Bodybuilding: Brazilian women overcome difficulties and stand out in world competitions

The greatest strength of Elisa Pecini, better known as Isa (@isapecini), is not in her muscles. athlete from bodybuildingshe established herself as the women youngest to win in the Bikini category of Joe Weider’s Olympia Fitness & Performance Weekend, an international professional contest that took place in Las Vegas until 2020, when it moved to Florida because of the pandemic.

To reach that stage, aged 22, the path was tortuous. If Izzy’s mind wasn’t tougher than her muscles, she wouldn’t have made it. Years before the record, at 13, the young woman was unhappy with her body🇧🇷

“I didn’t want to be fat, but I liked to eat. I had no idea what protein, carbohydrate, these things were. I just remember my mother saying: ‘Be careful not to get fat,’” she says.

Obsessed with the “six pack” abs she didn’t have and without information or follow-up from specialists, she fell into the trap of trying to shorten the path to her dream.

“At the time, a model had died of anorexia and the reports on TV explained everything, what it was like, what she did. Instead of me understanding that as a warning, I thought it was a good idea”, she recalls, who is now spending a season in the United States to participate in major world competitions, the Arnold Sports Festival – yes, the Arnold Schwarzenegger – and the 2021 Olympia , which will be in October.

Isa’s first eating disorder was bulimia. After every meal, she would run to the bathroom and throw up. “She ate whatever she wanted and put it out, so as not to get fat. But soon it started to hurt my throat, I was hoarse. I was terrified of my family finding out, so I ate less and less.”

Thus began Isa’s anorexic phase, which made her go from 54 to 37 kilos and led to her hospitalization. “I didn’t feel sick, but I wanted to lose more and more weight. I set goals, I wanted to see bone, to be able to close my hand around the leg. She knew she wasn’t fat, but when she went to buy clothes, she asked the salesperson for a 42, even though she was never, not even healthy, having gone over 38”, she says.

First, the hospitalization was at home. She couldn’t waste energy, she stayed in bed all the time. Afterwards, she spent a month and a day in the psychiatric ward of the Hospital de Clínicas at the University of Campinas (Unicamp). “I think about everything I missed at that time, the experiences, the little parties, school.

Even so, I know that my trajectory brought me to my dream, so I don’t hold any regrets”, he says. With medical discharge, she agreed with the multidisciplinary team of professionals that she would reach 50 kilos to be able to go to the gym. Us workouts and receiving nutritional monitoring, it was discovered. She saw the evolution of her body, she felt more willing and healthy. “Food brought me energy to train more. I ate and didn’t get fat,” she says.

In the gym, watching her performance and researching sculpted and muscular female bodies, Isa discovered bodybuilding. After attending a sport event in São Paulo, she made the decision to compete and become a professional. “I worked as a receptionist at the gym to pay for the bikini, body painting, contest entries and travel to Rio de Janeiro, as my trainer was from there.”

In the first year, it was runner-up in the national championship. The rise was swift. In 2016, she already had some sponsors and went to the United States to compete. Speaking no English, Isa says she wouldn’t have made it without her coach, Ricardo Pannain. He guides her and stays in touch daily, follows the fluctuations in her body, adjusts her training so that the end result is perfect.

In 2019, Isa reached the top of her category, making her family and friends proud. “At first, my parents supported me because they just wanted to see me eat. Today, they already understand better. If I go to my grandmother’s house, she says: ‘I made a salad with nothing for you’”, laughs Isa, who is strict about food and training most of the time – she eats oatmeal, rice, lean meats and shows on his YouTube channel how he prepares all the meals of the week.

Empathizing with strangers took a little longer. “Before, they looked at me on the street with strangeness. Today I already see that there is admiration, some people even stop me and ask if I am an athlete”, she says. However, it is on social networks that their best exchanges with the public take place.

“A lot of girls who have eating disorders talk to me. I reinforce that they are capable of overcoming that. I also receive messages from women who say that they were inspired by my routine to stop being sedentary or eat better.”

But Isa, like everyone on social media, does not escape the haters🇧🇷 She has already received comments that she looked better when she was anorexic than she does now. “You have to have a strong mind to endure it, but I know my responsibility there. I want to motivate other women,” she says.

Now, the 24-year-old athlete focuses on her training – she only rests on Sundays – and wants to surpass her performance from last year. “I wasn’t having a good year and I was disappointed with the classification I had. But it was important for me to understand that sometimes I need to look at myself. I stayed with my family, I took care of my head. And I also saw who is on my side, regardless of the outcome. This is a resilience sport. You can lose, but you can’t give up on the dream, ”she says.

national phenomenon

Brazilian bodybuilding athletes are world renowned. Highly awarded, but little recognized in the country, they suffer from what happens in most other sports: sponsors prefer male athletes. It doesn’t seem like the smartest strategy, as while women pile up trophies in different categories and awards, Brazilian men have never won an Olympia.

The Brazilian female influence is so great that a category created in the country was exported and now enters the most famous circuits, Wellness. “It’s for those who are a little bigger than the Bikini, have more buttocks, a waistline, but are still smaller than the Physique”, explains Francielle Mattos (@franciellemattos_), an athlete in the category.

I have a goal and I set myself goals so as not to deviate from it. It is the exchange of momentary pleasure for something greater.

Francielle Mattos

The 35-year-old from Paraná started training after the birth of her daughter, Geovanna, aged 22. “I had postpartum depression and lost a lot of weight, weighing 47 kilos. When my daughter was 6 months old, my husband came to talk to me and suggested that I take some time for myself, to take care of myself. I decided to go to the gym”, she recalls, who four years later gave birth to Gabriel.

“Before becoming an athlete, I also had a certain prejudice. Like most women, I was terrified of getting too big and told my trainer as much. She would answer: ‘Don’t worry, it’s not like that all of a sudden,’” admits Fran. It took eight years of training and food re-education, until her body hit a plateau.

Upset with the stares she received at the gym near her home, Francielle decided to change her training location. She drives 40 minutes to reach the bodybuilding mecca

To circumvent the limits, Fran found a coach of high-performance athletes, who offered consultancy for a year. It was enough for her to be ready to compete. “My husband didn’t want to. He thought it was a lot of exposure, but when you watch a championship, the perception changes. There is no sensuality in the parade, it is a sport. For those who are there, it is art. No one will say: ‘How delicious!’”, explains the athlete, who drives 40 minutes every day to reach a gym whose slogan is “The Brazilian Mecca of Bodybuilding”.

When she decided to turn professional, she sold the company she had with her husband and today supports herself with the sport. Her sponsors are extremely respectful and conscientious, especially with her impositions because of motherhood. “I had competitions in the United States this year, but I would have to do two quarantines and increase the period outside, which is unfeasible in my children’s routine. They are my priority”, says she, who has already visited China, Paraguay and the United States in championships.

When she competes close to home, the 12- and 9-year-olds accompany her. “They think it’s great. My son already says he wants to be a bodybuilder when he grows up”, says Fran, who has both of her biggest fans. “They cheer together, they cry. I like to show the advantages of sport. Training I learned to be disciplined and I take that to other areas of life. They can do the same. In addition, sport promotes self-knowledge, you understand your weaknesses and strengths. It’s not just for the body look or for winning trophies,” she explains.

At home, with her husband and two children, Fran also needed to develop resistance, after all, everyone’s menu is very different from hers. Her husband is an excellent cook, who prepares incredible meals, likes to eat well and drink wine. And she follows her diet, works out from Monday to Saturday, does an hour on the bike and another 1h20 of leg training.

“I have a goal and I set myself goals so as not to deviate from it. I know I deserve to eat something off the plan, but I deserve to win even more, so I stay focused. It is the exchange of momentary pleasure for greater pleasure. Of course this is not always the case, only around competitions. From time to time, depending on what stage of training we are in, I manage to go out for dinner,” she says.

An exemplary trajectory

Like any sport, bodybuilding is not all resilience, discipline, training and diet. Biotype and genetics can make all the difference in an athlete’s life. “My body changed very quickly,” recalls Juliana Malacarne (@julesfit10), 46, a legend of the sport in Brazil.

At 46, Juliana is pregnant with her first child. “Today’s advanced medicine allowed me to fulfill my dream”, says she, who competed for 19 years and won the most renowned championships in the world

Holder of four Miss Olympia trophies, she is the record holder in number of awards in her category, Physique. Today, after 19 years competing, she is retired from the stage and 8 months pregnant with her first child. Born in Americana, in the interior of São Paulo, she has always been fond of muscular and very well defined bodies.

It is a pleasure to have represented Brazil so well. I fulfilled my goals, I had already reached the top of the sport

Juliana Malacarne

In childhood and youth, her imaginary boyfriend was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in Conan The Barbarian. Before deciding to invest in a career as an athlete, she liked to take jump and bike classes at the gym. It was the other regulars who hinted that her body responded well and that she had the potential to compete.

“I started to train bodybuilding and in four months I won my first amateur competition, the São Paulo championship”, says Juliana. Four years later, she interrupted a…