Monique Janse van Vuuren, a private coach at Physique Motion Gymnasium and IFBB Professional Bikini athlete, is getting ready to compete in America. Behind her pursuit of the Olympia stage is a narrative of self-discipline, doubt and the individuals who maintain her transferring ahead.
Monique has not eaten pizza or burger in 12 years. Her days at Physique Motion Gymnasium can stretch as much as 15 hours as she coaches shoppers and suits in her personal coaching.
It’s this self-discipline that helped her place third on the 2025 Portugal Professional, turning into the highest-placing South African skilled bikini athlete.
This November, the Physique Motion Gymnasium private coach and IFBB Professional Bikini athlete will compete in America for the primary time, getting into three skilled competitions in three weeks as she pursues her ambition of turning into the primary South African IFBB Professional Bikini athlete to qualify for the Olympia.
READ MORE | Prime bikini and determine athletes reveal the reality about competing
Doubt, Self-discipline And The Olympia Dream
Her story goes past bodybuilding. It’s about sacrifice, self-doubt and the individuals who maintain an elite athlete transferring when no person is watching.
Monique questions herself most days. “Am I doing sufficient as an expert? Am I going to get the place I need to be?”
It’s an unexpectedly weak admission from an athlete identified for extraordinary self-discipline. Monique’s energy doesn’t come from by no means doubting herself. It comes from persevering with even when she does.
“I don’t plan to win Olympia,” she says. “I need to have the ability to say that I used to be the primary South African skilled bikini athlete to make it there.”
READ MORE | Carry confidence from the stage into on a regular basis life
A Life In Movement
Motion was a part of Monique’s life lengthy earlier than bodybuilding. Her mother and father took their kids horse driving and operating. She remembers chopping wooden together with her father and barely sitting nonetheless.
After finishing an honours diploma in industrial psychology, she entered the company world. However one thing was lacking.
“I felt caught and immobile,” she says. “Shifting into the health business lastly made me be at liberty. I used to be transferring my physique the way in which I did after I was small.”
Aggressive bodybuilding was not a part of the plan. When a South African coach supplied to sponsor her entry into a contest, Monique advised him: “I’m not a pony on a stage. I cannot be judged for what my physique appears like.”
He persuaded her to strive. She gained her first competitors and the general title. She earned her Professional Card in 2021 after solely 5 reveals, making her rise to skilled standing unusually swift.
In 2025, Monique positioned third on the Portugal Professional, turning into the highest-placing South African skilled bikini athlete.
Of every little thing she remembers, Portugal is the second that makes her mild up. She smiles, will get goosebumps and virtually apologises for permitting herself to sound proud.
“I used to be placing South Africa on the map,” she says. “These had been athletes I admired earlier than I grew to become an expert. I couldn’t imagine I used to be assembly them, by no means thoughts standing there with them.”
That inserting gave Monique one thing greater than a medal. It gave her the arrogance to imagine that she belongs among the many athletes she as soon as watched from a distance on the worldwide stage, and that the Olympia dream could also be inside attain.
READ MORE | Are you actually able to hit the stage?
When No One Is Clapping
The polished jiffy on stage reveal little in regards to the life behind them. She spends between 12 and 15 hours at Physique Motion Gymnasium, becoming her personal coaching between shoppers and finishing a second cardio session at dwelling.
“It’s a sacrifice,” she says. “However it will be extra of a sacrifice to let it go.” The toughest half is working when the following competitors is months away and no person is there to applaud.
Monique is fast to recognise those that make that work doable. Her husband, Shane de Beer, believes in her when her confidence falters.
“I don’t assume you get males like my husband on this world anymore,” she says. “He believes I’m going to make it. You will have gold when you might have that sort of assist.”
Her coach, Stephan du Toit, travels together with her, prepares her meals and has slept on couches and chairs so he can be certain that she peaks on the good second.
As competitions strategy, Shane and Stephan turn out to be what Monique affectionately calls her administration workforce. They know when she wants encouragement, what she wants to listen to and, generally, what to not say.
Teaching With Intention
Skilled bodybuilding has formed Monique’s teaching, however she has no real interest in turning each consumer right into a bodybuilder.
“I’ve to see the particular person in entrance of me for who they’re, the place they’re beginning and what they’re working in the direction of,” she explains. “Private coaching is not only bodily. It’s principally psychological.”
Her function is to hear, create one thing sustainable and assist shoppers return after setbacks. A number of shoppers who began together with her at Physique Motion Gymnasium 5 years in the past nonetheless practice together with her. They’ve turn out to be household.
Intentionality sits on the centre of her strategy. Each motion ought to have a function. Each consumer ought to really feel understood. Even relaxation have to be chosen intentionally.
“If I gave my shoppers a bodybuilding meal plan and life-style, they might not final per week,” she says. “I selected this for me. It’s important to give individuals one thing they get pleasure from sufficient to vary their lives for.”
That considering extends to how she trains them. Monique prioritises robust glutes and hamstrings, not just for look however as a result of a powerful posterior chain helps posture, motion and longevity.
At Physique Motion Gymnasium, she will transfer shoppers from easy activation and band work to specialised glute tools, BioStrength machines and free weights as they turn out to be stronger.
She pays shut consideration to vary of movement, tempo and the thoughts–muscle connection. Reasonably than racing by repetitions or chasing soreness, she teaches shoppers to decelerate, management the motion and focus on the muscle doing the work.
“It’s about being intentional with each motion,” she says. “Normally, it’s the fundamentals carried out correctly that work.”
Monique speaks overtly about lately reaching emotional exhaustion. Her religion, quiet time and sometimes permitting herself a day with out appointments assist her get better. “If I’m not in a powerful place, how can I be there for my shoppers deliberately?” she asks.
The Lady Behind The Athlete
At dwelling, Monique’s world softens round Shane and their French bulldogs, Harvey and Lily. Lily was born deaf, so Harvey has turn out to be her ears.
She watches him, follows his actions and barks a second after he does. Due to their allergic reactions, they even share one thing of Monique’s bodybuilding life-style, consuming steak and butternut.
Fast details:
- Favorite meal: Eggs and potatoes
- Favorite train: A difficult hip thrust
- Least favorite train: Bulgarian break up squat.
Behind the athlete is somebody who turns into drained, has a cry, laughs at herself, loves her canines and retains transferring in the direction of one thing that issues deeply to her.
She needs these watching her journey to pursue their very own function – to not turn out to be her, however to turn out to be the strongest model of themselves.
When somebody refers to her reaching Olympia “in the future”, Monique gently corrects them. “Not in the future,” she says. “Subsequent 12 months.”
Writer: Pedro van Gaalen
When he’s not writing about sport or well being and health, Pedro might be out coaching for his subsequent marathon or ultra-marathon. He’s labored as a health skilled and as a advertising and marketing and comms professional. He now combines his passions in his function as managing editor at Health journal.
