Come On, JB. You Know You Want To Train Me

It was Thursday the 28^th of December. I was on Christmas break and was just casually checking my email when a new name popped up in my inbox.

It was Valerie Waugaman.

Now, although I'd like to say that I knew exactly who Val was, that'd be a lie. The truth is, despite Val's relative stardom in the figure world, I'd never heard of her. And not knowing who she was, I was fairly unmoved by her email:

Hi John Berardi and Team,

My name is Valerie Waugaman and I am extremely interested in hiring you as a coach... I'm an IFBB Professional Figure competitor... I hear you're the best... I'd love it if you'd consider taking me on as a client... blah, blah, blah...

Of course, her mail was eloquently written and I'm just kidding around with the blah, blah, blah stuff. Yet the truth is, my coaching team has been booked solid for 2 years straight. That's right, we rarely ever take on new clients — and that's because we have very little client turnover. When a spot does come available on our roster, the hoops folks have to jump through are pretty incredible. Thus I had no idea if we could bring Val on as a client, nor if she'd make the cut during our application and interview process.

Yet, like any healthy, red-blooded, heterosexual male, I began to wonder what this Valerie Waugaman looked like. Heck, at this point you're probably wondering too.

Well, behold the power of Google images:

Val Winning NPC Nationals —
She's the tall drink of water second from left

Val, wearing some sort of drapery and
one hell-of-a come-hither look

Val saying: "Come on, JB,
you know you want to train me!"

All right, I'll fess up. After seeing some of these images, I was officially moved. So I decided to dig deeper. And in the process I discovered that not only is Val a hottie and a rising figure superstar, she's also a successful businessperson, motivator, fitness educator, and more.

Shortly after, I scheduled a phone meeting with my coaching staff and you bet your bottom we made room for Val. In fact, me and my head training and nutrition coach, Carter Schoffer, decided that in helping Val prep for the Arnold Classic, a tag-team approach would be best. Oh, get your mind out of the gutter — I meant a tag-team coaching approach! After all, we're professionals, damn it!

So we contacted Val and we started planning our attack.

About Val

It didn't take long for us to learn that Valerie Waugaman is one of the hottest names on the figure circuit. With her gorgeous face, sexy walk, and sculpted physique, people stop and stare when Val walks into the room. And whenever she steps on the competitive stage, she might just walk away with the overall title. In fact, Val won the NPC National Figure championships in 2005 and the prestigious Colorado Pro figure event in 2006.

Of course, when most folks look at Val they immediately think she must have been born the near picture of perfection she is today; tall, graceful, charming, and oh so lean. However, many are surprised to learn that there was a time when Val had body composition issues of her own.

You see, although Val came from an intense sports background, after her competitive days were over, Val found it very difficult to maintain her physique. So in late 2003 Val found herself out of shape for the first time in her life.

"As a small business owner, I was putting all my energy into the business and really let my body go in the process... I decided to commit to taking care of my body and transforming my life... What truly motivated me through the hard training and nutritional adjustments was my desire to be a positive example of health & fitness to as many people as possible."

Ten weeks later, with the help of her first figure coach Mike Davies; Val entered the Body Rock competition, taking 4^th in her class.

Val in 2003 — not looking all that happy with the flash

Val, 10 weeks later, at her first figure contest

Today it's nearly 4 years later and Val has emerged as a figure superstar. After her win at the Colorado Pro show last June, Val's future success seemed all shored up. Yet a disappointing showing at the Olympia just 4 months later brought out the critics. Wanting to put it all on the line at the Arnold Classic, Val contacted us for support and coaching.

"This year's Arnold competition is a very big deal to me. It's a significant turning point in my career and I want to stand on stage that day knowing that I did my very best to bring the best Valerie Waugaman ever! I visualize shaking Arnold's hand as the Figure International Champion. I believe in you and your program and I believe in myself. It's time to BRING IT FORTH!"

Val's Off-Season

At this point, it's important to know that Val is a study in commitment and discipline. In fact, she makes most of the men around T-Nation look like fickle little school-girls, both in the gym and out. Her intensity is mind-blowing; her focus is laser-like. And her attention to her training and nutrition plan are inspiring.

Val eats clean and works incredibly hard year-round, knowing that not only does she have to look good on the stage — she also has to be ready at a moment's notice for photo/video shoots, appearances, and the fitness camps that she leads. To see what I mean, check out this image, taken during week 1 of our contest prep:

Val — during week 1 of our contest prep

That's right — Val looks this good all year round.

Now, most of you are probably wondering how she stays this fit even during the off-season. Well, like I said — discipline and commitment. Below is an example of what her weekly execise schedule looks like — and no, she doesn't get "too busy" to get to the gym.

* Interval exercise includes indoor or outdoor running and/or bike sprints, rowing sprits, or stepper/elliptical sprints.

** Low intensity exercise includes indoor or outdoor conventional "cardio", swimming, yoga, posing, etc.

In addition to this intense year-round training plan, Val's diet is also very clean. To begin with, she shops at health food stores and organic markets, buys mostly organic produce, and eats meats that are antibiotic and hormone-free. Further, she only ever eats out 1-2 times per week and never eats fast food. Finally, she eats at least 1-2 servings of veggies with every single meal.

In fact, as Val was introduced to us through our Precision Nutrition program, her diet pretty much follows the PN program perfectly. And like I said, to this end she makes some of the guys around here look like rank beginners when it comes to sticking to a plan.

The Arnold Classic Plan

Even with this great off-season plan and awesome off-season level of conditioning, it's important to understand that doing what it takes to look good in the off-season and doing what it takes to step onto the Arnold Classic stage at your absolute best are two very different things. According to Val:

"I definitely came to the table with a solid background and 2 years of show experience, but after I decided to work on my own for a year, it was too much for me... I wanted to find an expert who could take me to the next level as well as provide some accountability/support."

Now, going into her contest preparation, we had two major challenges. First, Val was already quite lean and had a pretty high weekly exercise volume. This meant that we could only increase exercise volume so much before she'd start to feel run down, experience CNS fatigue, and begin to feel the effects of overreaching. It also meant that her body would fight fat loss every step of the way.

Second, Val is proud to admit that she's never taken any steroids, thyroid hormones, or illegal stimulants when prepping for shows. (For those of you wondering, these are fairly commonplace in physique competition — even at the figure level).

As a result of these two challenges discussed above, we devised a cyclic nutrition and training plan that would prevent Val's body from adapting to the calorie intake or work loads too quickly, slowing her progress.

When it came to nutrition, Val's plan started with 5 different menus that Val rotated through as follows:

The whole idea behind this system is to cycle calories and macronutrient ratios so that Val's body stayed out of starvation mode. You see, both very low carb intakes as well as very low calorie intakes can signal starvation. Yet they're often necessary for getting ready for the competitive stage. Therefore, to keep Val out of trouble, we cycled between low carb, low calorie, higher carb, and higher calorie days.

Also, throughout Val's 8-week preparation period, Carter and I changed her training program every 2-4 weeks. Here's what one of her training blocks looked like.

Of course, as the contest prep period wore on, we altered the calorie intake and training based on her response. Specifically, if she wasn't leaner from one week to the next, we dropped calories by about 100-150 each day.

Further, we also changed her training based on which body parts were coming in the best. As you can see in the phase above, we were working mostly chest, back, and legs as these areas needed the most work early on in her prep. As these areas came in, we switched the program up, placing more emphasis on arms, shoulders, and glutes — the last areas that seemed to need special attention.

Beyond The Training and Nutrition Plan

As you can see, Val's program was very demanding, requiring 1-2 workouts every day. And as you'd imagine, Val needed to dig deep to find her motivation.

Vision boards and frequent positive reminders played a big role. In her home gym, she posted a photo of herself shaking Arnold's hand and winning the Arnold Classic title. She also had a visual motivation board in which she placed her core values and a number of motivational messages. Further, she kept a daily planner full of positive messages to keep her spirits up when things got tough.

"When it comes down to the final weeks preparing for a figure competition, my mind starts asking me, 'Valerie, this is hard... Why are you doing this?' At that point the only thing that keeps me focused is connecting with my core personal values and moving towards my ultimate vision in life. I remind myself that it is not really about me winning a contest; it's about a greater purpose. The stage is really an avenue to serve others... a challenge... an opportunity for personal growth. Now that gets me FIRED UP!"

In addition to Val's vision boards and motivational strategies, we did our part by helping Val schedule her 8-week pre-contest period. As we do with all our clients, we have them break out a calendar and commit 10 minutes every day to reflect on their "daily wins" (progress) and to fill out a progress report which gives us some objective and subjective feedback as to how their bodies are changing and how they're tolerating the plan.

Also, we had Val commit to taking photos and body comp measures every Sunday morning. Coupled with her daily progress reports, Val would fire these off to us every Sunday evening so that we could review her progress and make the necessary changes.

NOTE: In preparing for the Arnold Classic, we decided that 8 weeks would be enough of a pre-contest period as Val was coming into her prep period very lean and had previously only taken a mere 5 weeks to prepare for shows. However, for those figure girls with less show experience and a higher starting body fat %, the contest prep should be longer. In fact, with amateur figure girls starting at 18% bodyfat or higher, we typically will begin contest preparations 16 weeks out from a show.

Val - 3 weeks out from the show

The Last Week

For the 8 weeks leading up to her competition, Val was pushed like she'd never been pushed before. Working, eating, training, supplementing, posing, sleeping, and doing it all over again the next day, Val's body changed on a daily basis.

We monitored these changes with weekly records of Val's body weight, skinfold measurements, body fat %, weight-room performances, subjective feelings of recovery, and more. Further, every week we kept up on Val's appearance with the weekly photos she sent.

Our entire contest prep period was sailing along smoothly - until we hit a hiccup. (Cue suspenseful music.) During the last week before most physique competitions, it's customary to follow a glycogen depletion/reloading protocol designed to "fill out" the competitor's muscles so they look full and round on stage.

Well, since things were going so well and we knew Val could really come in lean, dry, and full, we decided to also employ a sodium/water load and depletion strategy. Here's how we planned this strategy out for the Friday competition:

* As you can see, when the carbs are low, the sodium and water intake are high. And as the carbs go up, the sodium and water intake drops. If this is done right, the competitor will show up at their contest with full muscles and very little sub-cutaneous water.

** Dandelion acts as a safe, mild diuretic.

Now, although this is a common strategy that works quite well in physique athletes, it's important to know two things. First, it doesn't work well for everyone. If there are a bunch of physique drugs or other X-factors in the mix, this strategy could backfire. So it's best to do a trial run with the strategy during the preparation period — something we didn't do this time around.

Secondly, during the 3 day carb depletion/water and sodium loading phase, the competitor will likely look bloated. Of course, this is transient and as the water and salt intake is dropped, the body will harden right up. Yet this can be quite disconcerting for competitors as they literally feel like they're getting smoother by the minute.

Val must have felt this as well, as evidenced by the email she sent us Tuesday night.

"I'm not sure what to think of this whole salt loading thing. I feel like a figure competitor trapped in the body of a salt water whale. I'm up 6 lbs and I've even taken pictures to show you what I mean. Is this normal or are we in trouble?"

After seeing the pictures, we knew this was normal and we weren't in trouble. Although she was looking pretty smooth during the sodium load. Check it out.

Val 1 week out — before the salt load

Val 3 days out — 6 lbs heavier and feeling like a "salt water whale"

NOTE: Of course, the lighting is different between shots but you can still see a big difference between the pre-salt shots and the "salty" shots. Heck, she gained 6 lbs during the sodium/water load.

Show-Time

Two days later I got an email from Val telling me that she "looked better by the minute" and "was as ripped as she'd ever been." We were pleased.

One day later, on March 2^nd, Val stepped onto the Arnold Classic Stage with style, beauty, and poise. And, after duking it out with the best of the best, the top 15 figure athletes in the world, Val brought home the 5th place award.

Always positive and grateful, Val was very pleased with her success as she brought the very best Val Waugaman to the competitive stage. Of course, winning the title would have been nice. And, according to many, including Flex Magazine, Val should have won the title.:

"As far as the Figure International, (Mary) Lado's victory was not unexpected, as she does bring a lean and beautiful physique to the stage - she had improved on her 2006 Olympia condition (she was fifth), but wasn't quite as strong as her 2006 International win. But all in all, for a sport still struggling for an identity and consistent judging criteria, it's hard to fathom rhyme or reason why one competitor edges another.

"Case in point: Valerie Waugaman, who finished fifth despite what probably was the strongest total package onstage. However, until a steady and repeatable criteria emerges, it'll be hard to decipher the results of figure competitions."

Yet, for Val, a motivator, businesswoman, and role model, her involvement in figure competition isn't just about winning. It's also about health, personal pride, personal growth, and inspiring others.

Val — 1 piece - Arnold Classic

Val — 1 piece - Arnold Classic

Val — 2 piece - Arnold Classic

Val — 2 piece - Arnold Classic

In the end, the Val Waugaman/Precision Nutrition Team accomplished what we set out to do — bring the best Val Waugaman ever to the competitive stage. And we're not letting up anytime soon. Val will be returning to the competitive stage at the Colorado Pro Show in June. And she's going to be hard to beat.

About Dr. Berardi

Dr. John Berardi is a renowned speaker, coach, and mentor to athletes and recreational exercisers around the world. He is a physiology and nutrition consultant to seven Olympic Teams and a number of NCAA and Professional sports Organizations. To find out more, visit www.precisionnutrition.com.

About Valerie Waugaman

In addition to being a successful figure athlete, Val is also the marketing director of Octane Café in Cleveland and director of Fit Mission. When speaking of her work with Fit Mission and Octane Cafe, Val tells us "I'm finally doing what I was born to do!" You can find out more information by visiting www.FitMission.com, and www.OctaneCafe.com.