Annette Kaminiski - Mom Musters Muscle

Lifetime bodybuilder returns to competitions

Marvel Comics heroines are just drawn that way - Annette Kaminski put in 17 years of sweat and toil.

The fruits of that labor are evident as she works out at Gold's Gym in Natick. She's there three times a week. Clad in no-nonsense black, sneakers included, the toned muscle comprising Kaminski's trim form is hinted at by bare arms and shoulders shown off by a halter top. Biceps, deltoids and triceps stand at attention, long ago drilled to a heightened state of readiness.

Kaminski said she's always been athletic, but really began focusing on body building when she was 24. A friend noticed her hard work at the gym, saw it paying off, and encouraged her to compete in the Miss Massachusetts bodybuilding competition in 1988. She won.

"Then, after that I kind of took a break," Kaminski said, from professional competitions. Working out, she said, remained an integral part of her lifestyle.

The Framingham native met her husband, Mark, while they were both skiing at Killington. The two moved to Natick together in 1994 and opened Bagelmania. In 1997 they married, sold the bagel shop and moved to Hopkinton.

Mark started a MetroWest area construction company, Rosado, based in Framingham. Kaminski stayed home to take charge of caring for their growing family. Currently the Kaminski family numbers five, with three children: Shayne, 8, Lukas, 6 and Nikalette, 4.

She kept up a regular gym routine, however, she said, though, "With a family it's mostly limited to three days (each week)."

When she returned home from the family's Cape Cod home, she said, her trainer, Mike, asked her if she wanted to do another bodybuilding competition. Kaminski, still in shape thanks to a thoroughly utilized gym membership at the Cape, had so impressed her trainer with her progress over the summer, said she felt confident accepting the invitation for the October Musclemania competition.

She placed first in the Overall Women's and Women's Masters Divisions.

"That qualified me for the nationals," Kaminski said, in Boston on Nov. 15, where she placed fourth.

For her next competition, during the Fitness Weekend Competition in April in Connecticut, "I'm working on building a little bit more size," she said, but not too much more.

"I've never wanted to look too muscular," Kaminski said, a decision she guesses may cost her with some judges.

"I'm lucky the judges were looking for a feminine physique," during her competitions so far, she said, but her odds might have improved if the judges hadn't been all male. Nonetheless, her performance still puts her among the best women body builders around.

"I'm totally happy with fourth," Kaminski said.

Her competitions consist of two parts. First is the style or muscle posing segment, where the bodybuilders compare their flexing physiques.

"They compare everybody right beside each other," Kaminski said.

Next is a 90 second solo posing routine set to music. Kaminski's music of choice: U-2's "Desire", "Because it was sort of fun and upbeat and I wanted to have fun while I was out there," Kaminski said.

But her favorite part of the competition, she said, was when contest official Mike D'Angelo checked her body fat composition, recording a reading of 8 percent. The average woman, Kaminski said, has 25 percent body fat.

D'Angelo announced to the crowd her body fat was the lowest he'd ever recorded, adding that she was 41 and a mother of three. The announcement drew generous applause, she said.

"And after the show, everyone was like, 'I can't believe you're 41 and you have three kids,'" Kaminski said.

Kaminski chalks it up to discipline and a constant desire to stay healthy.

"For me, there's no excuse to not look the best that you think you can," she said.

Her routine consists of 30 minutes of running on a treadmill, usually about three or four miles. Then she's on deck for an hour of weight training.

That regimen consists of three "sets" of nine exercises. A set, she said, is about 15-20 repetitions of the same exercise.

The exercises include bicep curls, tricep extensions, and crunches - 20 reps, three sets; shoulder presses, walking lunges and leg presses - 15 reps and leg extensions, leg curls, back and hamstring presses - 15 reps.

She'll do each of those three times, she said, and though sometimes it wears her out, "The next day, when I wake up, I feel better," she said.

"I don't need to supervise her, " said, Mike, "She'll do it on her own."

With some of his clients, said the personal trainer, he has to make sure they put everything they've got into a routine. Not with Kaminski.

"If you tell her to do 100 of something, she'll do 100 of them or pass out trying," he said.

All that time in the gym puts her in the company of a lot of fellow exercisers, many of whom she helps coach.

"I love to give people advice. I love it," she said. Someday, when her kids are a little more independent, she plans to open her own personal training business.

Her amiable nature may help her in that regard.

"Everybody loves her," Mike said.

One bit of advice she gives to friends who'd like to emulate her rippling muscled form: her competition weight, body fat and appearance are the result of special training and diet she puts into overdrive four weeks before a contest.

Four weeks out, it's a moderate carbohydrate diet, the equivalent of three good servings of pasta, a day, and she begins working out every day.

Two weeks out, she cuts the carbs in half and limits her diet to chicken, egg whites, fish and vegetables, and nuts.

"When you don't eat carbs, you can eat a lot of fat," she said.

One week beforehand, she cuts her diet to carbohydrates only, forcing separate diets for her and the rest of the family.

"At this point, this is where my family starts hating me," she said, since she has to eat separate from them at dinner.

Three days before hand, she cuts out all the salt in her diet, eating only boiled chicken, and the day before a competition, she doesn't even drink water.

"This is something you can only do for a show," Kaminski cautions.