water in one's system is going to transform a woman with no perceivable rhythm or style into Cory Everson, or one in her late 30's/early 40's who isn't a lifetime tumbler into a Cirque du Soleil performer. (That's what Fitness is for. I guess.)

This means that they are replacing spectacle that the crowd want (great posing routines) with the spectacle that they don't (blocky muscle, unbalanced physiques with little flow or shape and square jaws) and thus, Pro FBBing's popularity has dropped.

I don't see how you come to the conclusion that boring, or let's say, non-acrobatic posing routines lead women's bodybuilding fans to want to see only the most massive competitors. I think it's more that women BBs want to pose non-gender-specifically (as physique athletes) more than they want to cavort like sprites around a maypole, and that mass-lovers (or closeted gays, schmoes, the gender-confused, whatever divisive label that's currently in vogue) buy more tickets to the shows than we nerds yakking about who's sexy over the internet. I suppose that whoever buys those tickets directs that "market" (at least in the minds of the contest promoters). Only the efforts and regulations of the other bodybuilding federations could affect a change or provide an alternative for bodybuilding fandom, but "everyone" looks towards the IFBB for the last word.

Annie at this year's Ms O was more marketable than the eventual champ, IMO because her physique was not that much less muscular, but was much more pleasing to the eye, and she therefore represents a more marketable image than Iris Kyle, great athlete though she is.

People who feel as you do (and maybe the athletes themselves–when will they have some kind of representation?) should make their feelings known to the powers-that-be in the IFBB, or else the prevailing "spectacle" will continue. I think it's that the judges are rewarding the hard work of dieting, etc. (which has never been a lifetime healthy endeavor), more than they are concerned with marketing women's bodybuilding to the outside world. I don't believe Annie R. is any more "marketable" in the manner you're implying than any other bodybuilder, for the simple fact that no one except women bodybuilders themselves is marketing women bodybuilding. (Selling bodybuilding images, yes. "Growing" the sport, not so much.) And since the methods of doing that are myriad and controversial and a whole other subject unrelated to Annie R., I'll shut up now before this thread gets locked.

Go, Annie, get bu-sy!

[AlexG]

cp, I'm sure you know Michelle Ralabate was a gymnast, somewhere around 130 lbs. (kg), and about three feet tall! 😆

Actually, she was three foot two,
  you're thinking of her blonde sister Caron Hospedales . . .  😉

And since the methods of doing that are myriad and controversial and a whole other subject unrelated to Annie R., I'll shut up now before this thread gets locked.

Oh, I'm keeping a close watch . . . 

“I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to tell them myself.”
~ Mark Twain / Samuel Clemens (1907)

[cpbell0033944]

Before AlexG locks this thread, might I respond to a few of Grandmaster's points?

I realize for some people, women and men's bodybuilding is nothing more than an amplified beauty contest, but having attempted bodybuilding myself, I know that's not what it means to the athletes. If there had been an edict announced beforehand for the athletes to compete smoother/smaller/better hydrated (it has occurred once or twice before), then that would have been a different contest, and your incredulity over Annie R.'s placing would be appropriate.

This was one of the reasons that I left the UnrealMuscle board – unlike Grandmaster and the majority of those posting here, the sport's purist fans there couldn't or wouldn't understand that my comments were those of a femuscle fan rather than as a purist.  I can understand the conflict – I'm a Formula 1 enthusiast, and, at times, I have views that many, particularly many British fans of one particular driver rather than the sport as a whole, find strange.  My problem here is that I'm not really a fan of the process of BBing in the sense that I don't care for many of the practices that the purists love to discuss (water loss, tanning etc.  I take an interest in it because of the buff chicks!  I understand that, under the current judging criteria, Annie couldn't have placed much higher.  I'm questioning the wisdom of the current criteria both from the health situation and from the need to get a bigger fan base.  I know that many purists deride the idea of increasing the fan base, but, unless we're willing to see Pro FBBers winning a fraction of their male counterparts, FBBing must be made more profitable, which means getting more punters through the doors.  It is perhaps because of my semi-outsider viewpoint that I feel that Annie's physique would be more marketable to the young woman who's interested in the idea of getting buff or the guy who has seen a buff woman and felt a tingle in his trousers, or the sports fan looking for a new sport to watch on TV.

cp, I'm sure you know Michelle Ralabate was a gymnast, somewhere around 130 lbs. (kg), and about three feet tall! 😆 No amount of water in one's system is going to transform a woman with no perceivable rhythm or style into Cory Everson, or one in her late 30's/early 40's who isn't a lifetime tumbler into a Cirque du Soleil performer. (That's what Fitness is for. I guess.)

Oh yes, I understand that, but my point was that, because of dehydration and dizziness brought-on by the prevalance of sugar bingeing, the modern Pro ladies are so physically weak that they are unable to incorporate any actual strength element into their routines.  I've watched enough from recent years on YouTube to see that they tend to walk around the stage, go through the mandatory poses again, throw in a few subtle variations and..that seems to be it.  There's no athleticism in the routines at all – I'm not talking about Cirque du Soleil acrobatics, but there are no demonstrations of actual strength that would wow the first-time, curious visitor that I mentioned earlier in this post.

I don't see how you come to the conclusion that boring, or let's say, non-acrobatic posing routines lead women's bodybuilding fans to want to see only the most massive competitors.

Ah, well, that's because I didn't!  What I meant was that, INSTEAD of the spectacle that might tempt first-timers to watch the evening posing routines (i.e. the athleticism Ijust mentioned), they're being shown a different kind of spectacle (an extreme and at times blocky physique, often with strong signs of steroids and a dry, shredded look with pinched cheeks) that only the connoisseurs and purists can appreciate.  Enthusiasts seem to fetishise conditioning to the point of seemingly wanting to see skeletons with vast muscles overlaying the bones.  What I'm saying is that my imaginary guy who's realised that he likes buff chicks (i.e. me late last year), or the girl who's started lifting eights in the gym isn't going to be inspired by the depleted look that characterises modern Pro FBBing.

I suppose what I'm trying to say is that, IMO FBBing is approaching a crossroads.  To me, the two options are:

1.  Carry on the way it's going, with steroids encouraged (often indirectly; sometimes directly) and extreme physiques, accepting that no FBBer is going to win as much as the guys and that sessions are going to be a fact of life for many to make ends meet

OR

2.  Reign back on the drugs, encourage more flowing physiques, market the sport better and see the gates increase, the TV coverage return and the prize money climb, but accept that the puristic(?) drive for extremes is at an end.

[Author]

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