Bikinis to power: Japanese women who break stereotypes

While taking a fearsome pose at the Japan Bodybuilding Championship, Satoko Yamanouchi's biceps ripple, glisten with sweat, and the veins in her neck throbbed as if they were about to burst.

An hour later, the small woman from Nagoya is on the verge of tears after having narrowly lost after trying to defend her title against a group of 34 very muscular young ladies, most of them close to fifty years old.

“I was pathetic!” Says Yamanouchi, 56, wearing a tiny golden bikini in the dressing room at the end of the event. “For me, a silver medal doesn't mean anything,” shouts the fibrous former champion, who measures just 1.58 m and weighs 50 kilos. "The only thing it means is that one is a better loser," he adds.

A confessed gym fan, Yamanouchi is the poster girl for a growing number of Japanese bodybuilders, who is also helping to break down gender stereotypes in a country obsessed with the concept of ?? kawaii ??

 (pretty), for its ubiquitous pop culture.

"I want to help change people's perception so that they can appreciate the beauty of a muscular woman," declares the five-time national champion, after a rigorous two-hour training the week before the competition.

??? If I tell people that I am a bodybuilder, they are scared ???, adds Yamanouchi, who started in the sport after forty, looking for an option to keep fit.

"When I started, my husband did not like his wife to appear in public in a bikini, but then she came to her senses."

?? A common housewife ??

According to the authorities, the number of bodybuilders registered in the National Federation of Japan almost doubled in the last six years, as a result of the fitness boom that is spreading across the country. The activity currently has around 3,000 adherents, of which 10 percent are women.

In Japan with an aging population, female bodybuilding is dominated by women in their forties to fifties, as many of them start after their children grow up.

Yamanouchi, who encourages the development and recovery of muscle mass, consumes about 10 different dietary supplements per day, insists that despite her imposing physique, she knows where the limit is.

"I don't want to look like the Incredible Hulk," he says, as he takes a gulp of protein shake. And he adds: I want to be beautiful and maintain my femininity. I just don't feel like an ordinary housewife. I am always striving for the perfect body ??

Female bodybuilding is a serious business.

The oldest of the Japanese championship competitors, Mariko Takamatsu, 64, storms out after being out of the top 12.

The eventual winner Megumi Sawada strikes a series of mind-boggling Godzilla-themed poses in the background, taking Yamanouchi by surprise and snatching the title from her.

"I can't believe I won," gasps the 56-year-old instructor who always secretly competed to spare her mother a displeasure.

"I want to have a body that makes people stand on the street," laughs Sawada, with his garçon cut and silver-painted nails.

"I do not care what others think, with this body type you can also express feminine beauty."

Horse meat for breakfast

Other sub-genres of bodybuilding are popping up in Japan, including “bikini fitness”, a category that made Yuri Yasui a cover girl.

Twice a national champion, the statuesque 33-year-old woman is another who was bitten by the workout bug while trying to lose weight.

“When I started training seriously, my parents almost died, and my friends too,” says Yasui, a bank employee in Nagoya, a southwestern city of Tokyo, who won her first national title less than a year after she left. started in sports.

"They didn't want me to be out there in front of strangers in a striking bikini with their tail on the tail."

"Women are finally starting to train regularly, but Japanese men really still don't accept that there are muscular women," adds Yasui, after a weight lifting session in a Tokyo gym.

Japanese bodybuilders pose during the Japan Bodybuilding Championships in Tokyo Source: AFP - Credit: Behrouz Mehri

The important thing is to generate a change of attitude. The way to have a feminine body ?? with that tiny waist and round buttocks ?? is the bodybuilding ??.

Yasui eats horse meat for breakfast and lunch to have a lean body and transform her striking figure into an American feminist icon.

“I've always liked Wonder Woman, ever since I was in college,” says Yasui, who is 1.73m tall and on the cover of her official video, even wears a star-studded bikini.

I wanted to have that hourglass body, small waist, and big breasts and buttocks. And you can have it, you just have to start training.