I was born in Stillwater, OK in 1966 and currently am a competitive bodybuilder, personal trainer, and competitor prep specialist. I started dance lessons at age 5 (honestly, because I was such a klutz!) and have continued ballet, jazz, theatre, hip-hop, country, ballroom, salsa, etc and teaching group fitness (all kinds of aerobics and yoga) for over 20 years.

Early on, I tried a couple of fitness competitions because a friend talked me into competing with her. I did OK, 4th and 5th place I think, but then my boyfriend at the time (now my husband) told me that I should really try bodybuilding if I wanted to win because I had great genetics for it. Even though he had been training female competitors since 81 and even a couple of Olympia contestants and knew what he was talking about, this was still hard for me to believe at the time, as I was about 5”8” and 135 pounds, no self-confidence and still had a lean dancer physique. I didn’t even tell anyone I was going to compete! As it turned out, I won my first show! It was the Colorado State and a national qualifier! Then I was hooked! It gave me the opportunity to get back on stage and have fun again.

Winning my first show was awesome and I have things that I’m proud of from all of them but honestly I don’t feel like I’ve really reached my peak yet. I want to go into the next show feeling like I’ve given 110% in all areas of training and diet. I just want to keep making improvements.

Off- season I probably train 4-5x week. Pre-contest is 6 days a week usually just a single body part each day. The weights usually don’t take more than 45 min to an hour and cardio is 1-1 ? hrs pre-contest. I’ve tried different routines though the years and found for this past show that really high reps i.e. 15-20 really work well for me. I gained size, shape and vascularity that I hadn’t seen before. It’s unbelievably difficult to do increasing weights each set, long sets, high volume and heavy weight but it gets your conditioning up! This next time I want to look my very best!

I guess I’m more of a “puller” than a “pusher”. Back and bi’s are probably my favorites to train. I don’t like chest much, injured my shoulders badly in an accident a few years back so I have to be careful with them.

Probably my calves are my best bodypart, even though I don’t train them very hard. I think calves are largely genetic, and all the years of dance didn’t hurt! Also my traps and delts tend to stand out. Although I think they’ve fallen behind lately. I’m working to bring them more in proportion to the rest of me. There is ALWAYS stuff to work on!

I’m 5’8” 170 right now. My arms and calves are usually 16” although they get close to 17” when I’m off-season. Like I said, I don’t really do much “heavy “ lifting. It’s fun to be strong but I really want to be able to continue to do this for the rest of my life and if I always lift super-heavy, I feel like I’ll just trash my joints, which are pretty small anyway. I’ve had a few health issues through the years too, which make you learn to train smart, not always harder. I usually train more volume these days 15-20 and sometimes even sets of 50 and 60! That being said, my bi’s are wimpy so even 135 bar curls are really hard, I prefer dumbbells on most things because they are kinder to the joints. My calves can pretty much handle anything, the stack on any machine for reps or I usually work w/about 300 on the smith. I’ve done bent over rows with 225 for six and we used to load up that t-bar pretty heavy too. I like pullovers and deads and those kind of old-school back things. Bench really bugs my shoulders so I know I’ve done 225 but not much more than that. Wish I had a buck for every time someone has asked me “how muchya bench?” I did the 100 pound dbs flat bench one night for six and that felt awesome!!! My incline is usually stronger than my flat for some reason so that’s my favorite. I’ve done seated db shoulder presses overhead with the 80’s and tricep presses with the 115 lb db for reps as well. I can’t even remember my max on the leg press but I do know one night I did 1600 for 15 reps and they said no girl had ever done that so I was pretty proud of that!

I really enjoy being hard in competition shape: abs, cuts everywhere, and no jiggle anywhere. It even feels good just to have a schedule and to see what can happen with enough discipline. Off-season of course, it’s nice not to stress about what you are eating or not eating. We love going to the movies and it can be stressful when you have to pack turkey and edamame instead of enjoying the popcorn and other movie junk!

If I don’t have a morning client, my hubby and I enjoy sleeping in. Then I kick the dogs out for awhile while I make their breakfast (they love to sleep in too!) We have a shake and get the day going. Working out, eating, hanging out with each other and training a few people. I thank the Lord every day for being so blessed. I also have the most wonderful husband in the world and we have been accused of being each other’s favorite hobby/obsession but I don’t think that’s a bad thing!

I really enjoy cooking and gardening. We plan on moving soon so landscaping the new place should be quite a project! Like I said, we enjoy going to the movies and out to eat. We love to travel (especially Mexico!) We also have 4 boys between us, ages 12, 15, 18, and almost 20 so we spend time with them as well.

I enjoy meeting the other competitors, the photographers, doing photo shoots, and of course, being in contest shape! I really enjoy helping others to reach their fitness goals as well, both competitors and just regular people who need help to get their programs together. I’ve had such awesome friends and fans and my husband.