Meet the Bodybuilder Turned Seattle Seahawk Cheerleader
When I was in 6th grade, the coolest girl in my ballet class traded in her tutu for pom-poms. So I begged my mom to sign me up for All-Star cheer. I went to auditions, I tumbled (OK, mostly fumbled), and made it through about three practices before giving up. My mom was thrilled she wouldn’t have to spend weekends making sure my unruly curls were pulled into a high, tight ponytail (not to mention caking my youthful face with makeup that was, yes, required), but I was kind of bummed.
Every Superbowl, I’m reminded of my short-lived cheerleading days. And because I remember just how hard it was to do those stretches and splits, I’m fascinated by just how much work the cheerleaders put into their routines, ones they execute flawlessly in crop-tops and minis. While all eyes are on the boys both on and off the field—hellllloo Julian Edelman!—it’s the ladies on the sidelines I think we can all learn from, strength-wise. So I talked to Rosey Mattson, former bodybuilder and personal trainer for Seahawk cheerleader Jalanda (a professional weightlifter), about how she helped the Sea Gal transition from bodybuilding to cheerleading, and how she ups her training regime for the Superbowl.
Photo: Seahawks.com
Yahoo Style: How did Jalanda’s Sea Gal sculpting begin?
Rosey Mattson: Jalanda was really interested in competing, so I started training her like a body builder in March 2014. We prepped for her first weightlifting competition for a good four months, and we really liked to talk about all the stuff we couldn’t eat, like Dairy Queen Blizzards. That was one of our favorite things to do!
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YS: So her road to becoming a Sea Gal started with body building training?
RM: [Yes], this time last year we were in full on training mode for a competition, with a really rigorous diet and intense training program. There were times where she was working out twice a day, doing cardio twice a day—she was kicking butt.
YS: How much work goes into prepping a body for a bodybuilding competition?
RM: We were working out six to seven days a week, and every day was a different body part. And of course, she’d have to do a ton of cardio afterward. The biggest thing with competing is that you really have to dial down how lean you are. It’s very aesthetic, and not so much how strong you are. For example, in the bikini division, it’s all about whatever is physically appealing to the eye. So every week we’d sit down and redo her meal plan if we realized she had to shave off some body fat somewhere. If we found that she was having too many carbs that week, we’d definitely take them out of her diet. It was a total week-by-week process to see how her body reacted to the workout program and diet.
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YS: That sounds pretty intense. What made her want to become a body builder?
RM: She had previously been a cheerleader for the Tennessee Titans, but wasn’t yet a Sea Gal. She actually tried out to be a Sea Gal the year before, but unfortunately she didn’t make the cut. So she wanted to dial herself down and train for a show to get the ideal body type. If she could do this, she then wanted to take her physique to the next level and attempt to try out for the Sea Gals one more time.
Photo: @SeaGalJalanda/Twitter
YS: Now that’s persistence. She was like her own personal cheerleader! Did she end up competing?
RM: She did and she ended up getting 10th place for her first show, which was awesome! She did great and she loved it. That’s the only show she’s done yet because right after that she had to start changing up her training.
How did you help her transition from bodybuilding to cheerleader sculpting?
RM: We had been lifting like body builders, but we had to make her longer and leaner for the Sea Gals so she did a lot more hip-hop and jazz classes and a lot of yoga, for stretching. She pretty much stayed the same with the weight training, but we dialed back the cardio. We wanted her to be fit, but to have that hourglass figure that I believed the Sea Gals are looking for.
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YS: Did her diet change?
RM: When she started training to become a cheerleader her diet definitely wasn’t as strict. She wanted to put on a little bit more shape, because when you’re competing, especially in the last weeks, she had to dehydrate herself, drinking distilled water to pull out all of the salts. So for her to go back to being trained for a Sea Gal we added a lot more healthy carbs, a lot more fruits and introduced some sugar into her diet.
YS: So what does a typical training session look like? And what could I try?
RM: We definitely worked a lot on her core. To make sure she got a full body workout that would burn fat and keep her shape, we did high intensity interval training. A typical day would start with our token warm-up: Sumo-walk, walking lunges, five minutes of abdominal work (doing anything from planks to leg raises to toe touches). After that we’d stretch and then move right into weight training.
YS: Was there anything you did or didn’t do to make sure she was in tip-top cheerleading shape?
RM: We didn’t do a lot of strength training and instead did agility training because the more heavy training we’d do, the more it would take away from the flexibility that her body would need to do all of those splits, jumps, and kick-ups.
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