Instagram | Julia Vins
Forget Ken in the gym, here comes ‘Muscle Barbie’, and she is making waves online.
Julia Vins is a 21-year-old from Engels, Russia, a small town along the Volga River. She is like many other young girls in Russia – she likes makeup and fashion, doing her hair, and wearing pretty dresses.
She also loves powerlifting and has broken several world records. Her beautiful face, along with her amazing physique, has gotten her the well-deserved nickname Muscle Barbie. And Vins certainly doesn’t need Ken to come rescue her.
When Vins was just 15, she was having problems with her self esteem, as many young girls do. She started going to the gym to gain a little muscle, cut down on fat, and feel better about herself. What Vins discovered, however, was that she absolutely loved lifting weights. The heavier, the better.
Vins met her current boyfriend at the gym, and he became her personal trainer, encouraging and supporting her to lift more. Six years later, Vins is now 21 and spends 7 days a week at the gym. She avoids cardio at all costs but has a rigorous routine that involves several hours spent on each muscle group.
She says she is proud to have never taken steroids of any kind and doesn’t plan on starting. She sees herself as a role model for young girls who also want to lift, and taking steroids would be like letting them down.
Vins is breaking all sorts of stereotypes for Russian women. She left her parents home as a teenager after they disapproved of her leaving school in order to pursue her love of weight lifting.
She is now a brand ambassador for a European supplement company, posting on her social media pages about their products and sharing her experiences with them. She works as a model in various movies and video game promotional material, due to her picture-perfect face but killer bod.
And she also competes in weight lifting tournaments, no surprise there. She has broken multiple records at the World Powerlifting Congress, and she can squat 473lbs, bench press 264lbs, and dead-lift 418lbs. In 2014 she took first place in the World Powerlifting Championship AWPC.
Vins often shares reactions from others. Many strangers in her Russian town will come up to her and ask why she ‘disfigured’ her body when her face is so beautiful, or ask if she wants to look like she has the body of a man.
When in other parts of Europe, or Asia, Julia says she gets less strange looks or comments. Only in Russia does she experience that level of judgment.
Vins says she tries to not let others get her down, and she wants to keep lifting weights and feeling good about herself for a long time.
