Family Wellness Trainer Tami Sauer Succeeds in Competition!

Tami Sauer, a trainer here at Family Wellness, competed in the 2017 NPC North Star Bodybuilding, Physique, Figure & Bikini Competition, hosted at the Ames Center in Burnsville, MN on October 7th. This was her second ever competition (her first one was in 2014).

Results
Over 35 Division: 4th Place
Over 40 Division: 1st Place
Any Age 5’5” and Up: 2nd Place

The Why
Competing has always been a bucket list item for Tami. When she was younger, women lifting weights was not commonplace. Without the help of a trainer or coach, she would find pictures of weightlifters in magazines, cut them out and teach herself how to do certain lifts to imitate those looks. In 2014, she got her first chance to compete. She did extremely well and qualified for Nationals. However, during her training, she started to lose the use of her right arm. Through therapy and training, she was able to get to 80% use of her arm, but still wasn’t feeling right. After numerous tests and thinking she would need cervical disc surgery, she went to the Mayo Clinic where they found a non-cancerous bone tumor in her neck. Through a lot of work and missing out on Nationals, she was able to recover from these setbacks and get back into competition again this year.

Training
She started the process of training for the 2017 NPC North Star 25 weeks out with the help of her Competition Coach, Wade Gronwald. She worked on her figure by adding muscle and restricted her food as the training increased. She was cleared to lift and her goal was to keep her muscle mass and lose her body fat. At the height of her training, she did 75 minutes of high intensity cardio a day. She also hired a Posing Coach, Promoter Christine Bongiovanni, to help her with her stage presence. While the diet she was on was not sustainable, she has learned many techniques that she applies to her clients that want to get healthy for general reasons.

Competition
Competition starts with prep and check in the night before. She went to the host hotel, received her first spray tan, had her height measured, received another spray tan and was able to eat a small portion of food. The next morning, she woke up at 3:45am for hair and makeup and another spray tan. After arriving at the venue, she had pre-judging, which is the first time you are on stage. You present as a group, then as an individual. The judges will then do a comparison round. Most of your scores and places are determined during this portion of the competition, though there can be some changes. When pre-judging is complete, you get prepped for the night show, where the fun happens. You have individual posing and then places are announced.

Tami said her favorite part was the entire experience. She loved getting to know all the women competing with her and seeing her body change. Though she said her legs were the toughest part, she has really started to see them progress in the last few weeks, even though the competition is over. Right now, she is training for another competition that is taking place this weekend in Fargo. Great job Tami! You are a rockstar!

About the competition: At the 2017 NPC North Star, local amateur athletes took to the stage to compete within their divisions: Bodybuilding, Classic Physique, Men’s Physique, Women’s Physique, Figure and Bikini. During the morning pre-judging show, athletes were compared and judged within their classes. At finals that evening, the real fun begins! Athletes were introduced in their classes and the top five were awarded. Class winners within each division came back out to battle it out for the overall title.

Finals featured guest performances by IFBB Classic Physique Pro Jerome Dinh, IFBB Bikini Pro Isha Barrow and 2016 NPC North Star Bodybuilding Overall Champion Chris McGillivray.