NEWS
Salvagno seeks future as pro bodybuilder
By PATRICK KINMARTIN |
PUBLISHED: August 9, 2006 at 12:00 a.m. | UPDATED: April 21, 2018 at 5:22 a.m.
Firm shoulders, a well-toned back and a flat stomach that could just as easily double as an ironing board have helped Angela Salvagno become one of the most accomplished female bodybuilders to ever come out of the North Valley.
But it’s a sound mind that has carried her to a national championship on the amateur level and the verge of a lucrative professional career.
Fresh off her win in the light heavyweight division at the National Physique Committee USA Championships two weeks ago, the 30-year-old Orland native has an opportunity to pick up an automatic bid that would put her into the International Federation of BodyBuilders in November.
Salvagno’s overwhelming success this year is the culmination of over a decade of sacrifice for a passion that has often drained her mentally every bit as it has physically.
“It’s all coming together now, it’s all starting to dawn on me that this work I’ve constantly had to put in is starting to really pay dividends,” Salvagno beamed recently. “It’s an awesome feeling. It’s incredibly rewarding. Sometimes in this sport, you give so much of yourself and wonder to what end. I’m obsessive-compulsive. Once I set out on a challenge, I have to go out and get it.”
After five years of coming up short at the USA Championships, Salvagno showed up in Las Vegas for this year’s premier NPC event in the type of shape tailored toward the amateur bodybuilding organization’s new guidelines for judging individual work. Wheras in years past those showing off bigger and bolder muscle tones ended up triumphant, the NPC vowed to reward participants with a more proportional, feminine physique.
Salvagno showed up with the exterior of her upper body sharp and tight — a result of working on the area vigorously after she was forced to undergo shoulder surgery last fall — while displaying distinct definition in her lower body, usually one of her admitted weak points in competition.
The result was a title in the light heavyweight division (125-140 pounds) that would likely have satisfied most competitors. Salvagno had larger aspirations, however.
As one of four weight division champions, she was in the running to receive an IBFF pro card before judges gave the honor to the heavyweight winner who weighed nearly 40 pounds more than the 133 Salvagno checked in at.
“When you look at the picture of when the announcement was being made, I have this look on my face where I’m smiling like I’m happy with the decision,” she said. “In my mind I was pretty disappointed by the whole thing. They told us they were looking for a more toned-down, balanced appearance and I felt like I showed it better than everyone there.”
Salvagno is seeking redemption at this fall’s NPC Nationals in Miami, where each individual division winner is admitted into the IBFF instead of only one event-wide selection.
Not surprisingly, Salvagno remains confident in her approach, which has pretty much remained the same since she began bodybuilding at the age of 16 after being introduced to it by her older brother.
While coaches and friends constantly tried to steer her toward playing other sports at Orland High, Salvagno said she would not be deterred from working out up to six days a week in what she described as “this huge addiction.” She also developed strict eating habits to gain a more angular physcial frame.
It was all part of a routine she still more or less lives by to this day, with a 16-week diet composed predominantly of plain chicken and dry brown rice taking her up to every competition night.
“If I ask her if she wants a cup of coffee, she looks at me like I’m crazy,” said Salvagno’s mother, Jackie. “She’s very set in her discipline.”
Salvagno sticks to her routine almost religiously despite working full time as a sorter for UPS. Though she has adapted to her arduous daily schedule over the past few years — she does cardio and lifting for about three hours every morning before going to work in the afternoon — Salvagno is looking forward to a move to Florida in the coming weeks she will make after marrying her fiancé, jujitsu enthusiast Tom Dykwell.
While there, Salvagno will have access to training with several professionals and plans to build contacts that can help in her and Dykwell’s quest to someday open their own fitness club. In the shorter term, she will try to make the IFBB, qualify for the Ms. Olympia competition that is widely viewed as the sport’s Super Bowl and reap many of the benefits that would come with it.
“I’ve never really had a ton of sponsors or coaches or forces really getting behind me other than my family and friends,” Salvagno said. “I’ve had to kind of go through it all by myself. To be able to do this full time and be able to lean back on magazine shoots and movie offers coming in would make it so much easier and enjoyable.”
https://www.chicoer.com/2006/08/09/salvagno-seeks-future-as-pro-bodybuilder/