Like a knight of old putting on armor to enter the jousting lists, Jeri Murphy cinches a leather belt around her waist and then places a 25-pound disc on the chain hanging between her legs.

The small, lean woman grasps the bar over her head and starts doing reverse-grip chin-ups, every muscle in her back and arms rippling and bulging from the effort.

The mirrors on the gym wall reflect her grimaces as she repeatedly hauls herself up to the bar and down again. Her trainer, Hallie Tyler, a small package of tightly bundled muscles herself, watches approvingly and counts off Jeri’s successes.

“Three, four, five,” Hallie chants.

About to enter her first bodybuilding competition, Jeri has been in serious training mode for more than 10 months, working in the last few weeks before the contest with an intensity that is almost frightening.

A trio of women who have gathered to watch, applaud as Jeri finishes. She drops to a gym chair that Hallie has pushed under her and shakes out her arms, grinning shyly. Across the gym floor, the big guys keep doing what they’re doing, lifting dumbbells and grunting, a few sneaking surreptitious – and maybe even envious – looks at the strong, young woman.

Hallie, who works at Gold’s Gym in Bangor, is my trainer, too, so I have been able to see Jeri go through a metamorphosis that has been both astonishing and admirable, from a normally fit and healthy woman to a highly competitive athlete.

“‘Obsessed’ is just a word the lazy use to describe the dedicated,” states a bodybuilding magazine advertisement.

At this stage of her training, Jeri could be called obsessed by some people, or she could be seen as being among the most dedicated of first-time bodybuilding competitors. It turns out that Jeri is a natural, in more ways than one.

I cannot explain my personal fascination with bodybuilding, but it has been a growing one, and if I weren’t as old as I am, with well-developed baby pooch, left over from a baby who’s now 24 years old, I would be out there doing what Jeri is doing, posing in a show bikini that leaves nothing to the imagination. There’s something exciting, even intriguing about it, that a person can work that hard and achieve so much in such a visible, concrete, intimate way.

The muscled human body is a thing of beauty, even in the extreme. The curve of sinew in an arm, the topography of a back, the split definition of a calf.

It’s a wonderful thing to see such development in either a man or a woman. And then to see a strong woman, one who has pushed herself fully to her physical potential – that’s a thing of marvel.

Maybe it’s a matter of control. A wise counselor once pointed out that a major issue we all face today is being able to distinguish between those things we have control over and those things we don’t. In a world where you can’t make the guy driving in front of you use his turn signal, nor forge peace between the Israelis and Palestinians, maybe it’s reassuring that you at least can build up your own biceps if you work hard enough.

Admittedly, bodybuilding is an odd sport, not one that people generally know about or even find acceptable. There’s no race to run, bar to lift or opponent to pummel. In many ways, it is more like performance art, with the artist trying to achieve extreme perfection of the body and then putting that body on display for comparison to the work of other artists.

It’s strange enough when men do it, generating awe, disbelief, envy and even suspicion that anyone could get that big without drugs, even though they can and do.

When women undertake bodybuilding, the reaction can be more extreme, even to the point of discrimination and revulsion. One local bodybuilder told me that her female gynecologist accused her of having a body-image problem because she lifted weights, developed substantial muscle and competed in shows. It’s not likely the physician would have made that kind of accusation to a female athlete competing in any other kind of sport, say, soccer or marathon running.

Bodybuilding, though, has been gaining in prestige and acceptance. In March 2000, the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City presented an exhibit, the first of its kind, “devoted to the representation of hyper-muscular and physically strong women in popular culture and contemporary art.” The exhibit, titled “Picturing the Modern Amazon,” consisted of paintings, drawings, photographs, sculpture and even comic-book art, all depicting female bodybuilders, and historically, strong women who displayed themselves as circus performers and entertainers.

A New York Times reviewer who saw the exhibit commented that “it’s always worth watching a female body do what nothing has prepared us to expect,” adding that this most often happens in the arena of sport and art. The exhibit, wrote the reviewer, left her “exhilarated, appalled, squeamish and charmed in rapid sequence and sometimes all at once.”

I have had a similar reaction as I watch Jeri go through the rigors of her training and enter this world.

At 33, Jeri is doing what she logically thought was the next step on the road to physical fitness and well-being. Successful in her strength training, Jeri naturally concluded that competing in a bodybuilding contest followed.

“It seemed ridiculous to go this far and see results that I wanted and not take it up a notch,” she recalls. “It seemed crazy not to.”

The Orrington resident always has had an interest in physical activity, but more toward lifetime sports, “things you can use way beyond,” rather than team sports.

After graduating from Brewer High School in 1988, Jeri got her bachelor’s degree in physical education in 1994 from the University of Maine at Presque Isle. At UMPI, she enjoyed dance class and aerobic activities and found that physiology and kinesthetics fascinated her. Her favorite class was human anatomy: “The human body is an amazing machine,” she says with awe.

Trying to find a teaching job, Jeri pursued cycling and did a couple of Tour de Cure rides in Maine for the American Diabetes Association. She moved to Iowa, worked at three jobs and substitute teaching and took part in three 500-mile bike rides across the state.

Early in 1997, she returned to the Bangor area to find a full-time job.

“I was trying hard not to be a Generation-Xer,” she says. “I had a good work ethic, and I wanted to live up to that.”

She now works as a customer rep for a national bus company in Bangor.

Jeri worked out regularly at the Bangor YMCA to supplement her cycling and found her interest in bodybuilding increasing.

“To look that strong, that was something else – I couldn’t get past that,” she says.

At some friends’ urging, Jeri switched gyms and linked up with Hallie for strength training. Hallie has taken several first-place trophies at Miss Maine and Miss New England bodybuilding competitions. Jeri, though, didn’t know about Hallie’s background until they had trained together for a number of sessions.

“I’d always get her to do the bat wings for me,” Jeri says, referring to a way to display one’s latissimus muscles located along the side of the torso. Hallie in a crop top showing off her six-pack of abdominal muscles also was “very motivating,” Jeri says.

At 5 feet, 5 inches tall, Jeri started training in June of last year, weighing in at 133 pounds. By September, her goal was to trim down and bring out some muscle, but she was thinking about competing. “I had some idea when I said, ‘I’m going to catch up with you”‘ to Hallie, she recalls.

By October, Jeri had decided “very much to give it a shot” and was gleaning information about diet and focusing on developing specific body parts. Under Hallie’s supervision, Jeri began hitting her legs hard in December and January.

Jeri suffered inevitable muscle soreness, but she took time off when she needed to. “I got better at listening to myself,” she says.

She had planned on entering a show in Maine, but it was canceled. Hallie and Jeri then aimed for a regional show in Massachusetts and began working on her posing routine. Jeri got the mandatory show bikini – in a shade of dark blue that wouldn’t distract the judges from looking at her muscles – learned how to hold poses and practiced a posing routine to her choice of music.

The prospect of competition doesn’t faze her. “I don’t want to lose to someone who hasn’t put anything into it,” she admits. “I want it to be a fair competition. Nobody likes to lose unfairly. If I lost, it would just motivate me to work harder. … I know one thing, this is not going to be the last.”

After a practice session, Jeri predicts the outcome of her first contest.

“Oh, I think I’m going to do very well,” she says, with a grin, but she’s not really concerned about winning or losing. “I’m going to win the minute I get on that stage because I anticipated that goal. I don’t need a trophy – that’s what I’m looking for, just being there.”

During Jeri’s practice session, her younger sister, Erin Frati of Palmyra, watches her perform her routine to Aerosmith’s “Rag Doll.” One of 10 children, Jeri was born in Florida and adopted out of New York City by her parents, John and Marylee Murphy of Orrington. Unfortunately, none of her family will be able to attend her first contest.

Erin, however, is very excited about her sister’s efforts and takes pictures for the rest of the family. Jeri, who sports an unseasonable tan to give her muscles more definition, fixes her bikini and begins her 90-second routine, which is more gymnastics than dance.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Erin says.

“Think you’d ever see me like this?” responds Jeri, as she turns to make bat wings. “I never thought I’d ever look like this.”

“What I like about this is to know you are strong,” Erin says to me. “It’s great to have a nice body, but to know you are strong … .”

And so on a gorgeous Saturday in April, Jeri and Hallie find themselves standing in a dimly lit hallway of a high school along with about 50 other contestants, getting ready for the Massachusetts Super Natural Bodybuilding Championship sponsored by the North American Bodybuilding Federation.

The competition is a significant one, drawing drug-free contestants, ranging in age from teen-agers to one man in his 60s, from five states. Several hundred spectators, many of them friends and family of the contestants, sit patiently in the darkened auditorium of the Somerset (Mass.) High School waiting for the noontime event to start.

The serious judging will take place throughout the afternoon, as competitors in each of the numerous classes are compared to each other in sessions that take as long as 20 to 25 minutes. The posing routines will take place during an evening performance.

Weighing 119 pounds, Jeri has been placed by the judges in two categories, the novice class for first-time competitors, and the heavyweight class, a designation that dismays Hallie, who is clearly anxious about her protege.

The hallway being used as a prep area is thick with tension and the sickly sweet smell of bronzer being smeared on nearly nude bodies by trainers and coaches. The floor has been covered with protective plastic sheets, making it difficult to walk on, and is littered with dumbbells and barbells. A number of full-length mirrors lean against the school lockers.

The competitors, the men in embarrassingly skimpy posing briefs and the women in their bikinis, are intensely quiet as they examine themselves in the mirrors and lift weights to pump up their muscles. In a corner near the stage entrance, Hallie uses a small brush to coat Jeri with bronzer and oil, and she directs Jeri as she works out with a set of dumbbells.

The trainers and contestants also eye each other, sizing up the competition. It’s already clear that Jeri, who looks as sleek as a cat, will do better than some. Whether she wins anything is another matter.

In the auditorium, the 10 judges, men and women who are trainers and former competitors, sit at a long table in front of the broad stage. They begin to call out the classes, and the women’s novice class is among the first. Jeri, wearing a tag with No. 2 on it, and her five competitors stand under the intense lights, muscles tight and bulging, and bodies gleaming.

“Pose to me,” the head judge orders, barking out commands.

The contestants turn and pose, turn and pose, displaying biceps, quadriceps, hamstrings and trapizius muscles. Hallie and several other trainers have moved from their seats and are crouching down at the ends of the aisles to be as close to the stage as possible. They shout out encouragement and reminders as the women move through their poses.

“Jeri, slow,” Hallie calls out loudly enough for her to hear on stage. A big smile spreads across Jeri’s face as she slowly pulses her biceps.

The head judge starts calling out numbers, and the contestants change places in the lineup so they can be compared to each other. As the judging proceeds under the hot lights, the women begin to sweat and their muscles quiver with the effort of holding the poses. One woman with rippling abs clearly stands out in the group.

There are only three contestants in the women’s heavyweight class, the category that worried Hallie, and even an untrained eye can see that Jeri has a distinct advantage over her competitors.

The men’s novice class contains a set of identical twins among its 10 contestants.

“How are you supposed to judge twins?” the head judge asks rhetorically to his colleagues. “What the hell,” he adds as he orders them to stand next to each other in the lineup and the audience breaks out into laughter.

The evening show draws even more of a crowd to the school auditorium. Before the contest begins, Jeri, again in her show bikini, peeks out from the side of the stage, flashes a big smile and waves. Hallie has toned down Jeri’s bronzer and oil, convinced that she looked too shiny during the initial competition.

After the obligatory national anthem, the posing routines get under way, and Jeri is the second contestant on stage. With 57 competitors, Jeri’s position is a good one, as it will be a long night and the judges will be fresh enough to remember her. But one of the stage techs has problems starting Jeri’s music, and she is forced to stand on stage, back to the audience in her initial pose, for several long seconds until the music begins.

The delay, however, doesn’t bother Jeri at all, and she goes through her routine flawlessly, flexing her hamstrings, dropping into a set of push-ups, showing off her impressive back and quadriceps. She gets the crowd going with her moves and ends with another big smile and a pert salute to the judges. The audience, shouting and cheering, loves it.

The performances throughout the night vary in quality, and some contestants even resort to gimmicks. Jeri’s chief competitor in the novice class does a series of back flips across the stage; another woman wears a red, white and blue cape over her bikini, her body sprinkled with glitter; a third contestant comes out wearing a peignoir over her bikini and primps in front of a full-length mirror.

The men also vary in their routines, with the oldest man, as pumped up as he can be, coming out in a trench coat and slouch hat like a spy out of the ’60s. One young man rides out on stage on a scooter, and another limps out on a crutch and pulls off a hospital johnny before going into his routine.

The twins, in separate performances, wow the audience with their bump-and-grind routines, popping their muscles in an amazing display of control. One of them even does a moonwalk, to the audience’s enthusiastic approval.

Contrary to what actress Mae West once said, however, too much of a good thing actually can be boring, and even a continuous display of beautiful, muscled bodies grows tedious. So it is a relief when the contest winners finally are announced.

Jeri is as good as expected in the novice class, winning a satisfying second place against the woman with the incredible abs and back flips. Jeri knocks ’em dead, though, in the heavyweight class and walks away with a first place. As she takes her bows with the head judge and poses for official photographs with her two gold trophies, Jeri displays a proud and well-earned confidence.

More than a month later, Jeri is still glowing about her success, but it hasn’t slowed her down. She’s back at Gold’s Gym, getting ready for her next competition, the Maine Super Natural in August down in Scarborough.

Under Hallie’s tutelage, the athlete has been eating more protein and working hard on her back, shoulders and legs, lifting heavier weights with more repetitions. She appears more relaxed and outgoing, chatting comfortably with fellow members, as she moves from weight machine to weight machine around the workout room.

Jeri’s trophies are prominently displayed in a case at the gym. Reflecting on the response to her win, Jeri says, “I’ve been very pleased with it. A lot of people have commented about the trophies. It keeps me pumped up and really going.”

The next competition is “more in the back of my mind” at this point, she says. But as the date gets closer, she expects her excitement to increase, especially as more friends and family members will attend to support her.

And again she predicts how she will do in the event.

“Very well, very well, yes,” Jeri says. “I’m a big believer that when you put a lot of effort into something, you can expect to come out with something.”

Jeanne Curran is a NEWS assignment editor.