Bodyfitness: how Kadi Rõõm trains

For Kadi Rõõm, Bodyfitness began with a simple promise to herself: to step on stage one day. That promise grew into purposeful training, a structured diet and a desire to show that the discipline is more than bodybuilding—it is a sport in its own right.

Kadi’s story is a good reminder of how much consistency, a coach’s eye and an honest assessment of your physique matter. Here is her journey, training program and nutrition plan in a clearer, more readable format.

Bodyfitness and Kadi’s journey to the stage

Kadi Rõõm took up Bodyfitness through a fairly natural progression. It all began with simple workouts at the Lasnamäe indoor athletics arena about 2 years ago. There, she could run, use the rowing machine and enjoy a post-workout sauna alongside Estonia’s top female sprinters. As she put it, it was a great place to be.

For the past year, she had been training at Reval Sport, which had much better facilities. Going to the gym became a bigger part of her life when she met her husband. He spent 4 days a week at the gym, and Kadi gradually began taking her own training more seriously.

She started simply, without a grand plan. The turning point came after the Estonian Cup, when Kadi sat in the venue and made herself a big, even slightly impulsive promise: she, too, could one day step on stage and shine. At that point, what she knew about the sport was mostly that it featured very beautiful women with athletic physiques. Laura Reisalu and Christina Alev made a particularly strong impression.

2010 was the year she had to make that goal a reality. She had to do more than try—she had to make it to the stage.

How does Bodyfitness build your physique?

Kadi’s first coach was her husband, who helped her build a foundation. Later, Ott Kiivikas became her coach, putting together her training and nutrition plans and checking that she performed the exercises correctly in the gym. The group met with Ott Kiivikas at Reval Sport every week. Kadi said these sessions mattered because her coach assessed her overall physique with a professional eye and helped refine her posing.

Each week offered a chance to discuss training, how she was feeling, any changes and her diet. This kind of feedback helps you avoid a common mistake: doing a lot of training without understanding why your physique is not progressing.

Kadi also considers Natalia Nazarenko – Kiivikas her coach. Natalia helped her train her legs, taught her stage posing and advised her on her bikini, swimsuit and makeup. Kadi described her as the most positive, radiant person she had ever had the honor of meeting.

For Kadi, her greatest achievements went beyond competition placings. It mattered just as much that she had stayed committed to her goal, pushed beyond her own limits and withstood enormous pressure. In her first season, she placed well in several competitions and gained experience competing abroad.

Motivation and daily routine

What motivated her? Kadi’s answer was simple: she has an obsessive streak. Once she sets her mind on something, nothing can stop her. She saw herself as her own source of motivation and believed that you could learn to develop the right mindset. Honestly, that is an answer you would expect from an athlete.

Bodyfitness was still a hobby for her, rather than a job. She enjoyed training, seeing results and looking at her physique in the mirror. At the same time, her goal was clear: to stay in shape and avoid slipping out of condition.

Kadi also wanted Bodyfitness to reach a wider audience in Estonia. She felt that the sport was still rather insular at the time, and many spectators at competitions did not understand what was being judged. She suggested briefly explaining the discipline at the start of each category: what it involves, what the judges look for and how they decide the placings. This would make competitions more interesting even for people who had never attended one before.

P.S. Kadi also put herself to the test at the autumn Estonian Cup.

Kadi’s Bodyfitness training program

Kadi’s program was split across four days. It was a clearly structured split, rather than a random sequence of exercises: upper body, legs, back and a rest day. This approach gives the muscles a training load while allowing time for recovery.

Day 1: chest, shoulders, triceps, abs

• Dumbbell bench press — 2 x 2 ( 6 – 8)
• Incline dumbbell fly — 2 x 2 ( 6 – 8)
• Single-arm incline dumbbell fly — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Dumbbell lateral raise — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Lying triceps extension — 2 x 2 ( 6 – 8)
• Single-arm bent-over dumbbell triceps kickback — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Standing cable triceps pushdown — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Hanging or lying leg raises — 4 x max
• Seated floor twists holding a weight plate — 3 x max

Day 2: legs and lower back

• Machine leg extensions — 2 x 2 ( 10 – 12)
• Wide-stance machine squats — 2 x 2 ( 8– 10)
• Split squats with a barbell across your upper back or step-ups — 2 x 2 ( 10 – 12)
• Machine leg extensions — 2 x 2 ( 10 – 12)
• Lying leg curls for the hamstrings — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Straight-leg deadlifts — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Calf raises on the leg press — 2 x 2 ( 10 – 12)
• Seated machine calf raises — 2 x 2 ( 10 – 12)
• Back extensions on a hyperextension bench — 2 x 3 ( 8 – 10)

Day 3: back, biceps and abs

• Pull-ups or underhand lat pulldowns to the front — 2 x 3 ( 8 – 10)
• Seated cable rows to the abdomen — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Wide-grip behind-the-neck lat pulldowns — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Wide-grip seated machine rows — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Seated dumbbell biceps curls — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Machine preacher curls — 2 x 2 ( 8 – 10)
• Leg raises for the abs — 3 x max
• Sit-ups on an ab bench — 3 x max
• Oblique exercises — 3 x max

Day 4: rest day

Day 4 was a rest day. Kadi did 30 min of cardio on every gym training day. She warmed up for 10min before her workout and stretched after the cardio. Sometimes she did 1H of cardio on a day off from training, running on a treadmill.

Nutrition, recovery and practical lessons

Kadi says she only started seeing real changes in her physique once she got her nutrition right. Initially, she set herself very ambitious goals and thought she could lose weight quickly by eating cabbage and training relentlessly. For a while, she ate very little and trained a great deal. Ott Kiivikas summed up the situation well: “You eat like an ordinary person but train like an athlete!”

The result was fatigue rather than a better physique. Kadi gritted her teeth and kept going, but the number on the scale stayed the same every day. When she started following Ott’s meal plan, her weight initially even went up by 3 kilos. This alarmed her, but after a week her weight began to drop gradually, along with her body fat percentage. That was when she realized how wrong her previous approach had been.

Kadi’s meal plan

Breakfast at 06.00:

• 40 – 50 gr. of cereal, weighed dry: quick-cooking oat flakes, four-grain flakes or wholegrain muesli.
• 200 – 300 ml. of low-fat milk, preferably 1.5%, or water.
• 100 – 200gr. of yogurt, which she usually added to her porridge.
• 1 piece of fruit or half of it, also added to the porridge.
• 1 small handful of raisins.
• 1 cup of coffee or green tea.
• 1 Multi vitamin Olimp.

Before training at 09.30:

• ½ a pack of low-fat quark or 4% cottage cheese (100gr.) with vegetables or a raw vegetable salad (100 – 150gr.).
• 1 piece of fruit, such as an apple or pear, sometimes an orange.

After training at approximately 12.30:

• 1 banana.
• ½ a pack of low-fat quark, such as sweet vanilla quark or a variety with raisins.
• Sometimes she had a glass of juice instead of fruit, along with sweetened quark.

Lunch at 16.00:

• 100 – 150gr. of chicken: Tallegg offers quite a range of healthy chicken products in various marinades, or you can prepare chicken breast yourself.
• For variety, meat fillet, white fish, turkey breast or sometimes red-fleshed fish.
• 2 slices of “Oti vormi leib” or 3 slices of “Oti Sepik”.
• 150gr. of raw vegetable salad or boiled vegetables.
• 1 tbsp. of cold-pressed olive oil, which she added to the raw vegetable salad.

Dinner at 19.30:

• 2 boiled eggs.
• Sometimes a salad: 1 whole egg mixed with 100 gr of 4% cottage cheese, plus tomato and cucumber.
• 1 slice of “Oti vormi leib”.
• 1 cup of tea and 1 tsp of honey.
• 1 mineral supplement tablet.

Kadi sometimes also made a tuna + cottage cheese salad: 100gr +100gr, plus cucumber, tomato and pickled cucumber. She did not eat exactly the same things every day. She varied her breakfast flakes, swapped cottage cheese for low-fat quark and vice versa, and varied her fruit too. The key was to keep the quantities within the prescribed limits.

Instead of chicken breast, she sometimes used meat fillet, turkey breast, tuna or white fish. Salmon occasionally featured on the menu too. She boiled everything; there was no frying. She only added oil to raw vegetable salads. Sometimes she cooked meat in the oven using roasting bags: chicken breast went into a bag with marinade, then into the oven.

In the evenings, if she was very hungry, she ate boiled or raw vegetables. They are low in calories but fill you up well.

Balancing BodyFitness with family, habits and downtime

Those close to her had mixed reactions. Kadi’s father panicked at first because he could not believe his daughter was going to become a “mountain of muscle”. Her mother, however, was thrilled. Seeing Kadi change with every passing week and month made her want to start training too. She later became a training fanatic herself. Kadi’s brothers cheered her on from the start.

Her female friends sometimes worried that Kadi might overdo it, become too muscular or even start exercising her facial muscles. At first, she had to explain a lot about what she was actually doing. As for her diet, she prepared all her meals herself and ate set amounts at set times. Before competitions, when she could allow herself almost nothing, her husband would take their child out to eat, or they would quietly eat in another room at home.

As for supplements, Kadi took a lot of vitamins. She always kept Olimp multivitamins and minerals in the cupboard. Some time before the Estonian Cup, she also tried Dietmix Fast to make losing weight easier. She sometimes even used it as a meal replacement and said it did work.

Kadi relaxed at home with her family. She loved simply doing nothing: just being, with nothing to do. In the evenings, she unwound by talking with her family about their day or politics. Politics was her other great passion.

As a child, she desperately wanted to become a doctor. That ambition later changed, and the feeling that she would never become a doctor was painful. At school, though, she was an excellent athlete. Her physical education teacher often expected more of her than of the others. No one could match her in sprints, but in long-distance running she was almost always among the last to finish.

When asked about the ideal physique, Kadi said that, in her view, Natalia had no equal. She had never seen a more perfect female physique.

FAQ

Is BodyFitness suitable for beginners?

Yes, if you ease into it and learn proper technique. Kadi also started with simple workouts; she was not in competition shape from the outset. The big shift comes when you get serious about your goal and bring in a coach, a training program and a precise nutrition plan.

Why does nutrition have such a big impact on your physique?

Because a high training load requires you to eat enough and plan your diet carefully. Kadi’s example clearly shows that eating very little and training a lot may not lead to weight loss. Your body needs a routine, not just restrictions.

What is the most practical lesson from Kadi’s story?

A simple truth: you need a clear goal, but you cannot push your body endlessly. Training, food, recovery and your coach’s feedback must all work together.

Author:Turg.Fitness.ee

Source: WHO – physical activity.

Come and train! ArtGym