Brains, Brawn & Blonde

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Heather Tubbs – Week 1

Heather Tubbs | On 12, Jun 2013

My name is Heather Tubbs; follow my journey to becoming an IFBB Figure pro.

BACKGROUND

I had always been pretty active in my youth, focusing my attention ontrack and crosscountry beginning in middle school. I wanted to be the “athletic girl” in school, constantly wanting to show up the boys when it came to P.E., trying to be better, faster and stronger. Never really being considered girly, I found my identity in athletics. This led to my high school years of being a “Track Star”.

My sophomore year of High School I moved to the “dreary/ boring” state of Hawaii. I couldn’t believe my parents would take me out of my home state of Oklahoma to such a horrible place (insert sarcasm here). In addition to continuing track and cross country I also picked up surfing. Like every person that moves to Hawaii, we all want to become a pro surfer. I mean how hard can it be? All around me I was seeing fit surfer girls, the main feature I loved was their back. I wanted a built back like them. After a few months of paddling against the Pacific surf, I found that I was starting to get some development in my back.I wanted the dimples and the taper that all these surfer girls had…along with the beach tan and sun kissed hair, of course.

With surfing taking much of my free time, I cut cross country out and put my focus towards track and the beach. I ran the 800m dash and the 1 mile but was never a first place runner, always coming on 2nd – 4th place. Naturally from all the surfing and running, I stayed pretty lean and had the endurance of a race horse. I could paddle around the ocean for hours at a time and run at a steady pace for miles, never really getting tired. This about the time I realized I wanted to do more, I wanted to always be fit and active. I started going to the gym not really knowing what to do, so I just moved from machine to machine doing whatever the little sticker instructions told me. I didn’t pursue the gym much, mainly because my identity at this point was a surfer and a runner, so that is what I did…surfed and ran to my heart’s desire.

HOW & WHY DID YOU GET INTO FITNESS?

When I moved from Hawaii in 2007, surfing obviously wasn’t an option anymore, so I threwmyself into running 100%. I signed up for any 5k, 10k and ½ marathons that I could; with the belief that this is what was keeping me in shape. However, after my ½ marathon in 2010 I was left with an injury in my hip, not allowing me to run long distances anymore. Now with the two identifiers that made me the “athletic” girl I always thought I was, I was left feeling a little empty. I was searching the internet for ways to stay in shape and I came across this smokin’ hot lady that had a physique kind of similar to mine, Jamie Eason, and started her live fit program.

This program was perfect for helping me get through the gym, but not so much for diet. I was gaining some lean muscle, but was also becoming EXTREMELY skinny. I didn’t realize how important the diet was to gaining muscle and could frequently go without eating anything at all. Eventually I became to “busy” and stopped training completely and instead learned to enjoy the freedom to eat WHATEVER I wanted…and when I say whatever I mean brownies, pizza and hot tamale candies any time I wanted them.

So that was scenic route to get to the real question, why and how did I get into fitness? Easy, the same reason every girl gets into fitness… to get abs and a nice butt.

Honestly, I had always said I wanted to be fit but like most people just didn’t know where to start. With the support of my incredible husband and needing a distraction from grad school, we started our mission to educate ourselves and figure this whole fitness thing out. After a few searches and reading website after website (looking at pictures for me), I decided I wanted to compete in Figurebodybuilding competitions. With my goal in mind, we set out to find a trainer, not your typical trainer that you find at your local 24 Hour or Planet Fitness; I was looking for one that would make me competitive. I was led toMetroflex Plano; Ilike to describe it as the happiest place on earth, until you’re out back tossing your lunch. I was quickly connected to my awesome trainer, Kyle, with whom I’ve been working with ever since.

FIRST COMPETITIVE SEASON

I am still in my first competitive season with my second show being 18 weeks out. I competed in my first show on May 25th of this year, placing 5th out of 24 competitive girls at the NPC Fort Worth Classic.

The experience of my first show was amazing! I was told by my posing coach that you will learn more about yourself in the first 10 seconds on stage than you ever will throughout competing career….well I would say so far that is true; I now know what to expect, how I will react and what I can do to change it. I will speak to more of the diet, training and techniques I have learned throughout my other articles, so keep an eye out for those.

I have been blessed with an amazing journey that has been fun, inspirational and safe. Having the right trainer that really knew what he was doing with my diet and training allowed me to coast right in to my first show. There was no crash dieting or excessive cardio required which made my whole experience one that can be repeatable, enjoyable and allowed my body to come out of competition prep with no drastic side effects.

SINCE MY LAST SHOW

Since my last show I have been focusing on re-feeding my body, while staying pretty lean, thanks to my competition prep. I frequently see competitors go off the deep end with their diet and have to work twice as hard to prep for their next show. I’m not saying I haven’t had my fair share of cheats, but all things in moderation. My goal for my next show is toeat and pack on as much lean muscle as I can and hit the stage at 115+lbs, as opposed to the 110lbs I was at for my first competition. I am aiming to present a fuller look with more poise and confidence on stage (my biggest critique). The biggest thing I learned from this entire experience is that your body can be exactly what the judges are looking for, but if you can’t present it well, then ultimately it will hold you back. Lesson learned.

This has been a complete lifestyle change and a commitment that can be hard at times. However I have a goal in mind and I don’t plan on stopping until I reach it – IFBB FIGURE PRO! Alcohol, junk food and free time are all things I have given up; but I believe that sacrifices have to be made to be the best. Ultimately what am I really missing out on? Most likely a lot of regret, guilt and probably some really bad photo ops.

You can follow my progress through updates here at Zelsh.com and be sure to check out my Facebook and Instagram @HeatherTubbsFit for progress pictures!

Writing a new article for Zelsh. This one will be an introduction to how I started and will be followed by week to week entries to my road to the stage. Is there anything you’d like me to elaborate on in my article?

This is a great article from my fellow Zelsh.com contributor, Francesca Battye.

 “Girls don’t bench” is a phrase I hear far too often from both men and women alike. Why don’t we? Why can’t we? Why shouldn’t we? True, you typically won’t see a girl throwing around numerous plates on the bench press, but who’s to say we can’t incorporate chest exercises into our routines. Training your chest is especially important for balancing out your upper body strength and helping to avoid injury.

Misconceptions:

There are so many misconceptions females have about training their chest and feel that this area should be left out of the picture completely. Women fear they will begin to develop rock hard pecs that will make them look less feminine and cause them to lose their breasts.

“This could not be further from the truth.”

You, in fact, will begin to develop muscle underneath the fatty tissue that makes up your breast and might even begin to appear fuller! One might argue that when they look at female fitness competitors, they appear to be flat chested. This is NOT because of working out their chest, but because of the extreme dieting those competitors undergo to get as lean as possible. When a person drops so much body fat, the fatty breast tissue also drops.

Targeting:

Chest training can be incorporated into your workout routine just as other body parts are. You need to include a variety of exercises and resistance into your routine to optimize results. Some of the best exercises for the pectoral muscles also target your shoulders, triceps and even your glutes and core. Your muscles respond best to a challenge, so in order to increase strength and notice gains, it is important to lift heavy. Because the chest is a large muscle area, regularly lifting heavy weights will ultimately burn calories and unwanted body fat! Unless you are on a high calorie diet specifically aiming to gain size, you won’t get big and bulky.

Best Chest Exercises for Women:

There are three main exercises w omen can perform that are pretty basic but very effective.

PUSHUPS:

There are various ways to increase the difficulty and intensity of a standard push up. A few examples are push-ups on an incline or decline, on a bosu ball and one arm. You can choose to add a weighted plate on your back to increase the level of difficulty. Push-ups sets can be done until failure.

BENCH PRESS:

This exercise can also be performed on an incline or decline or on the standard flat bench. Aim for 6-8 repetitions of heavy weight. Make sure to concentrate on proper form and technique when performing this exercise. Only bringing the bar down half way will not be beneficial. Posture is also especially important, place feet flat on the ground to avoid too much arch and injury to the back.

CHEST FLYES:

Lying flat and using dumbbells or the pec fly machine may be used for this exercise. If using dumbbells, make sure to not over extend your arms too low before returning to starting position. Higher repetitions should be performed during this exercise; 10-12 reps.

The chest may be trained once or twice a week depending on your routine, but make sure to include sufficient rest days.

Ladies, don’t be afraid to step into the free weight area of the gym and help yourself to the bench. There is no need to be embarrassed of what weight you can put up and there are plenty of guys that will be more than happy to spot and assist you!