Gabrielle Tucker is an emerging name in women’s weightlifting and if you didn’t know, she is the woman who went viral earlier this year for squatting 300 lbs, which is 2.4 times her weight according to brobible.com.
She has been racking up a bunch of accolades over the past year, and decided to share a few of her secrets through an AMA (Ask Me Anything) on reddit.com, and here are the best questions and responses.
Question #1: What’s your advice to another woman just starting out in the gym?
Gabrielle Tucker: If you have access to any dumbbells, learning some of the basics and getting a strength base and program going at home can be really helpful. It is a lot easier to go to the gym if you already have some idea what you will be doing.
Question #2:I know you work a physically demanding job. How do you balance rest and nutrition with your rigorous powerlifting training? I imagine injury prevention is paramount in work and your powerlifting, what does your pre-rehab look like?
GT: I like to sleep A LOT. When my work is really busy, I definitely try and fit in naps when I can. High calorie snacks that I can take to barns and eat between lessons/riding is a must. Cheese sticks are the bomb for this.
Question #3: What was one tweak to one of your lifts (or focusing on a muscular weakness?) that made the biggest improvement?
GT: Flexing my upper/mid back properly literally adds 50 lbs to all of my lifts. Once I figured this out, all my lifts went up.
Question #4: How do you prepare for a meet mentally? I usually train fairly calmly and my first competition I found I got very nervous and missed some of my normal cues.
GT: Yes, unfortunately the best way to get better at meets is to do more meets. Every time I compete I learn something from it that I bring to my next competition. Mock meets can be helpful if you have access to such a thing, but they still don’t compare to the real deal.
Question #5:Are there any cues that help with this? Pinch shoulder blades, etc?
GT: It really has little to do with your shoulders. Best I can describe it is like trying to arch my upper/mid back in the same way that people arch their lower back to stick their butt out.
GT: My diet is very lax. I love dairy and whole milk is my go to while I am bulking right now. I usually go through phases where I eat a lot of 1 type of food for a month or 2 than switch to something new. Sometimes its burgers, chicken nuggets, pot pies, smoothies, etc.
Questions #7: How do you structure your training?
GT: I am currently doing an upper/lower split and am in the gym 4x a week for 1.5-2 hour sessions. I like to get a lot of volume in and then do some overload work after for all of my lifts.
Take a look below at some of her impressive training videos from her very informative and inspiring Instagram page.
