1) Who is Liefia Ingalls? (where are you from, what do you do, a bit about yourself (hobbies, etc).
I'm a professional strongwoman and strength coach from southern California. I have won the Arnold Professional Strongwoman World Championship in 21017 and most recently, Strongest Woman in the World in 2018. My business Unicorn Strength Training coaches strength athletes in multiple strength disciplines all over the world. I travel frequently for competitions, training, and teaching opportunities. Traveling is my favorite pastime. I have a restless personality that craves variety and the unknown, so being able to travel around the world while getting to experience and share the sport that I love is absolutely the best thing I could think of to be doing with my life right now. I have collected the most amazing friends around the world doing this, all while getting to do work that feels like anything else. When I'm not revolving around Strongman, I like to go hiking and camping.
2) How many years have you been training? (Including how you got started, etc).
I started lifting weights in high school, but never kept at it consistently. I really like lifting as soon as I tried it, and I loved the way it felt, but I was insecure about my body and I was afraid that growing visible muscles would make me stand out too much. I remember doing only leg and ab exercises for years because I didn't want my arms or back to get any bigger. In college, I was really focused on academics and I thought I any time I had free for the gym would be better spent studying, so I only went to the gym sporadically. I studied neuropsychology, and the things I was learning about the mind-body connection were so profound that I decided to make lifting a bigger priority in my life, but I struggled with the time commitment it took to train consistently. After graduation, I was unemployed long enough to start a regular training routine and within months I had already re-written my career plans and jumped head-first into training both as my lifestyle and my vocation. My favorite part of lifting was always the exhibition. Even more than getting or being strong, I loved competing and showing it off. I always wanted to do strongman competitions, but I didn't know that competitions for women even existed (it is called strongMAN, after all), so I figured that was an aspiration akin to being an astronaut (which was actually my childhood dream) or a rock star, so I didn't plan on competing. I came across a video online while looking for tutorials on stone lifting that showed a strongwoman competing. Instantly I knew that's what I was going to do. I searched around to find a local contest and signed up immediately. I did my first strongman contest at California's Strongest Man in 2014 and took 4th place. I was all-in since. In total, I've been lifting for about 15 years, seriously for 8-9 years, and I've been competing in Strongman for 5 years.
3) What's been the most challenging/hardest part of your journey so far? and how have you overcome them (setbacks, rejections, injuries, basically anything difficult that you have had to overcome).
Physically, I've dealt with a lot of injuries. My experience was somewhat atypical where I actually had a lot of injuries before I even started lifting. Like a lot of people, I had been misled to believe that lifting would cause more injuries, but a little education goes a long way and the more I trained, the better I felt, but I still had some of my biggest vulnerabilities around the time I started aggressively pursuing strongman training. About a year into my strongman career I made some mistakes and suffered a very severe lumbar herniation that left me with some nerve impairment that was enough to cause paralysis in my left leg. That was a terrifying experience, to realize just how grave and potentially permanent the effects of poor mechanics could be. As shitty as it was, this injury was my gift that taught me how to move my ego out of the way and start focusing on mastering lifts from the basics up.
Professionally, my own insecurity has been the toughest thing to overcome. I delayed establishing my business way longer than I should have because I just didn't trust in myself yet. Being young, new, and a woman in strength culture can really intimidating. It took me a while to build my confidence and get over my "imposter syndrome". If I'm honest, I still struggle with these thoughts almost daily, but I decided a while ago that I'd rather try and fail over and over again than have to wonder what I could have done if only I had just started.
4) What does your typical workout/diet routine look like? (With any particular protocols you rate).
I usually train 3 days per week. Two of those days are upper-lower body splits of mostly compound lifts, and the third day is a whole day of strongman events only. If I'm nearing competition I may train more frequently or more consecutively, but in general, I tend to prioritize long recovery periods between training sessions. In my "off-season periods between competitions, I'll take a lot of time off lifting heavy and spend more time on hypertrophy and skill training.
Diet for me is very flexible. I have the fun advantage of being on the smaller end of my current weight class, so luckily, I don't have to monitor my diet too closely. I eat a well-balanced diet as often as I can, but I struggle all the time with eating enough. I have a pretty busy mind, so I am easily distracted. I know a lot of people find this hard to believe but I am that person who actually forgets to eat all the time.
5) What new knowledge have you learned over this past year regarding training, lifestyle, and nutrition? (And how has it changed your focus for the future).
The past year for me has been much more focused on my mental and personal development, as I've been trying to grow my business. The training and lifestyle aspects of my lifestyle are so well formed at this point that they are just habits, but they do take up most of my time, so finding time to work on new projects for my business, or even just to take the time to listen and explore my own goals and ideas for the future is difficult. I feel like I am finally allowing myself to accept that taking time for myself does actually make me more productive in the long run. I am learning to meditate, which I will admit is both the simplest and most difficult undertaking in recent memory.
6) What's your favorite cheat/Treat meal?
Captain Crunch Ice cream. Donuts. A slice of cheesecake the size of my face. Flamin Hot Cheetos. Pizza snuggled under a thick blanket of parmesan cheese. A grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup. a giant bowl of sweet cereal with milk (and obviously, I drink the milk after).
7) Whats one supplement that you could not live without?
Whey protein supplements have been pretty valuable to me because of my difficulty remembering my meals, but no supplement has been life-changing for me. Everyone hates this totally un-sexy answer, but the most beneficial thing I've done for my training and performance has been sleeping and eating enough.
8) If you had to start your journey from scratch with both your health & physique what would you do differently and why?
I would have started sooner. I would have started competing sooner, without regards to my own doubts in my abilities. I would have started my business sooner, and ignored the people that made me believe I wouldn't succeed.
9) Who do you look up to in the fitness industry and why?
It's hard to choose one person because everything that I've learned in fitness has come from the example and generosity of others. Arnold is high on my list, though! What he did as an athlete was massively impressive, but to have excelled with the same vigor in so many other areas of his life is what made him great, and he is responsible for promoting, growing, and challenging almost every part of the strength culture that we all value today.
10) If you had to give one bit of advice to people starting out what would that be?
Just start. Whether in business or in fitness, so many people have the mentality that they need to be "ready" to start something new. I from athletes all the time "I want to compete, but I'm not strong enough" or "I want to train like that but I need to get in shape first." This mentality leaves you defeated before you start. You'll always want to be stronger, but no matter who you are, it takes time. The process doesn't get any shorter, so you may as well start now. Once you decide to start, the most important thing you can do is seek the advice of an experienced trainer/coach. In strongman, there is a huge variety of skills and movements involved, and learning from someone who understands all of these different technical aspects is really the only way to accelerate your performance beyond the lift/eat/sleep/repeat-cycle.
11) What new goals do you have on the horizon?
I have big plans for my business, Unicorn Strength Training. We already reach dozens of clients in multiple countries and conduct seminars and learning opportunities multiple times per year but will be expanding that reach with a team of new coaches and a variety of other educational media. There are a lot more technical components to strongman training than most people realize, and as strongman implements and events have been gaining popularity quickly (thanks very much, CrossFit!) there is a much wider audience for this area of expertise. I hope to reach more and more people outside of this sport in the coming years. I want to help remove the conception that strongman is only a sport for giants, and to show that in reality, it's just about being generally useful.
12) Where can people find you? (website, social media accounts)
Instagram @liefiasaurus & @UnicornStrengthTraining.
For training inquiries, visit www.unicornstrength.com
