The three "Ds" : dedication, discipline and determination ." Those qualities all came together for Jackie Geppert in her first bodybuilding competition the NPC North Star Bodybuilding, Fitness & Figure on Nov. 1 in St. Paul, Minn. The 5 foot, 2 1/2 inch, 123.7 pound, 32-year-old Brookings woman took home a huge trophy for her first-place finish in her weight class (125 pounds or less) and first-place overall. While such a first-time attempt, first-time win is impressive, it's even more so for Geppert, who is a newcomer to weight training and bodybuilding . She took out a membership at the Powershop Gym in downtown Brookings in May 2007. "¢ 'Wanted to get ripped' "I had never lifted or anything like that before, never joined a gym, never really worked out. A little bit of sports in high school," the native of Canby, Minn., explained. "I wanted to get ripped. That was the goal." Then in the middle of February 2008, the mother of a 2-year-old daughter and a 5-year-old son, started serious training with an eye toward competition. In December 2007, she had started considering competition. "I really wanted to pursue it."

When she started exercising, she weighed about 125 pounds; so the difference between her gym-joining weight and her competiton weight was less than two pounds. But that doesn't really tell the story.

She had a pair of trainers: Eric Hanson and Eric Peterson. Under their tutelage, her bodyfat content dropped from about 20 percent to 8.6 percent for the competition.

Hanson was her primary trainer. He has a degree in health promotion. He's 26, and was into bodybuilding himself for about the past 10 years. But then injuries took their toll. "I was gearing up toward (competition), and then I blew my knee out when I was 22," he explained. "That petty much shut down my bodybuilding career. I was having to take so much time off, and my knee never came back the way I wanted it to. I lost a lot of my weight." "¢ Gaining muscle, losing weight

Explaining his training regimen for Geppert, Hanson said, "We were actually not going to let her do too much, and yet we were really disciplined on the length of time that we let her work out. We didn't want her working out too hard, because we wanted her to gain muscle. "It's very hard to gain muscle if you're working out too hard, because your body just can't keep up with it. You have to eat a lot of food a lot of food.

"But you don't want to overtrain , because overtraining won't help with muscle growth." Geppert worked out seven days a week, with each one a bit longer than an hour. Added to that regimen were two to three cardio sessions a week, about 20 to 30 minutes per session.

And Geppert admits that she did eat a lot: 3,500 calories a day, with each calorie meticulously entered in a food log. Looking back at her "massbuilding phase," she explained, "You have to get big, and I don't like to be big. I want to gain muscle, but I don't like to eat everything because you put on weight."

Her goal was to go from 127 pounds to 140 pounds in a sixmonth period. But if she couldn't weigh more than 125 pounds for the competition, why the nearly 15-pound weight gain? Hanson explained how such a weight gain works in the realm of bodybuilding: "In order to get to the weight we wanted her to be at, like 125 pounds or lower, "¦ you have to gain excess weight, so that you can diet to keep your muscle and lose fat."

Had her trainers had her simply drop a couple pounds, from 127 to 125, "she wouldn't have been nearly muscular enough. She probably would have dieted down to 117 to 119."

Daily food intake included 200 grams of protein, 380 to 390 grams of complex carbohydrates , and during the "massbuilding phase" 40 to 50 grams of fat. About 13 weeks out from the competiton, carbs were decreased to about 200, fat to about 25 grams.

What couldn't she eat? "Everything fun," she said, with a smile. "¢ 'Getting nice muscles'

Lest anyone confuse the two, Hanson explains there are major differences between bodybuilding and powerlifting.

Bodybuilders "are doing it for all looks." He added, "You don't care how strong you are. The person next to you could be the same bodybuilder and be twice as strong as you. You don't care. Your goal is to make your muscles look as good on stage as possible."

Powerlifters, on the other hand are going for strength the "absolute max for one rep." Hanson said, "A lot of times a bodybuilder will look twice as big as a powerlifter, but the powerlifter will be twice as strong." For women bodybuilders , there's the additional challenge of maintaining femininity while getting that ripped, sculpted look that contest judges are looking for. That ripped, feminine, sculpted look will continue to be Geppert's goal as she prepares for competition in March 28 in Fargo. Gregg and Pam Stern, owners and operators of the Powershop and former competitive bodybuilders, helped her learn the posing needed to show off sculpted muscles and femininity. "¢ Trophy a tribute to team effort

In showing off her newlywon trophy, Geppert pointed out that it did not just belong to her. She explained, "It belongs to the people here at the gym, to the family members, it belongs to friends, it belongs to everyone who helped me achieve my goals."

She paid a special tribute to her husband, Rick Geppert, "who sacrificed totally."

As an aside, Jackie, a registered nurse, earned a master's degree in nursing education from South Dakota State University, while she was preparing for competition.