Female fitness evolved as a result of promoters and federations wanting an alternative to hardcore female bodybuilding, where they could feature women with less muscular development than that of the current standard.

Ironically, it was suggested back in the l980s to have soft-bodybuilding, but according to IFBB historian for women’s bodybuilding, Steve Wenerstgrom, modern female fitness competition began when Wally Boyco, a promoter and publisher of the National Fitness Trade Journal, decided to stage what he called a “fitness contest” as part of a health industry trade show in Las Vegas. At the Ms. National Fitness Championships, held in November, 1985 at the Tropicana Hotel, the female fitness competitors were sponsored by various exhibitors and the idea was to include females who were athletic, fit and attractive, but who did not exhibit the muscular development or definition of female bodybuilders.

Those early Boyco events eventually developed into the Ms. Fitness competitions (in- fact, Boyco owns the title “Ms. Fitness”), which were staged in order to create shows that would be aesthetically pleasing enough to be distributed to television via syndication. After much success with the Ms Fitness events, T.V. producer Lou Zwick developed, “The Fitness America Contests” for cable television in 1989. During the year 1994, after seeing much success with these events, the NPC—and later the IFBB followed suit with competitions of their own. However, unlike bodybuilding, female fitness was not considered a sport, so that when judges who were used to contests in which there were at least some commonly accepted standards began trying to evaluate competitors, the result became highly problematic.

The females who began competition in female fitness were certainly athletes, and were some of the healthiest and most attractive females on the planet. But the nature of the sport is that it involves “going to extremes”. As soon as you put artificial limits on what can be achieved, what you end up with, by definition, isn’t a sport. Fitness developed into a kind of specialized beauty contest for women with athletic physiques, plus involved a performance routine that was usually based on some degree of gymnastics.
Bodybuilding Supplements

Female Fitness is no Easy Task

Females involved in female fitness contests have to train hard and diet, with rigorous discipline in order to be successful. In fact, they do the same kind of training and dieting as bodybuilders—only not quite as intensive. Succeeding in fitness also involves a lot of effort, sacrifice and frequently, a good deal of money. However, since fitness isn’t considered a sport, the rules and judging standards are arbitrary. Any promoter or sanctioning body is theoretically free to lay down any set of rules they desire. Thus, the competitors in fitness often have trouble knowing what is expected of them, how to prepare, how much or little muscularity is required and whether they can do well without an impressive tumbling routine.

Fitness Becomes Increasingly Problematic

It wasn’t long that female fitness began to pose an increasing number of problems. For one thing, the gymnastics requirement was too difficult for many of the females who had skills in dance or martial arts, or those who were highly athletic, but didn’t necessarily have gymnastics training in their background. Yet another, fitness was conceived as being dangerous. Women were doing gymnastics on bare wooden floors, slippery surfaces or floors with a very thin padding. Releases or no releases, one serious lawsuit, from these female fitness competitors, would put the promoters or federation out of business. This gave rise to serious concerns.

Also, there was the matter of the beauty and concern of being able to promote the champions. Females who excelled at fitness tended to have slight, girlish physiques (resembling that of a gymnast) and the performance scores meant that the winner might not be someone you’d put on a magazine cover. That is when the torch was passed and figure competition was developed. Figure was a means of addressing all of these issues and the NPC began sanctioning figure in 2001 and IFBB followed soon after. Figure was supposed to be fitness without the performance. But it hasn’t worked out that way, because figure females in general do not have the type of body suited for gymnastics. The emerging standard for figure involves long-proportionate, long-waisted, long-legged physiques and beautiful faces. These women are the “supermodels” of female physique and are much more suited to modeling for the fitness industry and being photographed for physique magazines than the majority of the fitness women.