Mitch Calvert
Pardon Joyce Wiedeman if she’s got Rick Ross’ “Everyday I’m Hustlin” repeating non-stop on her iPod.
It’s a fitting song for the 30-something (“age is just a number”) fitness enthusiast, who is back in the game and hustling hard in the gym day in and day out to get back on her fitness journey after an injury stalled her progress in the summer.
She’s now formed a partnership with Elite Performance in Winnipeg, headed by Jeff Fisher, and travels back and forth between the Manitoba capital and Fort Frances, where she lives with her boyfriend, Jon Cooper.
“I started working with Jeff in October, was getting ready for a FAME [World Tour] event in Windsor, but it fell through due to lack of interest,” Wiedeman noted. “They cancelled it a month prior, but no one told me anything and I went out there for the show.
“But it actually worked out, anyway, because I went into a EDGE Nutrition store on Nov. 13 in Windsor, and started talking to them about my career and things and I’m going to be doing some work with them.”
Wiedeman said they still are working out the details on a contract, but said it could involve appearing in ads and on billboards, and will be a big leap forward for the fitness competitor.
She placed first in the Women’s Fitness Short division at the MABBA (Manitoba Amateur BodyBuilding Association) Novice Championship last March, and also had a fourth-place showing at the 2008 CBBF (Canadian BodyBuilding Federation) national world qualifier on June 14.
She has been invited to take part in the Ultimate Fitness Events Spring Bash in Mississauga on April 4, 2009 for the chance to win $500, but isn’t sure if she’ll be where she needs to be at that time. She plans to do the MABBA and CBBF events later that spring and summer, as well.
For now, though, Wiedeman is focused on working hard in the gym with Fisher and improving her physique.
“I need more build in the legs, the three tiers of my legs need to be brought up,” she stressed. “[Fisher] said that in the five weeks that I’ve worked with him, he said he can’t believe the progress so far, and he has a good feeling that I could take some overall [titles] soon.
“He said ‘if you really put your mind to it, that’s the way it is.’”
Considering what she was able to achieve before signing on with Elite, the partnership could mean some big things for her sooner than later.
“She came to us to take maybe the last 10 to 15 percent of conditioning that’s required to compete at the next level,” Fisher said. “We reviewed her diet and training protocol, and what she had been doing wasn’t conducive to getting her to that next level, so we changed up everything from the ground up.”
Fisher said Wiedeman has boatloads of potential—and an uncanny willingness to learn and work hard.
“One of her strengths is she’s unbelievably determined,” he remarked.
“I was the strength and conditioning coach with the [Blue] Bombers for years, and she has the same type of determination that is displayed in pro athletes. She was a diamond in the rough and has been a really great client since she started,” he added.
Fisher said that special grit and determination is what set Wiedeman apart and made her an ideal candidate for their program.
“We only accept 30 percent of the people who apply with us, and send the rest to other personal trainers,” Fisher noted. “It’s not so much based on athletic prowess, but more based on what they are able to offer in terms of dedication and where they want to go with their lives.”
Wiedeman, meanwhile, also is getting her fitness accreditation through Canada’s International Career School so she can make a career out of her passion.
“I just started it, and you’ve got as much as two years to complete it,” she said.
“If you really put your mind to it, you can do it in six months. I want to do nutritional programs for people, and a lot of one-on-one training, and that’s what I want to set up here [in Fort Frances],” she added. “I’ve done one dryland [session] with the Sabres, and I don’t know if all of them took me too seriously, but by the end of it they were pretty sore.
“I’d like to do more of that in the future. It’d be fun, it’s my dream and my passion.”
At her age now, Wiedeman is eligible for two fitness categories, including the Master class (age 35 and up).
“I don’t look or feel my age, and I just look at it as a new category and another door opening up,” she reasoned. “It seems like this is right around the age when the fitness industry starts taking you seriously because when you are 20, you are more into going out and partying and aren’t as committed.
“But right now, I’m completely focused on my fitness,” she stressed.
