A mum who began working out in the gym after having twins is now one of the best bikini bodybuilders in the UK.
Super-fit Helen Johnson finds the time to train 33 hours a week - while working and raising her three children. The 37-year-old, from Sunderland, achieved her personal training qualification during the coronavirus lockdown and is now taking part in bodybuilding competitions.
Helen, who works as a school councillor, won her category at a competition held by the bodybuilding authority IBFA UK and the British Finals. She has now been invited to attend the World Finals in Rome in November.
The mum-of-three said: "When you think of people on stage in a bikini you think of really confident girls but it couldn't be further from the truth. The majority of the girls I meet are in similar situations to me, they're in their thirties or forties with kids - it's women in the same situation with the same ambitions."
"It's a constant thing, I train every day - I weight train for two hours a day five days a week, I do half an hour of cardio everyday, and I get at least ten thousand steps a day which is an hour of walking.
"Then you have to spend the time prepping all your meals which takes me three hours on a Sunday and three hours on a Wednesday. I also practice my posing routine for half an hour a day and first thing in the morning I get up early, put my bikini on, and go through my routine which takes twenty minutes a day - it's like a full-time job."
Helen felt she had put on weight after her twins were born in 2014 and decided to join her local CrossFit gym. She quickly realised how much she enjoyed the lifestyle. She said: "I joined a CrossFit gym locally, started doing that and absolutely loved it – I got a real bug for it, made loads of friends and it became part of my life."
When the Covid-19 lockdown hit, Helen decided to take it one step further by acquiring her personal training qualifications. She soon began gaining her own personal training clients and realised a lot of them were looking to change how their bodies looked through weightlifting.
Helen said: "In 2020, when we locked down, I was working from home and had a lot of free time and the gym started to offer personal training qualifications – I decided I would sign up and do my personal training qualifications from home.
"I started taking on personal training clients and was finding more of the people that were coming in were waiting to change their body through weight lifting and things like that."
By the end of 2021, she was ready for a new challenge and decided to enter a bodybuilding competition. She took part in her first contest on May 29, 2022, giving herself 20 weeks to prepare – and came fourth place in the over-35s category.
Helen said: "At the end of last year, I decided I needed a new challenge and decided to enter a bodybuilding competition myself – I learnt from the pros and knew if I was doing the diet and workout programs for myself I would learn from them. Preparing for these competitions is personal to me because everyone’s body if different, when you’re preparing for a show it’s a lot different to being on a diet to lose weight.
"You’re trying to get your body fat as low as possible without losing any muscle – you have to constantly adjust your workout routines and calorie intake. I entered an ECA bodybuilding competition for May 29 and gave myself twenty weeks to prepare and came fourth place in the over thirty-five bikini category."
Helen made the decision to enter another competition a week later run by the bodybuilding authority IBFA UK and to her amazement won – earning her a place at the British Finals the following week, where she won her category.
Helen said: "A friend of mine said there was another competition on in Gateshead run by the IBFA, a different bodybuilding federation, and suggested I enter it as I’d done all this hard work.
"I did it and ended up winning my category and getting an invite to the British Finals the following week – I hadn’t expected anything and even when I won, I didn’t know I was going to get invited to the British Finals. I entered that and ended up winning my category again – and then got invited to the World Finals in Rome in November."
Helen is now considering whether to go or not to attend the World Finals later this year. She said: "I haven’t decided if I’m going to go or not yet - I don’t want to peak too soon now that I’ve started so I’m weighing up my options, do I continue and do it and then take a year off or do I go into an off season and get better for next year."
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