Maintenance window scheduled to begin at February 14th 2200 est. until 0400 est. February 15th

(e.g. yourname@email.com)

Forgot Password?

    Defense Visual Information Distribution Service Logo

    Former soldier, cavalry spouse takes Army Strong to the next level

    Former soldier, cavalry spouse takes Army Strong to the next level

    Courtesy Photo | Jessica Gaines, a personal trainer, professional physique-class bodybuilder and Army...... read more read more

    FORT HOOD, TX, UNITED STATES

    11.14.2013

    Story by Sgt. 1st Class Jeremy Crisp 

    1st Cavalry Division

    FORT HOOD, Texas – She said she couldn’t lift 10 pounds the first time she went to the gym. Nearly seven years ago, the 135-pound woman could barely bench press the 45-pound bar. Today, she can bench press 175 pounds.

    Jessica Gaines is a former soldier who has always been physically active; from childhood to present day. Today she is an Army spouse, married to a cavalry trooper, and she has been on a mission to take her fitness to another level: the professional stage.

    Jessica grew up in Newark, N.J., the daughter of Rafeal and Adelita. She had six siblings she wrestled and rough-housed with around the house, and the self-proclaimed tomboy was active in sports. She was even named her high school softball team’s most-valuable player one year.

    Yet she didn’t grow up a fitness junkie per se. She joined the Army not long after high school, and after her service, Jessica, now 36, stayed fit by hitting the gym regularly. Her regular workout schedule took a turn in 2007 though.

    While working out at the gym with her husband, now Sgt. Maj. Aubrey Gaines with the 1st Cavalry Division, she was approached by a personal trainer who suggested she try her hand at bodybuilding competitions.

    “Stepping on stage, the thought alone was beyond intimidating,” said the mother of two.

    But her personal trainer friend was insistent, and Jessica had secretly given thought to it for years, unbeknownst to anyone. So she decided to put aside the fear of “stepping on stage half naked” and said she would at least try it once.

    Her husband, who is a bodybuilder in his own right, was there to get her in shape.

    “Aubrey threw on his drill-sergeant hat and we went to work,” she said. “It was nothing but hard work and sweat, to include 16 weeks of hard-core dieting.”

    The hard work paid off. She took sixth place at her first women’s figure competition at the 2007 Capital of Texas Roundup, one of Texas’ premiere bodybuilding competitions.

    “I was bummed, yet thrilled in the same breath,” she said of the results of her first amateur body building/figure competition. “Not only did I get the nerve to step on stage … I was not far from top five!”

    That competition fueled the flames. She took the next two years to solely focus in the gym. It was while living in Hawaii where her time in the gym again netted results – she won the 2010 Armed Forces Bodybuilding competition, where she tested the waters in the Women’s Bodybuilding class.

    Yet Jessica said she never felt like she was competing in the right category between Women’s Figure and Women’s Bodybuilding.

    “Either I was too small, or I was leaning over into too much masculinity,” she said.

    Then in 2011, a new category developed in the world of bodybuilding – Women’s Physique. It is a cross between Women’s Figure (small degree of muscularity, with separation) and Women’s Bodybuilding (more muscular) categories of competition. This was the class where Jessica said she belonged.

    Now that she was competing in the right category, Jessica felt she had a shot at taking it to the next level: professional. It takes a first-place win at a major, sanctioned, national-level event for that to happen. So she and her husband headed to Pittsburgh to compete in the 2012 Teen, Collegiate and Masters National Championship for her chance at professional status.

    Leading up to that event though, she had help along the way.

    Support

    It has taken a lot of support for Jessica to get to her professional shot, and to be where she is now. That support, she said, comes from God, family, friends, and the man who drags her out when she doesn’t feel like hitting the weights – her husband.

    They met at the gym in 2005 in Texas. She was going to get a drink of water from the water fountain. So was he. There was a standoff.

    Up to that point, they both admitted to noticing each other working out in the gym. That’s as far as it went though, until the chance meeting.

    “We had seen each other in the gym for months on end, then bumped into the each other at the water fountain and it went from there,” Aubrey said.

    “Ever since then we have been stuck together like glue,” Jessica added.

    Today, the duo help each other get ready for competitions.

    “He kicks my tail into gear … into super-training mode,” she said.

    “Neither of us would make it without each other,” Aubrey added.

    Working out together, Aubrey mentioned, does have its challenges.

    “I have to rein her back,” he said. “She’s been working out with me so long; she tries to prove herself and lift too heavy. I have to constantly tell her that she can’t show up to the competition looking like me. And I don’t want her to look like me!”

    Military life

    As a military wife and mother, Jessica said it takes a lot of creative work to balance everything.

    “You have to learn to be a master of multi-tasking,” she said. “Cooking meals, training clients, setting up appointments … are daily occurrences. Many of us as military spouses carry out multiple tasks on differing scales, but sometimes we don’t realize the volume in the course of a day, or hours, for that matter. We are already multi-tasking half the time, we just don’t realize it.”

    It’s a team effort for this Army family to support both Jessica’s bodybuilding and personal training career alongside Aubrey’s work as the senior enlisted adviser in the surgeon’s section at 1st Cavalry Division. Jessica’s son, Elijah, 16, takes on a lot as well, Aubrey said.

    “If it wasn’t for him (Elijah), I don’t know how we would be able to do it sometimes,” Aubrey said.

    The road to pro

    “So close!”

    That was Jessica’s reaction to her second-place finish in Pittsburgh; the event that winning would have earned her the coveted professional status. So she decided to refocus.

    Then she competed in the Junior USA Bodybuilding Championships in Charleston, S.C., in May, 2013.

    She won.

    “Could this be … is this real?,” Jessica asked herself after her win in the physique category. “Someone pinch me because this is not happening, not to me!”

    She said she waited so long to hear the words, “You are now a pro.”

    “Now I’m captivated,” she said.

    The way ahead

    Jessica took part in her first competition as a professional in Dallas in August. She finished middle of the pack out of 32 women, and said that although she did not finish top five (her ultimate goal in any competition), the experience within itself was more than enough.

    “It was nothing short of a blessing,” she said.

    She plans to compete in three or four more competitions this upcoming year in the hope of qualifying for the Olympia Fitness and Performance Weekend competition, which is the premier event for the sport.

    “We can do anything we put our minds to,” she said, “if we are determined to get there.”

    The daughter from Newark, N.J., grew up a tomboy with no dreams of a competition stage. She went from softball MVP, to soldier, to mother, to Army spouse to personal trainer. Now a physique professional, today she can’t imagine life without fitness as part of her routine, and said she is still amazed that she can step foot on a stage that touts fitness as its core.

    “I’m a firm believer in health and fitness,” she said. “It helps everything … quality of life, long-term health, builds inner strength, fuels passions, and spills over into each relationship you encounter. In addition, it builds character which transcends not only your personal life, but the professional realm as well.”

    LEAVE A COMMENT

    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 11.14.2013
    Date Posted: 11.14.2013 15:41
    Story ID: 116752
    Location: FORT HOOD, TX, US
    Hometown: NEWARK, NJ, US

    Web Views: 179
    Downloads: 0

    PUBLIC DOMAIN