Bodybuilder of the Month Rene Campbell: 'I watched the women flexing on stage and I knew immediately I HAD TO BECOME A BODYBUILDER!' :

Rene Campbell is 200lbs of rock-solid, beautifully proportioned, high quality female muscle. She is also - thanks to a portfolio of very high profile media interviews - the UK's best-known female bodybuilder.

The 36-year-old mom's enthusiasm to show off not just her fabulously muscular body but the benefits which a bodybuilding lifestyle can bring, are both a credit to Rene and a major shot in the arm for female bodybuilding in Britain.

In interviews for the Daily Mail, Cosmopolitan, Now Magazine and many more Rene comes across as pretty, charming, smart and, dare we say it, girlish! (The fact that she is so normal being the best advert female bodybuilding can get.)

But make no mistake, to see this powerfully-built champion on stage is to see female bodybuilding at its peak. She simply dominates stages with her colossal back. Her ridiculously tight waist emphasises her muscle mass even further and her thick 28” quads provide a rock solid anchor to that perfect bodybuilder X-shape.

So are the judges.

It's all the more amazing then to discover that Brighton-based Rene Campbell only turned to muscle building less than five years ago.

As shown in the 'before' pic at the top of the article, Rene was already in great shape before her quest for muscle began. She enjoyed distance running and Triathlon but muscle played no part in her life.

That is until she was dragged along to a bodybuilding competition – an afternoon which changed her life.

Rene told FemaleBodybuilders24.com : “ I attended a bodybuilding show to support a colleague and I was mesmerised when I saw the women's bodybuilding class appear on stage. I knew instantaneously that it was how I wanted my body to look.

“I was fascinated and excited at the idea of building a really muscular body and combining it with femininity. The powerful female bodybuilder look is my ideal physique.”

And the fabulously focused mom-of-two (staggeringly her eldest child is 20!) went about her bodybuilding with the passion of a Pro.

Today, just four-and-a-half years later Rene is 89kg (196lbs) of muscle, and flexes a pair of 17 inch biceps. She entered her very first show, the NPA South East, in 2008 and won it , and by 2012 she was IFBB World Champion and proud owner of a bodybuilding Pro Card.

Rene continues to be a wonderful ambassador for the sport of female bodybuilding and is planning to come in bigger and harder for a string of shows in the USA and UK in 2014.

All we can say is look out world Rene's coming!