How had I gained 23lb in just a little over a year?

“Doesn’t your weight class go up to 140?” asked the gentleman recording my weight.

“Well, yes. But I’ve never weighed 135 in my life!” I replied.

“I’m sure it’s just water weight,” my new friend politely suggested.

This was my weigh-in experience at my last NAS Strongman competition in August. Just fourteen months prior, I had weighed in at an NPC Bodybuilding show at 112lb.

Left: Me at 112lb on 6/21/14 at my first NPC bikini competition.

Right: Me at 135lb on 8/28/15, 10 days out from Maryland’s Strongest Man.

I’m pretty sure I went outside and cried, then proceeded to order a salad while all of my friends got pizza for dinner. I knew I wasn’t fat, and I was happy with how I looked in the mirror. But for some reason, hearing one hundred and thirty five pounds out loud crushed me.

Focus on Goals, Not Numbers

When you see (or hear) the number on the scale and it’s not what you thought it would be,consider the many other factors at play, including:

• Water Consumption: A healthy, hydrated individual holds several pounds of water weight at all times.
• Timing: Your weight will vary throughout the course of a day. Ever notice your abs look better in the morning? That’s because you didn’t eat or drink all night.
• Elimination: Did you poop today? If not, you’re probably a bit heavier than usual.

However, more than any of these factors, consider your own personal goals. I’ve slowly come to terms with the fact that if my goal is to get stronger, I’m going to have to be comfortable with a few extra pounds. Here’s what I’ve discovered since I accepted that reality:

Good news:

1. All of my lifts have increased in the past year.
2. I have more energy and strength to get me through the day.
3. I can move my own furniture and lift cars off of babies, if necessary.
4. I have attracted a mate with the enormousness of my glutes.
5. He cooks me bacon and pancakes every weekend, and I eat them without guilt.

Bad news:

1. Fitting in pants is hard when you have giant quads and a small waist.
2. According to my BMI, I am just shy of being classified as overweight.
3. Can’t really think of anything else.

Personally, I’m happy with how I look now. I don’t feel like I look 20lb heavier than a year ago. I am excited by my increased strength and am focusing on becoming a better athlete, not just my appearance.

Nutrition Advice to Become a Strength Training Animal

Disclaimer: I am not a nutritionist or dietician. I am a certified personal trainer and self-proclaimed fitness fanatic. This is what works for me, but it may not work for you. Take what you can from this and make it work for your needs.

1. Eat. You’re going to take in more calories than non-athletes in order to sustain your performance in the gym and meet your goals. I eat 4-6 meals daily, which includes pre- and post-workout meals.
2. Protein is your friend. Protein is the main focus of every meal/snack that I eat. As a female, I shoot for 1g protein per pound of body weight each day. I typically shoot for 20-25g of protein per meal. Good quality animal protein is best – chicken, beef, salmon, eggs – but don’t discount other protein options such as Greek yogurt or protein powder.
3. Carbohydrates give you energy, so eat them. I eat carbohydrates before and after my workouts. My favorites include sweet potato, oatmeal, rice, and of course pancakes after Strongman Saturdays.
4. Gluten and dairy are not so scary, if your body can tolerate them. I can tolerate both, so I eat them both. If you have a legitimate intolerance, you know what to avoid. But if you are buying gluten-free cookies just because they’re sold at Whole Foods, save your cash and buy the regular ones.
5. Fats keep you full between meals. If your goal is to gain muscle, fats will help because they increase testosterone levels (and no, you won’t turn into a dude). I get my fats from butter, oils, bacon, and avocado. Nuts are another great option, but sadly I’m allergic.
6. Carb cycling is a great option if you are trying to cut/maintain weight for a competition.Typically I would do this by increasing carbs on heavy lifting days (deadlift day or strongman event training) and decrease carbs plus increase fats on a recovery and rest day.

Sample Training Day Meal Plan

• Breakfast (7am): 3-egg omelet with veggies cooked in olive oil with half an avocado, water and tea
• Morning Snack (10am): 1/2  cup plain Greek yogurt with berries, water
• Lunch (1pm): 1 5oz piece chicken breast with asparagus and half of a sweet potato, seltzer
• Pre-workout (4pm): Apple/some sort of fruit or carb (some days I have granola) and tea
• Post-workout Dinner (7pm): Beef stew with potatoes and root veggies, water
• Evening Snack (9pm): Protein mug cake

Additional Tips on Your Journey to Swole-ness

• Use before/after photos, measurements, or your clothes to measure your progress, not the scale.
• Do exercise that makes you happy. Most days I really love strongman training. Sometimes I want to focus on Olympic weightlifting. Some days I do yoga – and that’s okay! Listen to your body and do what makes it happy. If you are training for a competition or event, obviously keep your training on task, but if you need a rest day, take it. Your body will let you know when it’s had too much.
• Be nice to yourself. Be forgiving when you eat a donut at work or skip the gym for happy hour one night. You only get one life. There’s no reason to beat yourself up over the occasional cheat meal/day/weekend. Personally, I will never give up Doritos.

Embrace your beefy thighs, sun-eclipsing booty, or any other body part that makes you feel a bit self-conscious. Appreciate the strength your muscles give you and the personal records you’ve set. Strength is beauty!

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But this is not always the case.

Throughout the years of experience, I have acquired a few fundamental tactics that could help you get the most out of your hour of power when you train.

Some might seem obvious, but still respect them and learn to apply them consistently.

1. Warm up!

• “Duh, dude” is probably the first thought in your head. Well let me ask you, do you know how to warm up in an effective manner. Maybe you do, but bear with me. The warm up is so crucial to getting a good work out in because it is what establishes the pace for the remainder of the workout.
• In order to warm up for a kick ass work out, take your time.
• Start by shaking off your limbs. Do some slow movement and some isometric holds to start raising your body’s temperature. Make sure you are continuously moving so that you can keep getting warmer.
• You should incorporate stretching after you’re a little warm. You can hurt yourself if you stretch cold.
•  Once you got some blood flowing, go ahead and smack the muscles that you are targeting in your workout. That’s right, slap that area like it was a bongo. It should definitely make a sound. This will bring even more blood to the area.
• You also want to always have the core warm too, this is because it is literally used in almost every movement you do. Unless you are isolating a small muscle like the bicep or shoulder. But even then, you will still ask for help from the core.
• Warm up for the core can involve doing planks, one of my all time faves, or the a glute bridge which will engage the lower back like hell.
• Make sure you go in the working sets, with blood flowing through your veins!

2. Do ATLEAST one set to failure.

• Growth is your body’s response to stress. It is the adaptation that happens when we pound our bodies with movement that is unfamiliar.
• Even if you are not training for muscle growth, failure sets will help improve your skill and/or strength.
• Why? Simple. It forces your body to adapt to a new level of demands.
• Repping till you can’t anymore is the fastest way to produce growth on the human body, take advantage of it.

3. Cooldown

• Are you the type to just finish the workout after the last set of your working exercises?
• If you are, quit the habit. Incorporate at least 5 minutes of cooling down, either by stretching or doing low intensity movement like hanging after a pull up session, twists after a core session or hold top of a push up after a push session.
• Stretching is specially important so you can restore flexibility and full range of motion into the muscles that you were contracting throughout the whole workout.
• You will also release extra wastes from your muscles like lactic acid.
• It speeds up RECOVERY! This is a big one.
• It gives your heart and your blood flow a smoother transition. Sometimes, when you don’t cool down, your blood will stay in your large muscles and your brain wont get enough supply of oxygen causing dizziness or lightheaded.

These 3 fundamental principles should be practiced in each of your workouts. They will make a difference.

The warm up will absolutely help you get a better workout.

The failure sets will force more growth in your body.

The cool down will restore flexibility, range of motion, redistribute blood around the body and speed up recovery.

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1. OWN THE “BIG FOUR.”

The squat, deadlift, bench press, and shoulder press are the best strength-building exercises, period. The chinup and row are great moves too, but don’t make them the focus of your workout — they can be assistance lifts to complement the bench and shoulder press, keeping your pulling muscles in balance with the pressing ones.

2. USE BARBELLS FIRST.

Forget all the fad equipment. The barbell is king, the dumbbell is queen, and everything else is a court jester — it may have its place, but it’s not essential. Start your workouts with barbell exercises, such as the “big four,” as described above. Barbells let you load a lot of weight, and lifting heavy is the first step toward getting stronger. Once your heaviest strength exercises are out of the way, you can move on to dumbbell and bodyweight training.

3. KEEP IT SIMPLE.

Some trainers make their clients lift with a certain rep speed, like three seconds up, one second down. But know this: There’s no need to count anything but reps during a set. Simply focus on raising and lowering your weights in a controlled manner, pausing for a one-second count at the top of the lift. Using an arbitrary tempo can lessen tension on your muscles or force you to use varying amounts of weight, slowing your progress. The only way to be sure you’re getting stronger is if your loads consistently increase.

4. MAINTAIN A LOG.

Write down your exercises, sets, reps, and the fate of each workout. Keep track of your best lifts and the most reps you’ve done with a certain weight on an exercise. Constantly strive to improve those numbers.

5. DON’T OVERDO IT.

Try to stick to three or four lifts per workout. Keeping your workouts short helps you take advantage of hormonal surges. When you do too many exercises in a session, at least some of them get done half-assed. All you need is one main lift per workout (one of the big four), one or two assistance lifts (for keeping the body in balance and further strengthening the muscles that perform the main lift), and then core or specialty work at the end (ab exercises or some forearm or calf moves, depending on your goals). Doing any more lessens your results.

6. THINK FIVE.

You should rotate many different rep ranges in your workouts, but sets of five seem to offer the best blend of muscle size and strength gains. If you’re pushing through one of the big four moves, you’ll find that your form often breaks down after five anyway.

7. ADD WEIGHTS SLOWLY.

The main reason people plateau and stop gaining strength is that they go too heavy for too long. Abandon your ego and do your main lifts using 10% less than the most weight you can lift for the given rep range. Increase the weight each session — but by no more than 10 pounds — and stick with the same lifts. You’ll rarely plateau again.

8. TAKE TO THE HILLS.

Cardio is a must if you want to be lean and healthy, but long-distance running or cycling increases levels of hormones that break down muscle tissue. To get stronger while getting leaner, do cardio in short, intense bursts. Go to a moderately steep hill and sprint to the top, then walk back down. When you’re ready, sprint again. In your first workout, do only half as many sprints as you think you could. In your next workout, do two more sprints than you did the first time. Continue adding two sprints to your workouts until you can’t improve anymore. Then do sets of sprints.

9. BALANCE YOUR TRAINING.

Whatever you do for one side of the body, you must do for the other side. Follow that rule in your workouts and you should be able to avoid injury and muscle imbalances. If you’re doing squats (mainly a quad exercise), also do Romanian deadlifts (which hit the hamstrings hard). Your chest exercises should be balanced with back-training lifts. You don’t necessarily have to do your balance work in the same session, but it should be done in the same week. In general, follow a ratio of two-to-one between your pulling-and-pushing movements. So if you bench-press on Monday (and most of the world seems to), you can do chinups on Tuesday and bent-over lateral raises on Thursday, for example. Every other pressing exercise you do should follow this formula.

10. DO IT RIGHT. FORM IS KEY.

You may think you know how to perform the big four, but you could probably get more out of them. Here are some quick pointers for each one.

Squat: Begin the squat by pushing your hips back as far as you can. Keep your lower back arched and you should feel a stretch in your hamstrings. When your hips are bent, begin bending your knees and squatting low. This is what you need to squat maximal weight.

Deadlift: Use the same stance you would to perform a jump — your legs should be narrowly placed. When you bend down to grab the bar, keep your hips down and your back straight, with your shoulders directly over your knees.

Bench Press: Start with your head off the bench. Keeping your feet steady, grab the bar and pull your body up off the bench and forward, so that when your butt comes down on the bench your lower back is very arched. Squeeze your shoulder blades together. Your range of motion should be significantly shorter for stronger pressing.

Shoulder press: Flare your lats when the bar is at shoulder level. It will allow you to use more weight.

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