20 Questions with Serena Cooper

I am a driven individual who dedicates not only my personal but professional life to living and promoting a healthy lifestyle.

I am very close to my family members. My parents are still very happily married and are the best parents I could ever wish for; they are very supportive and even come to my competitions to cheer me on. I have a brother and sister, both of whom have two children each whom I love dearly. I would have to say when it comes to friends it's all about quality not quantity. I surround myself with loving, supportive, honest friends and family who I can rely on.

I have competed in bodybuilding, fitness, and figure in the past. However, I found I excelled the most in figure and have never looked back.

I believe that if you are going to put months of dedication towards training and diet for a show you should be coming in looking hard and different from how you normally look off-season.

I find because figure is still fairly new in the whole competition world, setting common standards of what judges are looking for is still yet to be established. When I compete, I come in conditioned to what I feel a figure competitor should look like and hope that it is what the judges are looking for in that competition.

I have worked hard this year to decrease my muscle mass for this year's pro show because Canadian judges seem to look for more muscular physiques.

I change up my program once a month to keep my body going through different phases. The program I am on right now is a leaning out phase. I superset my body parts. For larger muscle groups (like chest and legs), I perform 20 reps. For smaller groups (like arms), I perform 15 reps. I do 4 sets for each group, getting in 3-4 groups of supersets. I don’t do any cardio before a show to maintain muscle mass.

Here is a breakdown of the last 4 days pre-contest (approx 1900 calories/day split into 5-6 meals):

• Wed/Thurs: Cream of wheat or oatmeal, Chicken or tilapia, 1 scoop of whey, Green veggies, Potatoes or rice, Rice cakes.
• Fri (Evening show): Cream of wheat or oatmeal, Chicken or tilapia, Potato or yam, Rice cakes (natural peanut butter and jam before show).
• Sat (Day show): Same as Fri but no peanut butter and jam with the rice cakes.

• 5th day prior: 10-12 liters
• 4th day prior: 8-10 liters
• 3rd day prior: 6-8 liters
• 2nd day prior: 2-3 liters
• Day of: Sip spring water (replace output)

I am a very driven person who likes to challenge myself mentally and physically and I find competing is a perfect outlet for this. I would have to say female-wise Monica Brant is a competitor I look up to because I see her as the female founder of femininity and muscularity combined, and she is still involved in the industry to this day.

Since I turned pro in 2006 it has opened the opportunity of travelling more. I competed in NYC last and loved it; it was a lifetime goal to visit NY.

I am generally very happy about how things are run in the competition world. However, one thing I would love to see different is more consistency across the world of what judges are looking for in competitors.

I would have to say the hardest thing I have had to deal with was at Nationals in 2006. When I was awarded my pro card there was an incorrect tallying of the scores and confusion of placement. It was very embarrassing for me but what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Yes I did. I always hire a professional to diet me for my shows, just to avoid any second guessing on my part. I dieted through Helen Bouchard for my first pro show and I found dieting with her was an easy process because it was a smooth transition from how I eat off season.

The judging is so different from Canada to the USA. I also found having the show spread over two days difficult to peak twice and it is a lot of extra prep and stress on the body and mind.

I am single so my home life is perfect for dieting; I have no temptation around me. When I am out with friends and family they are very supportive so they make what I can eat or I bring my own food.

I was raised in a very loving and well-structured home where I always felt very safe. We grew up with not a lot of money so my parents taught us at a young age how to manage our own money and how to save, which is a strong foundation that I build off of to this day.

I played a lot of sports growing up: track, volleyball, badminton, basketball, ball hockey, and rugby. It wasn’t until my first fitness competition that I took up gymnastics.

• 4:00 AM: Wake up, eat, get ready for work
• 5:00 AM - 12:00 PM: Train clients
• 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM: Cat nap and eat
• 3:00 PM: Personal workout
• 4:00 PM - 8:00 PM: Train clients
• 10:00 PM: Bed

This is my routine 5 days per week. On weekends I run a boot camp class for an hour (Saturday from March–October) and the rest of the weekend I enjoy doing fun things with friends and family.

I run my own business, “Serena’s Evolution of Fitness & Nutrition”, founded June 2009. I train people out of different located gyms for one-hour training sessions. I also give nutritional advice and guidance to clients. I LOVE what I do as a career!