Dedicated to some new friends keeping the peace in Afghganistan.
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Camera by Pich Blaakness
Posted on May 2nd, 2008 by Lori Braun
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Posted on March 28th, 2008 by Lori Braun
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Posted on March 28th, 2008 by Lori Braun
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Another blast from the past! I love the comments…Originally posted in November 2005
Posted on March 25th, 2008 by Lori Braun
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Enjoy a great, classic, Lori Braun video…
Click Here to Get the Free Video
Posted on March 19th, 2008 by Lori Braun
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Posted on February 24th, 2008 by Lori Braun
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Lori: Did it surprise you that you won Ms. Olympia? Were you in the best shape of your life?
Valentina: I planned to compete in the light weight category and I was going to win this category. At that time I was disappointed that my weight did not allow me to compete in the light weight. I was not quite sure I would be able to win the heavy weight category, but when I was on stage I did everything possible to achieve it. I was not really surprised when I won, but I was afraid to believe that it had happened.- I think I was in the best shape of my life at Ms. Olympia.
Lori:What has it been like for you to be Ms. Olympia?How has it changed your life?
Valentina: To win Ms./Mr. Olympia is the highest point in the career of every bodybuilder. Because the dream of my life came true, I was very excited and happy. My life became more interesting and filled with events. I appear and will continue to appear at various bodybuilding competitions as a guest poser or just a guest. I also take part in video and photo shootings.
Lori:Where are you living and training now?
Valentina Chepiga: I live and train in the state of Washington in the Seattle area.
Lori: What got you interested in bodybuilding? How long have you been seriously bodybuilding? What did your friends and family think of your serious training and dedication to the sport??
Valentina Chepiga: For me bodybuilding became the only way to achieve good proportion, symmetry and balance of muscles, because no other means which I tried did not help.- I have been seriously involved in bodybuilding for about 13 years. My friends and family support me for 100% and are proud of my achievements.
Lori: What shows did you win prior to winning Ms.Olympia?
Valentina Chepiga: In 1997 I won European and World Championships and joined professional division of IFBB. And as far as my professional competitions, my best result before Ms.Olympia 2000 was 1st place in the middle weight class at Jan Tana Pro Classic.
Lori: How are the gyms in the Ukraine? Are there many gyms there to choose from, and what type of equipment do they have? Did you have a trainer there?
Valentina Chepiga: - Bodybuilding is quite popular in Ukraine and every year there are more and more gyms get opened. There is a big variety as far as equipment and therefore the price of membership. More older gyms have not as good equipment which often is self-made. However, newer gyms have quite modern equipment made in Europe and United States.
Lori: What was your weight in the Ms. Olympia? Tell us about your pre-show diet.?
Valentina Chepiga: - In the Ms. Olympia my weight was 135.5 lb.- In order to achieve the maximum result I have to limit myself as far as some types of foods. Due tothe law metabolism, I use very limited products such as proteins (chicken breast, sometimes fish, eggs), some carbohydrates (rice and baked red potatoes), green vegetables (white cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, green onion, and herbs), selective fruits (grapefruits and pineapples), and for salad dressings I use olive oil and vinegar.
Lori: Are there any training tips that you would like to share with other female bodybuilders to help them in their success in the bodybuilding world??
Valentina Chepiga: - In order to achieve the best shape, every morning I do cardio training at home for 30 minutes and train in the gym five times a week, and every muscle group I work out separately. In the beginning of the week I train the muscles which lag behind and in the end of the week I train the more stronger and favorite muscles. When doing developing exercises, I do 2- 3 exercises of three sets each starting with 10 reps and finishing with 8 reps. And when I do exercises for definition and shaping, I do more exercises depending on the size of a particular muscle. Usually, I do 3 or 4 sets with 12 - 18 reps. When training I try to choose the exercises which would help me to correctwhatever misbalance I have.
Lori: What do you feel is your biggest contribution to the sport of female bodybuilding??
Valentina Chepiga: - I do not know if I have already made my contribution, but I am trying to return female bodybuilding to its initial purpose: to show the public how to achieve beautiful healthy feminine body with the help of exercising and healthy diet. I also would like to increase the popularity of bodybuilding among public.
Lori: What do you see as the future for female bodybuilding??
Valentina Chepiga: - I hope that female bodybuilding will become more feminine, creative and attractive.
Lori: Are you planning to compete in next years Ms Olympia? When is your next competition??
Valentina Chepiga: - Yes, I am going to compete in next years Ms. Olympia as long as I can improve my body. - My next competition is Ms. Olympia 2001.
Lori: Tell us about the major differences between bodybuilding in the United States and Europe.
Valentina Chepiga: - There are no major differences. Since bodybuilding originated out of United States, European bodybuilders are following American trends. But still most of European female bodybuilders do not become professionals because they do not want to have excessive muscle mass. I hope this situation would change if professional bodybuilding will continue to lean toward showing more feminine body.
Posted on January 28th, 2008 by Lori Braun
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Lori, Dog the Bounty Hunter, and his wife
Lori and Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez
Lori and Sean Hannity
Pictures from The Congress of Racial Equality’s 24th Annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Ambassadorial Reception and Awards Dinner that Lori attended at the Sheraton Hotel & Towers in New York City. Emmy Award winning actress Lynn Whitfield served as the Mistress of Ceremonies. Talk show host Sean Hannity was the Toastmaster.
Much more coverage on Lori’s blog
Posted on January 24th, 2008 by Lori Braun
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Talk about tough love. For some men, nothing could be sexier than having a well-chiseled female bodybuilder deliver their own private smackdown.
(Photo: Zohar Lazar)
If it’s true that love is war, then it’s not surprising that some men need a little hand-to-hand combat to get their rocks off. One-on-one wrestling matches with female bodybuilders have become an increasingly popular fetish. They are like real wrestling matches but cost up to $500 an hour and end with the man physically spent, in more ways than one. The men say they enjoy the thrill of being dominated by women who can pin them with their thighs, while the women use the proceeds to pay for their steroids and posing suits.
The nation’s premier portal into such sessions is the Jersey-based femalemuscle.com, which hosts profile pages for female bodybuilders and books 300 wrestling sessions a week. The site’s founder is Lori Victoria Braun, a petite, toned blonde in her mid-thirties with a Flatbush accent. In the early nineties, she was a trainer at Pumping Iron, an Upper East Side gym, and ran ads in magazines to get new clients. “Guys would call and ask, ‘What do you look like?’ I’d describe myself and they’d say, ‘How big are your biceps? What can you bench-press?’ ” Their voices were so eager and breathy that she soon realized they were getting a charge out of it.
Sensing she was onto something, she started recording erotic stories about muscular women for a pay-per-minute phone line (“My name is Julia. I work out in a hard-core gym, and I’m very competitive. It’s kind of funny how whenever I need a spot, all the men come up behind me . . . ”). In 1994, she launched the site.
Most matches take place in hotel rooms, and many men book the same women repeatedly. Requests fall into four categories—submissive wrestling, for men who want to be pinned; pure wrestling, which involves more back-and-forth; body worship, in which the man rubs oil on the woman and admires her body; and the least common, combative wrestling, in which the man tries to win.
“They love headlocks,” says Braun. “Being crushed by biceps, and the body scissor, where the woman squeezes her legs around their waist.” Of course, the women prefer body worship, because it involves the least work. Usually they wear posing suits, but “if the guy gives them more money, they’ll take off their shirt.”
“I never thought that it meant anything. Honest to God, my librarian fantasy is as strong as my wrestling fantasy.”
Matt, a divorced 50-year-old lawyer, books a session once a month, usually through a dungeon that has a special room for this purpose. He first realized he was attracted to strong women when he was a junior in college and watched his roommate arm-wrestle a girl. (“It put a seed in the back of my head.”) Years later, he married, but he didn’t play the fantasy out with his wife. One day, in a Times Square sex shop, he found wrestling tapes. “A light went on,” he says.
In the late eighties, he had his first session, through an ad in Muscle Magazine International, with “an African-American athlete from California. It was like a first kiss,” he recalls. Since then, he estimates, he’s done about 100 sessions. Does it bother him that he’s spent close to $30,000 on a fetish? “I put a bunch of kids through college. And I don’t have any other extravagances.”
The thrill of the wrestling, he says, comes from constantly shifting power: “I wonder, Am I really giving it my all, or am I just letting her beat me? I start to measure: If I do 82 percent, I’ll get my ass kicked. If I do 91 percent, I can stay in. It’s unclear whether I really want to lose. And then I realize, either in fantasy or reality, that she can take me, and that’s the buzz.”
He likes to wear sweatpants, with nothing underneath. The dénouement occurs when, he says, “I perceive myself to be in some inescapable hold, and then I take care of things myself.” Does she watch? “I’m usually in a headlock, and there’s no eye contact.” Sometimes he waits till he gets home. “A really good session is good for a lot of memories.”
Michelle, 31, a five-ten bodybuilder who weighs 167 pounds, wrestled men for money for four years: “One guy wanted me to wear my posing suit and sit on his face with my glutes. Another lived out of the city. I’d meet him in a hotel, wrap my quads around his head, and squeeze until he passed out.”
Another client, a wealthy Romanian, enjoyed it so much he had her call another wrestler, then ran down to a Citibank to get more money. “He wound up blowing $1,500,” Michelle says. “At the end, he said, ‘I love America!’ ”
She’s asked a few clients about the reasons for their fetishes. One told her his mother used to bring men home and have sex with them in the next room, separated by a curtain. He would watch her high-heeled feet under the curtain and became obsessed with women’s feet. Others say their sisters beat them up when they were little.
Matt has spent some time looking into the roots of his own fetish in therapy, but not too much: “My ex-wife was a lifeguard. I never thought that meant anything, but maybe it did. I laugh about it because, honest to God, my librarian fantasy is as strong as my wrestling fantasy.”
He insists his everyday sex life is a normal one, but sometimes in personal ads he’ll drop a hint: “I might put, ‘Let’s arm-wrestle after a cappuccino.’ It would be great if I got a response like, ‘I’m five-one, but let’s give it a shot,’ but I have no interest in selecting my mate on this basis.”
With female wrestling on the WWE and entire magazines devoted to women’s physiques, his only regret is that he doesn’t have to work hard to fulfill his fantasy. “It’s so available,” he says. “I hate to say it, but it’s almost too easy now.”
Posted on January 21st, 2008 by Lori Braun
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