Looking at the Sport of Bodybuilding Women

Professional women's bodybuilding has always received a great deal of coverage in the fitness magazines, but it was generally ignored by the mainstream for many decades. As anyone who looks at cable TV these days knows, while female bodybuilding is far from a mainstream sport it has grown significantly in popularity in recent years and has also been the beneficiary of much respect that was not otherwise accorded.

The women of bodybuilding often did not get the exposure that they deserved until recent years. Some point to the documentary PUMPING IRON II as the impetus for shedding light on the bodybuilding women of the sport. Actually, it was the original documentary PUMPING IRON that brought the attention of the sport of bodybuilding to the public as it was previously a completely ignored sport until the 1977 documentary was released. For bodybuilding women, they would continue to take a backseat to the men of the sport until the release of PUMPING IRON II, but it truly wasn't until cable television started to pay attention to the women of the sports that these athletes started to finally receive some recognition.

Cable TV Gets Into the Game

With the expansion of cable television bodybuilding women have gotten the greatest exposure that they ever had since the inception of the entry of women into the sport. Since cable channels air 24 hours a day and there is a significant number of cable channels, the need for programming becomes critical. Bodybuilding was never a popular spectator sport, but in order to fill a need for programming many cable channels started to air bodybuilding women competitions. In time, these competitions started to attract a loyal audience and grew in popularity. This proved to be surprising to some viewers, but the reality of the matter is that the explosion in popularity should not come as that much of a surprise. For years, a number of bodybuilding women hosted exercise programs on television and that introduced the "masses" to the women of the sport. So, when the actual competitions started to air some of the fans of the exercise programs started to tune into the competitions as well. You could call these fans "migratory viewers."

Whatever the reason for the audience's viewing patterns their viewing is appreciated as it has greatly helped the sport of women's bodybuilding grow in leaps and bounds over the years in terms of the exposure it has received.