Body building is enjoying a resurgence around the country. There are of course the big muscled guys like Jonah Lomu, but women and especially older women are pumping iron and spraying on the body gloss like never before.
Leonie Brookhammer, a 40-year-old mother of five, recently picked up the tall figure title at a regional competition, and is stealing some of the limelight from her partner, Michael Laws.
The star of the bodybuilding champs had only been bodybuilding for three months as an accidental detour from her triathlon training.
“I came to the gym… and I saw the poster up advertising for the river city classic body building show… I thought, I could do that,” she says.
For Leonie the switch to body building was a welcome tonic after a difficult few years; the stresses of a new baby and a daughter in and out of hospital, and the break up and restoration of her relationship with the mayor of Wanganui, Michael Laws.
At lunchtime after Laws finishes his Radio Live stint, she brings the children to the mayor's office where cartoons and nappy changes take precedence over civic duties.
So while New Zealand’s most divisive mayor is left holding the baby, Leonie is pumping iron.
But her partner does not resent that. He was so happy with Leonie’s achievements that he put a striking picture of her and the family in his Sunday paper column.
And what's more, he likes the look of the woman he calls the Amazon.
“It's interesting because he obviously finds my physique appealing, I'm not into the body building type,” she says.
So you can be rest assured, the mayor of Wanganui will not be morphing into a Charles Atlas, although his fitness has always been a well known priority. Leonie says he has still got his famous lycra shorts.
“I've tried to thrown them out. There's a hole where there shouldn't be,” she says.
These days around Wanganui, where Michael laws is either loved or despised, his partner is building her own following.
She is now gradually working toward the 2010 nationals, but she insists that it will be no big deal if she wins.
She says there is only room for one celebrity in her household, and that is not her.