While most women prefer to attend yoga classes, others prefer gym sessions because they want to focus on exercises that will build and tone their muscles. To some though, the underlying reason why they prefer to exercise in power gyms is because here, they get to see female bodybuilders. The latter provides them with inspirations for them to take their strength training and muscle building exercises more seriously.
Female bodybuilders, after all, are an elite class of their own; because not all women have the determination and intention to build a physique that will qualify them to participate in the sport of bodybuilding. While building lean muscles has been trending as a faster way to speed up metabolism leading to weight loss, some women later advance to power workouts. After achieving their weight loss goals, developing a form and physique that many look up to as a symbol of strength became their next goal.
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How the Female Bodybuilding Movement Evolved into a Sport
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The female bodybuilding movement began in 1977, as a novel way for women to display their bikini clad bodies with lean muscles as main aesthetic features. According to Steve Wennerstrom, the recognized historian for the International Federation of BodyBuilding (IFBB), the sport of bodybuilding among women did not happen by chance.
The idea was actually conceived by a YMCA staff named Henry McGhee, who held a strong belief that women should also have the chance to display the fine results of their physical transformations. However, while the contest was very different from the traditional beauty pageants, it was still a far cry from how female bodybuilding competitions are being held today.
The YMCA’s women’s bodybuilding contests still featured mostly beautiful women who filled up their bikinis with lean and muscular bodies while parading in heels. Too much muscles though and large physiques did not fit the criteria, because the main idea was to promote proper diet and exercise, and not so much the idea of packing bigger muscles.
Yet as it turned out, many were disparaged, in more numbers than those who qualify. Nonetheless, this also gave rise to the idea that if thousands of women are into muscle building, it prompted contest promoters to launch competitions with a different set of rules. In 1980, the IFBB and the National Physique Committee came up with the Miss Olympia contest that gave recognition to muscle-sculpted bodies. Moreover, Miss Olympia contestants had to flex their muscles, assumed bodybuilding poses and more importantly, did not have to wear high heels.
Apparently, the contests paid off as not only hundreds but thousands flocked and paid registration fees to join the competitions. Revenues increased exponentially since family members and friends of the thousands of contestants drove ticket sales. The gradual evolution of the women’s bodybuilding competitions eventually transformed female bodybuilding into a sport, aimed at encouraging women to develop muscles that will earn their muscular physiques in bikinis, due recognition.
However, the dark side to this history is that like their male counterparts, many female bodybuilders wanted to fast track their muscular development by abusing the use of anabolic androgenic steroids (AAS). While doctors prescribed AAS to help bodybuilders quickly recover from the rigors of intense physical training, others used the drug in order to gain competitive advantage in terms of muscle growth.
As the turns of events have it, AAS became a controlled substance and can only be bought if properly supported by a medical prescription. As a result, many resorted to buying from the black market, some of who sourced their products from usafe, underground laboratories. In Canada though, a company known as CanadaPeds, has become the most trusted source of pharma grade steroids canada pharmaceutical firms, sell exclusively through authorized representatives.