Marisa is a personal trainer, online coach, and competitive powerlifter having recently competed at the 2014 IPF Raw Worlds. With a background as a gymnast and bodybuilder she’s had a long love affair with fitness. She won’t bullshit her clients and tell them that the road to getting to their goals will be easy, but thoroughly enjoys working with them and helping them get into shape.

Note from Matt: This interview was recorded from a phone call and written down after we talked. Some parts may be edited for an easier read.

Matt: I like to get the tough questions out of the way first, so here we go! According to the internet your face is stuck in permanent duckface. Could you please explain this phenomenon?

Marisa: I am part of the DuckLip Mafia (laughing). You know, I don’t know what it is. I’m just going to go with saying that I have big lips that naturally go into that position.

Matt: How big is this Mafia? Should I be worried?

Marisa: There’s a lot of us. There’s Steve Kleva, all the guys at Legends of Aesthetics, and many more. At Arnold we had a DuckLip posedown that was pretty intense, which I won of course.

Matt: That’s awesome (laughing). Tell me about how you first got involved with fitness and what led you to the point where you are today. I saw that you used to do competitive bodybuilding back in the day?

Marisa: Yeah, I actually was a gymnast prior to that. When I stopped competing in gymnastics I was looking for something to do because until this point I had been training 5-6 days a week.I tried dance and it just wasn’t for me. I wandered into the gym one day when I was 17 years old and I saw this girl who had an amazing physique. I would basically just follow her from one piece of equipment to the next and copy exactly what she did. She must of thought that I was such a creep (laughing). From there one of the guys at the gym told me I had a nice physique and should  try to do a bodybuilding show. Luckily for me I was around people who always trained properly so I was doing squats, deadlifts, and benching from the start. I went the bodybuilding route because that was what was out there at the time. It was just overloaded with too much stress for me. I competed a lot, but I could never win. I just couldn’t compete with the girls who were getting bigger and bigger. I didn’t want to go down that route. So I stopped competing and kept training. Around three years ago I decided to do powerlifting competition and fell in love with it.

Matt: What was it about powerlifting that really attracted you to the sport? What’s your process been like as you’ve moved up in the ranks?

Marisa: Well I’ve always been really strong, which is probably due to my gymnastics background. Back when I was 17 the first thing I ever did was a Bench Press competition and I won. From that time on I always trained heavy, but I never really did anything with it.  I saw the California State Games was coming up and just jumped into it. I knew nothing about it except that I needed to wear a singlet, which is super attractive (laughing). After the first competition I started doing some research, got on a good strength training program, and just went from there.

It’s been going really well. I’m ranked, I think, at 11th for total and 10th or 9th for squat out of all the federations. Hopefully in November I’ll be able to set American records in the deadlift and bench press.

Matt: Wow. That would be amazing. So how far do you want to take this? Along with those PRs you’re shooting for, what else are you working towards?

Marisa: As far as powerlifting I want to try to win Worlds at some point. I went to South Africa this year in June and took 3rd in deadlift and bench. The great thing about powerlifting is that you’re never quite good enough and that you can always do more. It would be pretty cool to win a World meet and come back to the US to win Raw Nationals. I was so close this year, which kind of sucked. I lost by I think 1-2 kilos? I also have a few clients who are into powerlifting so I want to help them reach their goals as well. It’s great because unlike bodybuilding it’s not subjective. You either do it or you don’t.

Matt: That’s one of the main reasons I love powerlifting as well.

So you’re being coached by Chad Wesley Smith from Juggernaut, right? How’s that going?

Marisa: Yeah I just started working with Chad in June. Prior to that I did all my own programming. It’s really nice to have to think about it all and have an extra set of eyes looking in at what you’re doing. He’s great.

Matt: What’s the programming been like? Has anything surprised you?

Marisa: Yeah, the amount of squats I have to do (laughing). He’s really big on submaximal work. When I first went to him I told him that I wanted to bring my squat up because at Worlds other girls were opening a lot heavier than I was. Previously I was opening really light because I didn’t want to burn out, then my 2nd attempt was a 40-50 lbs jump, and after that I was failing my 3rd attempt. Chad was adamant that I had to squat more. Now I’m squatting 3x a week and sometimes hitting 70 reps on work sets.

Matt: Wow. I’ve seen how much you’ve been squatting recently in your videos. I didn’t know it was that much.

Marisa: Yeah, so that first week I texted Chad to tell him that I hated him (laughing). But at Nationals my squat PR was 270 something and it’s jumped 20 lbs already. It’s definitely built confidence which I didn’t have before in the squat. My meets coming up on November 22nd so hopefully the numbers go up for everything.

Matt: I want to move on to you as a trainer and online coach. What’s your learning process been like switching from athlete to being the one coaching others?

Marisa: The biggest challenge for me has been learning that people aren’t like me (laughing). Everyone has a different mindset when they get into training. Some people really love it and for others it’s a constant battle. That’s been the biggest challenge for me because as a trainer I have a variety of clientele. There’s females who just want to get abs on one side and strength athletes on the other who can be a little easier to work with because they already have a mindset with clear goals. But even with those strength athletes you can run into issues. You can write the best program in the world and if they don’t hit a 50 lb bench PR then they think it’s not working. You have to teach them to be patient and get them to understand that it’s a process.

Matt: You have to speak their own language to get them to understand.

Marisa – Yeah, exactly. Just realizing that they are their own person and they have their unique things that will motivate them. Not everyone is motivated by the same thing as me.

Matt: Completely agree. I’m actually going to an awesome fitness conference this weekend in Salt Lake City with Coach Stevo and Dan John called Motivate. It’s all about behavioral change for fitness and health professionals. We’ll be talking on how to encourage long-term change with your clients and keeping them motivated.

Marisa: That sounds like an awesome conference. It really is the biggest challenge you’ll run into as a coach – keeping your clients motivated enough to stay consistent. You know as well as I do that if you’re not consistent in anything you do you’re not going to improve. It’s hard for anyone to stay motivated when they feel as if it’s taking years to get better.

Matt: It really is the hardest part.

So you do online coaching in addition to your in-person training. Could you tell me how that started and how it’s going?

Marisa: I started out mainly doing in-person training only because doing online training felt kind of foreign. You don’t get to talk to the person, you’re not there to correct things, you’re not there to push them through that rep if they have a sticking point. I love in-person training because I love being around people. I love learning what makes them tick. I love seeing them hit that small PR…it’s just awesome. But then I started to get a lot of training requests. People from New York, people from Texas. The crazy part is that most of my clients are on the East Coast and I’m on the West Coast. It’s definitely been a learning experience. When I dove into online training I told my clients that to make this work we were going to have to stay in contact. They have to text me. If I don’t have the information I need I won’t be able to figure out what’s not working and I can’t help them. I have a mixed batch of clients. Some are ON it. I have one client who sends me 15 videos a day when I just need one (laughing). Then there are others who I have to badger to talk to me. Because of this I have a love-hate relationship with online training. You know it can work, but if you don’t hear from a client you’re just collecting a paycheck without knowing if any goals were reached. I want to stay involved.

Matt: Creating the right environment online for you and your clients is something that is incredibly hard to do and is a big focus for us at StrengthPortal.

Last questions for you. What are you working on improving as a trainer and coach? What are you working on improving as an athlete?

Marisa: As a trainer and coach I’m constantly trying to improve because things are always changing. I’m always going to as many seminars as I can. I’m going to the Juggernaut seminar this weekend for the second time, for example. People have different ideas and I think that there’s not just one program that will work for everyone, you know? I go to talk to people who are stronger than me and hitting new PRs. That’s the great thing about Facebook and networking with people is that you can get exposed to so many different ideas.

For me as an athlete, it’s just making sure I don’t miss reps. Getting in there every single day, even when I don’t want to. Staying in communication with Chad. He can’t get better as a coach if I don’t tell him what’s going on. It’s a constant learning process for both of us. What works for me over the next 6 months might not work after that.

Matt: Well I’m super excited for you and the upcoming months! Can’t wait to see the results.

Marisa: Yeah me too! I really do love this. I did real estate for a really long time and worked as an underwriter at a bank. When I decided to make the transition over it was scary because I was going from a steady paycheck to now where it’s a constant hustle. The great part about it is that I have clients who have worked with me for years who could go in and do it on their own, but they still enjoy working with me. I wouldn’t change anything because I get to help people make progress. Getting people to love the changes they’re making and fall in love with working out is very rewarding for me. It’s a lifestyle and you just can’t stop.

Matt: Big thanks to Marisa for giving us here time. If you’d like to follow here as she continues to work towards breaking records you can check out the links below!

– Marisa's website
– Facebook Page
– Instagram @marisainda
– Twitter @marisainda