1) Who is Andrea Valdez? (where are you from, what do you do, a bit about yourself (hobbies, etc)
I’m a lifelong athlete originally from Corpus Christi, TX. I have competed for most of my life in various sports including gymnastics, cheerleading, figure, and powerlifting. I am a natural bodybuilding coach with Team 3D Muscle Journey. I also write articles and host a podcast on my own personal website, which is basically a catalog of my learnings over time.
2) How many years have you been training?
While I started competing in sports when I was 6 years old, I didn’t actually start lifting weights with the intention of putting on muscle until 2011 when prepping for my first figure show. Since 2014, training for strength has been my goal. M
3) What’s been the hardest part of your journey so far? and how have you overcome them (set backs, rejections, injuries, basically anything difficult that you have had to overcome)
One giant hurdle was learning how to eat and grow after my last figure season in 2013. Contest prep is exhilarating and relatively fast-paced. Immediately afterwards you feel a certain sense of relief for a few weeks while you put a healthy amount of body fat back on. But after that, once you are in the off-season, the progress is extremely slow – notably slower if you are not willing to create a caloric surplus that is big enough to allow for that growth. Being someone who does business online (i.e. the public face of my brand), gaining weight was extremely scary because my self-worth and identity were attached to my physical appearance.
I was pretty unhappy for a couple of years until I found a performance-based sport to focus all of my energy on. The big tipping point was caring about something else more than I cared about how I looked. I have a pretty detailed article about this on my website, which you find here - http://andreavaldez.com/training-for-grid/
4) What does your typical workout/diet routine look like?
I am almost 2 years into my 5-year journey of trying to make it into The Grid League. Grid is a professional sport that sort of looks like team Crossfit, but the races are all-out sprints. Each match is basically 11 relay races of Olympic weightlifting and bodyweight gymnastics movements. (You can learn more about it in the article I linked above in #3.)
Because of that, my training resembles that of a typical Crossfit athlete, but without as much long distance aerobic training. I have 5 normal training days per week, 1 active recovery day, and 1 complete rest day. My normal days start with Olympic weightlifting and powerlifting movements. I typically then perform 1 to 3 high intensity conditioning pieces lasting somewhere between 5 and 20 minutes, and finish with accessory and skill work. Sometimes it’s separated into 2 workouts per day.
My diet fluctuates based on my training and sleep. Rest days can be as low as 1700 calories and training days with 2 sessions can as high as 2500 calories. I generally consume 140-180 grams of protein, 60-80 grams of fat, and 120 to 250 carbs per day.
I eat the same breakfast nearly every day, and then usually eat every 3 to 4 hours until I go to bed. The size, food choices, and macronutrient composition of those meals change based on how I’m feeling and what I have left to do that day.
5) What have you learned over the past year regarding training, lifestyle and nutrition?
In the past year or two, I’ve re-learned what it was like to be a performance athlete. Even while I was competing in powerlifting, I still thought and ate like a bodybuilder. Everything was over-calculated, restrictive, and pre-planned. While that way of life helped me as a physique athlete, it did not serve me once I started training for Grid.
I now eat when I’m hungry and do not weigh myself every day. I have had to learn to listen to my body and what it needs in general. I pay a lot more attention to nutrient timing and energy levels. I also put a lot more emphasis on warm-ups, injury prevention, and movement patterns.
6) Whats your favourite cheat/Treat meal?
I’ve never subscribed to the idea of “good” or “bad” foods so I don’t feel like I am “cheating” when I eat something out of the ordinary. I eat the same things most days because I don’t like feeling sluggish when I train. But most Saturday evenings (the night before rest day), my boyfriend and I will go out to dinner. I still prefer dishes with a large amount of protein and try to get at least some vegetables. I like steaks and fajitas a ton, so we usually go places where I can get either of those. I have no problem eating the dinner rolls or tortillas that come with it, but I don’t get giant desserts or anything. Maybe once every few weeks there’s a pre-dinner margarita if we’re out with friends, but that’s about it.
7) One supplement that you could not live without?
I don’t believe there is any food I couldn’t live without, especially when it comes to supplements. But the one I consume most often is Utopian by De Novo Nutrition. It’s branded as a “cognitive enhancer” so it has huperzine A and a smaller dose of caffeine than most pre-workouts. I drink it in the mornings with breakfast. It’s replaced my morning coffee on training days.
Beyond that, my daily stuff includes Citadel Nutrition’s athlete multivitamin and fish oils, creatine monohydrate, beta alanine, and vitamin D.
8) If you had to start out from scratch with your physique what would you do differently and why?
While I don’t regret any part of my journey or wish it was any different, the most detrimental decision I made was to compete in figure too early. After just a few shorts months of lifting weights and seeing my body change, I started dieting for my first show. It would have been much smarter to train in a fed state for at least a couple years before making that jump. I lost a lot of muscle and wasted a lot of time with that prep.
9) Who do you look up to in the fitness industry and why?
Since discovering them in 2012, the gentlemen of 3D Muscle Journey have been my biggest mentors as professionals in the fitness industry. After working alongside them for almost 2 years now, I can still say that everything they stand for is genuine and honest, which is rare to come by in this industry nowadays. The hunger to learn and evolve for the betterment of their athletes (rather than selling cookie-cutter solutions to the general public for a quick buck) is the hallmark of good coaching to me. I couldn’t be more proud to call these men my family.
And as an athlete, I look up to anyone who has put in the years it takes to master their craft and compete at the highest levels of their sport. I read a lot of athlete biographies and memoirs to dive deeper into this. On social media, I follow a lot of Grid, Crossfit and Olympic weightlifting athletes at the moment to see how they move, train, and handle themselves in competition since that closely relates to my most immediate athletic goal.
10) If you had to give one bit of advice to people starting out what would that be?
Whatever the fitness goal, everyone should keep some type of journal as soon as they possibly can. You need to records of how your body responds to things regardless of what type of athlete or exerciser you are. For some, it can be as simple as a blank notebook with a training log. For others, it might just be a food and bodyweight diary. For me, I have training sheets, nutrition apps, bodyweight logs, and a place to write anything notable about my athletic journey. If I’m feeling sluggish, if I feel great, if I ate a food that upset my stomach, if I started my period, if some part of my body hurts, I write it all down. I also post training videos on Instagram almost every day.
You definitely don’t have to be as detailed as me. But if you have serious goals about your physique and/or it’s performance, you need to keep track of what matters to you.
11) What new goals are on the horizon? (new goals, aims, etc)
As mentioned earlier, my current athletic goal is to compete in The Grid League, and that aim will not change for at least 3 years. Professionally, 3DMJ just launched an online school for bodybuilders and powerlifters (The 3DMJ Vault) which I cannot wait to continue growing with the team. We will be adding new video courses to it every few weeks indefinitely.
12) Where can people find you? (website, social media accounts)
3DMJ Website – 3dmusclejourney.com
Coaching Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/av_3dmj/
Athlete Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/av_fit/
Twitter – https://twitter.com/av_fit
