And we shall call it, "this land"

HerBiceps photographer Rick Oliver has some sharp photos of Some new faces, such as Mandy Beland:

Duo Azalé

Duo Azalé is a French-Canadian performance duo that performs "hand-to-hand balancing" routines, which are graceful demonstrations of strength and flexibility:



Impressive.

(via Transvigor).

More Flickr

Gun Club on Noe!
Originally uploaded by I'm Combing My Hair.

The Gun Club photo pool on Flickr is where to post photos of women flexing, like this nice specimen.

Fun with Flickr

flex
Originally uploaded by seanich.

Flickr is a great web service and could be a useful source of material for the blog. I just need to figure out what tags to look for. For example, here's a snazzy photo of a cute woman with a nice looking arm. Click through to the linked photostream to see her armwrestling in the next picture.

Springtime

All of a sudden, it's spring. I was up in Boston last weekend and it seemed like the entire city was outside. With all the colleges in town, there were quite a few of the athletic co-eds out and about. Back here in The City, we're having the same prime weather and jackets and scarves are eschewed in favor of more revealing attire. For the purposes of this blog, that's good. Well, that's good so long as I have the camera with me or get more literary about those rare quality feminine muscle sightings and interactions. Perhaps it may be time to pick up a more compact digital camera that's less prone to expensive breakage when carried around on the bicycle or rollerblades...

Last summer's best unreported stalking sighting came while rollerblading down the west side bike path during a crowded weekend. As I passed a cute gymnast/bodybuilder-type (gymnast build, but surprisingly large, rounder, fuller muscles) who was running, the double-take and stare did almost lead to an epic wipe-out.

Look forward to more inane tales of Riffr gawking and coming close to injuring himself as he bikes around the city this summer.

College athletics

An editorial in today's NY Times discusses a change in the way that the Department of Education will consider Title IX compliance, potentially allowing universities to limit athletic opportunities for women: A New Attack on Women's Sports

Last month, a memo went up on an Education Department Web site that was billed as a "clarification" of Title IX regulations. But the memo amounted to a major weakening of the criteria used to determine compliance with the rule that all schools receiving public funds provide equal sports opportunities for men and women. Under the new guidelines, on campuses where the proportion of female athletes falls notably below the proportion of women in the student body, and sports programs for women are not expanding, a college will still be able to show it is "fully and effectively" obeying the law by doing an online survey that shows women have no unmet sports interests. The department says that if the rate of response is low - as it is with most such surveys - that will be interpreted as a lack of interest.

One difference between undergrad and graduate programs (particularly a grad program at an urban school not known for its sports program) is the proximity to hot women athletes. There isn't so much in grad school. However, one of my colleagues did show up during our first bout of nice weather last week showing some serious arms-- nicely defined with impressive size, so, there is even some quality female muscle around...

Here's a gratuitous photo of shot putter Adriane Blewitt:


Some other resources about Title IX: Gender Equity in Sports, Title IX: 25 Years of Progress (1997), Women's Sports Foundation.