Leanne Grindrod, Sept 06

In a quiet corner the gym a muscly figure of Leanne Grindrod is busy training hard in what could possibly her last contest of her bodybilding career. We are sure it's a sad process for Leanne and Go Figure's honoured to have her share her thoughts with us. Here is her latest update as she prepares for Musclemania. "Well I cant believe its only two-three months before xmas, the year has gone really quick!. So far this year has been quite a tiring season and long year for myself and Alex, with organising and promoting body building between two different federations. Taking a big team to Australia for the INBA All Women's was a great experience and everyone had fun and more ladies seem keen on the idea to give it a try next year!

My next show will be Australia Muscle Mania which is on the 21st October, where I am unsure which class to place myself into yet - I prefer the Figure and wish to enter in this but also know they prefer me in the physique in the naturals - so will make the call closer to the show and how I am looking. I was trying to organise another team for this show but slackness actually by the Australian organiser has caused athletes to pull out with no definite dates to book or organise time off.

The last two months have been a tough one for myself, I tend to act like a tough cookie but have to admit that the body is telling me its time to rest after taking two weeks to recover from the ProAm show. I was told off by Peter Hardwick that I was too big and was heavy for my height when weighed in for this show on the Saturday morning. On my medication for my Leukemia I cannot get my weight down past 56-57 at present as it makes me hold water, which a Good thing is that its sitting in my muscles - Bad thing is, makes me heavy.Since the ProAms I have hardly trained as my body literally grew by pulling soo much water into my muscles that it hurt to train or try and lift anything heavy. Within two days after the show I went from 57.5 kgs to 61 kgs. When I trained a week afterwards I am sure many thought I was using something a bit more than tribulus as I looked huge and very hard. My muscles were soo tight it hurt to train, it did look impressive but didn't like how it felt, I couldn't flex at all!

The loss and death of a close friend to cancer two weeks before Counties also took its toll and I really felt unmotivated with the counties show a week before it came together. My usual passion and energy was at an all time low for the sport. With the support and loyality of people competing to help promote the Counties show, because its ran by Alex and myself was AWESOME, so thank you to everyone who made the effort to be there!

I get pumps very easy so even for stage I cannot pump up too much. My leg training has lacked because with my medication I pull muscles easily and find I have to be very careful with leg exercises. To give an example, the other night I went to move quickly off the couch and pulled something from inside my leg from side of the knee up to my inner thigh. I had to massage it for an hour before it settled. If I yawn I pull/tighten muscles in my neck and for the first time while driving to Hamilton and did a HUGE yawn which caused the muscle in my neck to actually poke out, scaring me a tad while driving and trying to massage it at the same time.

As the months go by the side effects of my Leukemia drug changes and the posing is getting a bit tougher and sometimes mentally dealing with the fact you cant train as hard as you would like, that you get tired, you don't recover as fast anymore can be frustrating. I try and remind myself that I am lucky that these are small things to put up with really. This will be my last year body building but I will still be involved with looking after athletes and judging shows and be there to hopefully make a difference and consistency with how things are done within the sport!

The end result is the ultimate.

Alex and myself are really looking forward to end of Muscle Mania so we can enjoy a bit of Melbourne, relax and spend some quality time together and not focused on whether the chook is cooked! So far we have on the team Alex Simays, Darren Brown, Jenny Morris, Ray Bishop and myself Leanne Grindrod. Over the next four weeks I will try and up my intensity with my training as much as I can to prepare for Muscle Mania do the best I can. The figure posing I find is easier on my muscles where-as the physique takes more out of them, so fingers crossed I can get my weight down for figure!.

If there is one thing that having Cancer has taught me is too "appreciate every day, that there is always someone with it worse and don't complain about nothing" - for every athlete that thinks that this is too hard or they have it bad, re-think, suck it in and JUST DO IT!

I will be focusing on doing some duathalons in the new year to keep my fitness up as I am off to the Masters Games in 2009 to play Soccer with my old soccer team from Canada. That should keep me busy!

Alex and myself will be trying to make it down to Judge at the Nationals this year and get as many experienced judges on that panel we can!. So everyone train hard and stay focused on that end goal of the Nationals. Alex and myself will be goal setting and planning our wedding which is in March next year, so that should keep us busy! Then hopefully end of next year options on how we can have our own child or whether we need to adopt will also be in the cards for us to handle for the new year. Scary thought a "Mini Muscle of us"!

Alex and myself wish everyone all the best for the rest of the shows NO matter what federation, we hope that everyone enjoys the ride and takes away a unique experience from it! GOOD LUCK."

Leanne Grindrod