A Golden Age In Women's Sports

The gradual but obvious deterioration in the treatment of women bodybuilders by the IFBB is all the more ironic - if not tragic - because we are in the midst of what appears to be the golden age of women's sports. Until Billie Jean King and then Martina Navratilova came along, women's tennis was a ladylike affair that didn't have much public appeal.

Now with competitors on the scene like the Williams sisters, tennis for women has an equal appeal to fans as the men do. Thanks to competitors like Olga Korbut and Nadia Comaneci, the television ratings for women gymnasts in the Olympics easily exceeds that of the male gymnasts.

The WNBA is thriving; thanks to promotable stars like Lisa Leslie and Misty May and Kerri Walsh in women's beach volleyball were one of the hits of the last Olympics. Even the LPGA, which has done well over the years but has still had a narrow audience appeal, has increased in popularity thanks in part to the star power of Annika Sorenstam. There is even growing interest in boxing for women, which would seem like the least likely of sports in which women might excel.

Danica Patrick's 4th place finish at the 2005 Indianapolis 500, a race in which she held the lead just a few laps before the finish, boosted television ratings amazingly and proved (as did Annika Sorsentam's participation in a men's PGA tour even, even though she failed to make the cut) that there is a market for women in sport if the women and the sport are presented properly.

Fitness Under Attack

I'm focusing on figure vs. bodybuilding rather than including fitness because the current policies of the federations are rapidly destroying fitness - especially on the amateur level.

As long as women have to be accomplished gymnasts to have a high probability of succeeding in fitness, more and more women in this category will defect to figure - where they are usually at the same kind of genetic disadvantage (having compact rather than elongated physiques) as are the bodybuilders.

At the 2008 NPC California Championships, female bodybuilding was weak but fitness was virtually non-existent. Only two women entered fitness at this year's Cal.

It's a further irony that bodybuilding for women is being treated so poorly by the IFBB/NPC (although the NPC is generally far more supportive of the FBBs) at a time when the female bodybuilders have had a virtually revolutionary effect on both women's sport and our culture as a whole.

Look at the muscles on women sprinters like Marion Jones or tennis champ Serena Williams. They didn't develop these physiques by running or hitting a tennis ball. They built their physiques in a gym! In the 1970's, when modern bodybuilding for women began, comparatively few athletes did a lot of weight training and almost no women. Nowadays, it is difficult to find any athlete in any sport who doesn't do at least some weight training. And those who don't find themselves at a distinct disadvantage.

And where did they get the inspiration and motivation to develop stronger and more muscular physiques with weight training? From the example of female bodybuilders, beginning in the late 1970s.

Look at actresses like Linda Hamilton in Terminator II or Angela Bassett in What's Love Got To Do With It? This is what Muscle & Fitness goers had to say about Angela's physique:

Support For Female Bodybuilding Virtually Gone

In recent years, we've seen virtually no support given female bodybuilding by the federations, the officials or (taking their cue from the powers-that-be) the physique magazines. Sponsors have been discouraged from putting up money for female bodybuilding contests.

The emphasis on figure competition has helped convince many FBBs to switch categories, thinking that somehow slimming down and losing muscle would turn them into fitness supermodels. That hasn't worked for any of them. Since there is nothing you can do to change your basic body-type and proportions, figure is the most genetically demanding of all three types of female physique competition - and genetically-gifted bodybuilders with their compact bodies and fully-shaped muscles need not apply.

The federations may have also have made somewhat of a miscalculation where figure competition is concerned. While the competitors are no doubt beautiful and attractive, they do not generally create the kind of long-term fan appeal that you find with female bodybuilders.

The top women in bodybuilding have far more dedicated, long-term fans than do women in fitness or figure. Fans who will spend money to buy tickets, signed photos and magazines in which they are featured. There are a few non-bodybuilding competitors who achieve great popularity - Monica Brant and Timea Majorova, for example - but it is common to be at an Expo and see crowds paying relatively little attention to figure champions like Davana Medina and Jenny Lynn (two of my favorites).