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Seminar Preview: How to Train Female Physique Competitors

The Poliquin Strength Institute’s exciting presentation on how women can achieve their body composition goals

What’s in a name? Much more than you might think. Case in point: “How to Train Female Physique Competitors,” the name of one segment of the Special Consideration Training Series sponsored by the Poliquin Strength Institute.

The idea for the seminar came about last year when Charles Poliquin and physique coach Francine Savard were discussing the problems that many women have in building muscle and losing fat – especially in losing fat. Savard, who has a thriving business in Montreal that focuses on preparing female physique competitors to achieve peak condition, worked with Poliquin over several months to develop a seminar that would cover, from A to Z, all the major aspects of body composition training for women. And not just for women who want to enter physique or figure competition but for any woman who simply wants to look better in a swimsuit. Here are a few of the topics the seminar will cover:

• Resistance training and energy system protocols
• Calculating macronutrients based on genotype
• Detoxification and cleansing protocols
• Blood work
• Necessary dietary restrictions
• Fine-tuning of supplements
• Sequencing of energy system, choreography and posing
• What the federations are looking for
• Secrets of peaking on time

The seminar will be held over two days, February 6-7, at the Poliquin Strength Institute in the historic city of East Greenwich, Rhode Island. The facility features a 4,600-square-foot teaching gym and a 2,000-square-foot classroom. The seminar includes more than 17 hours of lecture, discussion and demonstration. It will begin with a presentation on goal setting that will show how women should train for a competition over a 25-week training period.

Coach Poliquin has found in Francine Savard the perfect person to teach this seminar, as she has more than 25 years’ experience as an athlete and more than a decade as a coach. A Level 3 PICP, she has competed in numerous sports, including being a national champion in the gymnastics discipline of sport aerobics. Savard was even a cheerleader for 10 years with the Canadian Football League (aka Ligue canadienne de football). As a member of the Canadian Armed Forces, involved in all sports committees and attending various courses in fitness, it was in 1997 that she started studying with Charles, taking virtually every seminar he ever taught. Savard has a long client list of figure and physique competitors who have competed at the national and international level, including Sylvia Tremblay, Michèle Lévesque and Myriam Capes which is the youngest ever in the history of the discipline of fitness, participating at the Olympia in last September 2009 and placing 6th. Oxygen magazine, also qualified Myriam’s routines, as the most dynamic and original routine ever seen, which were choreographed by Francine as well and this, for the last 7 years.

In this interview Savard discusses the concept of the upcoming seminar, the types of women who will benefit from attending, and her unique approach to training figure and physique competitors.

PSI: Is this seminar intended primarily for women entering competition or for those who train women?
FS: It is for both. Right now most women who come in to see a personal trainer, regardless of their age, are not solely concerned about losing weight. Many just want to look better, and that may require building muscle. A lot of women I train want to look like Madonna or Britney Spears – a very toned look. So my business not only attracts women who are interested in competing in physique and figure competitions but also moms, businesswomen and career professionals who want to achieve that toned look. That’s why this seminar would be very good for personal trainers.

PSI: Is this an advanced seminar, meaning that those attending should have a background in exercise science?
FS: The seminar has something for everyone regardless of their education, and focuses on practical information that can be used immediately. There will be some advanced material, however – but consider that what I am presenting is only a slice of what can be covered in this field.
 
PSI: Did you come up with the seminar name because the idea was to look at what the best women in these sports are doing, and then show others how to duplicate their results or even scale it down to meet the goals of non competitors?
FS: Exactly. There are certainly a lot of women who are going into these competitions because they like the look. The competition is more intense than ever, and as such it has evolved into a multimillion-dollar industry. But the problem is that there are a lot of trainers coaching women in these events who don’t know how to coach women.

PSI: The look of a figure competitor and a bodybuilder are vastly different. Is there a common factor in their goals that you apply to training?
FS: Both figure competitors and bodybuilders are looking at becoming lean and possessing whole body symmetry. It’s just that the bodybuilders are a notch beyond because they are trying to achieve at least four percent bodyfat, which is not necessarily what most of the women I train want – they want to be lean and athletic while still respecting the feminine curve. But as far as there being a common factor in the way I design their workouts, that would be strength training and of course, eating plan.

PSI: Will your seminar cover special topics, such as training after a woman gives birth or training after menopause?
FS: Yes, we will cover a few of these subjects. I am not a medical doctor, but I will share what I’ve learned about these issues from my 25 years in this field.

PSI: In your business, what is your initial approach with clients?
FS: We sit down together and I listen to them, and one of the first things I look at is neurological behavior, which correlates with Biosignature Modulation. Then I look at what is happening with the gut to ensure that it is working fine. I have found that when I fix the gut, the body starts to detoxify, and this jump-starts the metabolism.

PSI: Do you focus a lot on aerobic training as do many other women’s programs?
FS: Most of the women I work with don’t need aerobic training, and I don’t want them to get on a cardio machine. At the beginning of the season, none of the figure or physique competitors I train go on a cardio machine. And when I use these machines, it’s more for interval training, not just endurance training.

PSI: OK, now the most important question: What type of results do your clients typically achieve, and how quickly?
FS: In the first six weeks of training I’ve seen women drop 10 percent in body fat. These results are not that uncommon for my clients. One woman I trained had two tumors in her knees. She was 32.2 percent body fat. After surgery – thankfully, the tumors were benign – we started training. After surgery I trained her for seven months, and despite having two months where we had to do a lot of rehab, she achieved seven percent body fat.  The following year, she went on to compete and win her 5 other competitions and, even represent Canada at the World Competition in Italy.  Not bad, for someone who was just starting out.

PSI: Do you see a change in the way women are looking at their bodies, perhaps getting away from the stick-thin look that many fashion magazines promote?
FS: The fitness business is going toward the look that you find with fitness competitors such as Monica Brant and other women who appear in magazines such as Oxygen. Fit is the new sexy!