Kiera Banner
Kiera Banner
Keira came on board with the dream of competing for the first time in the junior bikini class. Although Keira is a PT herself and understands how to program, this was a classic example of ensuring that a client is on the right plan for them and their goals, NOT a generic one.
With her goals in mind, we turned to the specific physique criteria for her chosen category and programmed around what the judges would be looking for. In this case, it was: lean glutes, tight hamstrings, and a full cap on the delt. So, of course, we structured her training to primarily target the glutes, hamstrings and delts.
When writing her program, we firstly considered the fact that females’ recovery capacity is superior to that of males’ – as such, we increased her lower body training frequency from two to three times a week, and trained shoulders at the end of each one of those workouts too. Her other two sessions across the week comprised of full upper body sessions. These focused on developing her delts and back, with minimal focus (1x exercise!) on chest development, as this is not required for the bikini category.
Last but not least, we placed all of our emphasis on getting brutally strong at the gym, focusing on putting out maximal effort on every set performed across the week. The booty bands went in the bin, the logbook came out, and we planned out what numbers we’d be hitting in each session, and then executed it to the best of our ability. I was able to assess this through regular training video examination.
The benefits of client- and goal-specific programming and training were evident in her weekly visual updates, as I kept seeing how she was both adding muscle mass whilst losing body fat in preparation for her show. By the end of her dieting phase, Keira was hitting all time personal bests on squat, hip thruster and leg press variations. This is extremely common when clients first adopt a progressive overload training approach, even during a dieting phase.
Keira did a fantastic job in the time we worked together, placing 2nd in junior bikini and 3rd in beginners’ bikini at the 2brospro Manchester regional in 2020.
Here is what Keira had to say about her journey:
“I worked with Vaughan for 8 months in the lead up to my first show. He was so supportive throughout the process and the multiple check ins across the week really kept me on track. There were times I didn’t feel like I was good enough, but Vaughan was so supportive and motivating throughout the journey. I can’t wait to compete next year and see what we bring.”