She's a body building 'pro in the making'

Five years ago, Clovis' Ashleigh Cooper had never lifted weights regularly. 

Flash forward to July 20, and there was Cooper, body bronzed and chiseled, being told by a judge who helped crown her the 2024 West Texas Wellness Champ, that she's a body building "pro in the making."

On Saturday, Cooper will compete in Phoenix with sights set on a path she hopes could lead to becoming an International Fitness and Body Building Federation pro. 

"Her comment saying that I'm a wellness pro in the making put me on cloud nine," said Cooper, who has competed in three body-building shows since 2021. 

For Cooper, a former long-term substitute who's now a trainer and nutritionist, a large part of her motivation is to boost her online profile. The bigger the credentials and the better the physique, the more prone clients are to utilizing her services, she said. 

After posting photos of her recent win in Amarillo on Instagram, she noticed an uptick in people reaching out via direct message to work with her. 

Last Friday, inside the Clovis Cryo gym, she thumbed through her iPhone and stumbled upon one recent cold reach out. 

"Girl, do you offer coaching?" the message read. 

Between in-person and online personal training and nutritional services Cooper said her monthly income ranges from $4,000 to $5,000. She said it's more than what she was making as a full-time teacher. 

Revving up for this upcoming show, Cooper's been posting regularly and said she's eating "948 calories, five grams of carbs, 31 grams of fat and 158 grams of protein" per day.  

"It's a little bit of that, like people are watching me," Cooper said. "When you get to that point that you're like, people look up to me for that. I'm going to be that example for them."

But with increased exposure, she wants to "be relatable." In Cooper's case that means helping others develop a healthy relationship with food. She knows what they're going through because she's been there, too.

After a prep, she posted to Instagram about her struggles with eating, particularly binge eating. In the video, she talked about nights where she'd slip out of bed, tiptoe to the kitchen and eat chocolate chip cookies, hypervigilant about not waking up her family. 

"I'd feel so guilty the next day, but I had this horrible relationship with it," said Cooper, who's done a "180" this year. "I'm in a much better place. And I know how to handle those situations if I do get a little stressed better."

A passion born out of the pandemic, Cooper said her body-building journey began at the end of 2020. 

She'd gained weight from the workload of raising kids and realized she needed to improve her health, mood and do something for herself. 

Then, one day, "my husband was like, you know, let's, let's go to the gym. So we went to the gym," she said. 

It was her first time regularly lifting weights and she was hooked. 

By March she decided she wanted to compete in a body-building competition. By September she did exactly that and beat out 13 other competitors for first place in the novice category at the Organization Competition Bodies pro. 

But in 2022, she sustained an ACL tear.  Fearful of seeing her progress whither, Cooper said she went to the gym shortly after her surgery for an upper-body workout. 

She climbed back. 

"It was a mixture of a little bit of everything but more so looking at moving volume more than heavy weight," said Kasey Anderson, Cooper's coach. 

She competed and trophied at the Phil Heath Pro in 2023. Then she took Amarillo by storm, becoming the 2024 West Texas Wellness champ. 

In that competition, Cooper said she noticed some "tweaks" she made in her posing, which makes her feel even more confident for her upcoming show at the Phoenix Championship on Aug. 3 to try and win her national qualification. 

If she can keep improving and winning, she'd notch her IFBB Pro card, which leaves her competing for an entry into the Olympia: Body building's Super Bowl.

"Let's rock and roll," she said.