Hard work pays off for Club Fitness bodybuilders

Strength in numbers and chiselled bodies helped Wanganui's Club Fitness lift the best gym title at the Nabba Manawatu Bodybuilding Championships at Palmerston North Boys' High School last weekend.

Six of the club's bodybuilders attended the annual event; returning home with three wins, two seconds and a third.

The team consisted of Darren Faulkner, who won the masters athletic 40 and over division, Maureen Thomas, winner of the open figure, Thomas Tatutauangi, who claimed the novice physique men's title, JD De Farias, second in the novice physique men, Mark Kaipo, third in the novice athletic tall, and Warren Turvey, runner-up in the masters 40 and over.

Their combined scores were enough to have Club Fitness named the top gym in the Manawatu-Wanganui region.

"We all pitched in and helped each other backstage," said Thomas, who has been selected for a New Zealand team for the world championships in Cyprus.

Now 50, she started entering events in July 2011 after being inspired watching fellow Wanganui bodybuilding champion Alison Richards compete.

"Training in the gym, seeing the changes as your body develops over time. You get a real buzz out of it and you meet a lot of people."

There was a big catch-up with everyone at Club Fitness on Monday, where there are many others training to enter bodybuilding in the future, she said.

De Farias, a relative newcomer to the sport, said it was his second competition in four weeks and he was happy with his runner-up placing in the Manawatu and Taranaki championships.

"I won't compete again until the nationals in Auckland in October," he said yesterday. "You've got to be in shape and for me anyway, I start tweaking myself about a week out from a competition. We all have our own training styles and programmes that best suit what we're trying to achieve, so it was satisfying our combined scores gave us the best gym title for the region," he said.

Club Fitness owner Vaughan Coburn said while individual members had fared well at all levels of bodybuilding competition in the past, his gym had not had the honour of claiming best gym titles before.

Meanwhile, the only other Wanganui gym entry in the Manawatu competition, Revitalise, did not feature in the placings.