Kayla McColl, 23, admits she was surprised, but ecstatic she finished third at the recent provincial Amateur Bodybuilding fitness championships in New Westminster, B.C.
“I was completely shocked,” McColl said of her third-place finish in a field of six competitors.
“I was surprised, but pleased at how well I did.”
Having trained for the fitness competition for less than a year, McColl admitted she felt like an underdog going into the competition.
Seeing the other women in the competition did not help McColl’s confidence either.
“I was nervous,” McColl said of the moments before the competition.
To help with the nervousness, McColl’s coach, Sandra Wickham of New Westminster, a veteran of fitness competitions, suggested she not look at the women she was competing against.
“I still looked,” McColl said with a chuckle.
“I just pretended I looked like them.”
The competition consists of two rounds, a posing round and an agility round.
At the zone qualifier in Fort St. John, where she placed first, McColl realized her posing was not as strong as it could be, consequently the judges could not properly evaluate her muscle development, nor the symmetry of her muscle development.
To try to improve her posing, McColl watched videos on YouTube and practiced almost every day, trying to emulate the poses in the videos.
The strategy paid off, McColl said, as it gave her more confidence in her posing.
“I knew exactly what the poses should look like,” she said.
After the posing routine, McColl performed her 1.5 minute strength and agility routine, a series of well-choreographed moves designed specifically to entertain and highlight both their strength and fitness.
McColl included regular pushups, triceps pushups, crossover pushups and one-arm pushups in her routine.
“You have to have both strength and flexibility,” McColl stressed.
The entertainment part of the routine comes from the originality of the moves and the accompanying music selected by the competitors. McColl’s sound track included music from Lady Gaga, Rihanna and Justin Timberlake.
Although satisfied with the agility routine, McColl said she still perceived herself as an underdog.
“I still didn’t think it [fitness routine] was the same calibre as the others,” she said.
However, the judges viewed McColl’s performance differently and after the evening show, she was one of three remaining on stage.
“I was just ecstatic to be on stage,” McColl said.
The months of training had paid off and it was time to celebrate.
For McColl, celebrating was having foods her training regimen had put on the do-not-eat list, foods such as avocado, mango and yogurt.
A few days later, she went out for burgers and drinks with friends.
Now McColl is back in the gym working to keep her muscle tone.
The third-place finish qualified McColl for the national championships in Vancouver, but she has decided to follow a different path for a while.
Later this month, McColl is off to South Korea for a year to teach English.
“I’m looking forward to it,” McColl said.
“It’s something different.”
While in South Korea McColl said she wouldn’t abandon her fitness training.
In fact she hopes to take martial arts lessons and incorporate some of the moves into her fitness and agility routine.
“I am motivated to finish first,” she said with an eye to the future.
