👋 Hi! Tell us about yourself and your training
Hey there, friends! My name is Allison Vaeth and I am 28 years old. I am a Leo in all areas of my life! I am originally from Long Island, NY but my dad got a job transfer and I grew up in Indianapolis. I went to Indiana State University for exercise science and afterwards I moved to Indianapolis for about five years.
Finally, I had enough of the cold and moved to Tampa last year! Best decision EVER! I moved for the beach of course, but also to be closer to the fitness industry. Since Tampa is big on that, I decided to give it a go.
For work, I am a full-time online coach and personal trainer that focuses on lifestyle and prep. I go very deep into the mindset work and really enjoy helping clients reach their goals.
When I moved my boyfriend came with! We were high school sweethearts and have been together for over 11 years. It is pretty crazy! He is a manager at LA Fitness and I actually coach him!
About five years ago, I knew that I wanted to switch my life up and follow a passion of mine. I knew that that had something to do with fitness. After embarking on my fitness journey in 2015, I worked years to finally turn IFBB Pro back in 2018 at USA’s. Since then I have made top 5 a couple times and have competed in five pro shows all together. I am currently starting prep for the 2020 season.
Although I decided to start training for this in 15’, the transition wasn’t too hard because growing up I have been an athlete my whole life. Competition was in my blood. Growing up I ran and swam. I was a sprinter, and pretty good!
Besides fitness related hobbies and work, I started my very first book club for this year called ElevateU, which is a spin off of my very first training and mindset program I am working on. I started recording for YouTube last year and I really enjoy making videos. I have a series with my bestie Gina who is also a pro and we cover a lot of stuff about training and prep.
I also LOVE being outside and I go on walks often and to the beach for sunset as much as I can. I was a bartender for eight years, SO I like the nightlife sometimes. Raves in particular. I love going to raves.
I do not have current sponsors but working on getting some. I do work with a skincare company called Fre SkinCare and I love their products. Sponsor wise in the past, some reached out to me and vice versa.
I love the competition when it comes to bodybuilding. I love being able to shape my body and mind to become the strongest version of myself. I LOVE having a platform where I can spread my message and word to those I can help.
I also love the community that revolves around fitness. It is amazing how many like minded people there are and how well I have connected with so many other pros and just people who love the grind of life.
⏱ Describe a typical day of training
So when it comes to training, I normally stay in the hypertrophy range and just play with progressive overload. I don’t do as much strength work as I used to back in the day because bikini wants us to remain smaller and my body doesn’t recover like it used to. It gets inflamed easily.
My training split is so dependent on what part of the season I am in. Right now, I am just starting a prep and I am lifting 6x a week with fasted sessions. I am on a pushpull legs right now.
My sessions once again depending on cardio are long due to warm up, stretches, rolling, the lifts, then cardio and more cool down work. Sometimes I do sauna and hydro-massage. I have seen major gains following a push pull legs split. Just make sure you target the areas that need the most work.
When it comes to off-season, decreasing your cardio and increasing your food by about 250 to 500 calories surplus is exactly where you want to be. You also want to ensure you have time. From experience, when I didn’t allow at least six months to rest, my results were not the best because I am natural.
On the other hand, when it comes to fat loss, adding in more cardio, HIIT, and workouts like plyometrics, metabolic, tabata, etc. will help you sharpen up and burn more calories.
Currently, I train at crunch and sometimes I go to powerhouse. I love where I train because the people there are super supportive of my journey. I normally train alone but sometimes I get to train with my boyfriend and my friends.
When it comes to pre training, I make sure I get in my pre meal. Normally a balanced meal is heavier on fats and carbs than my other meals. I am also a pre workout junkie. To warm up, I walk, roll, and do mobility stretches.
I bring with me my backpack that has my belt, waist trainer, many bands, my neck roll, BCAA, gum! Headphones, and my workout log book with a pen.
Right now for cardio, I am doing 20 minutes fasted 5x/week and 20 minutes post both on MISS on the incline treadmill.
👊 How do you keep going and push harder?
I train hard by taking rest days when I need them.
Well, to be good at a sport, or anything, you cannot let excuses run your world. So adopt the no excuses mentality. I find that planning out your week and days beforehand play a HUGE roll in this.
I train hard by taking rest days when I need them. I see a chiropractor weekly, and massage therapist 1-2 a month and focus on great warm ups and cool downs. I also do yoga 1x/week.
I would stay that if you want to see improvements at the gym, you MUST record your weight and push for more when you are feeling strong and of course focus on nutrition.
This sport does take a LOT of my time up but my family understands now that this is my career and life.. at first, that was NOT the case. You have to make a commitment to yourself and hold it.
I find that not cutting out any social events unless they will negatively affect my career is very important. I found that if you start giving up the things you love, you will start having many more issues when you get off of prep.
The balance between life and the sport should be even and when you are home you should be home —meaning when you are with friends and family, that is what that time should be for and that plays out in all areas of life.
🏆 How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
At the moment, I just started my prep for the 2020 IFBB competition season. I am focusing on a slow cut that will lead me into winning my first Pro show, which is the goal.
So my goals for the next five years revolves around qualifying and competing in the Arnold and Olympia and one day placing top 5 at one of those shows.
This year I will start competing to qualify for the 2020 Olympia season. If I don’t make it, I intend on competing through the Fall to qualify for the 2021 Olympia. Career wise, I hope to build up my lifestyle and competition prep company, AV Fitness to a larger scale.
Sharing my story and journey with my clients and followers through YouTube is also another goal and passion of mine. I currently run a monthly book club. I am just excited to see where my journey leads as I keep working on my mindset and my goals.
🤕 How do you recover, rest and handle injuries?
Listen to how your body feels all the time.
I can’t preach this enough: Listen to how your body feels all the time. I talked about this briefly before but I walk, roll, and stretch before every single workout. I also walk and stretch post lift. I add in yoga once a week and take rest days when I know I need them with one always scheduled in.
When I know that I am feeling off I will NOT push it. I also don’t overdo it on my lifting. I always focus on progressive overload but when I am feeling a little tired or sore, I do not push it. I also frequent the chiropractor and get massages once a week.
I put so much time into making sure I get good sleep. Eight to 10 hours is always a must and when I am prepping sometimes I take 30-minute to two-hour breaks for my mind and my back. It is almost like being able to press restart on the day with a new view and new energy.
Traveling and changing my schedule does affect me but I found that planning ahead and packing or shipping your meals makes all the difference. I make a point to let everyone know that I have to get certain things accomplished before I can spend time with them when it comes to my prepping and work.
🍎 How is your diet and what supplements do you use?
I follow IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros) during my off and improvement seasons but then I also use a meal plan set up and flexible dieting between a list of foods for my prep season. The closer I get to a show the more strict I become.
I am slightly sensitive to carbs so when I need to get lean and mean I do better on a modified bodybuilding Keto-style plan. Higher fats with lower carbs usually does the trick for me.
Right now, I eat five to six meals a day and eat whole foods for the majority of the meals. Right now, my macro split is about 165 P/ 170 C/ 40 F but that will be getting lower as I cut.
In social situations, as long as I am not in prep, I enjoy my time out. I love drinking and being out with friends. But in prep, I always bring my meals out and for certain occasions depending on how close I am to a show, I might have a cheat and a drink. Sometimes I will manipulate food for wine but I like eating more LOL.
Cheat meal wise, if I am out of season I try for it once a week and in season it depends on what my coach tells me to do! I do not stay stage-lean all year. My body naturally LOVES being about 135 lbs so anything below is hard for me to maintain without being super consistent.
When it comes to supplements, I use a lot of stuff but here is my regimen:
- AM: Glucosamine, multi vitamin, vit D, probiotic
- Meal: Two fish oil, cla, yohimbe, berberine
- PM: Calcium, magnesium, zinc, potassium, milk thistle.
I also use creatine, protein, and BCAA from Bowmar Nutrition when I need it. I utilize beta alanine and pre workout too. To add, I use BIOHM for my Probiotic, while everything else I normally get from Nutrishop.
👍 What has inspired and motivated you?
Everything will happen if you never stop.
I actually run my own book club so I have found a lot of inspiration in the books that we read. Some of the books on my list for the year are the Power of Now, relentless, grit, and many other self help books.
I love listening to podcasts, talking to my coaches, and surrounding myself with like-minded people. I am a huge EDM fan so I am usually listening to long live sets from bug festivals like Lost Lands and EDC.
I listen to Ben Pokulski, any fricella, Emily Hayden and crime junkies all the time! I also enjoy Dr Joe and Ed Mylett.
The best advice I can give is to never give up on your dreams. Everything will happen if you never stop. And that everything that you need is already inside of you. Meaning, if you can find who you are, that is all you need to be the best you can be.
I am obsessed with the mindset of the people in the podcasts that I listen to. I follow a lot of pros for their mindset.
✏️ Advice for other people who want to improve themselves?
I think that to change your life you must first change your mind. My program ElevateU embodies this in every way!
Well first, if you are wanting to compete, go listen to my Bedazzled Bikini Show with Ally and Gina. In this series, we cover the basics and things you must know and change to be successful in the bodybuilding world. But if I was new I would reach out to friends and coaches who are in the industry and start doing research on what next steps to take that follow your goals.
I think that experienced bodybuilders and people need to just remember that science and protocols are always changing and making sure you are aware of that is going to be very important for you as time goes on.
I really dislike when I see people leaving the weight on the rack or weights where they shouldn’t. So always have gym etiquette.
I think when it comes to people in the gym, I don’t know their training style or plan so I can’t really judge what I see. I think that anything that can cause injury should be changed. Also, people shouldn’t lift too heavy.
🤝 Are you taking on clients right now?
I am currently taking on clients. I run my online coaching business and also do some in-person training and meet ups . I LOVE lifestyle and prep for different reasons but I am currently accepting new clients in both categories at the moment. I focus a bunch on mindset.
I believe that normal plans for the average person are just a bandage and don’t dig deep enough to make lasting changes. I am determined to change that. I just finished creating my baby, my new program ElevateU. (I’ll explain more) I essentially help clients open the gates of their mind to explore their truth!
📝 Where can we learn more about you?
I have a website with free helpful information at allyvaeth.com. I also use Instagram as my main social platform and my name is @allyvaethfit and I also use YouTube and my name is Allison Vaeth. I use this platform for vlogging, updates, book club, and more!
