I am a personal trainer, and not to sound too cocky I think I am pretty good one, at least thats what my wife Chikondi says, so there you go :). In August 2008 Chikondi, came to me with a toothy smile and said “guess what I am going to do a figure show and you are going to train me.” I wanted to say hell no, because to tell you the truth I had no idea who or what a figure competition was. But like I said she had a toothy, oh wait a minute a mean beautiful smile, and you guess it I couldn’t say no.
The irony of all this was that neither of us had a clue where to start. The most we had done was train together, and I always thought that she had a great physique (I am so jealous of her calves LOL). Plus a couple bodybuilder friends had mentioned that she should consider doing show. To be honest I never really listened when they spoke. But unbeknownst to me Chikondi had dreams of being featured in Oxygen magazine which she had been a fan of for a while. So like true champs we started her training with an eye for a show in November 08.
So we found a posing coach, bought a meal plan, and off we went to conquer the figure world, YAY and a happy ending. Not! The first thing Chikondi didn’t realize was that I was going to turn into the evil trainer. You see, I started doing my own research on Figure shows, and the one thing that jumped out at me, was how fit and tight these women were. Yes Chikondi has a great physique, but when you are wearing heels and a bikini under bright stage lights, and standing beside fit looking women, you can come out looking two to three times your normal size. So I realized very quickly that in order to be competitive, she needed to come down from her 127lbs while maintaining muscularity in only 2 ½ short months. So I had to increase the intensity of her workouts, and let me tell you we bump heads. I pushed her weight training to another level, and upped the intensity and length of her cardio sessions. Combine with the diet, her abs started to show and her legs began to tighten up. That was the turning point, because then she began to realize why I was pushing her in that manner.
This was round about mid October, and the show was early November. So she started learning what appeared to be the easy task of figure posing: realization number 1 posing is hard as hell and we should have started earlier. There is an old bodybuilding saying, ‘you can have best physique, but if you can’t present it you can forget about winning.’ Not that it was perfect, but after a million quarter turns to the right, her package was starting to come together. Realization number 2, competition diet kicks your ass. True story, there were days when Chikondi would eat a plain salad in orgasmic pleasure, uttering weird statements like “spinach taste better than ice cream.” Needless to say there were other days when she would cry at the site of another protein shake.
But through it all my little pocket Hercules as I call her, preserved. We made it to the November 08 show through a few tears, “I hate you Peter you evil bastard,” a millions quarter turns to the right, and a couple breakdowns from the diet. So how does the story end? Well Ms. Thang won Novice Short, Novice Overall, and came fourth out of 30 women in the Open Short. Pretty cool huh?! Check out a photo journey of Chikondi’s progress at KooYah Fitness, in the Before and After section.
A parting thought, my wife and I have always been extremely close, but I have to say that the process made us closer. I also developed a passion for the sport of Figure, and have since trained and prepped Chikondi for three shows in 2009 and she won them all. As a result I am now working with several other women.
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