BALANCING ACT
Use veteran fitness competitor Julie Shipley-Childs' back routine for a professional V-taper and her sage advice for a tempered life By Mark Thorpe | Photos by Joaquin Palting As a kid, Julie Shipley-Childs was like so many other future fitness performers—a gifted gymnast and a world-class hyperactive who could burn more energy in one day than the Las Vegas electrical grid could in one week. Not even gymnastics was enough to keep her tame, so she also played soccer, where she was on the select team. Dance, too, was necessary to add some flourish to her floor routines. Julie's life wasn't a question of balance—it was an all-out assault on the concept of downtime. Complicating matters were a brother and a sister who also wanted to go places. Quality family time in the Shipley household often took place in a car somewhere on the streets of Seattle. But mothers, being on occasion mortal, have limits. By the time Julie was 10, her mother was running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Soccer had to go. "From fifth grade until 11th, I left school at about 1 p.m. and went to gymnastics until 7 or 8 at night," Julie recalls. "Five days a week. Saturdays and Sundays were meet days." Gymnastics is a fickle sport,though, and one that frequently eats its own. Julie was good enough to be near the top, a perfect tumble or two away from competing with those who are selected for the Olympics. But she was also 16 years old and hungry for the life of a normal teenager. "When you're in a sport like gymnastics, it becomes your whole life," she says. "So I quit, and my mother cried." Julie joined her high school gymnastics team and decided to give cheerleading a try, too. "I made the [cheer] squad and learned how to be a real teenager," she says. For the first time since she was 3 years old, there was balance in her life. She attended the University of Washington (Seattle) after high school and majored in economics. Although she didn't cheerlead or compete in gymnastics, she was a bit of an aerobics queen, she says. Julie supported herself by working at a bank, where she would eventually become a mortgage broker. HIGHS AND LOWS "I didn't expect to make it the first year, so I was a little unprepared when I did," she admits. It didn't take her long to get comfortable with the role, however. From 1992 until 1997, the span of her career, she was the highest-ranked cheerleader who tried out
each season. In 1996 she was 25 and once again running full tilt through life. She was a mortgage loan officer and a Seahawks cheerleader, working five days a week at the bank and practicing two nights a week from 6 p.m. to midnight, and occasionally on Saturdays for the Seahawks. Then she got uterine cancer. If ever there was a time to rein back on an accelerated life, for most this would have been it. Instead, Julie charged deeper into the physical world, adding fitness competitions to her already crowded schedule. She was unmarried, and cheerleading and work weren't enough to distract her from the steady round of doctors' appointments and treatments. "I was trying to focus on something other than dying and death," she says. Despite the doctors' best efforts, a hysterectomy was necessary. Her doctor advised her to take at least two months off before lifting again, but six weeks after the operation, Julie competed in a Fitness America contest. The doctor thought she was crazy. "I recover really fast from everything," she says. "That's just the way I work." ALL IN STRIDE Such a diet is hard to read about let alone exist on when training four hours a day. That's where Julie's simple secret of longevity comes in. "I see a lot of girls get burned out because they're obsessed," she says. "They won't take time off their diet, and they won't take time off their training. A lot of girls end up divorced because they can't find a middle ground." Balance is the cornerstone of Julie's professional and personal life. She has learned to enjoy herself after shows and to consider the effect her lifestyle can have on her husband, former NFL player Jason Childs. Because of his experiences in pro football, he knows what it takes to be a top athlete; still, there's a time for everything. "When you're eating very few carbohydrates for 2—3 weeks before a show, you don't have much personality," Julie says. "If I choose to do that at Thanksgiving or at Christmastime, or at key times in my husband's career, that's not really fair to him. I try to practice moderation." The same philosophy drives the look of her physique. Of the top 14 or 15 competitors, Julie consistently places right in the middle of the pack (ninth in the 2007 Fitness Olympia, and seventh in both the '07 Fitness International and the 2006 Fitness O). Like all fitness competitors, she would love to win the Fitness Olympia, but she knows that would require a lot more of her. "Physique-wise, I'm one of the taller girls, and having longer limbs means I have to put on more muscle to please the judges," she says. "That would make me 150 pounds onstage and 160—170 off-season, and that's a big girl. I'm not a big girl. I was a gymnast, a little tiny person, for so long." Although the accolades that come with winning a major show are undeniably attractive, being profitable in the sport requires one to have a finger on the pulse of the marketplace as well. "You don't make money onstage. You make money with photo shoots, and
I get more work when I'm smaller," Julie says. As a lifelong performer, her practicality has been hard-earned. To the uninitiated it may sound like business before pleasure; actually, it's about surviving in a sport she loves. "If the judges like what I'm putting onstage, they like it. If they don't, they don't. For me, it's just an honor to compete with the best 15 girls in the world. Right now, I like my balance." M&F
During her senior year in college, the need for something more than aerobics motivated Julie to try out for the Seattle Seahawks cheer squad. She won't say the tryout was easy, but it wasn't like competing at a national-level gymnastics event, either.
As an amateur and a pro (she earned her pro card in 2002 by taking first at the NPC USA Championships), Julie has now competed in fitness for 11 years. It's a span of time that confers on her grizzled-veteran status, if not a bit of divinity. During precontest phases the workouts are difficult, but the dieting is what often chips away at even the hardiest of resolves. Day after day of waking at 5:30 a.m. for a plate of egg whites and a bowl of oatmeal before a grueling workout, after which she feeds her muscles with a turkey breast and salsa. Then repeat, substituting some fish or chicken for the turkey and adding green beans every now and then—for variety.
SNAPSHOT
Birthdate: Nov. 10, 1971
Birthplace: Seattle
Current Residence: Laguna Niguel, California
Height: 5'7"
Weight: 138 pounds contest, 146 pounds off-season
Career Highlights: 2007: Fitness Olympia, 9th; Fitness International, 7th. 2006: Fitness Olympia, 7th; New York Pro, 1st
To Contact: juliechilds.com
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