Renee and I are now flying to Pittsburgh! If you caught my last post about coaching Renee, we were headed to Tampa for her Wellness Debut. Quick update, she got first in her Class in Tampa, which was awesome win for her, and she loved every bit of getting on stage and bringing her best. So, after Tampa we got some feedback to work on before heading out to Jr. USAs.
Tampa Judge Feedback
The judges wanted Renee a little bit softer, no glute lines. Also, Renee’s upper body is pretty jacked to say the least. Wellness should be a very lower body dominate class, with closer to bikini upper body. So, we took that feedback and put it to work. For 4 weeks after Tampa, Renee did ZERO upper body training. Yes! No upper body at all. We dropped cardio out completely and I raised food up slightly. Also, ZERO cardio was done as well. Sounds like a dream prep right?
Jr. USA the Result
Renee hit the stage this past weekend and ended up taking 3rd in Class B. The girls that showed up were very good and it was competitive. We brought Renee it slightly softer, she was about 3lbs up from Tampa. We tried hiding her upper body more with her hair as well. But it still wasn’t quite enough to fit into the division. Truthfully Renee’s upper is not that big, but her posing is was big on stage compared to the other girls. So, to continue to North Americans or not? Very tough decision and a lot of emotion goes into these shows. We went into this aiming to win and to get 3rd is very respectable but feels like a loss for our goals.
Jr. USA Judge Feedback
Main issue is Renee still has a very prominent upper body pose and flares the lats. We looked at the posing set up for the winner of Jr USAs and the Arnold Amateur to obtain that look more. We decided we could completely change her front pose to really tone down her upper, also tweak her quarter turns to make it very glute heave. Also, we are going big curly hair to hide the delts even more. With these changes we will take another stab at the pro card for this year. We aren’t going out with a 3rd place!
In a few days and we will get the result! Should be an interesting show being outdoors under a tent. I will get you a full post show update on what went down….stay tuned.
Train Hard!
John Jewett MS, RD, IFBB PRO
