Dedication to bodybuilding pays dividends for Liberatore

AMHERST - Caissie Liberatore has dedicated the last 10 years of her life to bodybuilding. - Now it's paying off.

Liberatore, originally from Moncton but now living in Amherst, won the women's heavyweight and women's overall provincial championships recently at the Nova Scotia Bodybuilding Competition in Halifax. She will compete this weekend in Moncton at the Atlantic Bodybuilding competition.

Liberatore also won the 2004 women's heavyweight title in New Brunswick. She was confident going into the provincial competition this year that she would come out a champion.

"I had a goal in mind and I stuck to my guns," she said. "I knew where I wanted to go and I knew how to get there."

She said a lot of her success has been a result of the personal support around her. Her trainer, Bruce Sweeney, keeps her motivated and the male bodybuilders she trains with in Moncton give her a goal to work toward.

"I can't train at a home gym. It's boring," she said. "Training with my (male) friends makes me work harder because I want to catch up to them. It pushes me to go that one step further."

She took two years off from competition but decided she was in the right frame of mind to start competing again this year. Now that she's won provincials, she can compete at the national level any year. But because the intense training before competition is very hard on the body, she's aiming to compete at the national level next year.

As for this weekend's competition, Liberatore remains confident.

"My plan is to take two more trophies home," she said.



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