Female Bodybuilding

The History of Female Bodybuilding

Female bodybuilding is a serious competitive sport. Not all bodybuilders compete, but it is an option for those who are extremely dedicated to their craft. In the earliest years, female bodybuilding was little more than a bikini contest. The women were not truly muscular and toned. It wasn’t until the late 1970’s that these competitions actually began.

In the early 1980’s, female bodybuilding competition became serious. Women were now being judged on their muscularity and form just like male bodybuilders. Several women emerged immediately as forces to be reckoned with. The promoters of female bodybuilding were handpicking women based on how well they could be promoted to the world. Women had to send in resumes and photographs in order to be considered for the competition.

Within a few years, there were several major female bodybuilding competitions available, including NPC (National Physique Committee) Nationals, Ms. Olympia, and Ms. International. As these competitions increased in number and popularity, women focused more and more on muscularity. This decade saw the inception of the American Federation of Women Bodybuilders. This was a gigantic step in the right direction for female bodybuilders.

Changes in Female Bodybuilding

When the 1990’s rolled around, female bodybuilding began to face a lot of controversy. Many people felt that women were being chosen still based on their marketability rather than based on the set standards. It was even stated in some of the rules that femininity was going to be judged and that women should not be too large. This was met with extreme disapproval from spectators.

The popularity of female bodybuilding was growing stronger and stronger. While previous competitions had been televised, it would be months after the competition had actually taken place. In the 1990’s, these competitions were sometimes televised live. These competitions were no longer considered “filler” programming, but garnered enough viewers and sponsors to be televised live.

Female bodybuilding is still not as widely watched as male bodybuilding and therefore, women receive far less money in prizes. It is more difficult to find sponsors and turn bodybuilding into a career. The new millennium saw many rule changes that have made female bodybuilding much more appealing, but the lack of money involved is still discouraging.

Female bodybuilding is only going to continue to gain in popularity. Even though it has been almost three decades since these competitions began, it seems that the rules are still being ironed out. Eventually, there will be more stability and female bodybuilding will be recognized as what it is: a true competitive sport.

Next comes cardio.

Women have this tendency to just gravitate towards the cardio section of the gym. Whether it is the best place to check out the men lifting or it feels safer to them, whatever the reason, they go there and stay there - for hours at a time.

This is something that has to change. Think about how many hours of your life you've spent on that treadmill, stairmaster or elliptical machine. Do you really look that much different because of it? I'm guessing probably not.

Not only that, but how many of you put in your hour while watching TV or reading your favourite magazine? This is probably a good indicator that you aren't quite working as hard as you could be.

The truth of the matter is that your body will quickly adapt to all that cardio training that you are doing. So while before you might have burned a hundred calories running a mile, now you are only burning 80. Unless you continually add more and more time to get the same calorie burn, it is going to stop being an effective fat loss tool. And when you're already doing six hours a week, who really wants to spend MORE time doing cardio?

The secret is changing the format of your cardio from that of a comfortable steady-state session to one that's composed of high intensity intervals that will really kick you out of your comfort zone - and blast away body fat as well.

This is by far a more productive form of cardio to be doing so rather than wasting another hour of your life not really getting anywhere, next time you're in the gym for cardio, do twenty minutes, alternating thirty seconds going as hard as you possibly can with a minute and a half at a much easier pace to recover. It will be hard - I warn you. Stick with it for one month however and you will be extremely happy you did.

Click here to learn more aboutHow To Look Like A Female Fitness Model

By Vince DelMonte