American professional bodybuilding champion and physique and figure competitor Andrea Shaw was born on December 18, 1983. She has won two titles for Ms. Olympia and two for Ms. Rising Phoenix.
Detroit, Michigan, is where Andrea was raised. She enjoyed competitive cheering and gymnastics as a young kid.
Her eighth-grade aerobics instructor at Benjamin Nolan Middle School showed her how to build her own buildings within the middle school because there wasn’t much in the way of organized sports or suitable equipment.
She got into studies in high school since she was worn out from cheering and gymnastics after middle school.
Her mother, a nurse and former personal trainer, supported her athletic aspirations by encouraging her to begin working out at the Powerhouse Gym in Highland Park, Michigan, when she put on a little weight.
She started going to the gym on her own when she became 15 years old.
When she was 17 years old, the female bodybuilder who trained with her mother started advising her on workouts to gain muscle.
She said that back then, she didn’t want to be a bodybuilder; instead, she wanted to be a fashion model, but she wasn’t tall enough.
When Andrea was 18 years old, her training advisor informed her mother that she didn’t believe Andrea had the courage to continue training.
This inspired her to concentrate on getting in excellent condition. She stumbled across an Oxygen Magazine while working out at Powerhouse Gym one day and saw it was filled with athletic fitness and sports models.
That would be her goal, she determined. But as soon as she started doing serious weight training, her body started responding swiftly, and soon she started getting inquiries from people wondering if she participated in muscle contests.
She admired the way the figure competitors appeared in the magazines but didn’t think she had the size and development to compete as a bodybuilder.
She competed in two figure contests in 2008, finishing third and fourth, but she didn’t believe she was headed in the right direction. She stopped competing for 8 years.
Andrea was enrolled at Wayne State University around this period, when she started her studies in the program for exercise science during her first year.
She continued to improve her resistance training while earning a BA in exercise and sports science. She said that she disregarded her physical health in order to pursue her academic goals and put on roughly 20 pounds that year.
She made tiny changes to her diet and exercise routine to address her physical health.
She said that she made food swaps rather than eliminating certain foods from her diet, such as swapping baked chips for plain chips and spinach wraps for bread.
She started looking into bodybuilding. After college, she took an eight-year gap to complete her studies in bodybuilding.
She completed an internship at the Detroit Medical Center, worked in Beaumont’s physical therapy division, and earned credentials in both group and private training.
