Host Alina Popa and guest co-host Whitney Jones were joined on the latest episode of “Femme Flex Friday” by four-time Fitness Olympia champion Oksana Grishina and 2020 titleholder Missy Truscott. Between those two and Jones, that was seven Fitness Olympia titles on one show. This group also represented the top three in Orlando this past December. The topics on this episode ranged from competing at the Olympia this year to the division as a whole and many other discussions.
Missy Truscott on Preparing for the Olympia During Lockdown
“It was actually very difficult in the beginning because here in Seattle … we shut everything down, which was of course a benefit to the community, but it was very difficult for me. My fitness routine, I had to practice in my driveway. I ended up buying mats from a gymnastics club so I can practice my routine hard. With the cage that you saw, it was a six-foot prop that was custom built for the Olympia stage. So I was jumping off of that thing onto my driveway obviously meant I had to be careful.”
Whitney Jones on Testing Positive for COVID-19 Twice
“I actually got COVID twice! Yeah, so trying to stay healthy and dealing with it. It affected my heart in a big, big way. It affected my lungs still leading into those last few weeks [before] the Olympia. My biggest COVID challenge was trying to stay healthy and recover from it because that was what taxed me.”
Oksana Grishina on the Burden of Being the Champion
“It’s definitely a lot of pressure on yourself. No one presses on you as much as you press upon yourself. You want to do a better job, and yeah, you can get crazy thinking about it. But it’s really tough. What you find is the most difficult is defending your title. It’s by far the most difficult. I was second two times before I won, and honestly, I have prepped when I was in second and first. I can tell you prepping when you were in second is always the best.”
Truscott on Developing Her Routine to Keep it Fresh
“So with every routine I try to bring one, a different routine, and I’m always trying to increase my level of difficulty with my skills. I know the one good thing about fitness is that you can have a favorite style also. Dancers kind of favor Oksana, the really hardcore type like Whitney’s routine, and then I’m kind of the powerful tumbler, gymnast, cheerleader type. So I try to look for inspirations just in my home roots, what I learned when I was younger. A lot of those skills I can actually still do now because I have the muscle from training.”
You can see this episode featuring all three champions as well as every episode of “Femme Flex Friday” every Friday at 6 p.m. EST on wingsofstrength.net.
