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 2005 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:

Remember Angela Bassett in Tina Turner's autobiographical movie, "What's Love Got to Do With It?" She had a body that would make even Tina--no weakling herself--envious.

"Angela had it going on, and her arms were definitely the prize of the package. Yet the secret to awesome arms is really no secret at all. If you work to tighten and tone those triceps, you'll see your arms go from mediocre to magnificent.

Women did not display this degree of muscularity and definition prior to the advent of modern bodybuilding for women. And it pays to remember that "weight training" and "resistance training," which most say they are doing, are just euphemisms for the kind of progressive-resistance training developed and practiced by serious bodybuilding competitors, both men and women.

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