To create a solid structure you need a strong foundation.
For bodybuilder Cassie Keeping, her lifelong construction project started the day her parents in Prince George signed her up for gymnastics - the first in a long line of sports activities that got her muscles in motion.
That led to success as a college track star, set her on a career path as a personal trainer, and opened the door for Keeping's stunning debut on the bodybuilding stage last weekend in Vancouver.
At the Popeye's Fall Classic, the 27-year-old Keeping captured the bikini class, the entry-level amateur class of bodybuilding, wowing the judges with her powerful legs, lean torso and uniform muscle distribution to stand out among a crowd of 100 other women in the bikini division.
"My athletic background set me up perfectly to go into the show, I've already kind of been training my entire life and living with some restrictions with food," said Keeping. "I owe a lot of my athletic ability to gymnastics because it built such a strong base growing up.
"A lot of the girls at the amateur show didn't have the muscle mass or muscle maturity and just because I've been in the weight room and getting stronger since I was 17, I have 10 years of lifting and building my muscles up. Some of the girls on the amateur stage have only been working out for a year or two."
Amy Rasmussen of Prince George, a 22-year-old College of New Caledonia kinesiology student, also posted exceptional results on the amateur stage, finishing fifth in her bikini class.
Competitors are asked to perform five different quarter-turn poses on stage and judges make their decisions in the morning show. The night show is for the audience and with more than 400 bodybuilders entered, Keeping had to wait until 12:30 a.m. to get on stage.
"It was a long day and it was hard to stay motivated," she said. "It was really unfamiliar stepping out on that stage, I've never had to something for esthetic reasons, it was completely out of my comfort zone. It didn't feel that great but I looked at the videos and it looked a lot better than it felt."
Keeping won the bikini F class, for women who stand taller than five-foot-seven, after almost having to drop down to shorter class. She thought she was five-foot-eight but discovered during the weigh-ins for the competition she was only five-foot-7 1/4, barely tall enough for the F category.
"You do actually shrink a little bit when your body is really depleted," she said.
Judges award points based on balance and shape of each competitor and also consider overall appearance, including complexion, skin tone, poise and presentation. All competitors in the bikini class must wear approved two-piece suits and high heels.
Keeping took up bodybuilding as a personal challenge and didn't make the call to enter the event until she began working with her coach Cara Roberts, who owns Active Body Nutrition. Because of her athletic background, Keeping was able to get herself ready for the show just 11 weeks after she made the decision to compete. That's at least a month shorter than the usual time bodybuilders require to get ready for the stage. To achieve that lean look judges seek, it takes strict adherence to a controlled diet of mostly fish, chicken and a lot of vegetables, with virtually no sweets for several months.
"There's a certain amount of food you have to eat every day and every day I was eating six meals," she said. "Once a week I would get a re-feed day and I would have a burger and fries and Dairy Queen (dessert). I had avocado for fat and a little bit of peanut butter."
Reece's Pieces, her favourite chocolate treat, was definitely off the allowed diet list and it was hard for her to resist Halloween treats, but she had a bag of chocolate with her for the drive home to Prince George after the competition and indulged her craving as a reward for all her hard work.
"Before I went on the stage in the morning show I was able to eat my favourite chocolate bar to get more of a pump and more of a rush into my muscles and I did the same thing before the night show, so I was quite happy about that," she said.
Keeping, a Prince George secondary school graduate in 2007, was with the Prince George Gymnastics Club from the time she was three until she turned 16. She joined the Prince George Track and Field Club in her Grade 11 year and focused on sprinting, which led to a university scholarship at Simon Fraser University, where she branched into hurdling and long jumping.
After a year at SFU she transferred to Sienna Heights University, an NAIA athletics program in Adrian, Mich. In 4 1/2 years at Sienna Heights from 2009-2013, while earning a degree in criminal justice, Keeping was a seven-time All-American who made the Dean's List every semester, graduating with a Magna Cum Laude distinction.
She qualified for the NAIA nationals championships, indoors and outdoors, in each of her five years at university and is now enrolled in an online program to become a certified personal trainer.
Keeping is flying to Perth, Australia on Monday, where she intends to live and train for the next year. She plans to return to Canada in July for the B.C. Amateur Bodybuilding Association provincial competition in Vancouver. Encouraged by her Popeye's result. she plans to move up to the figure class, the next bodybuilding division, which will require more muscle mass, especially her back (lats).
"I'm pretty much addicted to the challenge now," she said. "It really keeps me motivated when I have a training goal. I almost feel like I need it to stay on track."
