Rebecca Jade spent 18 months building the body that just cost her a podium finish.
She is keeping every inch of it.
The 43-year-old from Llanelli finished sixth at her first professional bodybuilding show this summer, and the feedback from her coach was blunt.
She had grown out of the category.
“My coach thinks I’ve now grown too much muscle and conditioning for Pro Masters Bikini,” she said, as reported by Creatorzine.
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“I might need to find a different category because my body is not within the guidelines for bikini anymore.”
She is not sorry about it.
“I’ve become bigger and more muscular. But that isn’t a bad thing.
I’d rather lose points for having too much than not enough. I don’t want to shrink and undo all my hard work.”
She came to bodybuilding by accident
Before the tan and the posing trunks, Rebecca ran ultra distances in some of the worst places on earth.
She had a spot in a major race through the Amazon jungle in 2021, then Covid pushed the event back twice.
Rather than sit still, she found a coach and booked a bikini show to fill the gap.
“I told him I wanted to do one bikini preparation season before going back to running,” she said.
“I didn’t build any muscle specifically for it. I came second in my first amateur show and won my second. I also earned a pro card, so I started thinking I was quite good at it.”
She did eventually get to the Amazon, in 2022, winning the opening two stages and finishing in the top 10 across both genders while injured.
“The Amazon is one of the most hostile environments in the world, with things that want to eat you,” she said.
“You have to run carrying your backpack. I was in the top 10 alongside the men, but I got very injured.
When I came home, I knew I needed a break from running, so I decided to give bodybuilding a proper go.”
The results came, then the problem came with them
Rebecca has competed on the bikini circuit since 2023, winning in Wales and at NFM UK before placing fourth in Great Britain and fourth at a world event in Málaga.
Fourth twice told her she needed more size.
So she got more size, spending a year and a half with a new coach, and this summer collected two class wins, two overall titles and two pro cards.
Then came the British finals and sixth place.
“It wasn’t the result I wanted because I hoped to finish in the top three, but I did my very best,” she said.
“The feedback is that I’m now too developed for bikini.”
Instead of dieting the muscle away, she is moving up to the Figure division and aiming to return to the stage in late 2027.
Up at 4am, whether she likes it or not
The routine has not shifted. She said: “I get up at four, go to the gym and sometimes take selfies there to use on social media. Then I come home, eat, get ready and spend the day working.”
“My body has become conditioned to that routine. Even on a rest day, I wake up at four and have to remind myself I don’t need to get up.”
“I’ve worked extremely hard to build this body. I’m not going to undo all that work just because the judges don’t like it.”
The audience that does want the muscle
Rebecca, who has 19,000 Instagram followers and more than 126,000 on X, works as a model on webcam platform Babestation.
She first joined in 2006, aged 23, and came back in November 2025 after nearly two decades away.
The muscle, she says, is the selling point.
“Some of my callers just want to flirt and talk, while others want me to be horrible to them,” she said.
“They like the dominating, alpha female side of me. They call me a muscle goddess.”
“Muscle worship is really popular, particularly when I’m ripped and veiny and my body fat is extremely low. When I’m shredded and at my most muscular, that’s when I’m busiest.”
“My viewers love the muscles, even if they mean I no longer fit the criteria for Pro Masters Bikini.”
Her take on the Sydney Sweeney row
She also waded into the backlash over Sydney Sweeney’s advert for sports prediction platform Novig, which drew criticism from female athletes who said it sexualised women in sport.
“I believe women have a right to their own bodies and how they wish to showcase all their hard work.
If Sydney wishes to make money from it, then good for her,” she said.
“Sex has always sold. Male athletes also do it, so I don’t see what the problem is.”
“For years, women fought for their rights, our bodies, our choices. But now, all of a sudden, it becomes a problem if people don’t agree with their choices.”
“Athletic bodies are works of art. They show hard work, discipline, blood, sweat and tears, and years of consistency. Her body, her business.”
Why It Matters
Rebecca’s situation is the creator economy problem in miniature.
One set of judges scores her down for the exact thing another audience pays to see, and only one of those audiences sends money.
Athletes with a direct line to fans increasingly have somewhere to go when the governing body says no, which quietly weakens the leverage those bodies have always held.
That shift is showing up across sport, from boxers building subscription audiences to gymnasts monetising physiques the federations never rewarded.
Rebecca’s next stage appearance is not due until late 2027, by which point the Figure division will be judging a body she is still adding to.
