Sarah And Me: At Home With Sarah I

What's day-to-day domestic life like with is a female bodybuilder? I doubt I am the only one here who has spent more time than I probably should have pondering that question. Nowadays, you almost don't have to imagine. There are millions of images of muscle women just hanging out in their domestic surroundings. The spread of digital photography and the ease with which images can be shared have seen to that. But less than ten years ago, these little peeks into the intimate surroundings of female bodybuilders were (as far as I recall) quite rare.

Maybe Sarah was a pioneer in this field, or maybe I was just paying so much attention to what she was doing that I missed the fact that others were doing it too, but either way, the result was that for me, Sarah became the fantasy FBB girlfriend simply because there was so much material to fuel that fantasy. And given any female muscle lover's propensity to idealise these magnificent women (you see, there I go again), it won't be a surprise to learn that my daydreams about being Sarah's man around the house tended very much towards imagining an ideal world, an ideal life...

I don't know what you've heard about contest dieting making bodybuilders (male and female) difficult to live with, but Sarah was never any problem. Quite the opposite in fact, the fewer carbs she had, the more cut she became, the happier she was, the less she would wear and the more she wanted to pose for me. I always looked forward to leg day in particular.

Sarah rewards me for making her another delicious and nutritious breakfast with a big smile and a little gun show before she goes off to the gym and makes those bad boys grow. In another version of this fantasy, I've installed all the workout equipment she could ever want in the basement (and air-con, and a sound system, and, naturally, lots and lots and lots of mirrors) and this is a post-workout flex. AKA foreplay.

But even on her rest days, when we'd take casual walks around the neighbourhood, I was the happiest man in the world. All that barely disguised jealousy on the faces of the guys as we strolled past them did wonders for my self-confidence. She'd look great in anything she threw on, and I always remembered to bring the camera.

Sarah borrows a shirt of mine with hilarious results, then does her best Buster Keaton face for the snap. She spent the rest of the day in this 'outfit'. When she answered the door to the postman, the look on his face was priceless.

Fresh from the tanning bed, Sarah got me to take this so she could analyse how her back was coming on. I often had trouble holding the camera still when faced with such a task, and it shows here. Her body was just so overwhelming up close. She never got cross with me about the blurry images, though. I think she always rather liked that she could have that effect on me.

So instead of getting uptight about it, she just bought me a tripod. Even when, as here, she was wearing nothing more than her favourite thong, the camera was always as solid as a rock - that is once my shaky hands had managed to fix the damn thing to the tripod.

Sarah moisturises before bedtime. I probably should have done the bathroom up a bit, it was hardly fit for a goddess, was it? She never complained, far from it. I just wish I'd maybe given it a lick of paint. In my defence, female muscle slavedom can be a time-consuming business that doesn't leave a lot of free-time for DIY. Or perhaps because Sarah was always doing things like moisturising herself naked in the bathroom with the door open, DIY just never sprang to mind.

In fact, thinking back, Sarah would spend most of her time shirtless, something I always made sure she knew I appreciated. After all, what's the point of all that hard work to build those delicious muscles if you are going to cover them up and hide them away. And furthermore, if you have the legendary sex drive of an FBB, it doesn't hurt to keep your man titilated and ready to do his duty at a moment's notice, does it?

And here is Sarah getting ready for a Saturday night out from her older YouTube channel, SarahDunlapInMotion. OK, she may have lost a bit of muscle by this stage, but let's face it, if any of us went out on a Saturday night and met a woman with Sarah's muscles here, we wouldn't be complaining.

[editor's note: concerned that 6ft1swell has finally lost his already tenuous grip on reality, today's post was followed by an intervention by the FMS team, and Swell has agreed to undergo psychological evaluation. We await the results.]

Hot and Hard: Danielle Reardon

The 'High School Bodybuilder' at Wesley Chapel High School in Florida

A few years ago, a homemade video appeared on the forums of a ‘High School Bodybuilder’ called Danielle Reardon. The clip (which as far as I can see is no longer available to watch) consisted solely of Danielle talking to camera. She talked, as far as I remember, about her future goals in the sport, her love of the lifestyle and the thrill she got from competing. I remember thinking that she was rather eloquent and came across as being very sure of herself and what she wanted. And I also remember thinking, Hang on! She’s talking about having competed. How can a teenage girl possibly have competed already?


Well, that's first place, thinks the girl in the glasses. Maybe I can get second.

To Brits like me, the idea that a high school (or secondary school as we say over here) would have a bodybuilding contest is, well, a little far-fetched. As a teenager I might have dreamed that some of the girls from the hockey team, the ones who frequented the weights room anyway, would do a bit of flexing for me, but it never once occurred to my overactive imagination that they would stand on the stage at the school in bikinis as competitors in our school’s bodybuilding show.


Miss Wesley Chapel 2008

It seems high school bodybuilding not only exists, but is well-established in some schools, at least in some parts of the US. The shows are essentially fundraisers for some sporting activity or another at the school, and involve boys and girls. Not surprisingly, perhaps, these shows have attracted rather a large amount of criticism. One member of the American Council on Exercise has said that teenagers experimenting with nutritional supplements, crash dieting or pre-contest dehydration is ‘a recipe for disaster. Emotionally, psychologically, physiologically, their bodies are not ready for it.’



But Danielle didn’t appear to have any of these issues. She seemed well-aware of what she was committing herself to, and did so simply because she had decided that the lifestyle bodybuilding entails was the life that she wanted to lead. And that is exactly what she has done.



Born in 1990 (!), Danielle hails from Florida. She attended Wesley Chapel High School, and competed in their annual bodybuilding show every year she was there, winning it in both her junior and senior years. It was totally energizing, she says, I loved the spotlight.





In 2010, she competed as a Figure competitor at NPC shows, and continued to do so in 2011, winning the short class at the Sunshine Classic and finishing 14th at the Nationals that year. But, now 21, it was becoming apparent that all those years of bodybuilding as a teenager meant that Danielle was simply too muscular to succeed in Figure at the highest level, and right from the get-go she had made it her ambition to be at that level, so she decided to move up to Physique.



Danielle at the 2012 NPC Southern States

The improvement in her results were immediate. She won her class (short) at the Mid-Florida Classic, finished 2nd at the NPC Southern States, and consequently qualified for the Nationals. There, she won her class. At the age of 22, she had her pro card.




Danielle wins her class at the 2012 NPC Nationals, obviously

It doesn’t take a crystal ball to see that this young woman is on the verge of becoming a phenomenon. What better advert could there be for the Physique division? And what better way could there be for Hot and Hard Week to end?

FBBUK Extra: Rosanna Comes Third!

I promised you news of Rosanna Harte's showing at the Arnold Amateur this weekend, and so here it is. The British Champ finished third in the lightweight class behind the more experienced Ana Paula Silva of Brazil, and Branka Njegovec from Croatia, who went on to claim the overall title as well.



To me, there's something very old school about Rosanna's body shape and conditioning, as though you could photoshop her into a contest pic from the late 80s and she wouldn't look out of place next to the likes of Anja Langer or Cathy Palyo. I think it's a very pleasing aesthetic, though how far it'll take Rosanna in international bodybuilding contests these days remains to be seen.



I hope she's pleased with her placing and proud of herself (nothing on her Twitter page since before she left for the USA) because she should be!



Congratulations Rosanna from FMS, and best wishes for the rest of 2013.