Tracey Greenwood Says Goodbye to IFBB Fitness

One of the top fitness competitors of all time says "adios" to IFBB Fitness competitions.

Considered by many to be arguably the best fitness competitor to not win the Fitness International nor the Fitness Olympia, Tracey Greenwood has decided to call it a career after competing for over a decade to the IFBB, winning several titles and being a top placer at many Arnolds and Olympias. Like many of you, Tracey has been one of my favorite fitness competitors. Her strength in her routines are unmatched, and she always brings out one of the hardest yet most complete physiques, making her a big fan favorite. Unfortunately, I never got the chance to see her on stage, but for those that have, she was a highlight for everyone.
 
Here's the press release from FMG, her management:

FMG PRESS RELEASE

July 20, 2010 - For those of you in attendance at the 2009 IFBB Fitness Olympia, you unknowingly saw the last competition of IFBB Fitness icon Tracey Greenwood. After a long and wildly successful fitness career in both the NPC and IFBB, Tracey has decided she will be retiring from competition due to lingering injuries and just moving on in life in general. Yes, Tracey had thought about retirement previously and honestly we laughed it off and told her that she still had her best in her and not to retire. That was in 2008 when she won the IFBB Houston Pro Fitness, IFBB Atlantic City Pro Fitness, won the IFBB Europa Super Show Pro Fitness for the second time and finished second at the IFBB Fitness Olympia. That same year she was voted the FLEX Magazine Women’s Athlete Of The Year. Glad you listened to us Tracey! In 2009 Tracey started off the year placing third at the IFBB Fitness International, won the Atlantic City again and unbeknownst at the time, finished her career in third place at the IFBB Fitness Olympia.


This doesn’t mean you won’t still see Tracey. She is an expediter at almost every major NPC national competition, along with all the competitions in the NPC New York-Metropolitan district, is doing her share of emcee work, is a personal trainer and continues to promote both the NPC Tracey Greenwood Classic and NPC Deleware States.

Although now retired, rest assured that at 41 years old, Tracey’s physique can still stand right up there with any IFBB Pro Fitness competitor old or new. And in the end, she’ll always be “Trixie” to us!

On behalf of the entire FitGems Nation and to every fitness competitor and fan out there, thank you so much Tracey for everything you've given to this sport. May you continue to be an inspiration outside competing, and may God bless you as you enter the next chapter in your life! :)

Figure Original to Compete in Bikini?

Over the weekend, checking my Twitter out, a particular tweet from Isaac Hinds on his Hardbody News Twitter caught my attention. This was posted on June 25th:

One of the original IFBB Figure Pros is coming back to compete in Bikini. She was top five in the Figure Olympia years ago. Guess who...

Needless to say this news sparked my interest. Kinda ironic since one of the first bikini pros (Stacey Oster-Thompson) is joining the figure rankings soon. And yes, Isaac (and Sioux) happened to break the news on that as well! I took a guess on it, and was...wrong. I think now...I might have a clue who's doing it, but I'm going to hold out until it's revealed, either by Isaac or by whoever happens to guess it correctly. 

If you think you know who it is, send Isaac a Twitter reply to http://twitter.com/hardbodynews.


EDIT: Isaac has revealed the identity of the new bikini competitor. It's former top-5 place Figure Olympia finisher Dina Al-Sabah. Dina will be making her pro bikini debut at the IFBB Tampa Pro.

2010 Phoenix Pro Coverage Review Part 2 (Hardbody News Interactive Live Chat)

When Isaac Hinds announced that he was going to try this interactive chat via UStream.tv, I'd thought that this would be very cool. Very innovative. Turns out, I was more than right on the subject. I seriously think that this will go down as one of the top innovative moves for the female physique industry for this upcoming decade. It was that awesome.

They tested it out on their way to the hotel. It was Isaac, Ron, Bree, and Bree's good buddy, the eventual 2010 Phoenix Pro runner-up, Amy O'Neil. Isaac mentioned that it would be as PG as it could be. HA! PG my a..uhh..butt! :) There were a few "enthusiastic" words during the fun trip, not knowing where they were, missing turns, etc. If only they could see how hard I was laughing at a few of things they were doing and saying. Tears were literally coming down my face, and people were looking at me like "What is this fool laughing at?" The test drive was cool. :)

I missed the night portion, when Isaac interviewed Stryker and Oksana. But I did look as their recored footage and it went pretty good.

I wasn't sure if they had coverage before or after the event, but I was able to catch them during breakfast. The Hardbody News/Bodybuilding.com gang had protein pancakes, among other things. There's no way I could eat what they ate yesterday. No way at all. BTW, this was done via IPhone, which I thought was awesome. Wonder if that can be done via Blackberry...will have to look into that.

The last thing they did (that I was aware of) was a photoshoot with Amy. She looked AWESOME, and definitely showed why she deserved the Olympia qualification. It was neat to see an actual photoshoot take place. I think a pic or two MIGHT be on Hardbody News in a matter of days, but I'm not too sure.

It was great to interact with Issac, Ron, Bree, and Amy this weekend during the Phoenix Pro, and depending on things go this week, I will either a) join the live chat on my computer during the Arnold or b) will try and find my way to BE on the chat. It depends on how this week ends up. I won't say anything else on the matter.

I'll end this by saying, that I hope this will be something that goes down in many shows this year and beyond. This lets fans get to know the industry better. I enjoyed it when I was on there, and I believe in my heart that this could go down as one of the most innovative female physique promotional tools this industry has seen in quite some time.

If you could, please bookmark this link for the Arnold and for future contests:
http://www.ustream.tv/user/hardbodycom

2010 Phoenix Pro Coverage Review Part 1 (Boards, Twitter, and Webcast)

I gave my thoughts on the actual competition, now I'm going to give my thoughts on the coverage of the competition. Reminder, I'm talking about the FEMALE part of the sport, not the MALE part.

Folks, you will not find another board that will provide live coverage for female physique sports better than Siouxcountry. You're just not. Up-to-the-minute coverage, photo and video links posted almost instantly, not to mention that since it's a board, you can post your opinions, thoughts, and observations about the show with ease.

Hardbody News (going by BBcomContests) did a fantactic job Twittering results instantly and keep people on the know for those that had Twitter. Between the sites, it was almost like you were there.

The webcast itself wasn't half bad at all, and to me well worth the 20 bucks. It didn't have the lag time that I was afraid was going to happen. The one thing that kinda bugged me was that it seemed a bit pixelated to me. But other than that, I'd thought it went off without a hitch. Personally, I hope more show webcasts are in the future.

There's one more part of coverage that I want to talk about, but I'll get to that in another post. And that is in regards to the Hardbody News Interactive Chat, which was..in one word, INCREDIBLE. Wait 'til you read my review on this. :)

2010 Phoenix Pro Coverage

As you all know, the 2010 IFBB season officially kicks off this weekend with the Phoenix Pro Show. Many sites will be providing live coverage of the show.

Siouxcountry
Bodysport
Hardbody News
RX Muscle
Muscular Development

In addition to all this, Isaac Hinds of Hardbody News will be interviewing several competitors this weekend during the Phoenix Pro.What should you expect? Interactive interview and quite possibly photo shoots. An innovative way to kick off the 2010 IFBB season. Yes, I'll be on UStream.tv to participate in this under FitGemsNation. You can join in on the fun by clicking here.

If you want to view the show via webcast, you can...for a price of $20. With the new breed of competitors in figure, a VERY competitive fitness line-up, and 12 top female bodybuilders, not to mention the men's part of the show, I think it will be worth the money. Yes, I'm aware that you can watch the Arnold AND Olympia for FREE, but when you think about it $20 isn't all that bad to watch the prejudging AND finals. People are paying a WHOLE lot more just to be there. You can view and purchase the webcast here.

To everyone that's competing at the Phoenix Pro, best of luck to everyone! :)

To ALL Fitness Competitors...TIME TO SPEAK UP!!!

The first pro show of the year (Phoenix Pro) is merely a few days away, as as of right now, there are only FOUR fitness competitors for the pro fitness part of the show. What the deuce, people?! I don't get it. If this keeps up, fitness might just be a thing of the past, and there are some who won't take NO for an answer.

J.M. Manion has thrown down the challenge. He made it on Siouxcountry, Issac posted it on Hardbody News and now I'm posting this message:

I also want to throw this out to any & all IFBB Pro Fitness competitors – anybody that wants to contribute an article(s) to the NPC News about NPC and/or IFBB Fitness, please let me know. The door is open. And remember to keep it positive. This is to help promote the sport & bring it back to its former glory.
__________________
J.M. Manion
Chief Photographer/Journalist NPC News

As a supporter of this industry, I highly encourage for all IFBB Fitness Pros to take what J.M. had to say and do something about it. It's clear that many within the industry doesn't want fitness to die. I sure as hell don't. The fitness division is what made me a fan of the entire female physique sport in the first place. As a matter of fact, don't be surprised if the FitGems Nation gets involved somehow in how to help keep fitness from becoming nothing more than a footnote in IFBB and NPC history.

For those interested, here's what I wrote on the state of fitness around 2008:
http://fitgems.blogspot.com/2008/05/state-of-ifbbnpc-womens-fitness.html

Let me stress this very carefully. I'm no fitness competitor, I have no clue what the fitness competitors go through to prepare for a show, so I'm speaking as a person who LOVES the fitness division and doesn't want to see it fall. To all IFBB and NPC Fitness competitors, take a stand and don't let yourselves be the end of the fitness division as we know it!

SAVE FITNESS WHILE YOU STILL HAVE A DIVISION!!!

FitGems Award Winners and Award Show Replay

Congrats to everyone that won in the 1st-Ever FitGems Awards!

Pro Female Bodybuilder of the Year
Betty Parsio

Pro Figure Competitor of the Year
Heather Mae French

Pro Fitness Competitor of the Year
Adela Garcia

Amateur Female Bodybuilder of the Year
Suzanne Germano

Amateur Figure Competitor of the Year
Debra Lavette

Amateur Fitness Competitor of the Year
Victoria Larvie

Amateur Bikini Competitor of the Year
Rebecca Staggs

Breakout Pro Female Bodybuilder of the Year
Debi Laszewski

Breakout Pro Figure Competitor of the Year
Ava Cowan

Breakout Pro Fitness Competitor of the Year
Nicole Duncan

Breakout Amateur Female Bodybuilder of the Year
Suzanne Germano

Breakout Amateur Figure Competitor of the Year
Ava Cowan

Breakout Amateur Fitness Competitor of the Year
Stacy Wright

Breakout Amateur Bikini Competitor of the Year
Ali Sonoma

The One to Watch in 2010 in...

Pro Female Bodybuilders
Isabelle Turell

Pro Figure Competitors
Ava Cowan

Pro Fitness Competitors
Victoria Larvie

Pro Bikini Competitors
Stacey Oster

Amateur Female Bodybuilders
Suzanne Germano

Amateur Figure Competitors
Skye Fisher

Amateur Fitness Competitors
Stacy Wright

Amateur Bikini Competitors
Sherrie Carnicle

Female Physique Misc.

Competitor Who You Would Love to See Return To the Stage in 2010
Lisa Reed (fitness)

Female Competitor Site of the Year
Monica Brant (http://www.monicabrant.com)

NPC Show of the Year
Jr. Nationals

IFBB Show of the Year
Olympia

Female Physique Site of the Year
Siouxcountry

Photographer of the Year
Issac Hinds

Blogger of the Year
Issac Hinds (Hardbody News) http://www.hardbody.com/news

Supporter of the Year
Sioux (Jason Lan)

Supplement Company of the Year
Optimum Nutrition

In addition to these awards, 3X Figure International and 2X Figure Olympia Jenny Lynn received the Legendary FitGem Award for her major contributions to the IFBB and NPC and the emergence of IFBB and NPC figure.

Check out the historical awards show FitChat below:



Thanks once again to everyone that participated in one of the most influental events in FitGems Nation history!

Notice to All IFBB Fitness Pros

This was posted today, and news was broken first by Issac and Sioux, so I'd thought I'd pass this along as well to all IFBB Fitness Pros. Read the notice below from the IFBB office. I expect consequences should this not be taken seriously:

Source: http://www.ifbbpro.com/news/ifbb-pro-advisory-notice-011510/

Fitting Review: Hardbody News

Okay, okay...

Some of you are probably going to be thinking, why the deuce is this moron promoting a blog other than his own. Long story short, it's my blog, and I'll promote whatever I damn well please, that's all! >:)

I kid, I kid!!! LOL... :)

The real reason I'm doing this blog is because this is arguably my favorite of the blogs I read every day. The founder of Hardbody News is the one and only Issac Hinds. I've not met the guy yet (hopefully that will change sooner than later), but he (more times than not) knows what he's talking about. What I like about him is that he doesn't beat around the bush about things; he says what he thinks and feels and lets it be the end of it. If you don't like it, too bad, so sad. Am I saying he's right all the time? Hell to the N-O! But go back and check some of his blog posts and compare his predictions to the actual results of contests. Heck, Hardbody News was the first site that actually shed light on the new bikini division for the NPC and IFBB.

On his blog, he interviews competitors, promotes contests, and post up-to-date pictures and coverage of events that are happening right now. Since he's also a photographer, he also shares his work on his blog as well. Yes, he wears quite a bit of hats in the industry.

If you want to understand the ever-changing things about the fitness industry, your best bet would be for you to check out Hardbody News. Click on the logo below to check out his site:

The direct link is http://www.hardbody.com/news. You can also follow Hardbody News on Twitter.