September 1, 2003

Inside Chantal Dicaire’s Amazing Six-Month Fitness Transformation: Part One, Starting Out

In January, Chantal was a girl with a goal: she wanted to win a national-level fitness title. It certainly wasn’t an unreasonable goal, given that she had won the Quebec Championships in 1999 and had been competing at the national level ever since.

In July, Chantal didn’t just achieve her goal, she achieved more. She won her class at the CBBF National World Qualifier, one of her dreams, and she won the Overall title, too -- something she never expected. Now she is Canada’s top-ranked amateur competitor, and she will be representing the country at the IFBB World Fitness Championships in September in Spain. Despite the fact that she had been on the national scene for a few years, her transformation in 2003 was remarkable. The question many asked was, not surprisingly, How did she do it?

This series of articles will give you the inside scoop on how Chantal made her amazing makeover from an also-ran competitor in 2002 to the top of Canada’s fitness mountain in 2003. I worked side-by-side with Chantal from January to July, and I can tell you that she made more improvements to her physique and presentation in 2003 than she had done in the two previous years. In 2003, Chantal became a polished-and-precise package whom people couldn’t help but watch and applaud. Here’s how Chantal did it.

Although I’ve known Chantal as a competitor for several years, this is the first year that I worked closely with her. It started in January, when I met with her and her boyfriend, Francois Samure, in Ottawa, and over the course of our conversation the mission for 2003 became clear: Chantal was keen to improve on her condition from the 2002 season, and she hoped by doing so she could claim a national-level title in 2003. Was it possible? Certainly.

I had watched Chantal compete for years and I knew all along that she had the potential to at least win her class at either of the top Canadian fitness shows, the CBBF Canadian Fitness Championships or the CBBF National World Qualifier, and maybe even win the Overall title, too. Winning, though, would take more than just improving her conditioning. I felt that in order for Chantal to win she would have to "reinvent" herself for 2003 -- I wanted the other competitors, the audience, and, most of all, the judges to see an entirely new Chantal compared to 2002. To accomplish this would mean dropping almost everything that had been done in the past and starting afresh. Given that it was only January, there was plenty of time to do it.

During that same conversation, we also talked about one of the dirty little words in physique-type competition: drugs. Chantal was serious about winning, and ready to commit herself fully to doing so for the next six months, but in the past when I’d encountered some competitors with similar drive, they were willing to do almost anything to get there -- including using drugs that might improve their muscles, but might also result in serious and damaging side effects. Of course, I’m talking about steroids.

Chantal was different. She was committed to winning a top title by doing everything possible, but that didn’t mean using drugs -- and that’s an important fact that anyone who wants to learn how Chantal made her progress this year should know. Chantal has been a lifetime drug-free competitor, and did not use drugs in 2003 to achieve her amazing condition. Steroids, despite their ability to build muscle that every physique competitor so desperately wants, are simply not part of Chantal’s game plan. Yes, she would like that extra muscle, but no, she doesn’t want the risks that come with it. What Chantal accomplished in 2003 was natural, and as a result, realistic for anyone else who has the same kind of determination to achieve.

When I heard Chantal say that she was committed to being natural, I was relieved. I never try to force a competitor one way or the other, letting them make their own decisions, but still, I have my own thoughts on the subject. Personally, I feel that drugs have no business in the sport of fitness. Fitness competitors just don’t need them if they know what they are doing with proper training and diet. In fact, steroids can be detrimental. Yes, a hindrance to winning. So, I believed that Chantal’s commitment to being natural would make it easier for her to achieve her goal of winning a national-level title. Surprising? Not really. There are two reasons why.

First, the sport of fitness is a combination of physique and routine. Most competitors, if they do take drugs, don’t do it to improve their routines; they take the drugs to improve their physique. However, these same drugs have severe side effects that happen inside and outside the body. For the sake of this article, we will forget the problems that can happen inside a competitor’s body. If a competitor develops internal problems, they’ll likely be spending a whole lot of time at the doctor’s office, or worse, at a hospital. Outside the body, though, while the increased muscle mass is apparent, so too are the masculine features that often come with steroid use: the jaw becomes squarer, the skin gets harder, acne often develops, and the face tends to take on a more male-like appearance. There’s more. In severe cases, a women’s hair can start to fall out -- simply male-pattern baldness replicated in a woman -- or the hair becomes stringy, stiff, and thin. A deepening of the voice is also quite common.

Steroids are simply various forms of testosterone, and testosterone is the key hormone that makes a man a man. When a woman takes these drugs, the effect on her is that she becomes more like a man. It’s that simple. A fitness competitor who thinks that side effects can only happen to other people is kidding herself. They happen often -- to well-meaning people who least expect it -- and these are the things the audience and the judges see. Most will agree that these male-like side effects look horrible on women.

One key to Chantal’s past success is that she’s a beautiful woman with feminine features that judges like. The fact that judges at fitness competitions take femininity into account, and favor it, is important. If she did take drugs, she would most certainly lose some, if not all, of her desirable feminine traits, and that would hurt her in her placing at contests. Would the increase in muscle mass be worth it then? I don’t believe so. She would be gaining one thing, but giving up a whole lot in other ways.

Still, the game plan was for Chantal to show up on the stage with muscle -- real muscle -- but still look feminine from head to toe. If you know what you are doing, that can be accomplished naturally. Before we had met, Chantal had recruited a new trainer for the 2003 season, Thomas Fernandez (a 2000 and 2002 Canadian bodybuilding champion), who also believed that Chantal certainly didn’t need any drugs. The two of them had been working steadily on a new diet and training program that would increase her muscle mass, but more importantly, get her far more defined come contest time -- naturally.

Second, competing completely naturally would mean that Chantal could compete in two Canadian national-level fitness events, and that can be a tremendous advantage for any competitor. Although Chantal would obviously like to win the CBBF Canadian Fitness Championships, the National World Qualifier is more important to her because this is the one that qualifies competitors for the IFBB World Fitness Championships. Besides the prestige of representing Canada, the 2003 event is being held in beautiful Santa Susana, Spain. Who wouldn’t want an all-expense-paid trip there?

A lot of competitors only think about "professional" status, but for many athletes the "amateur" competition route can be the far more rewarding of the two -- ask any competitor who has been to the Worlds and you’ll know why. Chantal knows because she represented Canada in 2002 at the Worlds in Czechoslovakia. To get there, though, you must be drug-free. The CBBF National World Qualifier is drug tested by the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sports -- Canada’s government-recognized organization for conducting sports-related drug testing. Any drug-using competitor who goes to the Qualifier risks getting disqualified from all competitions -- tested and non-tested. Chantal’s natural approach, though, meant she could compete in both Canadian national-level events in 2003.

So, in January Chantal’s sights were firmly fixed on the CBBF National World Qualifier, which was held July 5th in Hamilton, but that did not mean that the CBBF Canadian Fitness Championships in Edmonton on May 24th were unimportant. Both contests simply became part of the overall plan. The Edmonton competition allowed Chantal to compete head-to-head with Canada’s best for a national title, and it also allowed her to fine-tune her contest preparation for the National World Qualifier -- a huge benefit for Chantal, as you’ll find out in the next parts of this series. Stayed tuned!

...Doug Schneider
das@seriousaboutfitness.com

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