Japan's lady bodybuilders smashing stereotypes

Glistening with sweat, Satoko Yamanouchi’s biceps ripple and the veins in her neck throb as if about to pop as she strikes a fearsome pose at the Japan bodybuilding championships.

An hour later, the pint-sized Nagoya housewife is close to tears after narrowly failing to retain her title from a field of 34 bronzed and impressively buff ladies, most of them in their fifties.

“I was pathetic!” the 56-year-old Yamanouchi said, sporting a skimpy gold bikini. “A silver medal means nothing to me,” sniffed the sinewy ex-champ, who stands just 1.58 metres tall and weighs 50 kg. “It just means you’re the best loser.”

A self-confessed gym rat, Yamanouchi is the poster girl for Japan’s growing number of female bodybuilders, helping break down gender stereotypes in a country obsessed with the “kawaii” (cute) fluffiness of its ubiquitous pop culture.

“I want to help change perceptions so that more people can appreciate the beauty of a muscular woman,” said the five-time national champion.

“When I tell people I’m a bodybuilder, it freaks them out,” added Yamanouchi, who became hooked on the sport in her late forties after looking for a way to keep fit. “My husband didn’t like it when I started either, his wife wearing a bikini in public, but he came around.”

Yamanouchi, who takes around 10 different supplements a day to boost muscle growth and aid recovery, insists she knows where to draw the line, despite her bulging physique. “I don’t want to look like the Hulk,” she said.

“I want to look beautiful and keep my femininity. I just don’t feel like a regular housewife,” added Yamanouchi. “I’m always striving to create the perfect body.”

The eventual winner, Megumi Sawada, struck a series of eye-popping poses to the theme tune of Godzilla, stunning Yamanouchi to take the title.

“It’s unbelievable I’ve won,” gasped the 56-year-old gym instructor, who used to compete in secret to avoid upsetting her mother.

“I want to create the kind of body that stops people in the street,” laughed Sawada.

Other bodybuilding sub-genres have sprung up in Japan, including “bikini fitness” -- a category that has turned Yuri Yasui into a magazine cover girl.

A two-time Japan champion, the statuesque 33-year-old is another who caught the workout bug after initially wanting to lose weight.

“When I started training seriously, my parents were dead against it -- even my friends were,” said Yasui, a bank employee from Nagoya, a city southwest of Tokyo, who won her first national title less than a year after taking up the sport. “They didn’t want me up there in front of strangers in a bikini flashing my bottom.”