ESQUIRE APRIL 2015 105104 ESQUIRE APRIL 2015

Words by Shermian LimPhotographs by Kim Mun

If the spornosexual aesthetic has changed the perception of what it means to be a good-looking man, the athletic and fitness movement has turned the ideal of female beauty upside down. Known as “fitspo” online, it’s a look that idolises washboard abs, not thigh gaps, and celebrates squatting 100kg, not fitting into a size zero dress. But is this a look that works in our Asian culture, one that has always prized a petite frame? Do Malaysian women—and men—even want to look like—and at—this?

Rise of thefemale

jocks

106 ESQUIRE APRIL 2015 ESQUIRE APRIL 2015 107

iIn a YouTube video entitled “Lillian Tan, 2004 INBA Overall Champ”, the woman in a purple bikini strides confidently on stage, as an unseen audience whoops and applauds. She folds over and crouches down in a runner’s starting position, back turned to the audi-ence, the palms of her hands spread out on the floor to steady herself. Music plays overhead as she rises slowly, one hand on her hip as she sashays to turn and face the crowd.

The video is grainy and low quality, but one can see that her bodybuilder physique is bronzed and glis-tening; it’s a sculpted and muscular work of art to be admired as she performs her posing routine—frontal double bicep curls, side lunges, lateral spreads, tri-cep curls—like an Ironman brought to life. She eases into one pose after another with precision and con-trol, smiling effortlessly and clearly enjoying herself, winning over spectators as a result. Her poised per-formance in this guarantees her win in the medium-height class division of that competition.

Lillian Tan, the woman in the video, is Penang-born but was in California, competing in a regional body-building competition under the International Natural Bodybuilding Association (INBA). That same day in 2004, she was also declared regional champion, and went on to represent the USA in INBA’s Natural Olym-pia championship. She won a silver medal. “I actually wanted to see if I could represent Malaysia,” explained Tan in a 2011 interview with Bernama. “But they, uh, never quite recognised women’s bodybuilding. So I decided to represent team USA.” (Due to a sudden emergency, Tan, who still actively competes, was made unavailable for a scheduled photoshoot with Esquire.)

She meant the Malaysian government when she said “they”, of course. In 1988, women’s bodybuilding was officially banned in the country, right around the time when societies overseas began moving away from Twiggy-thin and towards Fonda-fit as the yardstick for women’s beauty. In the US, women’s bodybuilding was gaining mainstream traction as a televised sport, and bodybuilding personalities who had made their name in the championship circuits were finding themselves in high demand for the likes of beer commercials, fit-ness product endorsements, and even lads rags.

Making it look easyThe vision of the ideal female form rises and falls, it seems, with the changing of decades. For many, Lillian Tan’s impressive bodybuilder physique is on the ex-treme end of the spectrum, one most would deem unat-tainable, and perhaps even intimidating. But her story is one that informs Malaysian women of a different way of looking at their body shape, even as skinny made a return in the mid-’90s, prevailed and is still largely seen as the default in beauty standards. But she is far from being the last to go down that path. The mush-rooming of boutique and chain gyms across town indi-cates a growth of health awareness among the public, and gyms have seen an uptick in female membership in recent years. For its membership breakdown, chain gym Fitness First reports that as of February 2015, 46

percent of its members are women. Within that subset, they’ve seen a 10 percent increase in the past year, com-pared to four years ago, according to senior marketing executive James Chan. “Our members want to look and feel better. They gain confidence when they achieve the goals of their fitness journey,” Chan explains via email. At Celebrity Fitness, the other major chain gym, women membership exceeds men, according to Nes-rine Abotaira, vice president of marketing. To cater to their primary clientele, the chain recently introduced women-specific personal training programmes includ-ing one known as “Strong is the new beautiful”.

For women who feel self-conscious about working out in public, they can opt for women-only gyms like Curves, which has grown to 3,000 members across 14 locations since opening in 2012. Besides the privacy and comfort of a single-gender environment, mem-bers form a supportive community with each other. “Fitness is not just about looking like a superstar”, says Linda Tee, Curves’ head of business development and marketing. “It’s the agility and capability to move and do daily things with our own physical body with-out feeling lethargic, breathless and have pains and aches, which disrupts our sleep at the end of the day. It’s about enjoying a long and healthy life, feeling hap-py with the way you are, enjoying what your body can do to make you feel good in terms of self-esteem and confidence.” Still, Tee notes that some of the top reasons for members want-ing to join Curves is to lose weight and increase muscles, both decidedly aes-thetic considerations. In fitness disci-plines that also emphasise mental and spiritual wellness, it is the same.

“No one ever came to my class seeking enlightenment,” says Ninie Ahmad, who’s been a yoga instructor for 14 years and specialises in ash-tanga. Ahmad, a former sprinter and university hockey player, started yoga because she “wanted to look like Cam-eron Diaz”, while the realisation that there is more to yoga came much later. “When you’re listening to your own breath and you’re told not to move, that’s when you can’t help but do a lit-tle inner reflection,” she adds.

In Ahmad’s intermediate class at Upward Yoga on a Monday morning, the five or six women she’s teaching do not look anything like Lilian Tan. Her studio is a corner shoplot in Ara Damansara, where wide-panelled windows allow the soft, early morning sunlight in, illuminating lean silhouettes of her students on their mats—twisting, contorting, bending in all manner of unimaginable ways as Ah-mad ambles amid them, correcting a posture or two and offering words of support. “I lost my focus,” one student mumbles when she flubs catching her ankles during a full-wheel backbend. Ahmad simply shakes her head in encouragement, instructing her student to try again. The student completes her backbend this time, a success celebrated by fellow classmates.

“Without even lifting Weights, you’re able to get the red-carpet hollyWood look.”—NiNie AhMAd

PREvIoUS SPREAd: NINIE AhmAd. oPPoSItE PAgE: LINoRA Low.

JAckEt ANd PANtS, both by bRookS bRothERS; PoLo ShIRt by cALvIN kLEIN coLLEctIoN; ShoES by coAch. oPPoSItE PAgE: LEAthER bIkER JAckEt by LoEwE; ShIRt ANd PANtS, both by dkNy JEANS; ShoES by coAch.

ESQUIRE APRIL 2015 109108 ESQUIRE APRIL 2015

Still photos, Ahmad says, make yoga look easy to men, but after they are introduced to more complex poses such as headstands or arm balances, the reali-sation that yoga not only requires flexibility, but also strength, dawns. “They’ll say, ‘We thought we are fit and strong,’ or, ‘We thought we can lift over 100 kilos in weight,’ but we can’t lift our own body weight,’” Ah-mad says with a laugh. Keen to further dispel the notion that yoga is a lightweight sport, she elaborates on chatu-ranga, a type of semi-pushup, semi-plank move in yoga that relies heavily on the triceps. One chaturanga, ac-cording to Ahmad, is equivalent to three chest pushups. During the hour-long class, her students had performed 84 chaturanga moves in their routine—252 regular chest pushups. “Without even lifting weights, you’re able to get—not bulky looking muscle—but the red-carpet Hol-lywood look,” she says. “And you look taller than you are because of yoga’s muscle lengthening properties.”

Ahmad is a poster girl for being yoga strong. At three months pregnant in mid-March, she can perform headstands, planks and knee-to-chest jumps like any-one else. Save for the baby bump, Ahmad’s forearms and thighs are taut, her olive complexion serene and radiant. “It’s amazing how strong women’s bodies can still be even when you’re carrying a life,” she says. The only limitation is an occasional shortness of breath, something she hasn’t experienced since overcoming asthma years ago. “If I’m not breathing well, I know my baby isn’t getting enough oxygen. That’s the only drawback to doing yoga when pregnant”.

Lately, though, she’s had quite a bit of interest from mothers and mothers-to-be in her classes. It would make sense for her, as one of Malaysia’s more promi-nent faces of yoga and fitness, to be fielding endorse-

ment requests as well, but Ahmad says she is over all that. She’s turned down diapers, milk supplements and baby formula deals. “Many things have to be crossed [out] now because yoga is such an organic workout,” she says. “I’m not wanting more mass pro-duced and processed stuff in my life”. The last time she made a commercial appearance was as an ambassador for UNIQLO’s AIRism line. “It’s simple and shows that you don’t need fancy things to do yoga”, Ahmad says. The “endorsements” that she does now are self-initiated via Instagram, of products that she actually believes in and uses. “I used to represent a big sports brand. I used to blog and get paid writing advertorials, but over the years, I realise I have a responsibility towards my community.”

But as the fitness industry is grow-ing, others who have a less strict ap-proach to endorsements are able to fill the need for fitness personalities.

Some even view being a brand ambassador as a way of finding their own community of like-minded people. As a radio announcer who focuses on weight training and is “crazy into fitness”, MIX FM’s Linora Low con-

siders herself as a bit of an underdog, the reason for which she agreed to be an ambassador for American sports apparel brand Under Armour, which launched its first store in Malaysia earlier this year. She is also the ambassador for Canadian-based bodybuilding supplement brand Pharmafreak and Vipr, a fitness tool that facilitates purposeful, weight-loaded work-out moves. Low says she enjoys the “sense of commu-nity” with each brand—a community where “we en-courage one another, which is how it should be”.

With vibrant red hair, a vivacious personality and tone of voice that sounds like she’s smiling constantly, it’s hard to imagine that Low ever had issues with her body shape. “I was always a chubby kid. Whatever I ate, I just put on the pounds,” she says. Before going into fitness, Low tried slimming programmes, but re-frained from surgeries like liposuction. “I’ve actually seen videos of doctors who can even give you ‘abs’ by leaving fat in areas that will make you look like you have abs. You can even implant biceps! But it’s obvious and it’s not natural,” Low says. “I’d rather work hard for that body”. She likes that weight training burns more calories than running on the treadmill. “Seeing your body change in front of you because of your own hard work and dedication is amazing”, she says. “And I’m still changing my body as it is. I’m nowhere near what I want to achieve.” She cites Andreia Brazier, a lean and muscular fitness model with well-defined washboard abs, as one of her inspirations.

do you even lift, sis?Women’s pursuit of a strong physique that suits them does beg the question: do men find this attractive? Plenty of studies have been done to gauge the differ-ences between men’s perceptions of the ideal weight for women, but the extent that muscles on a woman are attractive to the average male remains unspeci-fied, with only casual man-on-the-street opinion sur-veys as reference. Although some agreed that an ath-letic build could be attractive, most said they prefer a woman with fewer muscles. “Eugenie Bouchard is a sportswoman I find attractive,” says Brandon Tan, director of a foodservice consulting firm. His friend, Benjamin Foo, a technology consultant agrees: “Some-one with guns like Sam Stosur would be intimidating. But I would ask her for training tips!” Tan adds: “Too muscular would be a turn-off. Imagine you’re just a regular guy and your girlfriend is Ms Musclewoman.”

Whether it’s simply a preference or societal stand-ards that colour the perceptions of guys like Tan and Foo, athlete and personal trainer Kimberley Chai is quick to point out the assumption that women with muscles are somehow diminished in their girly charms is misguided. Sportswear, sports shoes and a gym bag are part of the uniforms for women like her who work at a gym. “It’s not a correct perception that we’re not feminine”, says Chai, who keeps her jet-black hair at waist length, likes wine-red lipstick and wears cheongsams for special occasions. Besides per-sonal training, Chai is also a freediver, a powerlifter, a dancer and an aerialist. One of the main reasons she took up the aerial hoop was to

“if i’M a strong

WoMan, then i shouldn’t

have a probleM

attracting an even

stronger Man.”

—KiMberLey ChAi

[continued on page 265]

oPPoSItE PAgE: kImbERLEy chAI. hAIR ANd mAkE-UP by ShAwN goh. PhotogRAPhS PRodUcEd by hoPScotch PhotogRAPhy.

ESQUIRE APRIL 2015 265

avoid being stereo-typed as a typical jock who lifts weights all day and is a meathead—she wants to be known “not only for being strong, but graceful as well”. Chai is undeterred at the idea that she might intimidate men. “If I’m a strong woman, then I shouldn’t have a problem attracting an even strong-er man—that will come naturally.”

She has channeled that very same feisty spirit into overcoming criticism—nonverbal as well as verbal—when people have challenged her ability as a personal trainer, an occupation that is viewed as very much male-oriented. “Every now and again, I have guys who are very egotistical. They do not want to be seen training with me, or they do not want to sign up with me. Months later, I see them training with a guy.” Years ago, this would have upset her, but Chai has made a name for herself in hypertrophy and strength training, among her list of clients. Having clients who she gets to guide from “point

A to point B, and knowing that you’ve had a hand in changing their lives” is reward-ing enough for Chai. The best measure of her success as a personal trainer are happy clients like Jonathan Yong, owner of a construction company, who went from having 20 percent body fat to 12 percent in 4 months. Through a combi-nation of intermittent fasting, workout goals set by Chai and his own determina-tion, Yong saw results quickly. Right from the beginning, Yong had no qualms about Chai being a woman trainer and was con-vinced she was the one who could put him through the grind. “Maybe I’m bi-ased, but women are a bit more particu-lar with details and techniques, and Kim certainly is.” says Yong, who still retains Chai as his trainer. “She really knew her stuff and was passionate about what she intended to do. She’s a good motivator.”

Strong as heckChai’s fitness journey has come a long way

from when she was sneaking out of her parents’ home at 15 years old, just to cycle to the gym to build herself into her dream body shape. Health problems and a lack of knowledge on good eating habits were the main motivators for her just to get up and “change something” in her life—and she succeeded. Chai’s journey, as well as the Ahmad’s, Low’s and Tan’s, mirror the ones that many women and men under-take to improve themselves, physically and mentally. As Chai prepares for her first foray into competitive freediving this year, she is determined not to be stagnant, and sees herself continuing to learn more, on her own terms. However it might be interpreted, it can be agreed that strength is about pushing oneself to the limit, and Chai sums it up best: “Right now I’m just focused on what I like, and regardless of what I look, so what? As long as I’m strong as heck. There’s nothing more liberating than being able to lift huge amounts of weight that even some guys can’t.” 

[continued from page 109]

rise of the female jocks