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Building the perfect bodyDate: 13.07.2007
Posted by: Anabolic Info Team United States
She's buff and bronzed, and in a world of bodybuilding babes with stiletto heels and breast implants, Janet Guenther is no Barbie.
The rippling muscles, displayed beneath her tank top and shorts as she works out in the Edmonds Community College gym, were acquired through diet and exercise — not steroids — and she's proud of it.
Every skinless-chicken-breast-and-green-bean dinner, every oatmeal breakfast and every 90-pound weight she lifts with one hand, has paid off. Not only did she win the overall masters championship at the largest amateur show in the country, the Emerald Cup, at Bellevue in April, but now she's bound for the national masters competition in Pittsburgh later this month.
But even more important to the Edmonds CC physical-education instructor, bodybuilding helps keep her diabetes under control and inspires her students to not just take up the sport but to set high goals and work to achieve them.
"She's amazing," said one of Guenther's students, Zoe Lefrancois-Hanson. "She's been bodybuilding forever and really knows her stuff. ... She works herself really hard and looks 40 at the oldest."
In the weight room, there's music and a student-made poster marking the countdown to nationals. Guenther, 56, lies on a bench and lifts the 135-pound barbell. Once. Twice. Three times. She sets it down gently. She does a rowing exercise, raising a 90-pound weight in one hand. And then she pauses to flex before the mirror.
"Mirrors aren't just for doing our hair," she said. "They're for checking our muscles."
Guenther works out every day, combining weightlifting with the elliptical trainer and step aerobics.
She began bodybuilding 25 years ago after a student introduced her to the sport, and she has become known as a "natural" because she has developed her body without drugs or cosmetic surgery.
Liposuction and breast implants, in particular, are common in bodybuilding because women lose breast tissue when their body-fat ratio drops low and muscle develops.
The only pills Guenther pops are vitamin supplements. There is no drug-testing in bodybuilding competitions and steroid use is common, though few women admit it, Guenther said. Competitors on steroids have an abnormally heavy muscle mass, unlike women in the "natural" shows, which tend to feature women whose muscles are simply well-defined.
It's that natural look she encourages students to go for, the ability to develop muscles and be strong.
Why shouldn't women have strong, well-defined muscles? she asks.
The first time Guenther competed in the Emerald Cup, which has competitors from all over the region, she didn't place and the competition seemed fierce, especially from her buffed-up, steroid-enhanced competitors.
After coaching from personal trainer David Patterson, who helped refine her routine, she came away a winner.
Competitors have to be able to hook the audience in a few seconds, Patterson said, so they use mime, props and music, which allows them to flex their muscles to their best advantage.
Guenther is an excellent mime, he said.
Some faculty members and students Lefrancois-Hanson and Stephanie Singer were at the Emerald Cup to cheer her on.
About a year ago, Lefrancois-Hanson saw a show and admired how in shape and toned the women were, and told Singer, "We've just got to do this!"
Now both are planning to compete, Lefrancois-Hanson in the "figure" division for women with less-muscular builds, a division Patterson disdains as no more than a "bathing-suit competition."
Nevertheless, bodybuilding is appealing to more women now than before, says Elaine Craig of Craig Productions, which produces the Emerald Cup. When it started 25 years ago, there were only 25 women. In April, there were 150, some from overseas.
In her fitness classes, Guenther has had all ages, including a woman of nearly 80 who is lifting weights to stay fit.
"She's my hero," Guenther says. Others have included people with multiple sclerosis and other diseases who want to improve muscle tone.
When Guenther began bodybuilding, the doctors who treated her for diabetes told her to take it easy. But now, with new research showing that exercise has benefits when it comes to living with the condition, she said, they endorse her training.
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