Profile: Catherine Carver, Fitness Model

Caileen Weitz

The muscular arms, evident under 22-year-old Catherine Carver’s green long-sleeved shirt, are a result of rigorous weight training and being a figure and fitness model.

Figure and fitness is part of the International Federation of Body Building and Fitness. It was created after body building with the hopes of generating more interest in the fitness industry.

“There were females who were more feminine, less muscular, and just sort of more of what the general public wanted to see,” says Carver, explaining why people were attracted to the event.

The competitions for figure and fitness are very similar. Carver competed in a figure competition which consists of two swimsuit rounds in a morning and evening show. For each round, the participants pose on a stage and complete four, quartered turns to the right.

“You have your front lat pose,” says Carver, ” your side pose, turn to the back, your back lat spread and then you turn once again to the right, your side pose and then back to the front.”

For the first round, a participant’s swimsuit must be a plain black two-piece. The swimsuit for the second round is usually a full-suit and can be any colour.

This is the morning show and is followed by a short break before the evening show.

“You have two swimsuit rounds again,” says Carver, explaining the evening show. “But your two piece this time came be coloured and you can wear tons of jewelry.”

Fitness competitions only have one swimsuit round in the evening show and each participant must have a short fitness routine.

“You have a certain requirement of strength poses, flexibility poses, and certain poses which show off your muscularity,” says Carver. “Then [you] incorporate it into something entertaining to watch.”

Carver says she did not become interested in body building until after graduating from high school.

“I had been active for most of my life and when I left high school I kind of went through a period where I wasn’t very active,” says Carver. “I wanted to get back to the gym and to get back in shape.”

She began training with a friend who used to body build and then started researching figure and fitness.

“I just kind of fell in love with the training,” Carver says with a shrug.

She moved to Vancouver to study graphic design and signed up at a gym where she saw a poster of a woman offering help preparing for a figure and fitness show.

“She helps with your training, your nutrition, your dieting going into a show, what your suit should look like, proper fitting, proper shoes and how to do the poses,” Carver says.

Carver participated in the Sandra Wickham Fall Classic, her first figure competition, in 2007 and says she “really loved it.”

Being involved in such a demanding sport has had an impact on her life, she says.

“It’s sorta a life-style change; the way you eat, your priorities in life, everything’s just sorta changes,” says Carver.

She says that she had trouble going out with friends because of her strict diet. Carver says that three weeks before a competition she was only eating 1600-1700 calories a day.

“It got the point, when I was dieting, that I couldn’t sit in movie theatres,” Carver says. “All you can hear is everyone eating popcorn and you can’t eat popcorn; I found it too distracting.”

Not only did she have to deal with the personal struggles of her sport, but Carver says she also encountered negative attitudes towards women who body build.

“There’s a definite stigma attached to women who weight train,” Carver says. “A few guys think it’s sexy that a girl is strong, but most think it’s gross and that girls should only go to the gym to lift girly weights and ‘look nice’.”

Carver says that she is not embarrassed when people ask her about her sport.

“I like it when I guy asks me how much I can bench and I can out bench him. It just makes me feel good,” she jokes.

She says she refuses to let negative attitudes dissuade her from weight training.

“I enjoy it and it’s my thing,” she says. “It’s like any other sport that you’re dedicated to one hundred per cent and it doesn’t really matter what other people think of you.”