Hot and Hard: Joele Smith

2011 saw the debut of the Women’s Physique Division at the NPC Nationals. Far from suffering from interest, 106 competitors entered. Some of them were former bodybuilders, downsized for the new class, while many others were former figure competitors who had added a little more muscle. One of those was Joele Smith from Mississippi, who had been competing in figure for a little over a year.



Joele was into dance, gymnastics and sport in general while growing up, but didn’t begin serious weight training until she was at Nursing School in Mississippi. I had to find something to nourish my need of physical activity, she says. Then I met my husband, Randy, and he introduced me to serious weight training. I loved it! He had a background in bodybuilding and taught me everything I know about weight training.



After a couple of friends from the same gym began to compete, and with Randy’s encouragement, Joele first competed in May 2010 at NPC Steel World (!) and won the overall title in the Figure Division. If she had had doubts about doing more competitions, that first victory wiped them all away: I was hooked!



But Joele’s ride to the pros was not without its bumps. She failed to place at two of her next three contests, and by the time the NPC Nationals came around in 2011, she had been about to give up competing. That she didn’t was thanks partly to her husband and another trainer’s powers of persuasion, and partly to the fact that the new Physique division was being introduced at that show.




Joele was one of 30 (30!) competitors in the tallest of the three height classes. After a patchy Figure career, she was an unlikely winner, but win she did, and although she missed out on the overall title, she’d won her first Physique show, and was now a pro, one of the first six women to be awarded professional status in the division.



And last year she took to the stage in four high-profile pro shows and placed in the top 6 in all of them. And set up Physique Pro Fitness, which she hopes will help other women (and men) reach their fitness targets.



I’m well aware that to many female muscle fans, ‘Physique’ is a dirty word. Many feel it’s introduction was a thinly-disguised attempt to bang another nail into the heart of female bodybuilding, and on that point I quite agree. But intention is one thing and outcome quite another. Have a bit of faith! Female bodybuilding will survive.



Some women, Joele for instance, fit right into the Physique class. She wasn’t a success as a Figure competitor, and is unlikely to ever have the muscularity to succeed in the Bodybuilding division. Physique is where she belongs, and if it hadn’t been brought into existence, she may well have given up competing. Take a good look at Joele. Wouldn’t the sport, in fact, wouldn’t the world be a poorer place if that had happened?

Joele’s website
Physique Pro Fitness website

Enjoy one of Joele's 2012 appearances, the IFBB Europa in Orlando



It's all good. More heat tomorrow!

Hot and Hard: Cindy Landolt

When I first saw her profile in one of the fitness forums I frequently visit, I thought …wow, this woman’s picture is probably a CGI graphic! Unreal! I was wrong, Cindy is 100% real and aside from being super fit, I think she is super pretty… (Louis M. Sanchez, The Quant Method)




There is definitely a tendency for interviewers, male interviewers anyway, to go a bit mushy when they talk about Cinderella ‘Cindy’ Landolt. Swell may have been guilty of this himself, back at the end of 2011 when Cindy was one of FMS’ Women of the Year I wrote:

Long dark hair, and a set of abs that were made to be massaged and licked all night. Eyes that shine with health and vitality, and then there’s her long shapely legs. And she’s very friendly on the forums…

God, it’s embarrassing to read my old posts sometimes! ‘And she’s very friendly on the forums’! Yuck.



I’ll console myself with the thought that I wasn’t the first, and I won’t be the last, to be made to go all blushing schoolboy as a result of Cindy’s obvious charms.

But there is so much more to this woman than just stunning looks and a perfect body. Try, it’s hard I know, but try, try to look beyond the long, dark hair and the long, shapely legs.



She graduated from Business School. And in 2009 she started to put that theory into practice when she opened her own personal training company, Cindy Training, in Zurich in 2009. Four years later, and she’s one of the highest profile fitness models in Europe, and her business has gone international - she now runs her training programmes in London, Sydney and elsewhere in addition to Switzerland.



It’s a pattern we have noticed here at FMS, the women we adore are not only high-achievers in the field of fitness or bodybuilding, but have also achieved in other areas of their life, be it business, another sport or whatever.



Recently, on one of the major female muscle fan forums, one of those questions us female muscle heads love to ask each other was posed by one of the members. It went something like this:

Let’s say you have a friend that isn’t into female bodybuilding. His reasons are typical (too masculine etc.). If you had to pick one woman to open his mind, even change it and ‘convert’ him to FBBs, who would she be?

There was lots of replies, and lots of suggestions, but few of them took into account anything other than appearance. Choices included Cindy Phillips, Gina Davis, Mavi Giola and so on, chosen because they were ‘more feminine’ or ‘prettier’ or ‘the hottest’.

Granted, bodybuilding and fitness is all about the aesthetic, but not one reply mentioned any of the achievements of the women, either within bodybuilding (titles etc.) or outside it. Not one.

We’re all guilty of this. I’m as guilty as you are (if not more so). Just look at the images I’ve chosen of Cindy today – I didn’t choose them because they show her at her most successful.



But let’s go back to the question posted on the forum, shall we? Let’s say we choose Cindy Landolt as our ‘one woman’ to show our FBB-sceptic friend. She’s conventionally beautiful as well as being muscular (though not muscular enough to be accused of being masculine), so far so good.

Now, wouldn’t it be good if as well as showing him Cindy, we could also tell our friend that she’s a graduate who runs her own successful international business?

Don’t you find beautiful, fit, successful international businesswomen attractive?!

If our aim is to open minds, why not use every means necessary?

So pick your own favourite female. What else has she done? What other achievements has she got outside of having sculpted a magnificent physique for herself (an achievement beyond most people to begin with)? Why not find out? When that conversation with your friend or family member comes, why not give yourself more chance of making them think again?



And while I’m at it, I’d probably also throw in the fact that Cindy is multi-lingual to strengthen my argument with my FBB-sceptic friend. Being Swiss she already has German and French, and the fact that she’s training people in London and Sydney adds English to her skills. If my friend’s dream woman is someone like Cheryl Cole or Tulisa Contostavlos, well, they barely speak English.

Brush up on your own Swiss-German (while admiring Cindy in motion) by watching this interview with her from Swiss TV.



Women like Cindy are incredible and incredible-looking.

Really incredible-looking.




More Cindy? Visit www.cindytraining.com

FBBUK: Sharon Madderson

Last weekend, Rosanna Harte flew the flag for the UK at the Arnold Amateur, but who was the first British woman to be invited to compete there?

Given the title of the post today, it probably won’t surprise you to find that the answer to that question is Sharon Madderson, who appeared there in 2010 and finished 4th (one place higher than a certain Katerina Kyptova) in a very competitive heavyweight field that was won by the Argentinian femuscle beast Rita Bello.


left: Arnold Amateur 2010; right: Chicago Pro 2012

That appearance was probably the pinnacle of her career (so far), and despite her disappointing placing in her most recent competitive outing at the Chicago Pro last year, I think it’s fair to say that Sharon can claim to be the most successful British female bodybuilder of the last 15 years.



Like Georgina McConnell, Sharon hails from the north-east of England, but unlike Georgina (and Kate Austin), who from a very young age wanted to be muscular, she didn’t take up the sport until she was 30, admitting she had paid little attention to her body until then. And it wasn’t a female bodybuilder who inspired her, but rather the men she saw once she had entered the gym.

I was truly amazed at what they could do with their bodies. I knew then that this was for me. After a short while I began to notice and feel the difference my efforts were making to my body, this incredible feeling helped to motivated me further.



One of the men at the gym was her future husband, Graham, and with his guidance, Sharon began to train to compete, making her debut in 1999 in a local competition as a figure competitor. She won that contest and later in the year became EFBB Miss Figure UK. The following year she was NABBA Miss North Britain, finished 4th at NABBA Britain and 2nd in the Figure class at the Miss International.

After a three-year break she returned to the stage, this time as a bodybuilder, winning the 2003 EFBB Miss North East overall title and finishing runner-up at the EFBB British Championships, before going on to the NABBA Universe and finishing 7th. Another three-year break, and she was back in action, now a heavyweight, as overall winner at the UKBFF Midlands, which she followed up with the UKBFF British title. Then another three-year break and she reappears at the 2009 IFBB European Championships and finishes 6th, which brings us up to 2010 and the 4th place at the Arnold Amateur.




But why all these breaks? Why, every time Sharon seemed to be on the cusp of an international breakthrough did she take three years away from competition?

Well, FMS can only speculate on the reason, but it’s certainly not because of the grind of training and diet. I thoroughly enjoy the contest preparation and the preparations before the show, she says. Perhaps then the reason is a more practical one, because Sharon has three children, and now two grandchildren.



Nevertheless, a pretty impressive CV for a UK bodybuilder. A long career, with plenty of success both at home, in Europe and ultimately in the US. In spite of the stop-start nature of her career, I can’t think of a female bodybuilder active today in the UK who can boast of such achievements. And anyway, are contest finishes the only measure of female muscle success? After all, how many 47-year-olds, indeed how many grandmothers, do you know who look this good?




We leave you today with a clip of Sharon from a UK TV appearance in 2009. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing (and there’s no reason why you should) Sharon appears from the 3.27 mark. Check out the presenter’s face after Sharon flexes her pecs for him – do you think we have another secret female muscle lover at the BBC?



Enjoy!