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Agree. It looks ridiculous. How do these things get started? Who thought that looks good?
I don't know how old Wellness is as a division, seems like I only started hearing about it 3-4 years ago. I know it was available only in other bodybuilding federations until maybe last year when IFBB finally picked it up. Yes, it seems a little redundant since there are already 5 other categories for women (Bikini, Figure, Fitness, Physique, Bodybuilding). So I have a feeling it is a political move on the part of IFBB to make the sport more 'feminized.'
Seems to be working, because a lot of women are becoming attracted to competing in wellness, and the women who do compete in it (Yarisha Ayala, Sunny Andrews, Vivi Winkler, etc) are extremely popular on social media.
History lesson...
Wellness originates in Brazil. Brazilians chose the name Wellness for some absurd reason. They started around 2010. At the beginning it was something like Sport Model Quest with the unique bodytype popular in Brazil, huge butts and quads, tight bodies. They also held beauty pageants with the same type of contestants.
This bodytype was already very popular for women dancing samba and funk (Brazilian hiphop), singers, lingerie/swimsuit models, pornstars, minor TV celebs. Many of them were also using steroids, and all of them weightlifted, which is mind boggling if you think about it.
Brazilians also started parading the competitors onstage during competition with less choreographed posing but very feminine, almost stripper like. Year after year the winning look got progressively more hard, athletic, muscular and finally close or above figure physiques.
The Brazilian IFBB federation embraced this cultural move, added Wellness and soon European IFBB brought it outside Brazil by 2017.
2019 was the year US IFBB added the category as a mix between bikini and figure. In my opinion it will soon be the second most popular category after bikini. It ticks all the right boxes.
What has happened to this sport with all of the exaggerated posing moves? I caught a National wellness contest and couldn’t help but laugh at all of the slow hand movements, the attempts at walking like a model, swinging the hips as they walk and other attempts to try to put out the illusion of femininity. Sunny Andrews was doing all she could to show her ass off and even tried it during her front relaxed pose. It was almost comical….
Just let them walk out, do some side turns and basic poses, but this model walking and slow down hand movements has got to go. These women looked great without all this theater…..anybody else feel the same?