WORKING OUT WITH: Lenda Murray; Wonder Woman In the Flesh (original) (raw)
Home & Garden|WORKING OUT WITH: Lenda Murray; Wonder Woman In the Flesh
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- Dec. 2, 1992
Credit...The New York Times Archives
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December 2, 1992
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Section C, Page
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WHEN Lenda Murray struts into a weight-lifting room, grown men freeze in mid-grunt.
Those lats!
Those pecs!
Those quads!
Ms. Murray is Ms. Olympia, the goddess of the body-building world and a rock-hard, in-the-flesh assault on conventional assumptions about beauty, strength and femininity.
"Sometimes, I think I scare people," she says, straddling a bench and effortlessly curling a pair of 22 1/2-pound dumbbells.
Ordinarily, Ms. Murray would spend one to three hours in the gym; that's her daily routine for most of the year. This morning, though, she's working out only for a few minutes at Better Bodies in the Chelsea section of Manhattan. The scene is mainly a photo session, one of many the three-time Ms. Olympia has endured since she first won the title in 1990. (It also explains the dangling earrings and extensive eye makeup.)
"I may come back to work out this afternoon," she says.
Ms. Murray is in New York for just 18 hours, the length of her stopover on a flight from Luxembourg, where she appeared last month in an exhibition, to Southfield, Mich., the Detroit suburb where she lives when she isn't traveling to endorse products, make appearances or pose for muscle magazines -- enterprises that will bring her about $300,000 over the next year.
The pro body-building season for women essentially consists of one major event: the annual Ms. Olympia competition, which was held on Oct. 17 in Chicago. So, Ms. Murray can now take a break from her spartan training regimen and low-fat, high-discipline diet.
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