Background. In the past, Japan seemed to be a society that frowned upon Japanese women who have an impressive musculature or are physically strong. A trip to fashionable gyms in Harajuku that is popular with youngsters would see mostly men doing muscle training with their girlfriends by the side admiring their physique. However, there would be little hint of a scenario the other way round. Japanese women seemed to view muscles as contradicting the feminine ideal of beauty. Being slim or being cute (kawaii) is more important than adding mass to the body.

Ironically in the ancient times, written in ancient scripts like the Heike Monogatari, Japanese women were once warriors and some of them were legendary archers who saw battles. A strong, flexible and agile female warrior was able to hold off several male warriors at length in these times. But when the samurai culture (bushi) set in, many Japanese women were restricted to domestic roles and since then, until fairly recently, they have not been able to assert their martial capabilities. Interestingly, some of the martial arts created for women during the ancient times still survive today as some women continue to practice Naginata.

Sportswomen. There are certain sports in Japan that have fans enjoy seeing muscular and physically strong women like women’s wrestling where male-like contestant wearing bizarre costumes would wrestle each other to the ground. History of women’s wrestling in Japan goes deep. Even in the 1950s, there were already emerging talents like Masako Hashimoto who was five feet seven inches tall. Since then, Japanese female wrestling has taken off. Most Japanese female wrestlers are said to be physically more muscular and stronger than their American counterparts who are closer to fashion model types. They also wear clothes that conceal their muscles.

Women’s wrestling in Japan are known to be more brutal than men to some. Well-known Okinawa wrestler Mae Young once got so mad at her opponent that she beat her opponent till the eyes were swollen and whacked her head against the floor mat so badly that the opponent suffered a concussion and had to spend six weeks in a hospital in Boston, the site of the match . Training for female wrestlers in Japan is equally brutal. The famous Gaea girls saw one of the coaches on the verge of kicking the teeth of one of her trainees down her throat! Many are exposed to such torture and abuse. Because of their strict training and also gifted physique, many of these women are stronger and have better stamina than the average male.

Wrestling is not the only high strength high impact sports that the Japanese women are excelling in. Japan also some of the world’s best players in women’s boxing. Names such as Sugar Miyuki and Aya Mitsui are famous not just for kickboxing but the highly destructive Thai-style boxing. Japanese kickboxer ,Naoko Kumagai, is probably  the most feared of  Asians in women’s kickboxing  and her agressiveness and power  have frustrated some of Korea’s toughest women kickboxers, including world chmapion, Kim Messer. . Sugar Miyuki now owns a gym that trains women boxers specially.

Japanese baseball player Masako Watanabe is known to be one of the strongest women player in baseball. She is considered to be on par or even bigger than most American women baseball players. She is tall and has to roll up the tight baseball jersey sleeve so that her large bicep muscles can move freely. She is also known to groan when playing baseball and strikes fear in many American female baseball players. Another physically strong and powerful Japanese sportswoman is Ryoko Tamura who won the Gold for the Olympics in the event of judo (48 kg category). She is not alone. Noriko Narazaki is a huge judo player who is able to tackle large Caucasian women like her opponents from France during the Olympics. Noriko Anno is the other huge female judo player in the 78 kg category that execute moves intimidating to most men.

Japan is also famous for its women’s volleyball in which bigger Japanese players were able to defeat their US counterparts during the Barcelona Olympics. In 1998, Japan’s Hiroko Tsukumo became that year’s most unbelievable defender in the world, showing that Japanese women’s stature and muscles have developed to such an extent that they are world class, beating Caucasians players that have consistently dominated the scenes.

Many have analyzed Japan’s training facilities and see them as ultra-modern, perhaps the best in the world, enhancing the superior performance of Japanese women in the volleyball sports. Swim clubs are also very popular in Japan as more spring up in the suburbs. Girls swimming at a young age may develop broader and stronger shoulders. Perhaps, this is one of the reasons why Japanese women swimmers performed well in the last Olympics in 2000.

Other than the usual sports, there are less well-known sports in which Japanese women excelled in. They include arm wrestling which see Akemi Takahashi as one of the best in the world. She later turned to bodybuilding. Mayumi Morikawa is another super Japanese woman. In her 40s, she managed to bench press 60 kilos in a competition in Toyama. Older Japanese women are also starting to realize the power of muscles and strength sports and are keeping up the regime to stay young, strong and physically powerful.

Traditional Culture. Japanese taiko women drummers are also known to be some of the strongest women in the world. Considering the fact that these drums are about 6 feet in diameter, great strength is needed to operate them. In their practices sessions, these women do up to 40 pushups and 40 situps and also run for 2 miles in total. Discipline is strict and women are encouraged to be aggressive and scream and shout for camaraderie. Because of their strict training and intense exercise regimes, most of these drummers develop large killer muscles on their arms that put most men to shame. In addition, these women wear only traditional diapers for their performances, thus showing off their overall musculature to the audience. Women now outnumber Japanese men in this physically demanding traditional arts.

It also seems that soy proteins have helped to create stronger Japanese bones for women. Compared to their American counterparts, Japanese women have only half the rate of hip fractures. Many see this as a result of soy protein diet. Changing traditional culture is also modifying Japanese female musculature. There are other more minor theories like Japanese moves from sitting on the floor to sitting on the chairs have improved their postures and musculatures accounting for the height and weight increase.

Removal of infectious diseases, wealth and better quality of living as well as Japanese infatuation with disinfectant may also be promoting Japanese growth, size and longevity. Japanese infatuations with disinfectants for all sorts of sprays meant that there is less bacteria infections to disturb bodily growth although it is not known if this would artificially lower the resistance levels too much. Other less scientific assertions include more sleep for Japanese improving their metabolism rates.

Popular Culture. Some in the West wondered how Japanese women who are constrained to small spaces in Japan can grow big and tall suddenly. Wealth have also overcome Japanese space constraints as more and more Japanese women go to ultra-modern gyms and sports clubs to train their muscles. More are also setting up home gyms. Taut, veined athletic muscles are no longer frowned upon in the Japanese fashion world thanks to fitness trends in the US, a source of Japanese emulation.

There are some Japanese women with amazing musculature who have made it to stardom like Michiko Nishiwaki who have starred as a martial artists in some movies and is a model for the Japanese fitness world. Popular culture also goes some way in propagating sports culture amongst Japanese women. Japanese media have also made celebrities out of tall and strong Japanese sportswomen to inspire more of women to take up sports. During the World Cup fever hosted by Japan and South Korea, many Japanese schoolgirls were playing football alongside their male counterparts.

Japanese media have also highlighted the beauty of long limbs, tall heights and supermodel-like structures, making more women take up sports perceived to be height enhancing like basketball or volleyball. Whole villages or hometowns turned up during the Olympics to cheer their comrades who made it to compete in the Olympics. Many housewives and younger women now have taut, fit and toned bodies to show off during their vacations overseas or in summer wearing short sleeve shirts. There are other famous dancers and singers like Namie Amuro who have tanned, taut and toned arms. These may inspire more Japanese girls to follow their teen idols.

Pop and hip popular hi power drinks also go some way in promoting growth amongst Japanese youngsters. Others have attributed the growth to the many hi energy and hi vitamins and minerals enhanced food and drinks available from vending machines which youngsters drink on their way to night prep schools in place of dinner due to time constraints or hi energy hi vitamin bars and soft drinks that many kids drink nowadays .

Intermarriages. Archeologists and anthropologists in Japan have been studying the height and size growth. The only other significant period in Japanese history in which there was a huge height growth was when the mainland northeast Asians from the continent invaded the Japanese islands and intermarriage occurred between the two species, increasing the height of traditional archipelago Japanese. Intermarriage between Japanese and other Asians as well as Westerners are also happening now.

Some Japanese table tennis players, for example, are imported from China, given Japanese citizenship and intermarried with Japanese citizens. In the volleyball team, there were also some mixed heritage players . In some strength sports like 100m hurdles, world records were broken by Eurasian Yvonne Kanazawa Scott . Moreover, these foreign sports talents also stay on to coach national Japanese teams, improving their performances. These players are absorbed into Japanese society and gene pool, it is difficult to tell what effects they would have on the Japanese in the future.

The State. It is clear that the state is contributive to more powerful Japanese female musculature. High schools for example have introduced gymnastics into their lessons to create stronger Japanese women with better musculature, taking lessons from Europeans. Even now, Japan is still learning from Western nations. Japanese female swimmers for example have been dispatched to places like Canada to obtain sports techniques to bring home to implement to new generations of Japanese sportswomen. State collection of sports-related statistics also help to under the Japanese female physique better. Detailed studies of Japanese schoolchildren have found that generally school girls born in the villages have stronger cardio and endurance abilities while those in the cities have greater strength.

The state has also been opening occupations with high strength needs to women, encouraging them to build up themselves physically. Their stronger physique may go some way in explaining why Japanese women recruitment into the military has increased very dramatically from 150 in 1991 to nearly 10,000 in 1997. The first batch of women was admitted to the National Defense Academy in 1992. In 1991, 31 of them graduated from the elite Academy. They are trained in judo, kendo and other martial arts and standards are high and strict in the Academy.

The Private Sector. Japanese companies, even now for some of them, practices mass exercises at the work place to increase their employees’ fighting spirit. Some even hold excursions to faraway places to train physically, like a training camp in the cold or in the forests to foster teamwork. This is getting less common now. The private sector also studies Japanese women’s body changes closely. The most noticeable changes that heavily studied by the fashion industry and the nutrition industry are in the growth of the chest as well as the hip areas in Japanese women. According to a major Japanese daily, Japanese women’s body shapes are starting to resemble more like a cylinder, lengthening and elongating with better nutrition and exercises. This may be good news for fashionable young Japanese women who now prefer the look that is mature but slim and fleshy at the first glance but not excessive.

Between 1952 and 1992, Japanese women’s waists have reduced by nearly 4 cm while growing taller by 10 cm within a similar time period, according to a study in Honolulu. According to a study in 1982, their leg-trunk proportions are becoming Caucasian-like. This meant that their waist-to-hip ratio have also become more favorable. This could then translate into a cylindrical hour glass shape rather than just an hour glass shape that is shorter and compressed. They can therefore have both the advantage of a tall body with curves at the right places by implication.

Japanese women growing bigger also mean that they now have more curves like their Western counterparts and thus, Japanese female fashion need to accommodation this change. Japanese fashion houses and institutes have created 3-D models of the new Westernized Japanese female form to create more comfortable and fitting clothes for women compared to the traditional Asian form. The Japanese used to have shorter limbs and longer body lengths but the limbs have suddenly lengthened a lot. Japanese head are rounder too. And Japanese women have less body fats than Western body shapes and so Western industrial standards for apparels are out. Even Japanese feet are becoming closer to Western shape. In the past they used to be wider but now they are narrower at the base like Westerners.

Psychologically, Japanese who are afraid that they will stick out because of their height or find it difficult to marry  no longer feel like that. Tall women are increasingly envied. In fact, they are so admired that, at one time, many Japanese women wear high heel or platform shoes to make themselves look taller, even to the extent of towering over their boyfriends who now have to live with such trends.

The social acceptance of large female physique gives incentives for the fashion industry, for example, to promote healthy lifestyles. With these changes, a major retailer in Tokyo now dedicates 5 % of its shop to large sizes. Originally patronized by women after pregnancy who put on weight, large sizes are now increasingly purchased by larger young people with broad frames. As many as 5% of Japanese female teens now stand between 170 to 175 cm. They are about as large as 35 or 36 year old Japanese women.

Japanese consumer industry now have to constantly revise their size estimates to make and manufacture clothes and other apparels for women or even enlarge car sizes. Industry standards needs to be changed radically, tables, desks, chairs, subway stations, public bus seats all need to be changed to accommodate larger Japanese sizes. Even things as minor as cooking menus and tables which Japanese are famous for down to precise measurements and portions need to be revised. Even kitchen counter tables in many Japanese homes are said to be too low.

Physical Changes. Every year since 1946, either the Japanese government or private sector companies or foundation have carried out meticulous research of the Japanese physique and have discovered something nothing short of revolutionary. Over a period of 10,000 years in Japanese history, Japanese had grown by only less than 10 cm from the study of archeological finds and records. But within 100 years after modernization, the 10,000 record is shattered. Height, weight, susceptibility to cancer, female menstruation and puberty have been measured consistently. Japanese children now weighed as much as their adult counterparts after the WWII. In the same time period of 25 years after WWII, Japanese women have also grown more than 4 inches in height. Their weight increased by nearly 20 pounds in the same period.

Now Japanese over 5 feet 7 inches or even 6 feet are more common. Sixth graders are 16 cm taller than their 1940s counterparts for example and they weigh 12 kg more than their counterparts in 1948. Currently, Japanese female university students now stand at an average of five feet and five inches and still growing while other estimates place Japanese women closer to five feet six inches. In addition, the number of Japanese women wearing Western-sized clothes is increasing.

Dietary changes. One of the largest dietary change is probably consumption of milk. Not only has it made Japanese women grown taller and bigger but the consumption of milk has also sped up the menstrual cycle in Japanese women, advancing it from 15 years old in 1950 to 12 years old in 1975. Many scientists attribute this growth to the fact that Japanese consumption of dairy products now amounts to more than 100 pounds per year, including cheese, milk, butter etc.

American and Japanese researchers have identified over 50 bioactive hormones in milk that could possibly explained this phenomenon. The government and private sector have played a key role in promoting milk making it readily available in offices, schools as well as vending machines in railway station. Hormones work in minute amounts and only a small tablespoon (or micrograms) of female hormones like estrogen or progesterone can produced a monumental effect on women’s growth.

The impact of milk is also observed by other researchers who use Japanese living in Hawaii and mainland USA as benchmarks and found that, on the average, Japanese Americans were bigger than Japanese living in Japan itself. They point to US diet including diary products as evidence of changes in Japanese women’s musculature since Japan started consuming large quantities of milk after WWII under American influence. Other Western food like burgers, salads, beef dishes or Italian foods are very popular with the Japanese now. Some say that Japanese take more beef than pork or seafood or more bread than rice nowadays.

Japanese farmers have been known to use growth hormones to make their cattle larger and produce more protein packed milk. Even most of the baled hay used to feed Japanese cattle comes from America and their alfafa imported from Canada where grass with its wide open space and low population density of humans and animals have given rise to nutritious grass compounded by years of research in this area. Alfafa grass combined with growth hormones and in some cases (beer and massage for Kobe cattle) creates big and healthy cattle for Japanese farmers. Japanese Wagyu beef is carefully studied, researched and cultivated by Japanese cattle growers over years.

Wagyu beef is carefully created using genetic knowledge to produce the most nutritious beef and are produced with special cancer-avoiding qualities in mind, concentrations of linoleic acids, less saturated fats than its competition. Women who drink milk from these hi powered cows which is further processed and enhanced with other substances like vitamins in the factories and plants may have better, stronger and bigger bone structure over a period of time.

Simultaneously, there is a corresponding increase in animal proteins to more than 50 grams per day since 40 years ago . (Japanese women are also eating more iron-rich red meat a growth promoter; from 1965 to 1995, Japanese intake of meat jumped from 6.4 to 30.7 kilograms). At current levels, Japanese are taking in 2593 calories per day, which is just 800 short of Americans. In some dietary studies, it is found that Japanese on the average take about three times less meat calories, but three times as much calories from milk. They also take less than half of their calories from sugary substance, and most 100 calories more from eggs than Americans.

And of course, they take about six times more portions of rice than Americans. This may account for why Japanese women are growing taller and slimmer at the same time instead of fatter. Other researchers have gone beyond milk and look at soy proteins as a source of Japanese growth. These proteins consumed in larger amounts prevent menopausal problems but still promote proteins for growth. Studies have also shown that the soy proteins balances women’s hormones in Japan.

Americans also admire the low heart attacks incidence (although it is slowly increasing) amongst Japanese and study their diets intensely. Japanese women are now the longest-lived in the world and their diet is closely studied by Western government and private sectors . Even more controversially, some Western studies show that genetics could be involved as some Americans begin to feel that other than diet, genetics evolution over a long time could have accounted for Japanese longevity.

In addition, state education and greater knowledge of food sciences constantly reduce Japanese female fats to acceptable levels. When there is an upward trend in women’s weight in Japan, fashion, public education or media coverage attempts to bring it down somewhat. For example, in 1997, because of greater awareness of health and fashionable slimness, the Japanese women’s weight dropped by as much as 3 kg. Another factor helps; Japanese women's legs have increased in length in proportion to the overall size of their bodies. As such they appear slimmer overall in appearance.

Besides physical growth, newer studies have even shown that Japanese women have become superior to European women in balancing their hormones. Compounds like genistein, daidzein, and equol are detected in Japanese women’s urine to the extent of 60-100 times more than the Europeans like Finnish women . These compounds help Japanese women managed their estrogenic levels better and allow them to have more balanced physical development even beyond menopausal age. Consequently, amongst the advanced nations, Japanese women have the least need for hormone replacement therapy.

Some studies show that these changes are due to the taking enormous amounts of supplements and less on actual meals. The highly concentrated supplements compresses the physique-lengthening and muscle-building functions and processes and explodes Japanese female physique at a faster accelerated rate than they would if they had consume normal meals. Sportswomen are also known to be taking hi-tech drinks like the famous bug juice of fireflies taken by a Japanese marathoner to improve her performance. Japanese women are also training hi-tech to focus on specific muscles for different sports to enhance their performance. Better training, diet and knowledge have greater more efficient and better sportswomen. These can be seen in the size and height of Japanese sportswomen. For example, in 1996 Atlanta Olympics, the Japanese women’s basketball team had an average height of 1.77m.

Future Trends. With greater wealth and greater knowledge of health sciences, there is a possibility that Japanese women may grow even bigger and taller in the future. They are fast closing the gap between them and Westerners. Projections already show that Japanese as a whole will drink 500% more milk in the next 10 years. Now that Japanese women have built up their muscles, bulk and shape, some in contemporary Japanese society argue that they should be mentally trained. They advocate mental training to give Japanese women a sense of purpose and mental enhancement to use their newfound strength and stature towards physical and intellectual development beneficial to society as a whole, e.g. creating a great sporting nation, contributing to a healthy workforce etc. As if taking up this call, more and more youngster in Japan, including women, are taking up exercises. According to one publication, kendo, gymnastics and other aerobic activities are the favorites. Martial arts, boxing gyms and extreme strength sports are also gaining in popularity.

(This article is written as a non-medical social analysis of trends in Japanese female sports, it is not meant to be a medical article nor does it dispense medical advice in any way).

.Short Biography of the Author:

TW Lim is a Japanologist with a masters degree in Japanese political economics and has been studying Japan since the mid-1990s. He has also studied in one of Japan’s most renowned private university in Tokyo as well as a research institute in Osaka for a total of one year. He is also the co-founder of www.easterntea.com with HT Quah and writes regularly for the cultural website on Japanese tea culture. TW Lim is also a frequent contributor to non-governmental organization (NGOs) websites like the World Toilet Organization where he examined Japan’s toilet culture.