8 weeks ago this walked in my door. Inga Schlingmann came to me as a very driven competitor with a very specific goal in mind: A crown and a scholarship from the Miss NY pageant. Someone looking for the pinnacle of aesthetic goals, the pageant queen body, found her way to me, one of the loudest voices against aesthetic based training that you’ll ever hear.

I told her she was going to be a case study. I told her through careful, systematically progressed application of athletic performance based training I would get her to where she wanted to be. She looked at me skeptically, at first.

I told her we were going to stand her on her feet, turn our backs on machines and modalities that are supposed to break the body down into disparate parts and that we would do things she’s been told are contraindicated and just plain crazy for people chasing goals such as hers. She said she trusted me.

I told her that through timed speed rounds and cumulative load goals the aesthetics were going to become secondary, a byproduct of her process. I told her to ignore the mat pilates and lettuce leaf diets the other girls were following. I told her that for these 8 weeks, we’re not going to curl a single dumbbell or even look at the abduction machine, that you’re going to deadlift, clean, throw and otherwise move heavier loads in complex ways that conventional “bikini body” programs would deem ludicrous. She seemed a little nervous.

I told her that we were going to use kettlebells and power based movements that engaged her entire body and force it to work together as a single unit, that

her muscles were going to scream and she was going to swear to me I was making her legs HUGE!

She did. But she persevered.

8 weeks later this walked across the stage at the 2010 Miss New York Pageant in Albany.

Training like a sprinter, conditioning like a competitive contact sport athlete Inga walked away with a top 5 spot a scholarship and a pageant queen body.

But I’m just sayin.