Female bodybuilders’ heights are almost never published. The federations do not print them, and the numbers that circulate online usually come from nowhere anyone can check. But there is one place where every woman has been measured, by the federation itself: check-in at an NPC amateur show.
The classes are measurements
At an NPC show, Bikini, Figure, Wellness and Women’s Physique competitors are measured for height at check-in and placed in a height class. Women’s Bodybuilding competitors are weighed and placed in a weight class. The NPC publishes the limits of every class (Bikini, Figure, Wellness, Women’s Physique, Women’s Bodybuilding), and the NPC News contest archive shows which class each woman was placed in. Put the two together and “Class D at the 2018 NPC Nationals” means measured by the federation at over 5’6″.
We read the archive for 4,315 athletes in our directory. For 2,821 of them, the classes give a height narrow enough to put on her profile, and bodybuilders have their contest-weight classes. Each profile lists every class with a link to the archive page of the show, so anyone can check it.
How we read it — and where we stopped
- No names are guessed. The archive gives every athlete one number that stays the same from her amateur shows to her pro shows. That number, not her name, joins the archive to her profile.
- We never claim more than the class says. The archive shows the class letter, not which table a show used — a division can be split into 2, 3, 4, 6 or 8 classes. When more than one table fits, we take the widest reading.
- When her classes differ. A woman measured once just under a class limit and once just over it lands in two neighbouring classes. Both measurements are true: her height is near that limit, and the range covers both classes. Classes far apart mean something is wrong. We found 175 such athletes, nearly all with common names (several Jessica Smiths, several Ashley Smiths) whom the archive files as one woman. Their profiles show no height.
- The test. When the same woman was measured at two different shows, both times in a one-inch class, she landed in the same class 83.8% of the time and in the next class 14.5%: within one class in 98.3% of 8,519 pairs. The other 1.7% are almost certainly two women the archive filed as one.
- Checked against published heights. Only five athletes with an NPC height also have a height published elsewhere. Three fall inside their class. One is 1.4 cm above hers. One is published at 165 cm while the NPC measured her into 155–159 cm; her profile shows both numbers.
- Checked against another federation. Chiharu Nakajima was measured by the Japanese federation (JBBF) into its over-160 cm and under-163 cm classes, and by the NPC as over 5’4″ (162.6 cm). Two federations, measured separately, agree: between 162.6 and 163 cm.
What this covers so far: athletes who came through NPC amateur shows, in Women’s Bodybuilding (contest weight), Women’s Physique, Figure, Wellness and Bikini (height). Not yet: pros who never competed in the NPC — most of the European pros — and Figure divisions split into eight classes, for which the NPC publishes no table. For them we keep working on the other route: measuring from stage photographs against athletes of known height (the method). The NPC section on each profile updates every week as new shows come in.
The full method is on the methodology page. If a class on a profile is wrong, tell us.
