They’re fast and furious and one of the most thrilling sights in sport. We’re talking about fitness contests and no-one in Britain is better at them than Liz Kinsella.

By John Plummer

Workout photos by Eric Guy

Contest photos by Tauseef Asri

If you think bodybuilders have it tough, imagine what it’s like having to go through all of that training and dieting and then have to fling yourself around the stage like an Olympic gymnast.

That’s precisely what Liz Kinsella, 31, has to do whenever she competes. Kinsella, who will be guest posing at the FLEX-organised UKBFF North-East Championships in West Yorkshire on September 10, is the reigning British fitness champion.
Her event is judged over two rounds: the first is a body round that assesses competitors in a similar way to a bodybuilding contest and in the second round each athlete performs a rocket-fuelled routine thatmakes Darrem Charles’ body popping look a little stale. So, in this sport having muscles isn’t enough – you’ve got to be able to use them too.
Only an elite few compete because only an elite few can. For most people, the demands of fitness are simply too great. A quick glance at Kinsella’s 20-week pre- contest schedule explains why. Each week she weight trains four times, does twice-daily cardio and practises her routine twice,’ which involves rehearsing moves such as
aerial cartwheels, back flips and handstand pirouettes. That amounts to between two-and-a-half to three hours training every day for about 140 days, which she fits in around a full-time job on a vegetarian diet.
“In fitness you have to do everything a bodybuilder does in the gym and then some more,” she says. “I don’t get any rest days because on my days off from training I have to practise my routine. Then when I compete I have to perform in a depleted state on a hard floor.” So how on earth did she get into all this?
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Kinsella first discovered she could do amazing things with her body when she took up gymnastics at the age of nine. She was a keen but not especially gifted competitor who eventually quit at 18. Back then she was a lean but light seven stone, nearly three stone less than she weighs today, but in the years after she stopped gymnastics she never exercised and suffered an eating disorder that sent her weight yo-yoing up and down. “At first I wasn’t eating enough then I started putting on weight,” she says.
Eventually a friend with a gym-toned body showed her there was a healthier alternative. She started playing with some weights and was soon a regular fixture down the gym. “I loved it straight away,” she says. “I felt in touch with my body again.” At first she got by on little more than enthusiasm – she didn’t know what she was doing or what to eat but the more she got into it the more she started taking it seriously and gains came rapidly.
One day a friend took her along to a bodybuilding contest, which included a fitness class for women. “I didn’t even know fitness contests existed,” she says. Impressed, she decided to have a go so she stepped up her training, brushed up on her girlhood gymnastic moves and entered her first competition at the UKBFF London and South-East Championships in 2004. Her good genetics and weight training had equipped her with a fantastic body while her gymnastics provided the foundation for a great routine.
She ended up going home with the winner’s trophy and went on to finish runner-up at the national finals in her debut season. The following year she returned to win with straight first place marks in both the physique and routine rounds. “With fitness contests you never know which way the judges will go so I didn’t believe I had won until I heard it announced,” she says.
After just two years in the sport, she had achieved her ambition. As British champion, she had two options: stay amateur and represent her country at the European and World Championships or turn professional and compete against the best fitness competitors in the world, such as Jen Hendershott and Adela Garcia. “I thought I might as well go the whole hog and turn pro,” she says. “It was a difficult decision. It costs $200 (approx. £110) just to have a pro card each year so it’s not something to hold unless you plan to use it. People think when you turn pro you can retire from work and get paid to train and compete but it’s not that glamorous.”
Sponsorship from liquidised egg whites company EggNation – particularly useful for a non-meat eater like Kinsella who relies heavily on egg whites for protein – and supplements company Muscle Finesses helps. Monster Gym in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, also lets her train for free so her food, protein and training are largely taken care of.
She has now set her sights on competing at the Dutch Grand Prix on October 8, a month after her guest performance at the FLEX-organised UKBFF North-East Championships at Pudsey Civic Hall in Pudsey, near Leeds on September 10.
Fellow IFBB pro Eddie Abbew, who is 20 stone of solid muscle, will also be guest posing. “I’m very excited about the chance to do a guest spot,” she says.
The step-up to the pro ranks means she now has to complete two routine rounds: the first involves performing six mandatory moves in one-minute and the second is a two-minute self-choreographed routine. “It is a heck of a long time for your body to perform aerobically,” she says. “It’s like being asked to sprint for two minutes.” Then there’s the small matter of a physique round to contend with as well.
With so much to contend with, it’s little wonder Kinsella isn’t thinking too long-term. “I don’t know how long I can do it for,” she says. “If the time comes when I can’t do back flips any more I might give figure contests a go. Right now I just want to get noticed.” Come along to our show to see her guest performance and we reckon you’ll notice her.
›› For more details of the contest, which is a qualifier for the UKBFF British Championships, see the advert in this issue., or check out the website: www.efbbnortheastchamps.co.uk
THE ROUTINE
To compete in fitness you have to build a lean and muscular physique and come up with a gravity-defying routine. It’s tough and takes time – on average between two to three hours every day.
When we caught up with Kinsella she had started her day with half an hour on the step machine she keeps at home followed by a 30-minute cycle journey to work, pushing the bike up a nasty hill for the final 10 minutes. By combining step machine, cycling and incline walking for early morning cardio she prevents her body from getting used to one particular form of fat burning.
But that early morning sweat session was just a third of her daily schedule. After work she went weight training then spent another 40 minutes on the treadmill. That’s a fairly typical day in the 20 weeks’ preparation she did leading up to her expected pro debut in October.
Her weight training sessions are, however, fairly brief, lasting only about 45 minutes. Perhaps not surprisingly for someone as fit as her, she doesn’t take long to recover between sets. “I only rest as long as it takes to change the weight,” she says. “Other people have trained with me and can’t keep up.”
Although she trains consistently she also trains instinctively, which means she doesn’t stick to a set routine for any period of time. This way she constantly shocks her muscles into growing. While her exercises may change, certain principles don’t: she trains one or two bodyparts per session, performing four exercises for large muscle groups such as chest and legs and three for smaller bodyparts like biceps. “On average I train every bodypart once a week but sometimes I do legs every five days because I want my hamstrings to grow,” she says.
“This week I’ve trained legs today, then I’m going to do chest and biceps, then back then shoulders and triceps. Next week I might train chest on its own and do biceps with back. If I did chest and biceps together every week I would go stale. There nothing worse than going to the gym and doing the same old routine with the same exercises week after week.”
She works in four sets of seven to nine repetitions and likes lifting heavy. She’s capable of bench pressing 80 kg for six repetitions at a bodyweight of 63 kg although right now she has to be careful not to overdo things: being too bulky could hamper her agility, which would hardly help her routine and could cost her marks in the body round, which penalises women for over-muscularity. Besides, at her level it’s more about refining certain areas than getting bigger.
“ It’s nice not to have to worry about putting on size,” she says. “I used to deadlift all the time but now I only do it every three or four weeks because I don’t want my traps to get any bigger.” Hamstrings are the one bodypart she wants to grow. “My quads are already there but I need to bring up my hamstrings to balance them out,” she says.
On the evenings when she isn’t lifting Kinsella spends about an hour practising her routine, alone. “There’s no point having a gymnastics coach because I am training for fitness contests not gymnastics, so I have to do some of the moves differently,” she says. “I need to do back flips in a way that protects my back when I land on a hard floor, for instance.”
Most of her hour is spent warming up and going through specific elements of her routine. “I only actually practise my whole routine four or five times because I can’t do it more than that,” she says. “It’s too exhausting.” Now she’s a pro she also has to prepare for an additional one-minute routine round in which she has to execute six compulsory moves including one- arm push-ups, a straddle hold and full side-splits.
For the second two-minute round she choreographs her own routine to music, wearing whatever she likes. It’s freestyle but each competitor is expected to show gymnastic ability, strength, flexibility and co-ordination. Most are usually good at one of those elements; only the best master the lot. Nothing beats gymnastics training but women who are proficient at dance or martial arts could also do well.
Then there’s the diet. Being a vegetarian limits Kinsella’s sources of muscle-boosting protein but she’s keen on tofu as well as, of course, eggs. In the past she has bulked up quite a bit in the off-season but all that’s going to change now that she’s a pro. “I feel more of a responsibility to look the part,” she says. “I want to stay reasonably lean all year round.” M&F