👋 Hi! Tell us about yourself and your training
Hello! My name is Keri Ann Heitzman, NCBTMB, LMT, CFT, IFBB Pro, and I am 37 earth years old. I am a positive vibration in this world with a modern body, an old soul, and a futuristic mind. I believe the mind is the strongest muscle in the body and we are limitless spiritual beings having a human experience.
I stand to educate and empower individuals to create the life they want to live through personal training, mindset coaching, massage therapy, and nutrition. I enjoy public speaking events and working with the youth in our community.
Sports have been a big part of my life, bowling, football, softball, basketball and fast cars. Street bikes, sand toys, snowboarding, and time with family and friends are a few things I am passionate about.
I’m from the 7th dimension and live here on planet earth. I own a wellness practice in pacific northwest as a facilitator of self health through educating people to take control of their mind, body, and soul.
I’m fully sponsored by my work ethic, dedication, and commitment to what I love. Working with a sponsor has not been my focus as I like to do things on my terms.
It is important for me to stay in alignment with my bigger picture in life and not just on the stage. I am open to working with the right sponsor when the time is right.
⏱ Describe a typical day of training
Weight training consists of five to six days a week and six to seven days of cardio depending on where I am at in life and or prep.
Mental preparation is a huge part of my daily training. I start my day off with projecting my daily tasks and visualize how they will all get done. My daily splits are based around my work and travel schedule, however, fasted cardio gets my day started and my mind focused.
I usually train alone unless I am being coached. I tend to hit every muscle group every four days with one day off and repeat. The mission for training is to reach a level of exhaustion that creates muscle confusion.
I don’t have the typical set and rep range as I believe everyday there are many factors that play into your workouts and I set myself up for success.
My mission is to always work harder as well as smarter. This doesn’t mean I don’t have a daily goal on my lifts, it just means I mix my style of training up from high volume, to heavy weights, to pause principles, as well as positive and negative focused contractions.
So, however, I will get the best workout for the day is how I train. Weight training consists of five to six days a week and six to seven days of cardio depending on where I am at in life and or prep.
I also train one to two days a week on Muay Thai. Off-season bulking is more of a time to relax and be mindful of my food, and allow my body to rest and recover from I higher protein intake, I am not the biggest fan of meats.
I believe the body has a healthy weight it likes to maintain and that is where I keep myself in the “off-season”. Healthy weight meaning whatever the weight may be for my female hormones to balance out and my menstruation cycles back to normal. There is no trick to prep, or weight loss, it is hard work no matter how you slice it.
I work and train at a private training studio called PDX Muscle. What I enjoy most about PDX muscle is the vibe and feeling when I train, as well as my clients see I walk the walk that I talk. We get to support, suffer, and inspire each other every day.
👊 How do you keep going and push harder?
The true understanding of living in the moment keeps me going and pushing harder.
The true understanding of living in the moment keeps me going and pushing harder. Experiencing death and tragedies have a way of reminding me just how precious life really is and how every moment you are given is on borrowed time.
The time we are giving on this earth to make a positive impact is limited and is not something that works on our own timeline. So everyday is a blessing and I’m going to live in the present like life is a gift.
My first year as a pro athlete presented some of my biggest challenges in life and in my career. I was in a car accident after doing my first pro show and three weeks before my second. My body fat was pretty low at this point, and my food was relatively restricted, which made my recovery a little longer than normal.
I was faced with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and a torn shoulder to which I choose to not have surgery on the shoulder, and work on healing it myself mentally from the inside out as well as recover from a brain injury to where I lost all short term memory for a good nine months to a year and still have challenges I face today but manage them very nicely.
In the year following my brain injury, I was unable to work and train and couldn’t remember if I left the garage door to my house open, or who I had recently went on a date with, or couldn’t understand why my house kept trying to burn down when I would leave the stove top on.
My wellness practice had to temporarily close and my focus had to shift to my personal care and recovery in private. This is a blessing and something I continue to be challenged with daily in different aspects on and off the stage. Like writing this interview is a big challenge.
My biggest challenge in prep and everyday life is living with an extremely rare condition of hypoglycemia. This is not something I was born with or can anyone explain what exactly is happening other than my blood sugars drop dangerously low multiple times daily.
I took the past year off from stage to work with top doctors in my area trying to understand — if bodybuilding makes this condition any worse or if I am putting myself at a higher risk by competing, and the data concluded does not state it makes a difference.
I wear a 24-hour continuous glucose monitor to help me manage my low episodes in hope to catch my drop before it puts my body into a state of shock or medical emergency. I live my life as normal as possible and as proactive as I can be with my condition.
I just have to make adjustments on the fly as the day unfolds with how my body is responding to my daily tasks. The beauty of it is there is no two days that are going to be the same.
The best life hack that improves my gym time and life is understanding perspective. Your perspective is a reflection of your personal reality and you get to choose how you view all things, you just can’t be a prisoner of your own perspective.
🏆 How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
Training is going very well, the mind muscle connection always seems to be improving. Future goals of competing again in the next five years and eventually hanging up the stage life and focusing on coaching and empowering individuals to take control of their own health and live their dream lives.
Living life to the fullest with what I can give and share with others in whatever capacity that may be will be something I will continue to focus on.
The saying of what has happened in life happens for a reason and I wouldn’t change any of it because it all makes me who I am today and for that I am thankful for.
🤕 How do you recover, rest and handle injuries?
Self care is highly important to me on all levels mind, body, and soul. Taking care of only one element of these three wouldn’t seem proper.
Meditation, float tanks, massage, chiropractics, cryotherapy, acupuncture, hot soaks, cold plunges steam room and saunas are all in the rotation. I meet with a life coach every month to two months depending on what is happening in my life or personal things I choose to work on.
Injury recovery is something that almost all athletes have to face at some point in time, my rule is to be pro active in your recovery.
🍎 How is your diet and what supplements do you use?
My life is always “on season” but my focus for what is “on” may change and my nutritional plan follows suit for what my body needs in that phase of life.
Currently my nutrition plan is low protein and higher carbs than normal with a relatively low fat intake. This is a new routine due to focusing on stabilizing blood sugar levels with getting ready to prep and cut weight.
My life is always “on season” but my focus for what is “on” may change and my nutritional plan follows suit for what my body needs in that phase of life. Maintaining a healthy body fat when the competition stage is not on the horizon I feel is very important, after all I am a female and need normal female functions to occur as frequently as my competition schedule allows.
Elements of life and social settings are always going to be there so being mindful of social events and expecting the unexpected when it comes to your food is always something you have control over, self discipline is key and holding yourself accountable to your goals is the most important thing.
But to keep it simple, I take my food with me everywhere I go any time I leave the house. Tracking my food keeps me accountable and it collects really cool data, so I track all my stuff through the Fitbit. That means sleep, nutrition, and physical activity.
The right diet is the one that you are going to stick to, so my plans have always been tailored to what sets me up for success, and what is going on in life with my overall health.
Basic nutritional intake tends to be more pescatarian by default, red meat and dairy are a few things that don’t get worked into my meal plans.
👍 What has inspired and motivated you?
To coach someone to do things you have never done seems a bit disconnected for me, so my beliefs lead me to compete as I wanted to grow my coaching abilities and learn what you must endure to be a bodybuilder and ultimately make me a better coach and an athlete.
My philosophy is to be in a magical environment that motivates and inspires you. Motivation is the reaction to you, doing things from your soul level in spirit means. So I look at all champions in life for guidance and learn from all of them in all aspects and apply what I learn to my life and how it pertains to me.
Some of the greats in basketball like Michael Jordan, Muggsy Bogues (the shortest player to play in the NBA), on TV like Ellen DeGeneres and Oprah Winfrey, my parents and actually every person I cross paths with keeps me moving in the right direction with a smile.
✏️ Advice for other people who want to improve themselves?
Start with the foundation, be honest and real with yourself. You have to be able to talk yourself through tough times and see your weaknesses in order to improve. Learn how to set yourself up for success and what gives you opportunities to grow as a person.
Apply small daily tasks to create healthy habits to build a solid foundation. It may take some time but once the foundation is set everything else will fall into place.
Stop judging yourself, what I mean is stop comparing yourself to others and know that you don’t know what you don’t know and you have no clue what other people’s stories are — to even judge them or compare yourself to them.
Once you look at others with an open mind, you will become a victim of a positive thought process and start working on staying in your own lane and focus on your own personal goals in the gym or in your everyday life.
The best hack anyone can ever experience is spending time alone getting to know themselves for what their souls desires are and getting their mind and body in alignment from the core level.
🤝 Are you taking on clients right now?
Training question I get most often is, “Do you workout?” I tell them, “No I work at a bakery, bahahaha?”
My Ala-carte menu for being a goal crusher allows me to always connect with new clients so I am always taking on new clients. I have moved into mentoring other coaches with different backgrounds to continue to provide athletes with options to build their own team of experts for what motivates them and sets them up for success.
For full contest prep or lifestyle nutrition coaching in person or online is always an option at mygreatcoach.com.
I believe every coach provides perspective and knowledge and sometimes it may take a team of coaches for what the athlete may need. When someone is trying to find the right coach, it is important to have trust, faith, and confidence in the individual you team up with.
Every athlete should become educated about everything a coach would ask of them to do or are doing, after all it is your body. I educate and empower my clients and athletes along the entire process because I want them to be responsible and accountable to thy self versus just a coach.
Self accountability and knowledge only help me be a better coach and in the end a more polished finished product. The knowledge and investment in yourself is something no one can take away from you
I feel it is far more important to educate my clients along the way so when they want to adventure off on their own, they will have the confidence to know how to balance their life out with a healthy lifestyle.
📝 Where can we learn more about you?
My website: mygreatcoach.com
My YouTube Channel: KeriAnn The Elite 1% IFBBPRO
Facebook Page: Keri Ann Heitzman IFBB Physique Pro
My Instagram:
@KeriAnnTheElite
@Mygreatcoach
