How to get an Olympic body: five athletes share their power-packing, muscle-sculpting moves

Muscle & Fitness/Hers, August, 2004 by Sarah Bowen Shea

Watching the Olympics, no doubt you're in awe of the athletes' ability to do triple back handsprings, leap over hurdles and swim butterfly at warp speed, but let's admit it: What you really want are their phenomenal physiques. The chiseled biceps, the taut abs, the sculpted quads. So we wondered: Do they get these powerful, muscled bodies from their sport alone or by hitting the weight room? Turns out it's a combination of both. We talked to five top U.S. women athletes--beach volleyball player Misty May, basketball player Tamika Catchings, soccer player Cindy Parlow, fencer Erinn Smart and swimmer Amanda Beard--to learn the secrets to their most enviable body parts. All of them told us that weight training helped them maximize their natural potential. They also shared their favorite exercise picks for their signature muscle groups.

Workout Routine

You can add specific exercises into your current routine or do the exercises listed as a complete weight-training workout. However you choose to use these moves, do 1-3 sets of each, 8-15 reps per set. When called for, use a weight that's challenging but still allows you to maintain good form.

Bosu Bike

Exercise: Place a Bosu on the floor, dome side up. Sit on the front of the Bosu, resting your glutes on the dome's curve, and lean back to drape the small of your back over the top. Bring your left knee toward your chest and extend your right leg at hip height. Place your hands behind your head, elbows rounded slightly inward, and rotate your torso to the left so your right shoulder points toward your left knee. Hold for a moment and then carefully rotate to the right, bringing your right knee in and straightening your left leg until your left shoulder points toward your right knee. Continue alternating sides to complete the set.

Gold-Medal Tip: Because this is such a balance challenge, your core muscles must work deeply just to stay atop the Bosu. Move slowly and deliberately: don't worry if you slide off the Bosu a few times as you learn this exercise.

Plank Tilt

Exercise: Place a Bosu on the floor, dome side down, and get into a plank position with your arms straight and hands grasping the sides of the platform. Pull in your abs and tilt your chin toward your chest so your back doesn't sag and your body forms a straight line from the top of your head to your heels. Hold this position for 10 slow counts as you focus on keeping as still as possible. Then, tilt your entire body slightly to the right and hold for 10 counts, again staying as still as possible. To complete the rep, tilt to the left and hold for 10 counts.

Gold-Medal Tip: The secret to maintaining a stable body? Abs, abs, abs. To prevent wobbling, pull your abs in as deeply as possible and reset your spinal alignment by making sure your lower back and neck are in line with the rest of your body.

Without a doubt, Misty May has enviable abs.

But to this beach volleyball player, those muscles are all about strength, not appearance. Before her first Summer Games in 2000, May suffered a sports hernia (a tear in the lower abdominal muscles that attach to the pubis bone). Because of the upcoming Olympics, she couldn't take time off to heal; instead, she visited a sports-medicine specialist who showed her how to build up the muscles around the injured area so they could compensate.

"The doctor showed me how important it is to have strong core muscles and how you use your core for virtually every move you make," says May, 27, who along with her playing partner Kerri Walsh will make up the top-ranked dynamic duo on the sand in Athens.

Even though her hernia has healed, May remains vigilant about strengthening her abs and lower-back muscles. 'At the end of every workout, whether or not she and Walsh are lifting, May does core-related exercises. And all the work is paying off. "I feel more powerful in my jump serves and swinging," she says. "I haven't had any back problems since 2000." Plus, May says, "Keeping my back and ab muscles engaged while walking around improves my self-confidence." She loves exercises like those shown at left that work all her core muscles in tandem.

Luckily for Tamika Catchings, she's naturally strong--this forward for the 2004 USA Women's National Team admits that in college, she had a serious aversion to the weight room. "I'd be pumping the lightest weights and out of the weight room in 20 minutes," recalls Catchings, a star player at the University of Tennessee. "My teammates made fun of me for it." When the six-footer joined the Indiana Fever in the WNBA four seasons ago, she knew she had to change her game plan. Her work paid off: Catchings earned 2002 WNBA Rookie of the Year honors.

Catchings now hits the weights hard in the gym, and when she's at home, she often does five pushups during every commercial while watching her favorite TV shows, including "Soul Food" and "The Bernie Mac Show." "I notice a big difference," says the 25-year-old. "I feel stronger when I make a move to the basket. Even if someone tries to hold my arms down, I can still manage to get the ball up and out."