Imbiggert   1. At the Airport -- Andrew's perspective
by Phil Farrell.   A true story from 2010 



phlfrrll@yahoo.com

I was waiting at the gate in Logan airport for a flight from Boston to Dallas.
A group of five big, athletic guys were sitting across from me. A normal
looking guy came up to one of them and asked him whether he'd be willing to
arm wrestle his wife for money. The big guy looked bored and asked where the
wife was. He pointed to the row across from me, where a petite, middle-aged
woman was sitting. She had on a baggy sweater and seemed demure and small.
From my angle, the most noticeable thing about her was her long blond hair.
The big guy laughed and said, ''you mean that granny? Look man, I don't want
to take your money.'' He turned to his friends and asked, ''Can you believe
this dude?''

But the husband persisted. ''How much?'' He demanded. ''Look dude.'' At this
point the big guy stood up and flexed his biceps. The guy was clearly big--he
must have weighed at least 250. While his biceps lacked definition it was
clear he could rip this husband to shreds. The husband was unfazed, and
pressed again: ''How much?'' In the meantime, I looked over at his wife, and
she seemed oblivious to the whole thing. The big guy laughed again, and said
threateningly, ''Look dude, if I arm wrestle her, I'll tear her arm off.'' The
husband said ''$100?'' The big guy then grabbed the husband and said,
''alright. Let's see the money.'' The muscleman's friends quickly surrounded
the man and he gave one of them five $20 bills.

At this point, the whole group walked over to the woman. She stood up, and was
only about 5'4" or so. I still wasn't sure whether this was some kind of joke,
and I was a little scared for the lady. The lady asked me whether I was going
to Dallas, and whether I would be willing to keep on eye on their luggage. She
seemed nice and had a soft, sexy voice. I guessed that she was about 50 to 55
years old. She joined her husband and the group, and walked over to the desk
at the gate. She took off her sweater, and my eyes almost popped out of my
head. She had on a sleeveless t-shirt, and muscles bulged out of
it--everywhere. Her shoulders were ripped, and her arms looked powerful. Her
pecs were ripped. The musclemen were noticeably shaken, but still cocky. The
lady went to the other side of the counter and put her elbow on the counter.
She looked like she had done this before, and she was smiling. The big guy
stretched his shoulders and scoffed at the ''old lady.'' He bent over and put
his elbow on the counter and grabbed the lady's hand violently. She was
unfazed, and held steady. One of the big guy's friends told him to release and
establish a proper grip. He put both of his hands around the pair's joined
hands. He said that he would release their hands and then say GO, and then
they would start.

This authority figure did exactly as he said, and before I could blink, the
big man's hand was slammed onto the counter. He was irate. "She cheated!'' he
screamed. ''I wasn't ready!'' The woman laughed and put her hand up again and
said, ''OK. Let's go again.'' This time the big man made a big deal of getting
his grip on the lady's hand. My God, his hand was twice as big as hers. The
authority guy, asked if they were both ready and put his hands around the two
of theirs, and repeated the instructions. He removed his hands and quickly
yelled, ''Go.'' This time nothing happened. The lady seemed to be laughing.
She chided the big man: ''Are you trying?'' He was red in the face and
exerting everything he had, to no avail. She was just smiling. After about 15
seconds of this, she said, ''you're going down again.'' With that she slammed
his hand down against the counter again and calmly walked back to where she'd
been sitting.

The big man was furious. His friends were laughing--but to themselves. The
husband came up and told the friends that he wanted the $200. The big man
exploded. He grabbed the husband with one big arm around his neck, and started
rubbing his knuckles into the husband's skull. This happened so fast, his
friends were astonished. Tears filled the husband's eyes as the pain and shame
of the man-handling hurt. I was sure that airport security would be by to haul
the big guy away. But before the friends could react, the lady was back, and
she grabbed the big man's wrists--one in each hand. She pulled them apart, and
her husband dropped to the ground like a ragdoll. The big man was a good foot
taller than the lady, so she was looking up, at him, and from her back, it
appeared as if she was doing pull-ups. And the knots of muscles in her back
exploded. It looked as if her muscles had massive muscles of their own!

Her husband regained his senses, and scurried away to sit next to me--on the
other side of their bags. The wife meantime, was toying with the big man. She
was making him play patty-cake, and slap himself in the face. The big man
screamed to his friends, ''get this crazy old bitch off me.'' She said, ''I
just want our money.'' At this point, the official guy took the bills and came
up behind the woman. He wanted to cop a feel of her ass, by putting the bills
in her back pocket, but the sight of her massive back muscles, and the fact
that her ass felt like granite, subdued him and he simply put the bills in her
pocket and ran back to his friends.

At that point the woman let the man go, and quietly walked back over to her
husband. He was wiping his eyes and rubbing his head. She looked at him
scornfully and sat down next to him. That was all I saw in the gate area.

Later on, on the plane, the husband walked by me to go to the bathroom, and I
asked him who his wife was. He told me that she is a well-known bodybuilder,
Isabelle Cordier. I made a note of that and planned to contact her later in
the week. (NB 2016 -- Now she's on Facebook).

So as soon as I got home, I looked up Imbiggert on bodybuilding.com. Sure
enough, it was her. 54 years old, powerful body. So I asked to become a
contact on Yahoo Messenger, and waited. On Wednesday morning I chatted with
her. I told her I was in Logan Airport a few days before, and had seen the arm
wrestling match. She laughed and apologized. I asked her what that was all
about, and here is what she told me.

When she got married, 32 years ago, she said that things were pretty normal.
Her husband was a lot stronger than she was, and he would tease her by
tickling, etc. After a couple of years of marriage, she started working out
seriously. Her husband was amused, as she was a 90 pound weakling with thin
arms (his were much bigger than hers at that time). But gradually, over time,
she got bigger and stronger. She had a couple of children, which set her
training back, but she kept at the weights. Eventually, after ten years or so,
she was sitting on the couch with her husband when he wanted to check how
strong she had become. She was able to completely dominate him. At that point
she forgot about it because she assumed that he was acting much weaker than he
was to encourage her. But she was also noticing big changes in her appearance.
Her old clothes no longer fit. They were loose around the waist, but tight
around the bust and shoulders. Similarly, her pants were loose on the waist,
but she couldn't fit them over her thighs. This made her think again about the
episode with her husband. Perhaps she really was much stronger than him now.
She would check this out. They were messing around on the couch again, but
this time she pinned down both of her husband's hands on her chest using one
of her hands, and began to mercilessly tickle him with her other hand. She
knew that if he were faking then he would stop the tickling. But he was truly
helpless.

To check the strength disparity further, she offered to arm wrestle him for
the whole week of chores. The winner could relax, while the loser would do all
the chores for the week. Just from looking at her, and the muscles that bulged
from her shoulders, chest, and arms, he declined. So she said that he could
use both hands--against her one. Well, she won instantly, and after that
everything was different. From what I can tell, he became her bitch. What she
didn't know was whether her husband was especially weak, or whether she were
truly strong. To test this out she needed other challengers. This laid the
foundation for what happened at the airport. It turns out, her husband is a
pretty strong guy, she is simply powerful. Her husband feels compelled to
remind everyone that his weakness is not the issue by episodes like the one at
Logan.

She writes about this on the bodybuilding.com forum. This is from her blog at
her group husbandbeaters, from April 27, 2010:

''Arm wrestling against my husband is no contest. In standard competition, I
slam his hand down at the word go. Even when he uses both hands, the same
result.

We need some other form of competition that shows how much stronger I am than
him. One is I hold my hand against my chest and he uses both of his hands to
try to move my hand--but I completely pin him down.

Another is he uses both hands to put one of my arms in a hammer lock. Even in
this position, I am in complete control. I can move my arm at will--even
pressing his hands into my back--squeezing them.

Finally, when he puts me in a full nelson, I can use my traps to completely
control--if he doesn't unlock his hands, I would break them.''

She told me that he can't even budge the weights she uses for warming up on
the push-downs or low rows.

Furthermore, now, her arms, chest, and shoulders are now much bigger than his.
I asked her if she continues to torture her husband physically. She said that
the strength difference between them is so great that it's not interesting at
all. Further, they both know that she could inflict serious damage--even if by
accident--let alone if she got mad at him.

She seems to enjoy talking about her regimen. I mentioned that I saw how
powerful her back muscles are when she grabbed that guy's wrists at the
airport. She told me that a secret weapon is reverse flies. Where she lies
face-down on the bench and takes 45 pound dumbbells and brings them up to the
sides. She attributes her thick back muscles partly to that exercise. I
mentioned her massive traps and she was pleased that I appreciated those
muscles. She told me that those were the first really large muscles she
noticed, and that they develop as a biproduct of the other exercises she does.