The Next Level of Fitness

When fitness becomes competitive

Kevin Ashby and Wendy Carvalho-Ashby never imagined they would become the fittest couple in Canada, but in July 2007, they won the Pairs category at the national FAME natural bodybuilding and fitness championship held in Toronto, Ontario.

The Calgary couple admits that there was a time when their fitness level was not ideal. During her undergraduate and graduate years at the University of Calgary, Wendy, thirty-two, whose participation in high-school team sports and gymnastics was in her past, put on about thirty pounds. Kevin, also thirty-two, was an avid basketball and hockey player in high school, but he didn’t follow an organized workout schedule while pursuing his later degrees either.

The two decided to pursue twin careers as chiropractors and moved to Toronto to attend Canadian Memorial Chiropractic College. And they made another important decision as well: they felt that they couldn’t ask their future chiropractic clients to look after their bodies if they did not also “live the life.” They regard the period of their student life in Toronto as their second chance at peak fitness. So, while attending Chiropractic College, they also took the courses necessary to become personal trainers. “We felt that personal training was the perfect mix with chiropractic,” says Kevin.

Their schedule was grueling—involving sixteen hour days training clients as personal trainers, attending classes at the chiropractic college, and finding time to do their own workouts as well—but the decision was an easy one. “If I’m going to be a health practitioner, I have to live the lifestyle,” says Wendy.
They moved back to Calgary in 2005 and began working part-time as personal trainers at World Health Club and part-time as chiropractors at Advantage Health. A few World Health Club members were training for the regional FAME competition that year.

One of Wendy’s clients was among them. In her late forties, Cindy (name changed), out of shape and a recent smoker, decided to change her life by training for FAME. Cindy encouraged Wendy to do the same. But Wendy was very skeptical. She couldn’t imagine herself walking across a stage in clear acrylic “stripper” heels. She admits that, though she was a personal trainer, her physique was not at the level of fitness to give her the confidence to wear a bra top to the gym, let alone a posing suit on stage.

It took a year or two, but eventually Kevin and Wendy committed to training for FAME, working with their coach, former bodybuilding world champion Neil Paul Anthony. They attended the one-day FAME boot camp, held locally, where they were taught about suits and nutrition, and how to walk, perform turns, use tanning cream and lotions, and demonstrate mandatory poses.

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