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Michaela Augustsson

Michaela Augustsson is a Swedish fitness athlete, powerlifter, and physiotherapist. She’s the national champion of the Athletic Fitness competitions, which was held in Sweden during 2015/2016. She’s also a silver medalist in the Swedish national powerlifting championships – under 63kg weight category.

While Michaela now enjoys the fitness lifestyle, this wasn’t always the case. She was once a highly-skilled floorball player. She enjoyed playing this sport so much, that she thought of building her career upon it. However, at the age of 16, an injury struck Michaela. She ruptured her ACL in the left knee during one of her floorball games. Two years later, she received another injury to the same knee.

As a result of these events, Michaela completely lost the desire to continue playing floorball. In her own words; “I got fed up and ended my floorball career. Went to US San-Diego for college and went to a lot of training and health related courses and programs.” While she was in San Diego, Michaela discovered other types of fitness. She instantly became amazed by it, and decided to pursue it as a full-time job.

In 2016, Michaela realized her goal – she became a sponsored fitness model, competitive powerlifter, as well as rising star on social media.

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“I find motivation in always trying something new, challenging myself. To take one’s self out of their comfort zone is a good thing to create new motivation and maybe find new favorites.”

Athlete Statistics

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Accomplishments

• Sponsored Athlete
• Physiotherapist (Bachelor’s Degree)
• Fitness Model
• Powerlifter

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Training

Michaela’s Take on Cardio

Michaela does cardio occasionally, during the in-season only. Doing so helps her reach her body fat percentage goals faster. However, whenever she can, she’ll avoid doing cardio. She believes it can do more harm than good for her muscles.

This is Michaela’s thoughts on cardio ; “I’m against all that silly crap with cardio cardio cardio. You stress your body even more with all that walking, inflammations or stress fractures in feet or shin splints are often seen. And with a hard diet and a lot of cardio sooner or later you are going to start taking from your muscles.”

Chest and Triceps Workout

During the off-season, Michaela bases her workouts around gaining strength and size. While in the in-season, she trains with a lot of specific movements, using light weights, and high reps – this helps her get in top shape for her Athlete Fitness contests in Sweden.

The same principles apply to her chest and triceps workout, which looks something like this;

• Bench-press- working set up to workload 4-5 set then 5×5
• Dips- warm-up a few set of 5-10reps. Intervals set 6-8 with 8-10 dips (competition rules) and 45 sec rest
• Rep out – using powerband under knees for extra help up, repping out to failure often around 30-40 reps a 3 set
• Complement exercise- push-ups with power band as extra load, different if using small or wide hand placement. Going to failure, then take away the power band going for some more extra x 3 set
• Pushdowns with rope in cable 10-12 reps x 4set
• Ending with some Intervals rows 30s x 30s x 5 intervals

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Michaela’s Top 3 Exercises

1. Squats – Michaela says this exercise strengthens her entire body, and most importantly – it builds awesome looking legs and glutes. This exercise is the epitome of “no bullshit, just hard work”, said Michaela.
2. Intervals – Michaela loves all forms of intervals, be it short explosive bursts on the treadmill, or sprints outside of the gym.
3. Row-machine – This one helps Michaela speed up her metabolism. It also gives her a nice feeling after she’s done with the exercise.

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“I often listen to Rock and Metal. That’s what gets me going in the gym.”

Nutrition

Simple and Healthy Diet for Fat Loss

Michaela describes her diet as “just plain and simple good food.” She eats a lot of vegetables, poultry, as well as potatoes, pasta, and sausage meat. She particularly likes raspberries and consumes lots of lactose-free yogurt too.

To help strengthen her gut she will eat fermented foods and the lactose free yogurt.

For snacks she consumes a lot of nuts, which are rich in healthy fats.

Taking a Break Once per Week

When it comes to cheat meals, Michaela has one day per week where she eats any food she craves. This one day doesn’t impact her overall diet much, as she burns those extra calories by training hard in the gym.

Michaela’s favorite cheat meal is a hamburger.

Michaela’s Basic Supplements

There aren’t many supplements in Michaela’s daily stack. She sticks to the basics – taking only whey and casein protein, BCAAs, and sometimes a pre workout.

Through the year there’s times where Michaela doesn’t take any supplement, only relying on her food for macronutrients. She says she didn’t notice any major difference in her physique from not taking supplements; believing that solid diet is enough by itself.

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“During a diet, of course, I need to use the scale to see that my diet is working and is up to plan and schedule for my competition. Otherwise, I never use a scale.  As long as I’m happy with my body it doesn’t matter how much my weight is.”

Idols and Influences

One of Michaela’s biggest role models is her teammate and friend Jenny Adolfsson. Jenny is a successful powerlifter, fitness athlete, and CrossFitter.

Michaela says Jenny was always someone who was open to new challenges in life; never being afraid of doing something outside of her comfort zone. This is one of the reasons why Michaela chose Jenny as her biggest influence in fitness, and in life.

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What we can learn from Michaela Augustsson

Michaela Augustsson was a successful floorball player as a teenager. She believed she would become a professional in the sport one day. However, after she recovered from a serious injury to her knee, twice, Michaela lost the ‘spark’ she had for floorball.

She eventually decided to pursue fitness as her career, and over the years – she succeeded in it. She became a successful powerlifter with two major medals, as well as a fitness model. Michaela now looks back at her life and is grateful for everything that had happened.

Sometimes, it could be wise to interpret negative events in your life as something positive. Because you never know which new opportunities these events might open up to you – just like in Michaela Augustsson’s example.