Jamie Onekawa, NZ's Newest Figure Pro. April 2012

Firstly congrats on receiving your Pro Card. How does it feel having the IFBB Pro after your name?!  
It’s really really amazing!  I’m so thankful to have been given the title and am excited to get on stage and represent NZ. 

I’d like to add that although bodybuilding is an individual sport, it’s also very much a team sport.  For me I’m fortunate to have a great team around me, who support me 100%.  Obviously Darryn is my number one supporter, who I couldn’t do without!  Also I have the enormous support and guidance of Moe.

Past Contest Achievements

2012 NZIFBB Nationals
Open Figure Short 1st
Overall Figure Title

2012 NZIFBB South Island Champs
Open Figure Short 1st
Overall Figure Title

2011 NZIFBB Nationals
Open Bodyfitness Short 1st
Overall Bodyfitness Title

2011 Waikato Champs
Open Bodyfitness Short 1st
Open International Figure Short 1st

2005 NABBA Nationals
Novice Figure Short 2nd

2005 NABBA Wellington Champs
Novice Figure Short 1st
Overall Figure Title

Do you have a Pro debut comp in mind?
I have a few shows that I’m quite keen to do but no set plans yet.  I’m keen to do a show where both Darryn and I can compete, I think that would be an awesome experience.

Have you missed not doing compulsory poses in the traditional figure classes, instead doing the quarter turns?
Not at all.  When I came back to the stage in 2010 I tried both classes and thought it was a waste of time putting in all that work to only do quarter turns, but actually I enjoyed it a lot more than doing all the poses and I got just as long on stage because I got to do my individual model walk in the morning and evening as well as the quarter turns.  I also really love the look that’s required of this class, it’s feminine and still curvy, I think it’s really beautiful.  And the bonus is not having to do the routine, I never enjoyed that!

What changes in your training and/or diet will you make to achieve your look?
I changed my style of training a bit last year and that really impacted my physique negatively.  I know I lost a lot of muscle from 2010 to 2011 and I need to bring that back.  So I’ve gone back to how I use to train and have already made gains in all the right places.  I learnt a lesson in listening to too many people tell me what to do, when I should’ve just listened to myself, because no one knows my body like I do!

Diet wise I just plan to diet longer, get leaner and give myself a chance to eat into the show so I can fill up and smooth over.  I’m hoping this will help balance my issue of getting too lean in my upper body.

How important do you think stage presentation and presence is in the Pro league?  Can you tell us how you can train for this.
Stage presence is incredibly important whether your on the Pro or Amateur stage.  It really can be the difference between you placing and not.  To be honest it’s not something I’ve ever practiced before, but this year I will definitely be working on my posing a lot more and part of that will be improving my presentation and presence on stage.

I think just getting in front of a mirror and watching how you do your walk, the transitions between poses and the way you hold your head, where you look, how you smile, will help make you look and feel more natural on stage and improve your presentation.

You’re in your off season now, do you have a weight do you try and stay under or is it more you go by how you look.
I’m the first to admit that I LOVE food and I find it difficult to keep low calories in the off season, especially when Darryn eats so many meals each day, it tends to make me eat too. 

But this is something I know I need to put some work into because I only make it tougher on myself when it comes time to compete.  So currently I’m working on dropping so I can sit around 4 or 5kgs above my stage weight.  

What is your typical weight training split at the moment.

Mon: Legs
Tues: Back
Wed: Rest
Thurs: Shoulders
Fri: Legs
Sat: Bi’s/tri’s/Chest
Sun: Rest

With weight training I tend to do a different workout every time I train, so I don’t really have a set number of sets and reps that I do.  With legs I never go heavy anymore as my legs are always bigger than my upper body. 

In fact I’ve pretty much stopped doing typical weight training for legs and am focusing on doing different plyo workouts twice a week.  With my upper body I go a bit heavier and around 12-15 reps, but I tend to do a lot of drop sets and giant sets so it just depends on what exercises I’m doing and what I decide is my focus for each particular workout.

With cardio I’ve been doing around 45 mins, six mornings a week.  This increases the closer I get to competing, sometimes getting up to around 2 hours a day.  When I’m getting ready for a show I’d rather try and be strict with my diet than kill myself with more cardio though!

Is there a bodypart you’re going to be focusing on?  Which is it and how do you plan to attack it?
For me there are three areas that I am focusing on improving: legs, shoulders and back width. 

For my legs I’m trying to give them a more athletic look and I’d like to get them a lot tight, especially through the glutes and hamstrings.  This is why I’ve brought the plyometric training in, it’s going to help shape my legs without adding bulk.  I’m also starting to run which should help lean them out and help tighten them up.

      

For shoulders, I changed my training style a little last year and found that I didn’t get the same gains that I did in 2010 , so I’m going back to my old style of training which my shoulders seem to respond to.  I do heavy dumbbell presses and giant sets or drop sets for lateral raises.  And I change up my exercises for rear delts each week, just to try and hit them a little differently.

And for back width I’ve just been hammering wide grip pull ups and a lot of lat pull downs using a heavier weight and also throwing some drop setting in from time to time...can you tell I’m a fan of volume training lol:)

What is your typical eating regime in the off season?
Breakfast:      1 scoop shake, 50g oats, 100g pineapple or egg white omelette
Mid morning    Low carb protein bar
Lunch             150g chicken, 200g veges, 1 cup rice
Afternoon tea    1 scoop shake, apple
Dinner            150g chicken, 200g veges
Snack            1 scoop protein shake, lite yoghurt

This is pretty generalised though, because in the off-season I throw some treats in there!  And I also have some different recipe ideas that I like to use too.

What are supplements you take in the off season and during pre contest.
Protein
BCAA
Glutamine
Fat Burner
I take the first three all year round and bring the fat burner in when my goal is weight loss.

What is your guilty pleasure food and often do you have it?
There is way to many to choose from lol!  I definitely have a sweet tooth though and I love my carrot cake, but I don’t have it too often, in fact I can’t remember when I last did. 

Do you think you and Darryn will compete in the same show sometime? 
As I mentioned earlier we would love to compete together, especially because we both want to compete in the US, so it makes sense financially to do it at the same time.  We’ve never dieted together before so I’m not sure how it will be, although I imagine it’ll be pretty tough in some respects and also easier in others.

We are both really supportive of each other and have an understanding of what the other is going through that only another competitor has, so I think that is always going to be a bonus.  I’ll let you know how we get on! 

Your food bill must be enormous with your hubby Darryn being a Pro too.  How do you cope being in the kitchen and do you fight for kitchen space? Lol

Yea it is pretty expensive lol!  He’s in the kitchen a lot more than me because he eats around 4 more meals than I do.  We’re both pretty basic with our foods so prep time is pretty quick and we also share well together haha:)

 
NZ has got quite a few Pro figure girls now, what is the comraderie like between you all.

Yea there are a few of us now and we all get on great.  The bodybuilding community is far too small in NZ to have issues with anyone, it’s just not worth it, so I’m really excited to see them all do well, just as I’m sure they are me.  In fact I’m sure we may end up on stage against each other sometime, so that’ll be fun going through the process together.

What do you think its going to be like when you finally step on stage in your first pro show?!!!
Wow, it’s really crazy to think about!  I don’t know, I imagine it’s just going to be exciting and a really amazing feeling to know I’ve achieved such a big thing.  I’ve set myself some really big goals for the next few years so it’ll just be great to get on stage in that first show and get competing internationally underway, I can’t wait!

Finally what's you number 1 big tip for fat loss
It’s so hard to give just one!  But eating clean is what it comes down to.  When it comes to fat loss there is no easy answer, so you have to weigh up whats more important...the junk food you are eating or having a healthy body.  Eating small meals, every two to three hours and making sure they are made up of clean, healthy foods will get you results you want!

your number 1 big tip for muscle building
PROTEIN!!!  You have to give your muscle the right fuel to enable it to grow and repair.  I can’t stress enough how important taking in protein and BCAA’s is.  Train hard and fuel yourself right and your body will grow...slowly:)