Shed30

I would consider Janelle a friend.  Although I have never met her face to face, I have followed her journey for over a year as she has shared her story of Paleo eating and kettlebells, actively healing from hyperthyroid symptoms (diagnosed with Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis).  Janelle is a strong girl, currently able to snatch and press a 20kg kettlebell overhead, training for her RKC and becoming a certified personal trainer.  Everyone, meet Janelle Pica, HKC, a strong girl filled with drive and fire for life, health and training.

1. What made you want to be in the fitness industry? If not working in it, than what made you interested in fitness?

Honestly, I never really wanted to be in the fitness industry. It just kind of happened! I was working through a very hard time in my life with a career change and decided to get back into kettlebell fitness to better channel my stress. Over time I fell so in love with kettlebell training that I scheduled private sessions with a personal trainer in Pittsburgh with the intent of becoming fit enough to handle the Russian Kettlebell Challenge certification. My one on one sessions really got me thinking about becoming a trainer, and once I worked along side my own trainer, I made the decision to become a personal trainer myself. The idea of helping others become the strongest and healthiest version of themselves seemed like the most rewarding career choice I could make, so..that’s the direction I went.

2. What was or is your biggest mental and physical struggle/hurdle while you are pursuing health and wellness?

As for a mental struggle, pursuing a health and wellness career can be stressful. In fact, it can be so stressful that you can lose sight of your own dream. If you’re like me and are the inappropriately busy type, you probably answer a ton of emails, take a lot of phone calls, train people in between those emails and phone calls, plus operate your blog and establish your other health businesses all at the same time. it’s NUTS! And, it can seriously drive you insane. There have been times when I seriously questioned if I would be able to pull through and make something of myself. What keeps me going though is knowing I have influenced someone out there who reads my blog, follows my facebok feeds, knows me from other promotional stunts, etc. I cannot tell you how many emails and/or text messages I receive on a daily basis that say things like “Because of you, I was inspired to change me life for the better.” Statements like that keep me going, keep me motivated to press on towards this dream of mine.

As for a physical struggle, I have to watch overtraining myself. Kettlebell training is very different from the way I am used to training. Here’s a fun fact: I used to play basketball pretty competitively and at one point had college recruits after me. My training for my season was always very demanding, but it was more structured over “traditional” training methods. What I mean by that was you had isolated days dedicated just to lifting, designated cardio days, etc. My workouts were often spread over 5 to 6 days. With kettlebells, you do a lot more metabolic conditioning so you can work out less throughout the week and get even better results because of having strength and cardio mixed into the same exercises. However, I have had a bad habit of trying to lengthen my workouts over the week to match what I used to do with basketball training. So, what should have been 30-45 minutes of kettlebells training (mixed between strength and conditioning days) 3-4x a week would often become 1-1.5 hours of metabolic conditioning 5 times a week. All that High Intensity Interval training is great for your metabolism, don’t get me wrong. BUT, you can totally over train yourself if you do HIIT all the time. in fact, I have done it before and let me tell you, it does not feel good at all! Finding the line between intense and extreme can be difficult, especially when you are on the road to become a trainer. But hey, I’m learning!

3. Has there been a struggle with body image in your journey? Being around “fit” people? Have you overcome that? If so, how?

I cannot say that I have had a struggle with my body image in the traditional understanding of body image disorders. What I will say is this. I am constantly surrounded by a ton of very strong (some times scary strong) trainers. In my line of work, there is a lot of focus on strength and power. While the industry I am pursuing is not so focused on “being thin”, we are focused on being incredibly strong. It can work against you though, and I think a lot of people are susceptible to getting so fit and so strong that it is still unhealthy. It’s great to be fit, but not great to be obsessive about your fitness. You should respect yourself, your body, always. A great article on this subject can be found here. This is exactly my opinion on the subject.

4. What do you do now, that you never thought you could do before? How did you get there? 

I can now clean, press and snatch a 20kg kettlebell. I did a log of heavy one arm swings (I mean 24kg one arm swings ) to prepare for the leverage the whole way up for the 20 kg snatch. Best way to train for that is to do three sets of 5 one arm swings each arm with a 24kg and slowly work your way up to sets of ten over time. Once you can comfortable do ten sets, you should have the leverage and form to swing the 20kg with ease on one arm. All it takes is some extra power generated from your hips and presto! You just did the 20kg snatch. GO YOU!

5. What are your certificates and goals?

I am currently an HKC Kettlebell instructor and a certified health coach through Beyond Organic. My goals right now are to become a certified personal trainer through the National Academy of Sports Medicine so I can teach/coach people independently. I also plan on getting my RKC certification in 2013. After that, the sky is the limit for my certs. I will probably have a million of them at some point. haha!

What jazzes you most about life?

I’d have to say waking up each day knowing that I can have a positive influence on someones life. I live for that! Everything I have arranged for my life is geared towards helping others become the best versions of themselves, and I am honored to help others through the same obstacles i faced in my past. Nothing is more rewarding than knowing you inspired someone else to change for the better.