Everyone works out at the Y — from kids to seniors. Even elite athletes can train for their big events at the Y. That was true for Leah Caruso, who recently placed at the NPC Ultimate Showdown in the figure division. She trained at the Lakeshore Y, where she is a member.
The contest, a physique competition, was Leah’s first of that kind, although she has been doing powerlifting for eight years. She trained seven days a week over four months for the event, which was in April. She also is the mom of a 6-year-old son, which meant the Lakeshore Y’s Child Watch allowed her to have a caring atmosphere for her son while she worked to achieve her goal. The staff’s encouragement helped a lot as well, she says. “I really needed that, to be around positive people,” she says. “I was coming in every day, and they were happy to see me and cared about me and how I was feeling.”
The Y had almost everything she needed to achieve the level of muscle development necessary to do well at the competition. She placed in the top 5 in her class and qualified to go on to national competitions. She also trained at a Powerhouse Gym, but much of her time was spent in the Wellness Center at the Y, lifting weights right alongside people who might never lift anything heavier than a 10-pound dumbbell. As for Leah, when she was competing in powerlifting her maximum deadlift was 330 pounds, her maximum bench press 135 and her maximum squat 240.
Training for the competition was grueling at times, she says. Not only were there the hours in the gym, but since the competition is about displaying a sculpted physique, she needed to burn fat to allow her muscles to show while at the same time keeping her body from eating away at her muscle mass. “There were days I wanted to think about giving up because when you are super hungry and you don’t get to eat, it kind of makes a woman crazy,” she says. She stuck to it, thought, and reached her goal. “I just tried to stay focused and believed in myself,” she says. “I always wanted to really see if I could do it — it’s really hard and not an easy sport.”
Her husband, who is also an elite weightlifter and acts as her trainer for weightlifting competitions, was really supportive of her efforts, she says. It was also exciting to see the change in the mirror as her training progressed — unlike other hardcore sports such as triathlon or marathoning where you don’t see yourself getting faster, Leah could actually see the changes in her body over time.
She’s relaxed her fitness routine somewhat now that the competition is over, spending an hour in the gym versus two or more when she was training. Her goal now is finding balance after the hard work of training for elite competition, something she’d encourage anyone with a fitness goal to do, she says. “Just try to find balance in all you do.”