The reigning Mr. and Miss Bermuda say the cynics should spend a day in their shoes.

Ian Brunson and Sally Wombwell, two members of the four-person squad that competes this week in the Caribbean and Central American Body Building Championships, have heard it all before.

"This sport receives a bad rap,'' says Brunson, 34, who will compete in the men's lightweight division.

"People don't see the work that goes into it,'' adds Wombwell, a just-turned 27 year-old who will compete in the ladies middleweight class.

The two won their Bermuda titles in August and now head to Montego Bay, Jamaica, for their first appearance on the international stage, where they'll join Island veterans Melanie DeRosa and Carlos Astwood.

Wombwell, an aerobics instructor at the Olympic Club, has been training seriously for a little over a year. A former swimmer, gymnmast and netball player in her native England, she used to lift weights as training for other sports.

Now she and training partner Rachel Ward have four sessions a week -- augmented with two cardiovascular workouts daily.

"This is totally different from any other sport,'' says Wombwell, who packs 128 pounds on a 5-foot-3 frame.

"A lot of women are put off weights -- through lack of education, mostly.'' Frightentend by the sinewy, muscle-bound look littering morning television and magazine covers, women, Wombwell says, don't recognise the health and beauty benefits of weight training.

"I just want to be in the best shape I can. I don't want to get huge, huge. I don't want to lose the feminine side of it,'' she said.

In additon to the work in the gym, she adheres to a diet packed with proteins and carbohydrates.

"Miserable,'' Brunson jokes when asked about a body-builder's diet.

A divisional controller with the Bank of Bermuda, Brunson finished third in Mr. Bermuda ten years ago -- and hasn't competed since.

It was only through a wager with his girlfriend, Lisa Jones, that he even competed this year. Jones entered the Miss Fitness contest in a trade-off that saw Brunson enter Mr. Bermuda. Both ended up winning.

Now, after nine years of weight lifting for the simple joy of it, Brunson finds himself at the Olympic Club twice a day, six times a week, shaping up for his first international competition.

A 5-foot-7, 154-pounder, Brunson goes to Jamaica with "realistic'' expectations: Making the cut on Friday -- meaning top eight -- and appearing in the Saturday pose-off.

He doesn't exactly have a legacy to fall back on. Only one Bermudian male has finished as high as eighth, Burnell Mohammad in 1986.

The Caribbean championships are both amateur and natural, meaning random tests for performance-enhancing drugs.

It's the acknowleged drug use at the professional level that helps shape people's wrong impressions about the amateurs, Wombwell says.

"I've had a few comments in my time,'' she said. But Brunson, a certified trainer, sees attitudes changing.

"Ten years ago, there seemed to a persona that if you were extremely muscular you had to be using drugs. Now (body building) is seen in a better light. I think because of the fitness boom, there's a certain amount of admiration and respect.'' The team leader in Jamaica figures to be Astwood, who regularly competes abroad to maintain Bermuda Body Building Federation's good standing -- often at the expense of the Island events.

BODIES BEAUTIFUL -- Miss Bermuda Sally Wombwell and Mr. Bermuda Ian Brunson head a four-person squad competing in the Caribbean and Central America Body Building Championships.