General Life Update + How to Get Better Results With Your Workouts

Well, hi. And yes, welcome to my website. Yay for that:) It’s been such a great month since my year as Mrs. Wyoming America ended. I really needed a lot of time to unplug, so my family and I went on a giant road trip. We visited national parks, went to a Mariners game, and I watched my roommate from Mrs. America (Mrs. Washington, the best person in the entire world) crown her successor.

Now that I’m finally home, it’s appropriate to ask myself, “What’s next?”. This goal I worked hard five years for finally came to fruition, and now, it’s over. If I am being 100% honest, I am a competitive person, especially with myself. So, I am going to focus on NPC bikini competitions. I have already done a few, and from those, I received feedback on how I can improve. So, I will be taking significant time to build my physique and perhaps look at a show in 2023 or even 2024. Contrary to what society says, profound changes to our physique that are sustainable actually take longer to enact.

In addition to taking that extra time, I also have a new coach (Phil Pirtle) that I have been working with since April and a new bodybuilding team (Pro Physique). Since most of my friends may not know what a bodybuilding team is, that might require a future post. Anyhoo, there are a few valuable things I have put into place with my training that have helped me see better results, and I want to share one with you because it will help you. It’s called RPE, or rate of perceived exertion.

If you have been following a workout plan for some time and are perhaps stalled on your results, it might be beneficial to keep a log of your workouts. What exercises you did, how much weight you used, how many reps, and RPE. My coach provided me with a handy chart, which I’ll post below:

After I began to keep RPE in the range of 8-9.5, I realized I was not pushing myself hard enough before. I was stronger than I gave myself credit for. You see, it’s so much more than going through the motions of your workout to say you did it. If you TRULY want to be excellent, you have to be deliberate.

Try logging RPEs over the next month, and let me know how it goes! Also, here is a really good podcast episode related to this, too: