Most athletes are hitting the end of the road by age 40. Martina Navratilova hung up her racket at age 38. Soccer star Abby Wambach scored her last goal at 35. When Jessica Coleman turned 40, she was just getting started in her sport. Four years later, she won her first national bodybuilding competition, and not in a masters class for people over 40. She beat competitors of all ages.
“What ended up happening is my coach decided we were going to do the Junior USA [bodybuilding competition], which does not have a masters division,” Coleman says of the mid-May competition in Charleston, South Carolina, where she earned her professional card in the International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness.
Although her first overall victory didn’t happen until she was 44, the road there began about 25 years earlier.
“When I was younger, in college, I had started training for fitness competitions, and I had this dream of kind of taking that somewhere professionally at that point,” Coleman recalls. But it wasn’t her time yet.
“I blew out my knee playing volleyball and life happened and later, you know, kids and family,” she says.
Over the next two decades, Coleman says she got into shape—and out of shape—many times. Then something shifted.
“I was really excited about making [my] 40s the best years of my life,” she says. “And I asked myself, what have I always wanted to do that I’ve never done? And you know, the first thing that popped into my head was that you always wanted to compete in a fitness competition.”
This time, she was serious. As she approached 40, she lost 30 pounds, and she wasn’t done.
“I hired a coach and I started my prep at that point,” she says. Her first goal was to compete in the figure category, which requires less musculature.
“I think I placed eighth,” she says of that first show. “At 41 I did my second show, and I came in third in the masters [division].”
Then COVID hit, and gyms closed down. Coleman wasn’t deterred.
“I kept doing my workouts from home to kind of keep everything going,” she says. “And I couldn’t wait to get back on stage.”
When the pandemic restrictions lifted and she returned to competition, her hard work started paying off.
“Last year I did three competitions, and I started winning,” she says.
Bodybuilding is not for the weak-willed. Coleman says her training often involves hitting the gym three times a day.
“Before this past show, I was doing two hours of cardio and training for an hour and a half, and the only way I could fit that into my day was to go three times,” says Coleman, a single mother who works full time as clinical operations manager. “Now, my two teenage daughters are in travel ball, so I was also traveling on the weekends and having to take my show on the road with all my prepped meals and using the gym while I was out of town.”
In addition to having a competitive streak, Coleman says having a coach is critical for anyone serious about competing in bodybuilding.
“Basically each week he analyzes my physique and tells me, here’s what you need to eat, here’s how much cardio and here’s how much water,” she says.
Her Richmond-based coach, Sebastian Alvarez, says prepping to compete requires a wide range of caloric intake. “She goes from 5,500 in off-season to 1,000 close to competing,” he says. The “cutting” phase isn’t the only challenge. Coleman drinks a gallon and a half of water every day, and Alvarez says consuming enough to build massive muscle means Coleman has to “sit down and force feed like it’s a job. It’s incredible.”
He says Coleman’s work ethic sets her apart.
“When I first met her, she looked good but it wasn’t ‘whoa,’” Alvarez says. “In reality, I didn’t know her personality. When I started working with her and saw how meticulous she is with her training and her diet, I knew this girl was going to make it far.”
Alvarez isn’t the only one impressed with Coleman’s progress. Her 17-year-old daughter Zoe Utz, a rising senior at Monticello High School, says she’s been inspired by her mother’s hard work and achievements.
“I think it’s incredible,” says Utz, who now regularly works out with her mom and says the shared interest has brought them closer. “I’ve seen where she started, and to work as hard as she has, the discipline, the dedication to get there…when I see her happy and reaching her goals, it makes me proud to see that happen.”
With her first national victory under her belt, Coleman is taking several months to recover before preparing to compete again, this time against some of the top bodybuilders in the world.
Alvarez says he has specific goals for her: “Improve her back, the width in her lats, bring up her hamstrings more,” he says. She’s training two fewer days per week during this period, which Alvarez says will last about three months. She’ll be back on stage competing toward the end of 2023.
“Win one pro show and she’s in the Olympia,” Alvarez says. “I have no doubt she will do it.”
Coleman says winning a competition feels amazing, but it isn’t the greatest reward.
“I’ve experienced a lot of setbacks in my life,” she says. “And, you know, I think that what has me feeling the proudest is my ability to bounce back from all of that and turn some failures into a big success for me. Once you fall on your face a couple of times, you get back up stronger. It’s great to be at this point in my life and just feel so much freedom and strength.”
Courteney Stuart is the host of Charlottesville Right Now on WINA. You can hear her interview with Jessica Coleman at wina.com.