Any aspiring bodybuilder worth their weight in protein powder will tell you the primary goal on an annual basis is to make steady improvements in their physiques. Even the best of the pros would admit the same. Some competitors take that desire seriously, while others fail to follow any organized plan of attack.
But when it comes to New Jersey's Lisette Acevedo, the desire to improve could hardly be more at the forefront of what she has accomplished since entering her first NPC Nationals in 2008. As it is, Acevedo only began entering bodybuilding contests in 2006, and to date the sum total of her contest exploits includes just four events.
Short of authoring an entire book on the subject of outstanding lightweight bodybuilders, the following should be considered as, at the very least, a spirited effort to salute a cross-section those women who have left a mark on the sport of women's bodybuilding while laboring under the perceived disadvantages due to their physical stature.
In a sport that has, for the most part, long rewarded the look of those contestants who are larger than life, lightweights have endured a struggle for recognition as each decade in the sport's history has passed.
Before anyone gets their undies all in a twist, rest assured I have no desire to push women's bodybuilding towards pag
eantry status. But such was not the case back in 1982 when the Miss (yes, Miss) Olympia event (which was held at the Playboy Club Casino in Atlantic City) was being unmistakably touted as a "Pageant".
I was reminded of this moment in the history of women's bodybuilding when I recently found the original copy of what was to be the "script" used by the emcee for the 1982 Miss Olympia. It was a script that would thankfully never see the light of day.
Legendary NFL football coach Vince Lombardi once said, "Winning isn't everything......It's the only thing". And while there are those who might argue the point with the famed coach who won the first Superbowl, Iris Kyle probably likes the sound of the philosophy he trumpeted.
You see, Iris Kyle has always enjoyed winning in her chosen sport of bodybuilding. And she has done it with regularity. So often, in fact, that she is fast becoming a legend in her own time.
February in Phoenix can be a mixed bag of weather. You can enjoy anything from summer-like warm days, to rains falling so hard and fast it causes flash floods - even nights around the freezing mark aren't out of the question. But on this February 20th day there was more than the ordinary levels of heat emanating from the Mesa Arts Center stage in the southeastern Phoenix suburb of Mesa.
For bodybuilding fans from the Grand Canyon state, this contest was a welcome relief from the usual long treks for a muscle fix while living in the middle of the Sonoran desert. Pro bodybuilding was being brought to their own backyard complements of promoter Stryker Salmon.
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In a majority of dictionaries, the definition of the word ‘genetics' is pretty simplistic. The Oxford edition uses just one word to define it: inherited. Funk & Wagnalls tells us genetics "....deal with the interaction of the genes in producing the similarities and differences between individuals". And Webster's definition of genetics is described as "the origin of something". Any way you care to slice it, the understanding is, in general, that genetics are the basics of a beginning.
In virtually all sports, genetics play a pivotal role in determining an athlete's potential success and the suitability to a given athletic endeavor. If you are 7-2 and weigh 240 pounds, chances are your future won't be in powerlifting. And conversely, if you happen to be 5-6, 240 pounds, the likelihood of playing center on a college basketball team is highly unlikely.
Nineteen-Ninety may not sound like a long time ago, but it is, nonetheless, two decades past. Twenty calendars have come and gone, and it is an especially long time in bodybuilding years - but more about that later.
The hit movies of the time offered a wide range of silver screen faire. Home Alone; Ghost; Dances with Wolves; Pretty Woman, and Arnold's Kindergarten Cop were all top grossing flicks in 1990. Popular music also ran the spectrum of variety with Ice, Ice, Baby, by Vanilla Ice; U Can't Touch This by MC Hammer; Madonna's Vogue, and Sinead O'Connor's Nothing Can Compare to You. All the previously-mentioned vocal artists produced videos featuring their hits and were played unendingly on MTV with chart-topping success.
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History has noted that in 1977 Jan Todd became the first woman to surpass 1,000 pounds in powerlifting's three-lift event. Todd's totals included a 424 ¼-pound squat, a 176 ¼-pound bench press, and a 441-pound deadlift. Following Todd's watershed efforts came the seismic evolution of the sport. Her 1,041 ½ total has been topped numerous times in several weight classes since then, and it points dramatically to just how rapid the progression of that sport's growth has been. In fact, while Todd was still at the top of her game, she also became the first female to surpass the 1,200 pound level. Today that mark is but a distant memory.
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