FEMALE COMPETITION PHYSIQUES: DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FITNESS, BODY BUILDING, FIGURE, FIGURE MODEL

This picture is from the competition I attended in Toronto in November 2008. The category is fitness. She also competed in the figure portion. She was the only entrant in fitness. It is grueling. She showed amazing strength, flexibility, poise, and she put on a great show!

The above photos depict female body builders' physiques

These photos depict the anticipated figure competitor physique. These women look amazing. Do you have any idea how hard they work and for how long? They are athletes.

This is a figure/fitness model. As mentioned previously, some figure competitors do figure modelling but there are also figure models who do not do figure competition.As you see each has a different level of muscle development.I would equate most figure models to being lean and toned, figure competitors as lean and muscular and body builders as very lean and very muscular.

I was pursuing the figure competitor - the middle one before my accident.

There are more 'older' body builders competing than figure competitors and I would doubt there are any older figure models :) at least not ones who aren't famous for other reasons.

I have done plenty of research on the topic and I will provide some links to the best figure training info I could find --stay tuned.

By the way I would have been competing for the first time at age 61 but that is delayed now due to recovery from injuries. However, more recently, one of my idols (Tosca Reno) packed it in after the Vegas competition in which she came 3rd at age 50. On her "Flexing at 49" on Viva TV she lamented that it was too difficult to compete against the younger set. (also saying it is all about T & A not muscle development :)

She began her fitness journey at age 40 and is still actively pursuing another fitness journey albeit not via figure competition.

I thought that if she is giving up competing at 50, who am I to think I can start at over age 60? I will continue training for me, but I am not convinced I want to face the humiliation of competing against younger competitors. The grand masters category is rarely available in competition and even when it is, the age group is much younger than 60 -so unfair odds.

I can only keep training and hope, that perhaps a new category will arise out of the aging baby boomer population - hopefully it won't be called the cougars or the great grannies :)