BACKSTAGE she had already retired. A decade of female bodybuilding extinguished in the stretch of a pump-up band. All due to the lack of competitors.
Louise Plumb was in Romania, competing at the Amateur Olympia as part of its Wings of Strength weekend at the end of August. Once again she found herself as the only female bodybuilder. IFBB rules state that there must be at least five athletes for professional status to be achieved.
But after three attempts at trying spanning almost four years, it took just 30 minutes to make her the first female bodybuilder to turn pro since Lisa Cross in 2018. And 10 days from the moment she had decided to retire.
Such a quick turnaround for a journey that had seen its fair share of ups and downs, not to mention hard graft and, sadly, body-shaming.
Roughly 16 years before this triumph, however, bodybuilding was barely on Plumb's radar.
"I came into it [female bodybuilding] late," she says. "And I had kids, I was in my thirties. I fell into it totally by accident. I lived abroad when I had my daughter. My husband back then was out all the time. We lived in France and I didn't know anyone. I had a cesarean, so I couldn't go anywhere. I had nothing to do, no one to talk to. And I just thought, well, I'll lose my baby weight later. Because I had two cesareans, I had to wait until after I was ready to exercise again. But when I was able to drop the weight, I got really heavily into running.
"When I came back over here, to help my running, I joined a gym. I did a bit of cross-training, did some spinning classes and stuff like that. And then I just kind of fell in love with body pump class. Then I started out-lifting the instructor and started getting muscly. I was getting bigger. But then I split with my husband and ended up moving to a cheaper gym, which was a bodybuilding gym. And I saw the pictures of the girls on the walls and I was like, 'I want to be like all of them'. And I thought, well, what if I could push myself to do a comp? It was just a little far-off dream. A little goal to reach. And I did it – and I came dead last.
"So I just sort of fell into it. It was never like a dream that I ever had to be a bodybuilder. I was doing some fitness modeling at the time after I had dropped all the baby weight and I started getting quite a good physique on me, in a small gym bunny kind of way. I did a few photo shoots as a fitness model. My husband didn't really like it. He thought I was getting too big, which is hilarious because I was tiny – I'm so much bigger than him now.
"I competed first with Pure Elite and came dead last in the Muscle Model class and the Mums That Lift class. But then I got an email off the guy who runs Pure Elite and he's nominated me as the wild card to go into the British or the World Finals later that year. He said to me, 'your posing was terrible, that's why you came last. But your physique was good'. So they wanted to give me another chance.
"Basically, all the poses my coach at the time taught me were hard poses. And that was completely wrong for the class. I said, it should be bikini poses, so I was terrified. I didn't smile once and was stiff as a board. It was hilarious. So because they gave me a chance to come back I made it a mission to nail my posing – and I came second. So I've got a Pure Elite Pro Card! And then from then on I just got the bug.
"Then I took a year out of bodybuilding and started doing strong woman. I did about 18 months of work in strong woman, did a couple of competitions for that as well. I did pretty well, but really injured my shoulder as a result of doing heavy benching all the time. They thought I tore a tendon, which I didn't, I got this huge bursa [fluid-filled sac] in there. I had it scanned and, every time I moved, this bursa was nudging on a nerve. It was so painful.
"So for a long time I couldn't do any benching and so shoulders and chest were both really difficult to train. But then I realised I had to stop doing strength training and come back to bodybuilding so I could work around the injury, otherwise I'd just never train."
By this point, it was 2020 and the Government had imposed the draconian UK-wide lockdown as part of their response to Covid. Undeterred, Plumb used her journey into strength training to her advantage during this period.
"I managed to pilfer some equipment," she says. "I got a bar, weights, a squat rack and a bench. So I just did bench, deadlift, squat, overhead press the whole lockdown. I got really muscly as well, it was mad. And then I got on a little food plan with my new coach over lockdown thinking, 'I just don't want to do what the rest of the world is doing and put on a ton of weight, I'm going to keep in shape and I'm going to train'. And I looked probably the best in the off-season I've ever looked. I trained hard, stuck to my food, did all cardio and felt pretty good."
"In 2021, before I started prep for that season, I spoke to my new coach, Afser Choudry, and I said to him, 'what do you reckon the chances are? Do you reckon I'm good enough to do bodybuilding? A, to get in that class, and B, do you reckon I'd have a chance at a pro card, even if it's coming down to women's physique'? And he was like, 'absolutely, yeah, go for it', go for it'. He's a very positive coach anyway. He's always going to say, yes do it.
"The majority of people hadn't trained through 2020, so I felt like I was in a really good position because I trained a lot and I was in pretty good nick. So that first prep was a breeze. The [excess] weight just fell off me, I've never been more shredded. I did the IBFA British Finals in 2021 and won that. Then I did the Arnolds, which I won won but there was only two of us on stage, so they couldn't give me a pro card because, at that time, the rules were a class had to include at least five competitors. And there wasn't even the option to apply for it [pro card] afterwards.
"The following year, 2022, I think I expected it [prep] to be the same and it wasn't. It was bloody hard. For whatever reason, the weight just wasn't shifting like it was before. And I wasn't cheating, I was doing everything by the book. I'm pretty strict when I'm on prep, I'm blinkered. I'm a bit of a control freak; if I can control it, I'll control it. The bits that are out of my control, I don't worry about it, because I can't change it.
"But I ended up doing the 2Bros British final – and I was the only one in the class. So by default I won and I became the champion. But it was pretty gutting."
Plumb tried to apply in writing for her IFBB Pro Card after this second victory but was told her legs were lacking; a strange comment given her legs are arguably her strongest body part.
She added: "Later, I ended up getting a tooth infection, which ultimately resulted in my tooth being pulled out. This is all while in the latter stages of prep. So I couldn't eat anything, I had to blend all my food. It was awful. And then I got something called dry socket, which is basically where they've pulled the tooth out, it doesn't heal and you just have a hole going straight down to your bone. Agony. I can't tell you how bad that was. Then I had to go on antibiotics, then the antibiotics messed up my prep.
"I had to just say, that's it, I've got to come off prep. So I decided to take a whole year out. I thought, 'my body's knackered, it's not working'. So I took 2023 off to bulk and to give my body a complete break thinking that, if I came back in 2024, hopefully the prep would be just as good as it was in 2021. And it was. It was a breeze."
Another reason why she took an entire year off was to add size. Much like all bodybuilders, Plumb is plagued by the false notion that she is not big enough.
She explains: "I wanted to just bulk during 2023 because, in my head, I thought I'm just not big enough. You see these girls, the pros, they're bloody massive. We all know pictures kind of make you look bigger than potentially you are in real life but I wanted to do a full on bulk.
"I know I normally lose roughly 20kg in a prep. So I thought if I could get myself up to 90kg, solid, then I'll lose my 20kg. I wanted to step on stage at about 70kg, because that's a really good weight for a female bodybuilder [Louise is 5ft 5in]. And I knew a lot of the pro girls are 70kg or over when they get on stage. So that was my target for the off-season.
"I ended up getting to 93.5kg – but it was horrific. Seven meals a day, force feeding, lethargic, low energy, having to train through it all the time. I considered it prep, but just like the bulking stage of prep, rather than your cutting stage. And I wasn't doing tons and tons of cardio, but a little bit just to get it [food] moving.
"I don't mind getting a little bit out of shape but, when you get to that kind of size, it's a whole different ball game. I felt like I was pregnant again and I could barely bend over to put my socks on. You're out of puff getting up the stairs and it's just the sheer extra amount of weight you're carrying. I had to get a whole new wardrobe of clothes. Nothing fit me. Nothing. I had to buy extra large men's size clothes across the board. Nothing else would fit. So I've got these shoulders... women's clothes just don't fit.
"I got to 93kg and ended up losing 25 in total. I did actually dip under 70 but for the first comp I did, I was hitting around 70kg and kept losing. So I did a warm-up show, the 2Bros MK Classic this year [qualifier], then I did the IBFA A1 Classic. I knew I was going to be out of shape for the qualifier but I thought, it doesn't matter. I'm aiming for Romania [Amateur Olympia] to peak in. So I wasn't in anywhere near decent enough shape, I don't think. But again, I was the only competitor. There's just so few women that compete in female bodybuilding that, over the last three seasons, I've had a grand total of four competitors.
"In my opinion, female bodybuilding over the last few years seems to have swung more towards the bikini girls. It's a more accessible and easier-to-achieve shape. And aesthetically, a lot of girls would prefer to look like that, which is fair. I can understand that. And as well, from the opposite sex, a lot more guys appreciate that look, which means more girls will want to look like that. And also, it's just not a long, hard slog [as female bodybuilding]. You could be training for a year or two, just diet down and you can step on stage. But if you're a bodybuilder, of course, you need to have been training for years and years.
"Female bodybuilding as a class, aesthetically, it's not a look that most women aspire to. You're on the fringe of kind of what's considered normal in society. You do get a lot of crap from people, more so as a woman than you do as a man."
This was another hurdle Plumb had to overcome. Outside of the limited number of competitors, the injury setbacks and lockdown, the nasty side of the sport was never far away.
"For me, it's kind of water off a duck's back a little bit," she says. "I've had it since I started training. You divide opinion, don't you? It [female bodybuilding] is very Marmite. The majority of people say, 'you look like a man'. I've been called transsexual more times than I can remember. One TikTok post I put up, I had a comment saying I was an inspiration to the trans community, which I thought was hilarious. I thought it was either an amazing compliment or an amazing insult, one or the other.
"When I first started, it did bother me a little bit. The only time it really bothers me is when someone in the street says something to me in front of my children. There was one in particular I can remember. This was a good few years ago, 2017, actually. I was about two or three weeks out from comp and I took the kids to Longleat Safari Park. We were just queuing to go on a boat trip or something and there was a woman who was like, 'oh, my God, she looks absolutely disgusting'. She was looking me up and down and being really loud. And my girl heard. And at the time, she was about 10 years old and she was pretty upset about it. That bothered me a lot. But online, I don't really care. It's just trolls, isn't it? I think it's quite funny."
By this point, despite her relatively short competitive career, Plumb had been successful enough to make two attempts at achieving an IFBB Pro League card. Both times, however, she was scuppered by the rule over the minimum number of competitors in her class. Oh, and the seemingly laughable comment about her genetically gifted legs not being big enough.
Plumb needed a plan, one that would see her compete with a host of other female bodybuilders. She thought she had nailed it. But more disappointment was round the corner.
"I had a really good think about competitions for 2024," she said. "I needed to find myself a competition where there' would be quite a few girls. I'd kept a good eye on all the European shows to see how many girls were competing. I needed to pick a show that would be busy and that meant it's probably going to be the toughest one. I thought, OK then, I will just have to pitch myself against the best in Europe – which was terrifying.
"So I decided to go for the Romania Amateur Olympia, Wings of Strength one. The year previous, loads of girls turned up and a Pro Card was awarded. And I was like, well that's the one. The girl that won, I thought, bloody hell, she's good. So that was the other thing that kind of motivated me to work as hard as I did through the off-season and during prep."
"I turned up in Romania feeling like I was some little fan. I was walking around like, oh my God – I was starstruck. It was such a huge venue, massive banners everywhere. It was bigger than anything I'd ever seen. And then you've got Lenda Murray there. Alina Popa. And they were doing this kind of seminar. So I'm sat there thinking, I love them. People you've grown up admiring and adoring. Irene Anderson was sat in front of me. I thought it was brilliant.
"I'd entered women's physique and female bodybuilding because, again, I kept thinking I was too small. In female bodybuilding, you've got to have a cross-frame. And you need to have a significant hip sweep. You need to have a very good level of muscle separation. Muscularity. But really, you just need to be pretty big. Physique is similar, but just a bit smaller. So I thought, well, I'll enter both because I was still not convinced I was big enough.
"It turned out there was one other girl in the physique class – and just me in the female bodybuilding class. I couldn't believe it. Honestly, I was like, I've travelled all this way and it wasn't cheap. I got there a good three days before I had to compete because I wanted to be completely relaxed, I didn't want to be holding any water from the travel. I wanted to be settled. Plus the entry fee was about 250 quid. But you know, you just think, what the hell. And I did think this would be my final go at it; if I don't win it now, I'm going to retire. If I don't get it, I just can't keep banging my head on a brick wall. I can't keep going around the world trying to find people to compete against.
"When I saw it was only me I thought, 'brilliant, no pro card again'. I've done all this work, two year's worth. I thought, 'well, I've won Again. By default. Again'. It's pretty disappointing.
"But a guy called AJ, who runs a female bodybuilding channel, messaged me while I was backstage and he said, 'so you're competing today. how many people are in your class'? When I told him, he was outraged as well. He put a post up about me on Instagram, basically saying it's an outrage, in that there's not enough female bodybuilders and so no IFBB Pro Card would be awarded."
Plumb believes the problem stems from federations not marketing those female bodybuilding classes well enough. That and the ugly issue of body-shaming.
She explains: "It [the lack of female bodybuilders] is because the class isn't being pushed. Pages of Federations seem to allow people online to slag off the female bodybuilding class. I notice it a lot. The amount of people that were saying it's because female bodybuilders are disgusting – on bodybuilding forums. You'd assume these guys are bodybuilders themselves and they're all saying, 'no one wants to look at that, it's unnatural, it's gross'. There's so many comments like that. You may not like the look of it but you can appreciate the work, surely? You can respect them for what they're doing and not be a complete knob. They don't have to say that sort of stuff. You don't have to fancy it or want to f**k it. That's fine. But you don't have to slag it off publicly.
"It's crazy. Anyway, that's why I refuse to slag off bikini girls. I won't slag them off. I do think it's an easier route, but that's fine.
"Anyway, so he wrote this post and Jake Wood [owner of the Olympia] was watching. So you had him, Alina Popa and Lenda Murray – and they all saw the post. I had Jake Wood and the head judge come backstage and find me. And they just said to me, 'are you going to apply for your pro card after this? I went, 'yeah, maybe'. And Jake Wood says to me, 'apply for it'. So I said, 'all right'. And he said, 'no, apply for it'.
"And then he found me after I'd done the finals [following pre-judging] and told me again that I should apply. We [Louise and Jack Wood] followed each other on Instagram and he messaged me three more times telling me to apply. You have to send stage photos with your application and it took a while for those to arrive. But within half an hour of sending it, I got an email back saying it [Pro Card] had been approved."
Naturally, Plumb was elated at the news of what she had achieved. All the years of hard work and sacrifice had paid off. She said: "I was over the moon. I took an instant screenshot sent to Mark [bodybuilder Mark Taylor, her partner]. It was a weird feeling. I spent that day just sort of floating around a little bit. But the next day I was like, well, now what? I've spent the last four years gunning for this. That's been the sole focus. I was hoping to get it [pro card] that day so I could do a pro show the following day. So I would have done the pro show the next day happily and then just gone, 'right, that's it, I'm going to retire'.
"What was interesting is that there was another female bodybuilding pro and she'd come from Iran and her luggage had got lost. She hadn't put a bikini in her hand luggage, so she didn't have one. And I got some random woman messaging me on Instagram saying, 'I see you're at the Olympia, you look about the same size as my friend. Can she borrow a bikini'? Now, I bought three bikinis in my hand luggage. And I just said, yeah, of course. Can you imagine the stress that she's under? I met her to give her the bikini and bloody hell, if we weren't the same size. And I thought, 'oh, that's interesting, because I just assumed all the other girls were going to be tons bigger'. So that was a bit of a reality check for me."
That reality check opened a whole new avenue of possibilities for Plumb. But she is taking her time on making a decision over her competitive future.
She said: "I've got to be honest with you, I'm fairly undecided at the moment. I've not written off anything. I'm taking a massive break from really strict food, really strict cardio and really strict training. I am still on somewhat of a plan. I am still training and I am still doing cardio. But I'm not killing myself over it. I've worked so tirelessly for the last four years doing this.
"I really just wanted to get a bit of life balance back. I've got kids as well. OK, they're are a bit older, they're teenagers – but they need me. They've got GCSEs, A-levels, doing university visits, driving lessons. I've competed really for the last 10 years, more or less. Even in the years I haven't competed, I've still been training and eating like I had been competing. My kids have been brilliant, they're so understanding. I never have any grief from them. But as a mother, you've got a constant sense of guilt.
"You go out with them and you can't enjoy food with them. You take them to the cinema, you're eating out of Tupperware in the cinema. My little girl, especially when she was smaller, is a bit of a feeder. So if ever she'd have anything, like a muffin, she'd always want me to have some. And I'd always have to say no and she'd always be upset. So I just wanted to have a bit of balance back in my life.
"But come January, I'm going to get back on a plan. I'm going to get back into training. Everything's going to go back into normal. I'll have my normal routine again. I think as bodybuilders, you're never satisfied, so you're always going to train and you're always going to try and improve. I'll carry on with that. But I'm not young anymore. And I've been competing for 10 years now. And I've done more than 20 shows. But I've been asked to do the guest posing at the IBFA A1 Classic, so that means I've got to go back on a prep. If I'm in prep and if I start getting in shape and I start thinking, 'oh, I look all right here', then I might look to jump into something."
With such iron determination, a killer physique and one which is clearly big enough, it would be a foolish person to bet against Plumb making some serious waves on the pro scene. For now, however, it is just a case of 'watch this space'.
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