Samantha Stevenson

I was born in Tasmania and spent the first several years of my life living here before I began to travel with my parents for their work. During my travels I lived in many different places including New Zealand, Indonesia as well as a small archipelago country in the Western Pacific ocean, called Palau. It was during my travels that I fell in love with adventuring and water sports.
 
Before my travels my main form of exercise was swimming, although before I had unlimited access to the open ocean, I had to stick to seasonal swimming at the local swim club. I participated in many competitions, although I had difficulty being competitive as I was always moved up a class right before comps so I would often compete with people that had been training harder for that class.
 
While living in the tropics the majority of my fitness came from being a kid, climbing trees, scrambling up cliffs only to jump off into the ocean, hiking on all kinds of terrains and of course, plenty of swimming. I never stopped loving these forms of exercise, and thus have carried on with similar types of training through to my adult life. It was also during this stage of my life that I also started trying out other forms of exercise like martial arts; particularly Judo and Freestyle Wrestling, as well as war canoeing which stemmed from the traditional practices of the indigenous islander people. Basically my first introductions to fitness were far from typical and much more focused on fun and the adventure of pushing your body.
 
Another massive hobby of mine that stemmed from childhood is my love for skiing. Most of my skiing experience is from New Zealand as that’s where I learnt from the age of 6. It is to this day one of my favorite seasonal sports.
 
When we weren’t travelling, the rest of my childhood was spent growing up on a hobby farm. This lifestyle in itself is quite demanding and so taught me strength and resilience naturally as well as compassion and a true connection with many of life’s fundamentals. As an adult, the results of this is that I use my weight training in day to day life and can do things such as throwing and carrying 20kg sacks of feed on my shoulders, cart bails of hay for hours and lift, handle and hold large animals like goats, pigs and sheep when they are being treated, looked at or moved.
 
So even from early childhood I had a love for adventure and physical activities as well as a very broad background in many different sports or training types. As for more recently my main forms of exercise have been Pole sport, which I’ve been doing since I was 16 years old and weight lifting which I began doing casually while in school in May 2020. I started training with my current trainer Boyd O’Donnell, at Boyd’s Gym, starting only 2 days a week but eventually increasing to 5 times a week. It was Boyd who eventually led me into the sport of bodybuilding.
 
Both of these sports have been my primary physical and creative outlets for the last 4 years and I’ve been participating in competitions since 2020. It was actually during lockdown mid 2020 that I won my first in house pole comp, via video entry, which began the push to get me to start competing more. In late 2021 I entered my first ever bodybuilding comp at age 19. I was the youngest competitor on the day as well as the competitor entered in the most divisions, which was nine! It was a pivotal event for me and it taught me so much, including how much of a massive challenge and commitment it was to take on so much for my first time. Still, a massive impression was made and I was hooked on the sport. I walked away with five medals/trophies although I only placed 3rd in my main division, I finished up a champion. My next show was 6 months later and still in my first year of competing, I did the ICN Rookies and Rising stars show and placed second in my division which was an incredible achievement as it was a very large division. For both of my first shows I competed in model categories which weren’t my true goal division but an excellent stepping stone and really broadened my experience with the sport.
 
In 2022 I stepped on stage again, only this time I was a figure competitor, which meant different posing, different suit, different look; so very much a step up and new experience still. I competed on my 20th birthday and while I didn’t take the overall I stepped off the stage with 3 gold medals in my division which really reminded me of my goals and that I am capable of achieving them, so long as I push to work hard to chase my dreams.
 
Since then I did one other prep in 2023, in which I competed in 3 bodybuilding shows. This was my most challenging prep yet, as halfway through my prep I entered a pole comp, the Australian Pole Championships, as they were doing their first Tasmanian state heat! This was a wonderful and incredible experience in itself however unbeknownst to me, I broke my big toe during my rehearsal before the show. Despite this I went on and did my performance, but was very disheartened when I found out about the injury as it would affect my ability to walk in heels and pose, essential to the show in bodybuilding.
 
While my toe was barely healed, I still chose to complete my shows, although I was unable to meet my leanness goal as my health still had to be the priority. The results of those shows varied, and I wasn’t surprised when I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped, however I was reminded how resilient and versatile I can be, even when there are challenges, and it has only fueled my passion and drive to keep going and do better. As for my future bodybuilding goals, I plan to compete a few more times with the goal of getting my natural bodybuilding pro card.
 
While fitness and adventure takes up most of my life I also have a pretty wild creative side and really love self expression. I’ve been a qualified make-up artist since 2018 and have a passion for special effects and theatre/stage make-up. For all my shows I did my own make-up/ looks and always got great feedback for it. This also helped create more of a sense of community backstage as I’m always willing to help or lend out a product.
 
I consider myself a passionate and caring person with a love for adventure and challenge, with the goal to grow further as a person and in my teaching skills. I hope to in time master the components of a healthy lifestyle and be able to help people and educate them and help them achieve their goals in fitness and lifestyle.