Kongo Square Chat With Renee Salter Manning !

Welcome to the second instalment of Kongo Square Chat with Mista Jaycee. I humbly welcome Mrs. Renee Salter Manning to our cipher.

Jaycee: I happened upon the 1992 Ms. Olympia where Laura Cravelle and Lenda Murray went head to head. I thought that was amazing! Two beautiful sistas with all that muscle! And not to sound stereotypical but they were all Woman!

Pardon me but I digress! Okay I'm better now! (laughter)

I joined a gym the next day and have followed the sport of bodybuilding ever since. How did you become interested in bodybuilding?


Renee: It happened in the summer of 1994 when I attended my first bodybuilding show. I watched every competitor that walked across that stage intensely.

I was hooked! That experience was totally amazing to behold, it was just pure jaw dropping awe, I felt super energized and highly inspired. After coming from that show, I vowed, one-day that will be me!

Jaycee: Were you an athlete before? What sport or sports?

Renee: Yes, I ran track and played basketball in high school and some in college. I managed to stay active at the local gym before and after my children arrived.

Jaycee: Now, I’ve seen your body building photos and WOW!

Hey back off y'all! I know I'm married and so does my Wife! (Laughing)

Jaycee: I have never met or even heard about an active Seventh Day Adventist Christian competing before so this is amazing and really, really cool!

Jaycee: We are both Oakwood University Alumni, What did you major in?

Renee: My major went from Accounting (boring) to Computer Science (interesting).

But now if I could do it all over again, my college career would have been heavily concentrated in the areas of chemistry, nutrition, fitness and entrepreneurship.

Jaycee: Well if I could do it all over again, I'd probably do the same things as before but I'd make even more mistakes even faster! Whoever thought up late night pizza delivery with a butter crust was a genius! An evil genius but a genius! (laughing)

Jaycee: Did you begin bodybuilding haphazardly or was it a visualized goal?

Renee: Haphazard!...absolutely not!

Jaycee: Opps! Let me define haphazard…

Were you in the gym just keeping in shape and someone said “Hey your lats look great! Have you ever thought about bodybuilding? Or was it that you said Hey! I wanna try that!

I can do that?

Renee: Yes, I've always felt I could do it, the big question in my mind was, When? Lord, when can I do this?

It was a definite dream, a visualized goal deferred for 12 years.

I was okay with that, because it was my choice or in God's plan for me to wait. The time between when I fell in love with the sport until now, was time well spent being a proud wife, having at the time, a great career, and being a mother of two beautiful girls. I would not have changed my decision.

Jaycee: It may just be a matter of perception but it seems to me that we are living in a fast food, instant gratification culture that extends to our health but especially our physical appearance.

We want instant weight loss, instant beach body! Without exercise and diet!

Jaycee: What would you say is the biggest challenge to achieving a healthy championship physique?

Renee: There are many challenges. Finding the time to workout, finding time to do cardio, sticking to the eating plan without fail, achieving the daily water in-take goals, and getting plenty of rest.

The biggest is successfully ignoring your natural urges for salt and sugar (i.e. chips, cookies, candy, chocolate, etc.), and Thanksgiving dinner. (laughter)

Jaycee: What about in the off season what do you do to keep healthy period?

Renee: My first mistake was to take "off-season" literally. THERE IS NO OFF SEASON!

I use a new term, I call it the maintenance season !

That means continue eating the same way in general except that your portions don't have to be as precise when preparing for competition.
It's still eating clean, but not in such a restricted manner.

Jaycee: I know that the Seventh Day Adventist Church recommends proper rest, pure water, sunshine, mediatation and prayer, exercise, temperence, fresh air and proper nutrition. More and more people nowdays of all stripes are adopting a vegetartian diet.

So are you a vegan?

Renee: No, I'm a pesco-vegetarian. However, it is possible to be a vegan bodybuilder. There are a short list of folks out there that are having great success. It takes planning, orgainzation and committment to achieve success.

Jaycee: I'm sorry, a pes-co, what??????? What's Pesco mean?
(just kidding y'all I know what it means! Wink!)

Renee: I eat vegetables, fruits, grains as well as fish.

Jaycee: Oh! well, alright!

Jaycee: Are you a trainer and do you work with novices?

Renee: Becoming a master personal trainer with that expertise is high on my list and I am in the process of achieving that but no I don't train novices.

Jaycee: What's the most common thing or biggest misconception that you've encountered?

Renee: The biggest misconception that I have seen from people who want to get in shape is that they have to starve themselves. That's a huge myth!

When I first started following a meal plan (dieting) I was amazed at the amount of food my personal trainer had me eating. I was at the point where I was missing meals. I didn't understand why I had to eat so much. What happened over the next several weeks because of the amount of physical activity, my metabolism skyrocketed! So much so that my system was burning everything so efficiently (during the day and while I was sleep) that I would become hungry in between meals and sometimes my skin felt like it was crawling.

That was an indication of my need for a bit more starchy carbs. (That was so weird) It's like you go to hit something that you thought was crawling on you only to look and find nothing was there. (That was scary)

So I increased my water intake and that helped me to a degree but I was always looking for the next meal. I ate a meal every two and a half to three hours. I ate about five or six meals a day! You see the frequency of meals and the kinds of foods consumed, the exercise intensity, the water and rest all play vital roles in keeping the bodys' internal furnace burning those calories and fat, but most of building muscle .

Jaycee: How big a part does genetics play into determining how some one's body will look and feel?

Renee: Those that have great genetics still have to work hard, but not as hard as someone without the gift of great genetics. They will have to work harder!

A good example of this is, I've learned that I carry a lot of water and fat on my thighs and don't have the calf muscles that may come natural for other competitors.

I have to work much harder to get my body to reveal and not conceal those muscles during competition time.

There's a unique strategy for every person. It's a matter of discovering what that is and unleashing that potential.

Jaycee: OK, Free weights or Machines? Does it matter?

Renee: Free weights are best, but you should mix-in machines too. It gives your muscles a slightly different perspective. The idea is you want your muscles to expect the unexcepted, in order to avoid the plateau. Mixing up the workout will keep the body always guess and never have the chance to adapt to the same 'ol weight routine.I prefer Hammer strength and Cybex machines.

Jaycee: So, Renee, you've competed in the junior nationals and the IBFF(International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness) right?

Renee: No! I haven't achieved that yet! It will take some time since I'm going to achieve this without the use of drugs and steroids.

Pray Church! (Laughter)

Renee, I want to thank you for the pleasure of interviewing you. Welcome to the family God bless you and your family.

Renee: And Thank you for interviewing me. It was a pleasure.

The views and opinions expressed in Kongo Square Chat and in A Choice of Weapons are solely the views of Mista Jaycee and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of anyone featured here!