February 8, 2024 • 43 mins
Have you ever considered the weight of stereotypes and how they challenge female athletes in and out of their arenas? Christina Specos, a seasoned fitness expert and IFBB pro, joins us for an enriching discussion that stretches beyond muscle fibers and into the heart of gender and sexuality biases in sports. From our personal tales of being misjudged based on physical strength to Christina's intimate revelations on her bodybuilding path and strength coaching career, we reveal how we've each turned scrutiny into a source of humor and self-compassion.
Confronting the misconceptions tied to gender identity in athletics, Christina and I peel back the layers of emotional intelligence and self-love that shield us from the barrage of societal pressures. This episode is an exploration of the resilience required when dealing with misplaced labels and the importance of empathy in both personal and professional growth. We also dissect the stereotypes linked to certain sports, shedding light on how they can distort athletes' views on gender and sexuality, and the critical need for conversation and understanding in these spaces.
Here's where to find Christina:
Christina's Website
Instagram @christinaspecos
SpecTalk on YouTube
Facebook: @christina.specos
Email: christina@christinaspecos.com
Confronting the misconceptions tied to gender identity in athletics, Christina and I peel back the layers of emotional intelligence and self-love that shield us from the barrage of societal pressures. This episode is an exploration of the resilience required when dealing with misplaced labels and the importance of empathy in both personal and professional growth. We also dissect the stereotypes linked to certain sports, shedding light on how they can distort athletes' views on gender and sexuality, and the critical need for conversation and understanding in these spaces.
Here's where to find Christina:
Christina's Website
Instagram @christinaspecos
SpecTalk on YouTube
Facebook: @christina.specos
Email: christina@christinaspecos.com
Watch Gutsy Chick Podcast on YouTube!
Check out more from Amanda:
Website: Body Whisper Healing
Instagram: @Amanda.G.Smith
Facebook: Body Whisper Healing
Pinterest: AmandaGSmithBWH
LinkedIn: Amanda (Ritchie) Smith
Take the Gutsy Chick Quiz to find out how your type A, high achieving mindset might be holding you back from healing your chronic health issue: https://gutsychickquiz.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amanda Smith (00:20):
Welcome to Spirit of an Athlete.
Thank you so much for checkingout the show.
Show us that you like whatwe're doing by liking,
subscribing, sharing with otherpeople that are like you.
That's how we know we're doingthe right thing.
In this episode, I interviewedChristina Specos, who I've known
for a couple of years and I wasso thrilled to cross her path.
(00:42):
She's been in the fitnessindustry for 24 years.
She coaches fitnessprofessionals on a holistic
level, which I love, to helpthem meet peak performance.
She's also a licensed athletictrainer, a massage therapist, a
Pilates instructor, and she wasan associate director of sports
(01:06):
performance at Purdue University.
I brought her on because we'retackling a very tough topic,
something both of us have beenchallenged with in our lives.
Her more recently because sheis an IFBB pro in women's
physique.
Me my entire career of being anathlete from eight years old
(01:26):
till now, around the questionare you a dude?
Yeah, both of us have beenconfronted with this really
tough topic and we wonder why,and we've done the work for
ourselves so that we can sharewith you what our experience was
and how we overcame it.
(01:47):
There might be some triggeringtopics for you, because this is
a topic that female athleteshave to confront from time to
time.
Whether you're in the LGBTQcommunity or not, this is
something that you mightexperience, and if you're
straight like Christina and I,then experiencing this is a
(02:10):
whole nother level of challenges.
I hope you enjoy this.
Please leave us a comment andlet us know how you felt this
particular episode went.
I'm really interested to see.
This conversation is going tobe a doozy.
It is going to potentiallytrigger people.
(02:33):
It's going to definitely be inthe controversial arena.
So buckle in.
Here we go.
Christina, thank you so muchfor being on Spirit of an
Athlete with me.
Christina Specos (02:48):
I love the concept, I love you and your
sense of humor and your missionto help educate, so I'm honored
to be here.
Amanda Smith (02:54):
Well, okay, so mine, mine, mine, mine.
Christina Specos (03:00):
I had to bring the three goals along because
if you, if you get triggered, atleast there's an air of
somewhat humor in the air, andso it's got my shoulder.
He's just, he's just watchingyou and he trolls want to attack
.
He's got a beak and he willpack.
Amanda Smith (03:18):
Those of you who are listening to this podcast.
She has on her background theseagulls from Finding Nemo where
they go mine, mine, mine, andthere's one like right in her
face at the same level as her.
It's very awesome.
Christina Specos (03:36):
You can't just like when you you can't just
listen on the radio.
I'll try to be as like dynamicas possible, but you need to see
my seagulls.
Amanda Smith (03:43):
Exactly.
So go check us out on YouTube.
Spirit of an Athlete on YouTube.
Okay, so we're both female.
We we both go by she, her, allof those pronouns.
We are both in our forties,went to high school in the
(04:03):
nineties, went to college.
After that, you were an athletetennis player in high school.
I was volleyball, basketball,softball in high school.
We've both gone on to becomeweightlifting athletes.
You're a bodybuilder IFBB probodybuilder, I'm a power lifter
(04:27):
and we both grew up in the bluecollar world when we were kids,
and so what we're sharing today,our opinions, have been formed
around those things when we werekids, as well as the
experiences, the traumas,everything that we have gone
through in our lives, and sowhat we're talking about is
(04:52):
being a female athlete and beingasked about our gender and our
sexuality.
So, christina, give me anexample.
We're going right there.
Give me an example of whensomebody judged you and
approached you about who you are, what your sexuality is and,
(05:17):
potentially, what your gender is.
Christina Specos (05:20):
I have a few, so I'm going to keep them all
really brief and one-liners.
And then, if you want to diveinto anyone in particular, when
I first got into bodybuilding,it was 2016, and I did that as a
essentially for myself, a cryfor help, because I had dove
everything into college.
(05:41):
Athletics I was a strengthcoach at a division one
university, so Her do no, no,yeah, yeah, exactly.
And basketball, volleyball verydemanding and fast-paced
women's revenue sports becausewe sold tickets and did well, we
sold out.
So there's a responsibilitywith that.
And I got into bodybuildingbecause I owed it to myself to
(06:05):
not be a chunky, fat strengthcoach.
I call it fat strength coachsyndrome.
We give so much and then wejust eat everything on the
buffet this, that.
And the third so catalyst wassomeone walked into my office.
She was going to compete and Iwas like I wanted to do this.
So since my teenage and earlytwenties, I look at people on
covers and magazines and I wantto do that.
I've been in fitness forever.
What's the problem?
The problem spoiler alert,folks it's always nutrition, but
(06:27):
we can talk about that later.
I can't outsmart a poor diet.
I cannot train it, so that wasmy problem as much as I knew, as
many certifications I had.
So I go and become a competitor.
I compete in 2016 and 17.
17 was pretty rough here, inthe sense of, like, over-dieted,
lack of attention.
It really looked ugly.
It was horrible.
(06:48):
2018 rolls around.
That's when I left Purdue.
But in that year, between 17and 18, I had a boss change at
work.
My old boss like knew of it.
It was inspired at first andthen, you know, you get to the
danger zone of that 2017 yearwhere I looked horrible and then
you kind of come out of thatand I was always very lean after
that, like never really cameoff diet and my new boss said to
(07:10):
me are you a strength coach ora model?
Because I would.
You know, when you compete, youare proud of what you worked
hard for.
So you do photo shoots and thisand that I tried to be as
respectful as I could onInstagram and I put everything
was centered around my job andnothing personal.
But you know, it was no mistakethat I was doing photo shoots
(07:30):
and I did like what I hadachieved.
So that was like woman on womanhate, because everybody else
around me was like you know whyshe's doing this to you right,
like there's always, as wediscussed earlier, when
someone's triggered by something, there's always something wrong
in them that they're trying toreflect onto you that they're
really unhappy with inthemselves.
So I move on from there.
(07:51):
I get my pro card and at somepoint after 2018, before 20, I
was told by someone really closeto me body buddies that are
ruining your career.
So it got in my head andactually stayed in my head the
last three to four years, I'lltell you, as it affected some
things that came down the pike.
So, whatever, get my pro cardin 2019 and 2020.
(08:13):
Covid hit and then 21, competedin my first pro show.
Everything was fine.
22,.
I made a huge social media pushto educate and do training
clips and I hired my friend'sagency.
Everything was professional.
It was getting a lot of views.
Then I started getting theinternet hate.
Everything from oh you know,bro has a dick over there, or
(08:35):
that's a man, or lay off theroids or whatever, like
everything you can imagine.
That kind of took me down aspiral and then I filmed a
reality show.
In the reality show, Iexperienced that the date that I
had was not physical attraction, wasn't there for him, which
was fine, cause I mean, I wasplaying nice on the show, if I'm
(08:57):
being honest, cause I was justexcited to be there, but in real
life I wouldn't have liked himeither.
So I was like, okay.
What came out later was oh, whatdo you want her to do?
She colored her hair.
She's changed her wardrobe.
You know she's covering up hermuscles.
You want her to lose the muscle, and the quote that I saw after
I actually saw the show comeout was that's exactly what she
(09:18):
could do.
So there's this.
This is underlying hatred ofwomen with muscle and that I
wasn't good enough to be a womanwith Miami beauty standards
because, as she said, beauty iscurrency.
Fast forward, there's moreinternet hate from content I'm
putting out.
And then I lastly, most recently, I was asked to be on a podcast
(09:40):
.
It was recruited from Instagram, like their company had a girl
that was recruiting people.
So I book it, like for a coupleof weeks out from when I was
asked, and I show up, I'm ontime, I'm very respectful of the
whole deal.
And then you know we're therean hour and a half before the
podcast filming and the guypulls me aside and says are you
a man?
I said, apart from me, are youkidding me?
He goes well, you know, itwould look bad for the podcast.
(10:03):
We can't have you here as apodcast for women.
I'm like I'm not a man.
And he says, well, weren't youon, you know, the Fresh and Fit
podcast?
I was like, yeah, what's theproblem?
Well, they don't tolerate thattheory there.
I'm like, well, I'm not a man,so that's what.
Like you know what?
Amanda Smith (10:16):
I'm saying that's why I was there.
Christina Specos (10:18):
Yeah.
So I'm like, okay, I break.
And even on the Fresh and Fitpodcast I broke the
stereotypical norm because Ihave a presence of confidence
and I pretty much took the standthat this is me, I'm gonna take
care of myself.
Until somebody fear I'm, I'mgonna put my air coats up for
people listening.
More masculine than me is goingto show up for me and he says,
(10:40):
well, that's like, if me I wannawear a dress and heels, you're
not gonna believe that I'm a man.
I'm like, that's not the same.
I'm working for myself.
I'm making my own money.
I don't look for handouts.
I'm not the girly girl that'sgonna date a guy part of my
language.
Fuck him once and expect aLouis Vuitton bag.
Like that's not me.
I'm very, very self-sufficientand I'm a team member.
(11:01):
I'm not the person that youspoil for no reason.
And so if that's masculine,because I wanna be a teammate
with a mate of mine or presentmyself as confident, maybe I
could like tone it down.
But dude, you've never beenwhere I've been.
I worked in college sports.
I was around men all the time.
I figured out a way to gainrespect with my intelligence and
(11:21):
my authority, rather than beingquestioned the way.
For example, another coach Iknew that was never a friend of
mine, just in passing.
He says I will never hire awoman to work with my football
team because she's going towanna eff all the players.
And I was like I'm 31.
These boys are 18 to 22.
That's not my.
(11:42):
That's sickening, it'sdisgusting.
So the fact that you have togeneralize all women when I'm a
pedigreed professional with amaster's degree in a track
history of success, that'sinsulting.
If you make a mistake and youhire the wrong person, that's
fine, but don't generalize witheveryone.
So in a lot of different areas,personally and professionally,
I've been hit with it.
Recently, because of thecultural landscape, people have
(12:02):
been asking me if I'mtransgender, because either on
dating apps they're meetingwomen that are transgender and
they're getting a surprisebecause they're not being
forthcoming, because thetransgender women truly believe
that they are really biologicalwomen, because that's what
they're telling themselves andthey're not being honest with
their surgery or whatever theirsituation is with the guy
they're trying to date.
And so I've got questions ondating apps, on FaceTime calls.
(12:24):
Oh, there's no easy way to askthis, so I just have to ask this
and I'm like okay, I understand.
Again, this guy's triggered Isound like what I look like, I
have traps.
He said I'm like, okay, sorry,I played tennis and lifted
weights.
It kind of comes when you hadlifting, right, right have you
looked at swimmers before?
(12:46):
Yeah.
So I feel like I have an arrayof a bunch of different examples
that it just all led into onebucket and the bucket only had
one little hole at the bottom,draining and then eventually
last year it overflowed.
I just I saw therapists.
(13:06):
I'm in an emotionalintelligence leadership program
now which's helping a lot tojust let me extract all that so
I could be a better leader.
And essentially, when you and Italked off air, you have a
really good high EQ about howyou can perceive the way
someone's saying something andunderstand where they're coming
from, to have more empathy andcompassion.
So I'm working on that now.
(13:26):
Rather than wanting to jump offa bridge or kill anybody, I
feel like the problem is reallywith them, but the buck stops
with me by truly being a planand I wasn't really doing that.
So at the end of the day, Iguess this whole thinking full
circle and I realized I'm notreally loving myself if I'm
letting them infiltrate withtheir opinions.
(13:46):
Yes, sister.
Amanda Smith (13:49):
Okay, so much to unpack.
Okay, when you were in highschool playing tennis and being
a student athletic trainer whichI was also a student athletic
trainer, thank you.
Did you confront any of theseissues then when you weren't an
IFBB pro?
Christina Specos (14:09):
I don't recall ever having those encounters.
Okay, see, that's where itstarted for me, questioning who
I was.
Well, first of all, tennis,where's I played field hockey
for one year, two in seventhgrade so we all wore skirts.
So I think this was a girlyconnotation and I'm sorry if
this offends anybody, but it'sjust my experience.
(14:30):
I worked with volleyball,basketball and I've been around
swimming and softball.
I know the sports that havethis connotation of questioning
some sexuality because perhapsthe percentage of women that
play that sport are gay and itgets generalized.
My best friend played collegesoftball.
(14:52):
She's not gay, but she's hadthat experience as well, being
on a team Tennis.
I didn't experience that.
So maybe because tennis isalmost seen it's an aggressive
sport but the script probablynumbs down the intensity factor
of it a little bit.
But when you're literally goingbody to body in basketball,
(15:12):
yeah, it's a little bit.
It's a different kind ofaggression.
In tennis you have to have realstrong individual mental
strength because it's only youagainst that other person,
whereas you have a team and bodyto body against someone and
being super aggressive.
It's a different kind of tough.
So what I?
Amanda Smith (15:31):
experienced at the skirt I'm sure helped.
None of the sports I played inhad skirts.
I wish I mean pro baseball forwomen.
Back when the Rockford Peaches,for instance, were a team which
is my hometown, they woreskirts, but I couldn't freaking
imagine playing softball in askirt.
(15:52):
The gender thing came up for mein high school and that's why I
ask because I was.
They called me the jock chick,right, and those of us who
played three sports or more.
We were hardcore athletes.
We were very competitive.
We came across as moremasculine than, say, the
(16:15):
cheerleaders who were in skirtsand doing a very athletic thing,
but obviously that wasn't whatI was doing.
Okay, you went on and you wentto Purdue and you became a
strength and conditioning coachfor a bunch of women's sports,
which I'm sure that's where youlearned more about like oh,
(16:37):
softball players tend to havemore lesbians on their team.
Basketball players they tend tobe more lesbians on that team.
That was also what Iexperienced as a D1 athlete.
Did you ever get questioned bythose athletes if you would date
(16:58):
them?
Christina Specos (17:00):
No, no, interesting, because I was
probably the only straight oneon the coaching staff as well,
because and I think that was areally interesting dichotomy to
have because I had for lack of abetter word I think I had lost
that sensitivity factor.
You know, I would say thefamous line from you know, j
(17:23):
Mcguire, I don't gush overbabies.
You know, when the one lady islike really getting angry that
he just lost the big contract.
Like I tend to focus on thetask at hand, which is why I was
successful at bodybuilding, Iwas able to block everything on
me like this is my body, this ismy life.
So I noticed that I was in someways more headstrong, more bossy
, and I display thosecharacteristics even though I
(17:46):
didn't go along with theso-called sexual orientation
that it's supposed to becommonly associated with.
So I thought that was a reallyinteresting dichotomy because I
had lost some sensitivity and Ithink that was an over
compensation for the fact that Ihad to be tougher, to be
tougher around.
The people that I perceivedwere tough Ended up almost
(18:06):
outtuffing it and it actuallygot me through.
See, it spared my emotionsbecause I was able to push my
emotions down.
So you know when people are allpissed off at losses and you
know they're worried aboutthey're going to lose their
house or their mortgage, becausethey're going to get fired
because we lost the game, like Iwas just kind of like suck it
(18:27):
up, coach better next time.
You know, like I kind of Ididn't get emotional the way
people would because at the endof the day, skill yeah.
Yeah, like I know whatcontribution I have and I know
the relationship I have with thekids.
So thankfully no one evercrossed the line.
But interestingly enough, whenI was a high school straight
(18:48):
coach, one young gay boy askedme because I cut my hair short
like punky, and he was speckless.
I was like, yeah, because youknow you lift weights and you
have short hair.
I'm like, okay, so that's whatit takes to be a lesbian.
Got it Meanwhile.
Here was the interesting thingOne of my friends came to live
(19:09):
with me for nine months becausewe worked on a PhD her PhD
project together with researchon my teams, and she would
experience the opposite.
She was a lesbian and she hadpeople say you're too pretty to
be gay.
Oh no, nobody can win here.
Amanda Smith (19:26):
Right.
But I mean, when did it becomeokay to ask people what their
sexual orientation is, unlessyou're trying to date them?
Christina Specos (19:35):
Did I tell you that to me last month or
earlier this month, point blank.
Amanda Smith (19:40):
Yeah.
Christina Specos (19:41):
And I'll think I told you that I was at a
content creation summit and theafter party after the last day.
You know, we're all just kindof like going to eat upstairs at
the restaurant and I just waskind of standing around
different people that haddecided to meander up from the
conference and two guys werestanding there and started
talking and the one guy had saida peep to me and he just looks
(20:01):
at me and he goes are youtransgender?
I'm like you didn't even say hi, like is this the new greeting?
So the other guy next to himwas like you have to pardon him,
he's never seen a woman withmuscles.
And I'm like you have tounderstand that I'm not even fit
right now, like I'm soft, I'mnot even exposing muscles, I'm
not lean.
So I use it as an opportunity tosay you know, I know male
(20:23):
characteristics, like if youjust start scratching your balls
and sitting down leaning backlike Al Bundy with your hands in
your pants, I'm going to assumeyou're a man because of the way
you're behaving.
Is there a way that I'mstanding here and behaving
that's making you think I'm atransgender?
Oh, you know.
You know, traps are bigger.
What is it about the trapspeople.
What if I'm a really stressedout person and I can't get my
(20:43):
shoulders out of me?
Just hold it there.
Amanda Smith (20:46):
Oh yeah, you shared that with me off air, but
I love that you brought that inbecause it goes into.
Now you're an IFBB pro, you owna pro card, you're doing shows,
you're constantly going throughgains and leaning out and your
(21:09):
perception of being leaned outand really having your muscles
pop is completely different thansomeone who just sees you are a
very well built woman.
Christina Specos (21:23):
I have good structure, shape, genetics and
proportions for the most part.
So if I'm big you have to beeverywhere Like I don't.
I'm not that girl that hastrouble building her legs.
It has massive shoulders orvice versa.
I'm pretty much pretty even,and when we say we want to bring
up lagging body parts, it'sjust like splitting hairs over
being in the top elite levelsbecause I don't have that
(21:46):
proportion.
That's off drastically, likesome people do when they
struggle to build up a part oftheir body.
So overall, if I gain weightlike now, I'm heavier than I'd
like to be.
I just look like massive to, inmy opinion, and when people see
fat on top of muscle, they justsee mass.
Yes, they don't understand theway fitness people understand.
You know the dynamic ofchanging your body composition,
(22:09):
so I just look huge.
Amanda Smith (22:11):
That's yeah, I'm right there with you, sister,
and this is where, like for myentire life, I've experienced
those questions around Do youwant to be a girl, like I got?
I got those questions.
Do you want to be a girlbecause you really look like a
boy, or?
Christina Specos (22:31):
what supposedly look like a boy about
you.
Amanda Smith (22:35):
My muscles, that's the amount of mass that I carry
on my body.
That is muscle.
That's it.
That's what it is.
And I've had other people whocome up to me and say I've never
seen a woman move so muchweight before.
And I'm like thank you, are youintimidated?
(22:57):
Like and there there is thatintimidation factor I do pop out
with that question like it doesthat intimidate you?
But I only ask those questionsto people that I'm a little more
familiar with.
But there's definitely this,this stigma around women who
carry a lot of muscle, who lookstrong, who have traps, lats,
(23:19):
biceps that you know are definednot like Michelle Obama arms
but like a lot more pop.
You know what I mean.
And I just say there's thisquestioning of are you, are you
wanting to be a man?
That's the question that popsup for me and I'm just like no,
(23:42):
I just want to look and feelreally good, and for me what
that takes is heavy load.
I love powerlifting because mynervous system responds really
well to high loads and that'swhat feeds me and makes me happy
.
Have you, have you gone downthat path of understanding why
(24:07):
you wanted to be an IFBB pro?
Christina Specos (24:11):
from a physiological perspective, let
me say this I never started thejourney wanting to turn pro and
bodybuilding.
It evolved.
I wanted to finally break thiscycle of putting everybody and
everything else first Doing thefast, easy, cheap food thing and
push one workout off to thenext day, which became months
(24:34):
and months later and 30 morepounds.
I wanted to break that cycleand finally have a little bit of
self-respect.
I realized I loved who I hadbecome mentally after
accomplishing something, becausethere's nothing better than
staying consistent and reapingthe benefits.
And then people and yourselfyou finally see the physical
strength of the self.
(24:56):
You finally see the physicalmanifestation of it.
I never set out to say, oh myGod, I want to be an influencer
and have abs and a big booty anddo all these things and post it
on socials.
I was saving my soul by havingthis.
So when I then got deeper intoit and I got really competitive
(25:17):
with myself, it flipped, turnedupside down to be.
This is detrimental for mymindset.
This is detrimental for myhealth.
I'm going off the deep end withdetails and measuring things
and worrying about competitionand comparing to all these
little details and worryingabout being perfect for my coach
and all these things that tookthe fun out of why I did it in
the first place and then it camefull circle again.
(25:39):
Now I'm learning more Like so.
This is why when people want togo on a fitness journey and
they think it's a 12 weektransformation, I'm like no, no,
no, sweetheart, listen, that'sa cycle, eight years, and I'm
developing different pieces ofthe journey every year because
you're not going to attack itall at once.
You're not going to attack itall in 12 weeks.
They're highly disillusioned tothink that you're going to just
(26:03):
buy a program and betransformed because that's great
marketing.
That's not reality.
So I morphed into an IFBB proand then, when I got there, I
said you know what, now thatyou're a pro, it's a new level.
You have to level up in theseareas now because I have pride
Right, and in the years that Ididn't show up looking like a
(26:25):
professional athlete or behavinglike a professional athlete, I
would give myself a third degree.
And I still have guilt overthat, because if people are
going to see one thing, is he alabel?
I need to be able to back it up.
So if Kobe or Michael Jordan orany of those guys decided, okay
, well, I'm just going to sithere and drink it and drug it
and I'm not going to go andshoot my free throws.
It's out of alignment for whatpeople see and for what they
(26:46):
started out with in the firstplace.
So for me that's diet.
For me that's mindset.
For me that's slacking onworkouts, like I give myself a
third degree when I don't.
So from that perspective, whatit's done for me mentally is to
continue to reinvent the goal,because after 24 years I've done
(27:06):
everything for the most part.
I've lifted every single lift,I've eaten every single food,
I've been to every singlepercent body fat.
You have to continuallyreinvent.
So I'm in the phase of mentallyhaving it be a part of me but
not owning me, because there'snot really that much that
surprises me anymore.
(27:26):
Whereas someone new on theirfitness journey they may be
surprised at a runner's highthat they get for the first time
or that they could actuallysquat a certain thing and not
fall over.
Those things don't reallyhappen for me anymore.
I have to create opportunitiesto overcome even more difficult
stuff.
So I'm deeper connected to itand at this phase in my
(27:48):
emotional intelligence journeyI'm trying to really connect to
the things that I maybe movedtoo fast before and neglected
just by being a robot.
I want to be humanized and loveit, rather than going to a
means to an end.
So it means so much to me nowbecause it is infiltrated into
who I am and how I see myselffrom a self-worth and maybe not
(28:10):
so good being self-worth, butaccomplishment yeah.
Amanda Smith (28:14):
Yeah.
No one wants to go back.
That's, that's that athleticmindset.
Right, we're competitors Deepdown.
We're here to compete.
If that's with ourselves, or ifit's with another team, or if
it's with another individual,we're competitors at the heart
of it.
When you were a Strength andconditioning coach for college
(28:35):
athletes, did you notice thatsame mindset for them?
Not the competitors mindset,but they were doing it for
themselves.
They were doing it to level upwho they were, or were they
doing it because that was thething that got them the
scholarship that kept them atthe school.
And Well, mom and dad reallypushed for it.
(28:56):
Now you've got us.
You know you're supporting yourteam and you're supporting your
coaches.
Christina Specos (29:02):
Respectfully to all those whom I've left
behind in that world that Istill love, even though they
probably hated me for what Iasked them to do to be great.
I believe it's the latter,because when it becomes a job,
it's not fun.
The kid that goes to playpickup on the weekends with
their friends it's fun.
You have thousands of dollarsof scholarship writing on you,
(29:26):
you have study hours, you havecommunity service, you have this
event, that event.
Your life in college sports isnot your own, and I saw the kids
go through this and I and I wasthere and think, oh my gosh,
I'm exhausted.
At the end of the day, thesekids are not getting sleep.
These kids are expected to showup at 545 for a 6 am Workout
(29:48):
and if their toe is one inchover the line, I'm expected to
hold the line of discipline andchew their ass out on details.
The stakes are so high that Ican completely believe that it's
really not for the love of thegame.
Anymore, except in a smallpercentage of people and I have
an athlete still to this day itwas a professional volleyball
player who everything is aboutexcellence.
(30:10):
It's about doing the extra,it's about helping more.
It's about more film morepractice just showing up,
whereas everybody else they'rejust punching the clock Because
the love somewhere got messed upby the fact that it came with
all of this other stuff and Ileft shortly before the whole
NIL thing, so I can't evencomment on that, but I can only
(30:30):
imagine.
Now it's probably even worsewhen now it's transactional.
Gina Oriana said it best on aInstagram video I saw Like how
do you make connection withpeople who are just basically
like punching a clock and makingit transactional?
You can't connect when it'stransactional.
It's true in life, it's true indating and it's true in college
(30:51):
sports.
So I'd like to say, generallyspeaking and quick example, it
is the latter and Worked withsoccer.
The conditioning tests insoccer were very brutal and only
had this one girl I can stillremember it to this day couldn't
pass it to save her life,didn't want to make the effort
to pass it, so she quit the team.
(31:11):
She always struggled with herweight, which is why she
couldn't pass the test.
The second she quits the team.
Now she's running way more thanwhat I would have her run
because she chose to do it andshe dropped all the weight.
So I think it's a matter ofpersonal choice and if you're
doing it because you have to oryou want to, when?
(31:33):
it comes to playing over yourhead.
It's probably because you haveto.
Amanda Smith (31:38):
Yes, ish, you loved the game for sure, and I
lived this.
You loved the game at one pointand if you would walked into a
college, especially at thedivision one level, which is the
highest level you can play atin A college sports it's
basically semi pro.
We might as well just startcalling it that, especially with
(31:58):
nil and I have to.
For those of you who don't knowwhat nil is, its name, image
likeness and high school kidsAre now allowed to do nil.
So now we've we've gone fromjust college to high school and
college and I'll have somebodyon the podcast that will explain
nil in great detail Dr Jamira,dr Jam, I can't wait to have her
(32:20):
on and help everyone understandnil from that perspective.
But now that we've gone to thatdegree of we're punching a
clock.
If you walk into a collegeathletic program at the division
one level and you don't love it, you are in the wrong place
Because your love is going to betested over and, over and over
(32:40):
again.
As a softball player in divisionone, I was doing 52 hours a
week on average of softball,especially in season, but season
was fall and spring, so winterwas my off time, but no, that's
when we worked out really hard.
That was when you made the mostgains.
Off season is where championsare made.
(33:01):
The love does get lost, though,and that was, for me, why I One
of the many reasons why I leftdivision one and went to
division two and now, all of asudden, 35 hours a week of
softball I can actually enjoylife and, like you mentioned,
get some damn sleep.
Trying to pull off a mechanicaland aerospace engineering degree
(33:24):
and Be a softball player at 52hours a week Hell, no, that's
two full-time jobs on top ofthemselves, which translated to
what looked like what I wasdoing in the aerospace industry
After I left.
So I guess I was preparingmyself, but then I also exited
aerospace because of that reason, because I wasn't getting good
(33:46):
sleep.
I was working 60 to 80 hours aweek, which is exactly what I
was doing in college, playingdivision one, and my body took
the hit, my brain took the hit,and my doctor kept saying you're
going to kill yourself if youkeep going down this path.
So I was like, okay, I've gotto do better for me, and at that
time I dove down the rabbithole of being a yoga instructor
(34:07):
and man.
I finally found the love againthe love for myself, the love
for my body and I feel like alot of athletes experience that.
Have you ever experiencedburnout as an IFBB pro?
Christina Specos (34:23):
Yeah, I think so.
However, I I somehowbrainwashed myself to block it
out.
There was a phase in 2017 whereI was like, still had eight
weeks to go to a show and I wasso exhausted I couldn't even
sleep.
Like I could pass out sittingright here but not really sleep
(34:44):
yeah, eyes closed, but nothing'snot any amount of food that was
going to help me and I was like, okay, this is just part of the
process like, and people arelike no, no, you have to tell
your coach.
You need to like, really thinkabout this.
No, no, no, no.
I'm gonna suck it up because myego was such that Don't show
weakness, right, you want towork pressure, coach.
(35:06):
I Pushed through for the wrongreasons, but I think that's the
closest to burnout I ever had.
This past year, though, wasmore of a mental burnout because
of opinions Rather thanphysical, so I actually gave
myself the third degree, sayingYou're not working nearly as
hard as near-death experiencesas before.
So what are you complainingabout?
(35:26):
You're just letting otherpeople in your ear, which is
Mentally draining you and it'saffecting your physical.
So it just goes to show.
Stress, whether it's physicalor mental, is all going to go to
the same bucket if you don'tmanage it.
Amanda Smith (35:38):
Mm-hmm.
Christina Specos (35:39):
I do think that, are people listening, that
can resonate with both sides ofthe coin.
They'll probably say I get itlike.
You can be physically fine, butmentally you're so burnt out
that you physically feelterrible.
And when I say physically fine,I mean like you're not running
marathons or doing like ninedays a week of crossfit or
something like that.
You know where you're reallytaxing your body.
(35:59):
But then you can have thoseyears where you're taxing your
body so much but mentally youpull through Because of whatever
circumstances that you tellyourself in your head that you
don't need rest or you just haveone more week or whatever it is
.
And that's how we got throughthe sports seasons right.
Amanda Smith (36:14):
Mm-hmm.
Christina Specos (36:14):
Exactly so.
I felt both.
I think you burn out wise nice.
Amanda Smith (36:20):
All right, I want to circle back to the Female
athlete being poked and prodded.
Are you lesbian?
Are you wanting to be a man?
Are you transgender?
Are you?
Are you a man?
So, when those moments come upfor you from a mindset
(36:45):
perspective, what's a piece ofadvice you would give someone
who's experiencing exactly that?
Christina Specos (36:51):
So for the person who's accused like the
way I was, yes, considering thesource when it happened on
Instagram you can't see theperson, you can't touch them,
you don't know who it is, youcan't converse with them face to
face.
That was hard for me becauseI'm like that's mean, like who
(37:13):
would do that?
You're a keyboard warrior,you're a piece of crap, like,
and you have no context.
So the easiest thing to do asfar as advice as hard as it is,
because I'm a fighter and Ialways want to be right and I
was going to fight people forjustice the easiest thing to do
and the most mentally same thingis block, delete.
I love you myself.
You don't even have to respondand I would get into pissing
(37:34):
matches with people Like youcan't do that.
Block, delete, block, delete,ignore.
Go to the mirror and tellyourself how much you love
yourself when it's a person theway I experienced with the
podcast guy.
I had already been through thetrial by fire with the online
people that I'm like okay, well,you are now finally in front of
somebody.
You can't hit them, you can't,you can't like, just you can.
Amanda Smith (37:59):
There's consequences, there's a kind of
you.
Christina Specos (38:01):
I'm like what do you do?
And so my response was to laughit off and say are you serious,
like.
And then I questioned itbecause I think I had started to
turn the corner and theemotional intelligence realm to
be like okay, find out why.
And then I started to getdefensive and I was like you
seriously not going to believeme.
(38:21):
Like I'm answering yourquestion that I don't have to
answer because it's personal.
I'm telling you transparentlythat I'm a biological woman.
I'm offering to pull down mypants, to pull, call your bluff.
Obviously, you didn't expectthat.
Don't do that, cause the guywas like uh, yeah, go away.
I'm telling you, if you don'ttrust my words, I'm sorry, I'm
(38:43):
leaving.
Which was, which is what hewanted anyway.
So the best thing to do wouldprobably be to mature one and
excuse yourself from thesituation when it happens in
person or, you know, find a wayto laugh it off, but debrief
after, because it is going tosting.
Amanda Smith (38:57):
Yes.
Christina Specos (38:58):
But only certain people can help you
debrief, because certain friendswill just be like, oh well, ask
them to get about it.
It's not so easy, because thisis what I'll say to anyone who
is struggling with this I heardit so many times.
I started to think I was wrongand the masses were right, and
so I started to question myself.
(39:19):
And when you start to questionyourself, you question what
you're doing that?
What which bodybuilding made meas tenacious as I was?
And then I stopped doing thatbecause of fear of judgment and
I went backwards and then Ireally didn't like who I became,
because I was no longertenacious, fit I just?
(39:43):
The best advice, I think, is, isto just recognize that people
are hurt, people are sad, peopleare judgmental, people want
what you have, even if they'regoing to front like they don't.
And the best opportunity inthose moments is to just walk
away and do the inner work tosay I love what I do.
(40:05):
This is why it makes me wholeand this is why it doesn't
matter what they say.
But if you had asked me thisquestion a year ago, I would
have told you to just sock themin the face, because I hadn't
grown.
I was still hurt.
That's when we met.
No, no, it was like three yearsago, wasn't it?
Was it Okay?
So 20,?
Amanda Smith (40:23):
2021.
Christina Specos (40:25):
Yeah.
Amanda Smith (40:25):
It's been a couple of years, yeah, to watch your
evolution through this has beenbeautiful, so thank you, and
thank you for sharing, christina.
Where can people connect withyou?
Where can they learn more aboutwhat you do in the world to
help others?
How do you serve people, sure.
Christina Specos (40:44):
My Instagram at Christina Speckos is probably
my baby right now.
So who is it my baby right now?
So hopefully it doesn't everexplode, because there's a lot
of time and money that's goneinto content.
But there you can find a lot oflike my viewpoints on fitness,
how I serve people, some clienttestimonials and transformations
, but I think you could reallyconnect with the type of message
(41:06):
that I have.
That's pretty much no BS.
If you want to change yourselfphysically or mentally, there's
a process that's all linkedtogether, so you'll find a lot
about that there.
I did start a podcast calledSpeck Talk.
I have it on my YouTube pageand that's the.
That's the era when it sparkedthe first round of questions
like who are you that content inthe end of 2022.
(41:28):
So going to be continuing that.
So there is an Instagram pagefor it.
That's not well developed, butyou can go straight to YouTube
and if you just email medirectly because you have some
sort of question, it's Christinaat Christina Speckoscom.
Amanda Smith (41:42):
Yay, christina, thank you so much for sharing in
this unbelievably vulnerableconversation and, of course,
potentially triggeringtriggering for those who are
listening, but hopefully theymade it to this point and they
got to hear everything that youshared, so thank you.
Christina Specos (42:01):
Thank you for the opportunity and I'm glad you
see it as vulnerable, becausenow I look at it as my duty to
share the experience.
It's not scary to share it,because I've tried to own the
pain and realize like this isnot only me going through it.
And when I see other people'sInstagrams with the same content
(42:22):
I know or comments on theircontent, I know that I'm not the
only one.
But in the large part of theworld people don't know that
this bias exists.
So I kind of feel like it'sjust a part of me to share and
it wasn't scary.
So thank you for the platformto get it out.
Amanda Smith (42:40):
I'm happy it wasn't scary.
Corina (43:10):
Thanks for listening to Spirit of an Athlete Podcast.
If you're struggling with yourown gut issues and you want more
direction, you can get anInitial Body Scan from Amanda at
BodyWhisperHealing.
com In 20 minutes, you can findout what's wrong, get clarity,
map the path forward, and get ontrack to get back in your game.
If this episode hits the spot,please let us know by rating,
reviewing, and sharing it with afriend.
Subscribe now to hear moreinspiring stories from other
female college athletes whoovercame their health issues.
Want more, Amanda.
Get inspired by finding moreat BodyWhisperHealingcom.
Welcome to Spirit of an Athlete.
Thank you so much for checkingout the show.
Show us that you like whatwe're doing by liking,
subscribing, sharing with otherpeople that are like you.
That's how we know we're doingthe right thing.
In this episode, I interviewedChristina Specos, who I've known
for a couple of years and I wasso thrilled to cross her path.
(00:42):
She's been in the fitnessindustry for 24 years.
She coaches fitnessprofessionals on a holistic
level, which I love, to helpthem meet peak performance.
She's also a licensed athletictrainer, a massage therapist, a
Pilates instructor, and she wasan associate director of sports
(01:06):
performance at Purdue University.
I brought her on because we'retackling a very tough topic,
something both of us have beenchallenged with in our lives.
Her more recently because sheis an IFBB pro in women's
physique.
Me my entire career of being anathlete from eight years old
(01:26):
till now, around the questionare you a dude?
Yeah, both of us have beenconfronted with this really
tough topic and we wonder why,and we've done the work for
ourselves so that we can sharewith you what our experience was
and how we overcame it.
(01:47):
There might be some triggeringtopics for you, because this is
a topic that female athleteshave to confront from time to
time.
Whether you're in the LGBTQcommunity or not, this is
something that you mightexperience, and if you're
straight like Christina and I,then experiencing this is a
(02:10):
whole nother level of challenges.
I hope you enjoy this.
Please leave us a comment andlet us know how you felt this
particular episode went.
I'm really interested to see.
This conversation is going tobe a doozy.
It is going to potentiallytrigger people.
(02:33):
It's going to definitely be inthe controversial arena.
So buckle in.
Here we go.
Christina, thank you so muchfor being on Spirit of an
Athlete with me.
Christina Specos (02:48):
I love the concept, I love you and your
sense of humor and your missionto help educate, so I'm honored
to be here.
Amanda Smith (02:54):
Well, okay, so mine, mine, mine, mine.
Christina Specos (03:00):
I had to bring the three goals along because
if you, if you get triggered, atleast there's an air of
somewhat humor in the air, andso it's got my shoulder.
He's just, he's just watchingyou and he trolls want to attack
.
He's got a beak and he willpack.
Amanda Smith (03:18):
Those of you who are listening to this podcast.
She has on her background theseagulls from Finding Nemo where
they go mine, mine, mine, andthere's one like right in her
face at the same level as her.
It's very awesome.
Christina Specos (03:36):
You can't just like when you you can't just
listen on the radio.
I'll try to be as like dynamicas possible, but you need to see
my seagulls.
Amanda Smith (03:43):
Exactly.
So go check us out on YouTube.
Spirit of an Athlete on YouTube.
Okay, so we're both female.
We we both go by she, her, allof those pronouns.
We are both in our forties,went to high school in the
(04:03):
nineties, went to college.
After that, you were an athletetennis player in high school.
I was volleyball, basketball,softball in high school.
We've both gone on to becomeweightlifting athletes.
You're a bodybuilder IFBB probodybuilder, I'm a power lifter
(04:27):
and we both grew up in the bluecollar world when we were kids,
and so what we're sharing today,our opinions, have been formed
around those things when we werekids, as well as the
experiences, the traumas,everything that we have gone
through in our lives, and sowhat we're talking about is
(04:52):
being a female athlete and beingasked about our gender and our
sexuality.
So, christina, give me anexample.
We're going right there.
Give me an example of whensomebody judged you and
approached you about who you are, what your sexuality is and,
(05:17):
potentially, what your gender is.
Christina Specos (05:20):
I have a few, so I'm going to keep them all
really brief and one-liners.
And then, if you want to diveinto anyone in particular, when
I first got into bodybuilding,it was 2016, and I did that as a
essentially for myself, a cryfor help, because I had dove
everything into college.
(05:41):
Athletics I was a strengthcoach at a division one
university, so Her do no, no,yeah, yeah, exactly.
And basketball, volleyball verydemanding and fast-paced
women's revenue sports becausewe sold tickets and did well, we
sold out.
So there's a responsibilitywith that.
And I got into bodybuildingbecause I owed it to myself to
(06:05):
not be a chunky, fat strengthcoach.
I call it fat strength coachsyndrome.
We give so much and then wejust eat everything on the
buffet this, that.
And the third so catalyst wassomeone walked into my office.
She was going to compete and Iwas like I wanted to do this.
So since my teenage and earlytwenties, I look at people on
covers and magazines and I wantto do that.
I've been in fitness forever.
What's the problem?
The problem spoiler alert,folks it's always nutrition, but
(06:27):
we can talk about that later.
I can't outsmart a poor diet.
I cannot train it, so that wasmy problem as much as I knew, as
many certifications I had.
So I go and become a competitor.
I compete in 2016 and 17.
17 was pretty rough here, inthe sense of, like, over-dieted,
lack of attention.
It really looked ugly.
It was horrible.
(06:48):
2018 rolls around.
That's when I left Purdue.
But in that year, between 17and 18, I had a boss change at
work.
My old boss like knew of it.
It was inspired at first andthen, you know, you get to the
danger zone of that 2017 yearwhere I looked horrible and then
you kind of come out of thatand I was always very lean after
that, like never really cameoff diet and my new boss said to
(07:10):
me are you a strength coach ora model?
Because I would.
You know, when you compete, youare proud of what you worked
hard for.
So you do photo shoots and thisand that I tried to be as
respectful as I could onInstagram and I put everything
was centered around my job andnothing personal.
But you know, it was no mistakethat I was doing photo shoots
(07:30):
and I did like what I hadachieved.
So that was like woman on womanhate, because everybody else
around me was like you know whyshe's doing this to you right,
like there's always, as wediscussed earlier, when
someone's triggered by something, there's always something wrong
in them that they're trying toreflect onto you that they're
really unhappy with inthemselves.
So I move on from there.
(07:51):
I get my pro card and at somepoint after 2018, before 20, I
was told by someone really closeto me body buddies that are
ruining your career.
So it got in my head andactually stayed in my head the
last three to four years, I'lltell you, as it affected some
things that came down the pike.
So, whatever, get my pro cardin 2019 and 2020.
(08:13):
Covid hit and then 21, competedin my first pro show.
Everything was fine.
22,.
I made a huge social media pushto educate and do training
clips and I hired my friend'sagency.
Everything was professional.
It was getting a lot of views.
Then I started getting theinternet hate.
Everything from oh you know,bro has a dick over there, or
(08:35):
that's a man, or lay off theroids or whatever, like
everything you can imagine.
That kind of took me down aspiral and then I filmed a
reality show.
In the reality show, Iexperienced that the date that I
had was not physical attraction, wasn't there for him, which
was fine, cause I mean, I wasplaying nice on the show, if I'm
(08:57):
being honest, cause I was justexcited to be there, but in real
life I wouldn't have liked himeither.
So I was like, okay.
What came out later was oh, whatdo you want her to do?
She colored her hair.
She's changed her wardrobe.
You know she's covering up hermuscles.
You want her to lose the muscle, and the quote that I saw after
I actually saw the show comeout was that's exactly what she
(09:18):
could do.
So there's this.
This is underlying hatred ofwomen with muscle and that I
wasn't good enough to be a womanwith Miami beauty standards
because, as she said, beauty iscurrency.
Fast forward, there's moreinternet hate from content I'm
putting out.
And then I lastly, most recently, I was asked to be on a podcast
(09:40):
.
It was recruited from Instagram, like their company had a girl
that was recruiting people.
So I book it, like for a coupleof weeks out from when I was
asked, and I show up, I'm ontime, I'm very respectful of the
whole deal.
And then you know we're therean hour and a half before the
podcast filming and the guypulls me aside and says are you
a man?
I said, apart from me, are youkidding me?
He goes well, you know, itwould look bad for the podcast.
(10:03):
We can't have you here as apodcast for women.
I'm like I'm not a man.
And he says, well, weren't youon, you know, the Fresh and Fit
podcast?
I was like, yeah, what's theproblem?
Well, they don't tolerate thattheory there.
I'm like, well, I'm not a man,so that's what.
Like you know what?
Amanda Smith (10:16):
I'm saying that's why I was there.
Christina Specos (10:18):
Yeah.
So I'm like, okay, I break.
And even on the Fresh and Fitpodcast I broke the
stereotypical norm because Ihave a presence of confidence
and I pretty much took the standthat this is me, I'm gonna take
care of myself.
Until somebody fear I'm, I'mgonna put my air coats up for
people listening.
More masculine than me is goingto show up for me and he says,
(10:40):
well, that's like, if me I wannawear a dress and heels, you're
not gonna believe that I'm a man.
I'm like, that's not the same.
I'm working for myself.
I'm making my own money.
I don't look for handouts.
I'm not the girly girl that'sgonna date a guy part of my
language.
Fuck him once and expect aLouis Vuitton bag.
Like that's not me.
I'm very, very self-sufficientand I'm a team member.
(11:01):
I'm not the person that youspoil for no reason.
And so if that's masculine,because I wanna be a teammate
with a mate of mine or presentmyself as confident, maybe I
could like tone it down.
But dude, you've never beenwhere I've been.
I worked in college sports.
I was around men all the time.
I figured out a way to gainrespect with my intelligence and
(11:21):
my authority, rather than beingquestioned the way.
For example, another coach Iknew that was never a friend of
mine, just in passing.
He says I will never hire awoman to work with my football
team because she's going towanna eff all the players.
And I was like I'm 31.
These boys are 18 to 22.
That's not my.
(11:42):
That's sickening, it'sdisgusting.
So the fact that you have togeneralize all women when I'm a
pedigreed professional with amaster's degree in a track
history of success, that'sinsulting.
If you make a mistake and youhire the wrong person, that's
fine, but don't generalize witheveryone.
So in a lot of different areas,personally and professionally,
I've been hit with it.
Recently, because of thecultural landscape, people have
(12:02):
been asking me if I'mtransgender, because either on
dating apps they're meetingwomen that are transgender and
they're getting a surprisebecause they're not being
forthcoming, because thetransgender women truly believe
that they are really biologicalwomen, because that's what
they're telling themselves andthey're not being honest with
their surgery or whatever theirsituation is with the guy
they're trying to date.
And so I've got questions ondating apps, on FaceTime calls.
(12:24):
Oh, there's no easy way to askthis, so I just have to ask this
and I'm like okay, I understand.
Again, this guy's triggered Isound like what I look like, I
have traps.
He said I'm like, okay, sorry,I played tennis and lifted
weights.
It kind of comes when you hadlifting, right, right have you
looked at swimmers before?
(12:46):
Yeah.
So I feel like I have an arrayof a bunch of different examples
that it just all led into onebucket and the bucket only had
one little hole at the bottom,draining and then eventually
last year it overflowed.
I just I saw therapists.
(13:06):
I'm in an emotionalintelligence leadership program
now which's helping a lot tojust let me extract all that so
I could be a better leader.
And essentially, when you and Italked off air, you have a
really good high EQ about howyou can perceive the way
someone's saying something andunderstand where they're coming
from, to have more empathy andcompassion.
So I'm working on that now.
(13:26):
Rather than wanting to jump offa bridge or kill anybody, I
feel like the problem is reallywith them, but the buck stops
with me by truly being a planand I wasn't really doing that.
So at the end of the day, Iguess this whole thinking full
circle and I realized I'm notreally loving myself if I'm
letting them infiltrate withtheir opinions.
(13:46):
Yes, sister.
Amanda Smith (13:49):
Okay, so much to unpack.
Okay, when you were in highschool playing tennis and being
a student athletic trainer whichI was also a student athletic
trainer, thank you.
Did you confront any of theseissues then when you weren't an
IFBB pro?
Christina Specos (14:09):
I don't recall ever having those encounters.
Okay, see, that's where itstarted for me, questioning who
I was.
Well, first of all, tennis,where's I played field hockey
for one year, two in seventhgrade so we all wore skirts.
So I think this was a girlyconnotation and I'm sorry if
this offends anybody, but it'sjust my experience.
(14:30):
I worked with volleyball,basketball and I've been around
swimming and softball.
I know the sports that havethis connotation of questioning
some sexuality because perhapsthe percentage of women that
play that sport are gay and itgets generalized.
My best friend played collegesoftball.
(14:52):
She's not gay, but she's hadthat experience as well, being
on a team Tennis.
I didn't experience that.
So maybe because tennis isalmost seen it's an aggressive
sport but the script probablynumbs down the intensity factor
of it a little bit.
But when you're literally goingbody to body in basketball,
(15:12):
yeah, it's a little bit.
It's a different kind ofaggression.
In tennis you have to have realstrong individual mental
strength because it's only youagainst that other person,
whereas you have a team and bodyto body against someone and
being super aggressive.
It's a different kind of tough.
So what I?
Amanda Smith (15:31):
experienced at the skirt I'm sure helped.
None of the sports I played inhad skirts.
I wish I mean pro baseball forwomen.
Back when the Rockford Peaches,for instance, were a team which
is my hometown, they woreskirts, but I couldn't freaking
imagine playing softball in askirt.
(15:52):
The gender thing came up for mein high school and that's why I
ask because I was.
They called me the jock chick,right, and those of us who
played three sports or more.
We were hardcore athletes.
We were very competitive.
We came across as moremasculine than, say, the
(16:15):
cheerleaders who were in skirtsand doing a very athletic thing,
but obviously that wasn't whatI was doing.
Okay, you went on and you wentto Purdue and you became a
strength and conditioning coachfor a bunch of women's sports,
which I'm sure that's where youlearned more about like oh,
(16:37):
softball players tend to havemore lesbians on their team.
Basketball players they tend tobe more lesbians on that team.
That was also what Iexperienced as a D1 athlete.
Did you ever get questioned bythose athletes if you would date
(16:58):
them?
Christina Specos (17:00):
No, no, interesting, because I was
probably the only straight oneon the coaching staff as well,
because and I think that was areally interesting dichotomy to
have because I had for lack of abetter word I think I had lost
that sensitivity factor.
You know, I would say thefamous line from you know, j
(17:23):
Mcguire, I don't gush overbabies.
You know, when the one lady islike really getting angry that
he just lost the big contract.
Like I tend to focus on thetask at hand, which is why I was
successful at bodybuilding, Iwas able to block everything on
me like this is my body, this ismy life.
So I noticed that I was in someways more headstrong, more bossy
, and I display thosecharacteristics even though I
(17:46):
didn't go along with theso-called sexual orientation
that it's supposed to becommonly associated with.
So I thought that was a reallyinteresting dichotomy because I
had lost some sensitivity and Ithink that was an over
compensation for the fact that Ihad to be tougher, to be
tougher around.
The people that I perceivedwere tough Ended up almost
(18:06):
outtuffing it and it actuallygot me through.
See, it spared my emotionsbecause I was able to push my
emotions down.
So you know when people are allpissed off at losses and you
know they're worried aboutthey're going to lose their
house or their mortgage, becausethey're going to get fired
because we lost the game, like Iwas just kind of like suck it
(18:27):
up, coach better next time.
You know, like I kind of Ididn't get emotional the way
people would because at the endof the day, skill yeah.
Yeah, like I know whatcontribution I have and I know
the relationship I have with thekids.
So thankfully no one evercrossed the line.
But interestingly enough, whenI was a high school straight
(18:48):
coach, one young gay boy askedme because I cut my hair short
like punky, and he was speckless.
I was like, yeah, because youknow you lift weights and you
have short hair.
I'm like, okay, so that's whatit takes to be a lesbian.
Got it Meanwhile.
Here was the interesting thingOne of my friends came to live
(19:09):
with me for nine months becausewe worked on a PhD her PhD
project together with researchon my teams, and she would
experience the opposite.
She was a lesbian and she hadpeople say you're too pretty to
be gay.
Oh no, nobody can win here.
Amanda Smith (19:26):
Right.
But I mean, when did it becomeokay to ask people what their
sexual orientation is, unlessyou're trying to date them?
Christina Specos (19:35):
Did I tell you that to me last month or
earlier this month, point blank.
Amanda Smith (19:40):
Yeah.
Christina Specos (19:41):
And I'll think I told you that I was at a
content creation summit and theafter party after the last day.
You know, we're all just kindof like going to eat upstairs at
the restaurant and I just waskind of standing around
different people that haddecided to meander up from the
conference and two guys werestanding there and started
talking and the one guy had saida peep to me and he just looks
(20:01):
at me and he goes are youtransgender?
I'm like you didn't even say hi, like is this the new greeting?
So the other guy next to himwas like you have to pardon him,
he's never seen a woman withmuscles.
And I'm like you have tounderstand that I'm not even fit
right now, like I'm soft, I'mnot even exposing muscles, I'm
not lean.
So I use it as an opportunity tosay you know, I know male
(20:23):
characteristics, like if youjust start scratching your balls
and sitting down leaning backlike Al Bundy with your hands in
your pants, I'm going to assumeyou're a man because of the way
you're behaving.
Is there a way that I'mstanding here and behaving
that's making you think I'm atransgender?
Oh, you know.
You know, traps are bigger.
What is it about the trapspeople.
What if I'm a really stressedout person and I can't get my
(20:43):
shoulders out of me?
Just hold it there.
Amanda Smith (20:46):
Oh yeah, you shared that with me off air, but
I love that you brought that inbecause it goes into.
Now you're an IFBB pro, you owna pro card, you're doing shows,
you're constantly going throughgains and leaning out and your
(21:09):
perception of being leaned outand really having your muscles
pop is completely different thansomeone who just sees you are a
very well built woman.
Christina Specos (21:23):
I have good structure, shape, genetics and
proportions for the most part.
So if I'm big you have to beeverywhere Like I don't.
I'm not that girl that hastrouble building her legs.
It has massive shoulders orvice versa.
I'm pretty much pretty even,and when we say we want to bring
up lagging body parts, it'sjust like splitting hairs over
being in the top elite levelsbecause I don't have that
(21:46):
proportion.
That's off drastically, likesome people do when they
struggle to build up a part oftheir body.
So overall, if I gain weightlike now, I'm heavier than I'd
like to be.
I just look like massive to, inmy opinion, and when people see
fat on top of muscle, they justsee mass.
Yes, they don't understand theway fitness people understand.
You know the dynamic ofchanging your body composition,
(22:09):
so I just look huge.
Amanda Smith (22:11):
That's yeah, I'm right there with you, sister,
and this is where, like for myentire life, I've experienced
those questions around Do youwant to be a girl, like I got?
I got those questions.
Do you want to be a girlbecause you really look like a
boy, or?
Christina Specos (22:31):
what supposedly look like a boy about
you.
Amanda Smith (22:35):
My muscles, that's the amount of mass that I carry
on my body.
That is muscle.
That's it.
That's what it is.
And I've had other people whocome up to me and say I've never
seen a woman move so muchweight before.
And I'm like thank you, are youintimidated?
(22:57):
Like and there there is thatintimidation factor I do pop out
with that question like it doesthat intimidate you?
But I only ask those questionsto people that I'm a little more
familiar with.
But there's definitely this,this stigma around women who
carry a lot of muscle, who lookstrong, who have traps, lats,
(23:19):
biceps that you know are definednot like Michelle Obama arms
but like a lot more pop.
You know what I mean.
And I just say there's thisquestioning of are you, are you
wanting to be a man?
That's the question that popsup for me and I'm just like no,
(23:42):
I just want to look and feelreally good, and for me what
that takes is heavy load.
I love powerlifting because mynervous system responds really
well to high loads and that'swhat feeds me and makes me happy
.
Have you, have you gone downthat path of understanding why
(24:07):
you wanted to be an IFBB pro?
Christina Specos (24:11):
from a physiological perspective, let
me say this I never started thejourney wanting to turn pro and
bodybuilding.
It evolved.
I wanted to finally break thiscycle of putting everybody and
everything else first Doing thefast, easy, cheap food thing and
push one workout off to thenext day, which became months
(24:34):
and months later and 30 morepounds.
I wanted to break that cycleand finally have a little bit of
self-respect.
I realized I loved who I hadbecome mentally after
accomplishing something, becausethere's nothing better than
staying consistent and reapingthe benefits.
And then people and yourselfyou finally see the physical
strength of the self.
(24:56):
You finally see the physicalmanifestation of it.
I never set out to say, oh myGod, I want to be an influencer
and have abs and a big booty anddo all these things and post it
on socials.
I was saving my soul by havingthis.
So when I then got deeper intoit and I got really competitive
(25:17):
with myself, it flipped, turnedupside down to be.
This is detrimental for mymindset.
This is detrimental for myhealth.
I'm going off the deep end withdetails and measuring things
and worrying about competitionand comparing to all these
little details and worryingabout being perfect for my coach
and all these things that tookthe fun out of why I did it in
the first place and then it camefull circle again.
(25:39):
Now I'm learning more Like so.
This is why when people want togo on a fitness journey and
they think it's a 12 weektransformation, I'm like no, no,
no, sweetheart, listen, that'sa cycle, eight years, and I'm
developing different pieces ofthe journey every year because
you're not going to attack itall at once.
You're not going to attack itall in 12 weeks.
They're highly disillusioned tothink that you're going to just
(26:03):
buy a program and betransformed because that's great
marketing.
That's not reality.
So I morphed into an IFBB proand then, when I got there, I
said you know what, now thatyou're a pro, it's a new level.
You have to level up in theseareas now because I have pride
Right, and in the years that Ididn't show up looking like a
(26:25):
professional athlete or behavinglike a professional athlete, I
would give myself a third degree.
And I still have guilt overthat, because if people are
going to see one thing, is he alabel?
I need to be able to back it up.
So if Kobe or Michael Jordan orany of those guys decided, okay
, well, I'm just going to sithere and drink it and drug it
and I'm not going to go andshoot my free throws.
It's out of alignment for whatpeople see and for what they
(26:46):
started out with in the firstplace.
So for me that's diet.
For me that's mindset.
For me that's slacking onworkouts, like I give myself a
third degree when I don't.
So from that perspective, whatit's done for me mentally is to
continue to reinvent the goal,because after 24 years I've done
(27:06):
everything for the most part.
I've lifted every single lift,I've eaten every single food,
I've been to every singlepercent body fat.
You have to continuallyreinvent.
So I'm in the phase of mentallyhaving it be a part of me but
not owning me, because there'snot really that much that
surprises me anymore.
(27:26):
Whereas someone new on theirfitness journey they may be
surprised at a runner's highthat they get for the first time
or that they could actuallysquat a certain thing and not
fall over.
Those things don't reallyhappen for me anymore.
I have to create opportunitiesto overcome even more difficult
stuff.
So I'm deeper connected to itand at this phase in my
(27:48):
emotional intelligence journeyI'm trying to really connect to
the things that I maybe movedtoo fast before and neglected
just by being a robot.
I want to be humanized and loveit, rather than going to a
means to an end.
So it means so much to me nowbecause it is infiltrated into
who I am and how I see myselffrom a self-worth and maybe not
(28:10):
so good being self-worth, butaccomplishment yeah.
Amanda Smith (28:14):
Yeah.
No one wants to go back.
That's, that's that athleticmindset.
Right, we're competitors Deepdown.
We're here to compete.
If that's with ourselves, or ifit's with another team, or if
it's with another individual,we're competitors at the heart
of it.
When you were a Strength andconditioning coach for college
(28:35):
athletes, did you notice thatsame mindset for them?
Not the competitors mindset,but they were doing it for
themselves.
They were doing it to level upwho they were, or were they
doing it because that was thething that got them the
scholarship that kept them atthe school.
And Well, mom and dad reallypushed for it.
(28:56):
Now you've got us.
You know you're supporting yourteam and you're supporting your
coaches.
Christina Specos (29:02):
Respectfully to all those whom I've left
behind in that world that Istill love, even though they
probably hated me for what Iasked them to do to be great.
I believe it's the latter,because when it becomes a job,
it's not fun.
The kid that goes to playpickup on the weekends with
their friends it's fun.
You have thousands of dollarsof scholarship writing on you,
(29:26):
you have study hours, you havecommunity service, you have this
event, that event.
Your life in college sports isnot your own, and I saw the kids
go through this and I and I wasthere and think, oh my gosh,
I'm exhausted.
At the end of the day, thesekids are not getting sleep.
These kids are expected to showup at 545 for a 6 am Workout
(29:48):
and if their toe is one inchover the line, I'm expected to
hold the line of discipline andchew their ass out on details.
The stakes are so high that Ican completely believe that it's
really not for the love of thegame.
Anymore, except in a smallpercentage of people and I have
an athlete still to this day itwas a professional volleyball
player who everything is aboutexcellence.
(30:10):
It's about doing the extra,it's about helping more.
It's about more film morepractice just showing up,
whereas everybody else they'rejust punching the clock Because
the love somewhere got messed upby the fact that it came with
all of this other stuff and Ileft shortly before the whole
NIL thing, so I can't evencomment on that, but I can only
(30:30):
imagine.
Now it's probably even worsewhen now it's transactional.
Gina Oriana said it best on aInstagram video I saw Like how
do you make connection withpeople who are just basically
like punching a clock and makingit transactional?
You can't connect when it'stransactional.
It's true in life, it's true indating and it's true in college
(30:51):
sports.
So I'd like to say, generallyspeaking and quick example, it
is the latter and Worked withsoccer.
The conditioning tests insoccer were very brutal and only
had this one girl I can stillremember it to this day couldn't
pass it to save her life,didn't want to make the effort
to pass it, so she quit the team.
(31:11):
She always struggled with herweight, which is why she
couldn't pass the test.
The second she quits the team.
Now she's running way more thanwhat I would have her run
because she chose to do it andshe dropped all the weight.
So I think it's a matter ofpersonal choice and if you're
doing it because you have to oryou want to, when?
(31:33):
it comes to playing over yourhead.
It's probably because you haveto.
Amanda Smith (31:38):
Yes, ish, you loved the game for sure, and I
lived this.
You loved the game at one pointand if you would walked into a
college, especially at thedivision one level, which is the
highest level you can play atin A college sports it's
basically semi pro.
We might as well just startcalling it that, especially with
(31:58):
nil and I have to.
For those of you who don't knowwhat nil is, its name, image
likeness and high school kidsAre now allowed to do nil.
So now we've we've gone fromjust college to high school and
college and I'll have somebodyon the podcast that will explain
nil in great detail Dr Jamira,dr Jam, I can't wait to have her
(32:20):
on and help everyone understandnil from that perspective.
But now that we've gone to thatdegree of we're punching a
clock.
If you walk into a collegeathletic program at the division
one level and you don't love it, you are in the wrong place
Because your love is going to betested over and, over and over
(32:40):
again.
As a softball player in divisionone, I was doing 52 hours a
week on average of softball,especially in season, but season
was fall and spring, so winterwas my off time, but no, that's
when we worked out really hard.
That was when you made the mostgains.
Off season is where championsare made.
(33:01):
The love does get lost, though,and that was, for me, why I One
of the many reasons why I leftdivision one and went to
division two and now, all of asudden, 35 hours a week of
softball I can actually enjoylife and, like you mentioned,
get some damn sleep.
Trying to pull off a mechanicaland aerospace engineering degree
(33:24):
and Be a softball player at 52hours a week Hell, no, that's
two full-time jobs on top ofthemselves, which translated to
what looked like what I wasdoing in the aerospace industry
After I left.
So I guess I was preparingmyself, but then I also exited
aerospace because of that reason, because I wasn't getting good
(33:46):
sleep.
I was working 60 to 80 hours aweek, which is exactly what I
was doing in college, playingdivision one, and my body took
the hit, my brain took the hit,and my doctor kept saying you're
going to kill yourself if youkeep going down this path.
So I was like, okay, I've gotto do better for me, and at that
time I dove down the rabbithole of being a yoga instructor
(34:07):
and man.
I finally found the love againthe love for myself, the love
for my body and I feel like alot of athletes experience that.
Have you ever experiencedburnout as an IFBB pro?
Christina Specos (34:23):
Yeah, I think so.
However, I I somehowbrainwashed myself to block it
out.
There was a phase in 2017 whereI was like, still had eight
weeks to go to a show and I wasso exhausted I couldn't even
sleep.
Like I could pass out sittingright here but not really sleep
(34:44):
yeah, eyes closed, but nothing'snot any amount of food that was
going to help me and I was like, okay, this is just part of the
process like, and people arelike no, no, you have to tell
your coach.
You need to like, really thinkabout this.
No, no, no, no.
I'm gonna suck it up because myego was such that Don't show
weakness, right, you want towork pressure, coach.
(35:06):
I Pushed through for the wrongreasons, but I think that's the
closest to burnout I ever had.
This past year, though, wasmore of a mental burnout because
of opinions Rather thanphysical, so I actually gave
myself the third degree, sayingYou're not working nearly as
hard as near-death experiencesas before.
So what are you complainingabout?
(35:26):
You're just letting otherpeople in your ear, which is
Mentally draining you and it'saffecting your physical.
So it just goes to show.
Stress, whether it's physicalor mental, is all going to go to
the same bucket if you don'tmanage it.
Amanda Smith (35:38):
Mm-hmm.
Christina Specos (35:39):
I do think that, are people listening, that
can resonate with both sides ofthe coin.
They'll probably say I get itlike.
You can be physically fine, butmentally you're so burnt out
that you physically feelterrible.
And when I say physically fine,I mean like you're not running
marathons or doing like ninedays a week of crossfit or
something like that.
You know where you're reallytaxing your body.
(35:59):
But then you can have thoseyears where you're taxing your
body so much but mentally youpull through Because of whatever
circumstances that you tellyourself in your head that you
don't need rest or you just haveone more week or whatever it is
.
And that's how we got throughthe sports seasons right.
Amanda Smith (36:14):
Mm-hmm.
Christina Specos (36:14):
Exactly so.
I felt both.
I think you burn out wise nice.
Amanda Smith (36:20):
All right, I want to circle back to the Female
athlete being poked and prodded.
Are you lesbian?
Are you wanting to be a man?
Are you transgender?
Are you?
Are you a man?
So, when those moments come upfor you from a mindset
(36:45):
perspective, what's a piece ofadvice you would give someone
who's experiencing exactly that?
Christina Specos (36:51):
So for the person who's accused like the
way I was, yes, considering thesource when it happened on
Instagram you can't see theperson, you can't touch them,
you don't know who it is, youcan't converse with them face to
face.
That was hard for me becauseI'm like that's mean, like who
(37:13):
would do that?
You're a keyboard warrior,you're a piece of crap, like,
and you have no context.
So the easiest thing to do asfar as advice as hard as it is,
because I'm a fighter and Ialways want to be right and I
was going to fight people forjustice the easiest thing to do
and the most mentally same thingis block, delete.
I love you myself.
You don't even have to respondand I would get into pissing
(37:34):
matches with people Like youcan't do that.
Block, delete, block, delete,ignore.
Go to the mirror and tellyourself how much you love
yourself when it's a person theway I experienced with the
podcast guy.
I had already been through thetrial by fire with the online
people that I'm like okay, well,you are now finally in front of
somebody.
You can't hit them, you can't,you can't like, just you can.
Amanda Smith (37:59):
There's consequences, there's a kind of
you.
Christina Specos (38:01):
I'm like what do you do?
And so my response was to laughit off and say are you serious,
like.
And then I questioned itbecause I think I had started to
turn the corner and theemotional intelligence realm to
be like okay, find out why.
And then I started to getdefensive and I was like you
seriously not going to believeme.
(38:21):
Like I'm answering yourquestion that I don't have to
answer because it's personal.
I'm telling you transparentlythat I'm a biological woman.
I'm offering to pull down mypants, to pull, call your bluff.
Obviously, you didn't expectthat.
Don't do that, cause the guywas like uh, yeah, go away.
I'm telling you, if you don'ttrust my words, I'm sorry, I'm
(38:43):
leaving.
Which was, which is what hewanted anyway.
So the best thing to do wouldprobably be to mature one and
excuse yourself from thesituation when it happens in
person or, you know, find a wayto laugh it off, but debrief
after, because it is going tosting.
Amanda Smith (38:57):
Yes.
Christina Specos (38:58):
But only certain people can help you
debrief, because certain friendswill just be like, oh well, ask
them to get about it.
It's not so easy, because thisis what I'll say to anyone who
is struggling with this I heardit so many times.
I started to think I was wrongand the masses were right, and
so I started to question myself.
(39:19):
And when you start to questionyourself, you question what
you're doing that?
What which bodybuilding made meas tenacious as I was?
And then I stopped doing thatbecause of fear of judgment and
I went backwards and then Ireally didn't like who I became,
because I was no longertenacious, fit I just?
(39:43):
The best advice, I think, is, isto just recognize that people
are hurt, people are sad, peopleare judgmental, people want
what you have, even if they'regoing to front like they don't.
And the best opportunity inthose moments is to just walk
away and do the inner work tosay I love what I do.
(40:05):
This is why it makes me wholeand this is why it doesn't
matter what they say.
But if you had asked me thisquestion a year ago, I would
have told you to just sock themin the face, because I hadn't
grown.
I was still hurt.
That's when we met.
No, no, it was like three yearsago, wasn't it?
Was it Okay?
So 20,?
Amanda Smith (40:23):
2021.
Christina Specos (40:25):
Yeah.
Amanda Smith (40:25):
It's been a couple of years, yeah, to watch your
evolution through this has beenbeautiful, so thank you, and
thank you for sharing, christina.
Where can people connect withyou?
Where can they learn more aboutwhat you do in the world to
help others?
How do you serve people, sure.
Christina Specos (40:44):
My Instagram at Christina Speckos is probably
my baby right now.
So who is it my baby right now?
So hopefully it doesn't everexplode, because there's a lot
of time and money that's goneinto content.
But there you can find a lot oflike my viewpoints on fitness,
how I serve people, some clienttestimonials and transformations
, but I think you could reallyconnect with the type of message
(41:06):
that I have.
That's pretty much no BS.
If you want to change yourselfphysically or mentally, there's
a process that's all linkedtogether, so you'll find a lot
about that there.
I did start a podcast calledSpeck Talk.
I have it on my YouTube pageand that's the.
That's the era when it sparkedthe first round of questions
like who are you that content inthe end of 2022.
(41:28):
So going to be continuing that.
So there is an Instagram pagefor it.
That's not well developed, butyou can go straight to YouTube
and if you just email medirectly because you have some
sort of question, it's Christinaat Christina Speckoscom.
Amanda Smith (41:42):
Yay, christina, thank you so much for sharing in
this unbelievably vulnerableconversation and, of course,
potentially triggeringtriggering for those who are
listening, but hopefully theymade it to this point and they
got to hear everything that youshared, so thank you.
Christina Specos (42:01):
Thank you for the opportunity and I'm glad you
see it as vulnerable, becausenow I look at it as my duty to
share the experience.
It's not scary to share it,because I've tried to own the
pain and realize like this isnot only me going through it.
And when I see other people'sInstagrams with the same content
(42:22):
I know or comments on theircontent, I know that I'm not the
only one.
But in the large part of theworld people don't know that
this bias exists.
So I kind of feel like it'sjust a part of me to share and
it wasn't scary.
So thank you for the platformto get it out.
Amanda Smith (42:40):
I'm happy it wasn't scary.
Corina (43:10):
Thanks for listening to Spirit of an Athlete Podcast.
If you're struggling with yourown gut issues and you want more
direction, you can get anInitial Body Scan from Amanda at
BodyWhisperHealing.
com In 20 minutes, you can findout what's wrong, get clarity,
map the path forward, and get ontrack to get back in your game.
If this episode hits the spot,please let us know by rating,
reviewing, and sharing it with afriend.
Subscribe now to hear moreinspiring stories from other
female college athletes whoovercame their health issues.
Want more, Amanda.
Get inspired by finding moreat BodyWhisperHealingcom.
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