As the lights go down over the spectators, a dozen women strut on to the stage, bronzed and clad in bright bikinis. The Pussycat Dolls’ Don’t Cha blasts from the speakers and the competitors lineup for the judges, each posing with manicured hand on hip.
The International Natural Bodybuilding Association (INBA) has run bodybuilding competitions in Australia for 24 years, with several categories to cater to varying levels of muscularity. For women, the category of women bodybuilding is for the most impressive muscle mass, followed by Ms Figure, then fitness model and bikini for slighter physiques.
There are opportunities to enter multiple divisions; for example, a mother in her thirties can compete in both the bikini 30+ division and the bikini momma division.
To enter, participants must first have INBA membership, which costs $150 per year, and NSW State Championships cost $125 to compete in one division and $50 for each additional division. Fitness for fitness’ sake is the aim of the game, since the prize for first place is a gym towel. That being said, the top five places win a trophy each and the top three earn themselves kilograms of supplements including protein powder and amino acid tablets.
When Liz Lester, 23, waitress at the Art Gallery of New South Wales restaurant started training for the NSW Championships for natural bodybuilding, her coach warned her not to tell anyone, “because there a lot of haters out there, especially when it comes to girls working out and getting muscles”.
“Guys, especially, talk about how it’s ugly,” says Lester, a first time bodybuilding competitor. “I flexed for my mum last week and she went, ‘Ew!’”
Jade Crawford, a 31-year-old Sydney mum, says the most disparaging comments get thrown her way when she’s in her “bulking phase”.
“I remember once someone said to me, ‘I feel sorry for your husband, going to bed with a man’,” she says. “Obviously, he doesn’t like women looking like that.”
Lester and Crawford are among 182 female entrants at Blacktown Workers Club, in western Sydney for the fitness model and bikini divisions of the competition, compared to 30 men competing for fitness model and Mr Physique titles.
The larger muscle categories were held in the morning with a more balanced ratio of 75 women to 66 men. However, only two women competed in the top division called women bodybuilding, with the rest vying for the softer Ms Figure titles.
John Waters, a judge at the International Natural Bodybuilding Association (INBA) NSW State Championships, says that traditionally bodybuilding has been a male dominated sport. “It’s had less scope for women to be interested.”
He says the introduction of additional categories devoted more to the fitness and sporting side, rather than bodybuilding, has opened up opportunity for more women to enter competition. “The girls that get involved now, they’re not training to get big. They’re training to get fit.”
James Nixon, 22, here to support two of his female friends who are competing, agrees. “I respect what the girls do here. They’re not over the top and their conditioning is unreal,” he says.
He describes them as fitness competitors, rather than bodybuilders.
But Crawford, a Sydney mum and fitness model 30+ competitor, describes what she does as bodybuilding. She is determined to keep training and hopes to get into the Ms Figure division, the second largest muscle category.
Lester also wants to get bigger biceps, triceps, abs and legs, and defiantly fights the stigma attached to strong women. Female bodybuilding competitions, she says, are “a great avenue to promote women with muscles”.
“Everyone’s saying fit is the new sexy. It’s a bit of a fad, right now,” she says.
Lester’s competition coach, Maia Stier, 25, has noticed that the instant she tells people she’s a bodybuilder, “they take their focus off your eyes and it goes straight to your body, and then they look at your shoulders … They can see that you’re quite fit, you’re muscly, you’re a bit bigger than your average girl”.
She shrugs off remarks people leave on her Instagram photos saying she is “disgusting” and “like a man”. Comments like these only drive her to train harder and gain more muscle mass.
Stier put Lester on a rigorous training and diet regime of daily cardio and weight sessions and ten meals a day, measured to the gram: meat with vegetables, meat with fats, meat with carbohydrates, steak for breakfast, supplements, supplements, supplements. Alcohol is strictly banned, as are soy products – which are said to act like estrogen – along with wheat, sugar and fruit.
It’s an expensive lifestyle. Bodybuilders easily spending $3,500 or more over the months leading up to a competition. Personal coaching, a specialised competition program, kilos of dietary supplements and vitamins, and food – all those daily steaks add up – drill a sizeable hole in the wallet. Physically, excess protein places great stress on the kidneys, while strenuous exercise runs a high risk of dehydration and dizziness.
The final week – known as peak week – is when competitors get a Brazilian wax, full body tans, makeup and hair done, and shop for chandelier earrings, a new bikini and high heels, all costing a further $800-$1,000.
There are tricks, too, right before hitting the stage. Lester has a bar of dark chocolate and a mouthful of salt, which absorbs any remaining layers of water in order to be “as tight as possible”.
The moment arrives. Lester, in a silver bikini, is one of 15 novice fitness models to walk into the spotlight. They perform their quarter turns, the most popular pose a half teapot, half Barbie configuration: one arm a handle and the other outstretched downwards with hand cocked.
The contestants flaunt their rear views by leaning forward and pushing out the buttocks. All appear to have a solid grasp of the mantra outlined in the judging criteria: presentation overrides the physical training component of comp preparation.
That’s not to say the women aren’t in peak form, because they are. “Fucking incredible,” murmurs one audience member, barely audible above the howls and hoots of hundreds of onlookers – both men and women.
After the bikini round, Lester takes a break and joins her friends and partner in the audience. “How was it, being up there?” they wonder. A long pause ensues, broken by the MC giving direction to the competitors on stage: “Now turn. Turn. Girls! Quarter turn, girls”.
“It’s weird,” she says, “because I’ve been training for three months solidly, everyday. Then you’re on there for one minute, and how can you judge someone in that time? Bam! You’re top five and it’s like, what are they basing it on?”
For fitness models, the judges look for “sex appeal”, a flawless skeletal structure and a natural, healthy appearance. On paper, the criteria set for women are identical to those for men, except for one: the equivalent to beauty for women, is physique for men.
Judge John Waters hopes that having a number of judges – usually between seven and nine on a panel – gets a fair result.
“There isn’t an absolutely defined definition as to how you would deem somebody to be appealing,” he says, adding that one judge might favour a taller person who is a little bit more slender while another might have a preference for a shorter person with more muscle.
In the crowd of nearly 1,000, mostly made up of friends and family members of competitors, a few confess to being a fan of female bodybuilders.
“It’s not as feminine,” says Jordan Kennedy, Lester’s friend. Daniel Connell, another friend, agrees. “I think it’s natural to have a bit of body fat,” he says, adding, “but even in guys, as well. I don’t think it’s great to have huge lines everywhere”.
While audience member, Megan Timmins, 22, is reluctant to call herself a fan of muscular women, she is attracted to strong men because she feels comforted by the idea that “they can take care of you”.
But with the stage lined with broad-shouldered women with six-packs confidently posing like models, Stier believes this “is true beauty in a woman”.
“It’s the perfect balance of being, if you have a masculine side and a feminine side, to be a badass in the gym and then get all dolled up and look like a super-hot fit Barbie,” she says.
“Women are meant to be strong. Go back a few hundred years – women weren’t skinny little waifs. They had muscles.”
Back on stage hours after the first round, the top five fitness model novice contestants await the final verdict. In a blue and black crop top and briefs, Liz Lester shifts between poses, smiling, as fifth place gets called – then fourth – then third. Second place gets named, and it’s not Lester. Her boyfriend jumps up from his seat and Stier gasps, “Oh my god, I’m so proud!” as she starts to cry.
Lester says she “owned it” in the fitness wear round and brought more attitude onstage than she did in the bikini round. “I’m more comfortable wearing sneakers than I am in heels,” she says. “It felt so good! I enjoyed it so much more.”
But she has decided not to fly to the nationals in Brisbane because “it is so much about image, aesthetics, instead of performance”. She says the whole experience has been fun but also “really weird” because of the contrast between training at the gym and getting make-up done for the competition.
Lester is proud to get sweaty during workouts because “that’s the reality of it. We don’t look like this”.
“Maybe we should be doing bicep curls up there, or bench presses. Maybe that would be more realistic, instead of being judged on who has the better tan, who has the better nails, hair, make-up.”
