Strike the pose
Air Force representatives muscle up at ADF Natural Bodybuilding Titles

By Michael Brooke

FLTLT Rachel Pyle from the Defence Intelligence Training Centre won Best Overall Female Figure at the 2005 ADF Natural Bodybuilding and Figure Titles, held at HMAS Cerberus on September 26.

Photo by Brendan Breen

BODYBUILDING champion and intelligence officer Flight Lieutenant Rachel Pyle is one of those rare combinations of brain and brawn.

The Defence Intelligence Wing instructor from Canungra won three female categories at the 8th ADF Natural Bodybuilding and Figure Titles held at HMAS Cerberus on September 26.

Flight Lieutenant Pyle, 32, won the Overall Female Figure category, Women’s Medium Figure category and Best Pose category. She edged out four other females from the Army and Navy.

Her achievements are all the more remarkable when taking into account that this was her first competition and that she has “lost 20kg in fat and blubber since the beginning of the year”.

“I never thought I was capable of this, losing the weight, and then taking it a step further to win bodybuilding titles,” she said.

Flight Lieutenant Pyle said she weighed 75kg in January this year but turned her life around by participating in a series of 12-week challenges and eating healthy food.

She said she now loved being healthy and exercising and hoped that her success would inspire others.

Flight Lieutenant Pyle, who weighs 55kg and stands 165cm, said she would follow up her initial bodybuilding success by entering the International Natural Bodybuilding Association titles in Queensland on October 8 and the Australian Natural Bodybuilding titles on October 15.

She said success in these events would have her well positioned for the national titles to be held in Victoria.

Flight Lieutenant Pyle said her fitness craze had rubbed off on her husband, who is also in the Air Force, and he was now training hard to measure up to his “stunning ‘new’ wife”.

The Pyles are set to walk in the footsteps of husband and wife team Corporals Daniel and Lia Halsall, from RAAF Base Williams, who also competed at HMAS Cerberus.

Corporal Lia Halsall won the Female Figure Tall category and was equal second in the Overall Female Figure category.

Corporal Daniel Halsall came second in the Male Figure Short category and the Overall Male Novice category.

The Halsalls entered the competition as part of Corporal Lia Halsall’s plan to donate a kidney to her father who suffers renal neuropathy – see story here.

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