Hurdler and fitness model Michelle Jenneke loves sharing her training sessions on social media, and her physique is nothing short of #fitnessinspo material. Jenneke, 30, shared a picture of herself posing on the track in blue Puma running shorts and a matching tank top that emphasized her incredibly toned and muscular abs. “Solid hit out today, 100m hurdles 12.90 +2.3w, 100m 11.64 +1.3w,” she captioned the post. Here’s how the Aussie athlete eats, trains, and wins.
Jenneke trains hard, mixing up cardio (of course) and strength training. “I do three track sessions a week, and they can be from 2-3 hours each, which can be full on,” she told Body + Soul. “You do some warm up, a hurdle session, and then a sprint session after that. [I hit the] gym twice a week. It’s a lot of heavy weights there, plus full body exercises and quite a bit of plyometric [exercises]. I start with heavy weights, and then I’ll do some lighter functional circuit, towards the end. All up, that takes an hour and a half to two hours… and sometimes when I finish a session I just lie on the ground. I think to myself, ‘it’s just gym, why is it so hard?'”
Jenneke stays active for fun, and genuinely enjoys sports she doesn’t necessarily excel at. “I am not a great swimmer but I love spending time in the pool or swimming at the beach during summer,” she told Women Fitness. “I don’t get much time for team sports anymore but I played soccer for 11 years and played lots of sports as I was growing up, so I still love kicking a ball around or playing Frisbee or touch footy etc. with friends.”
Jenneke sometimes eats six meals a day to fuel her training. ” It really depends on what my training day looks like, but if I’ve got training in the morning (which I often do at the moment) I’ll have cereal generally before I go out and train,” she told Body + Soul. “Then, I actually love having a Milo after a hard session – it’s got good levels of protein and iron in it – and then I make myself a second breakfast, which could be muesli with yogurt or bacon and eggs. Lunch is pretty basic – usually I just have a sandwich – and then for dinner I like to keep it simple. I have either some pasta or some rice with meat and veggies.”
Jenneke allows herself to gain weight in the off season so she can build muscle. “Once the competition season comes around I drop weight and eat a much healthier diet, with a lot more fruit and vegetables and red capsicum, grape tomatoes and berries replace my sweet tooth cravings,” she told Women Fitness. “Regardless of the season I always eat a lot of carbs and pasta or potato are a daily must, plus I eat quite a lot of meat.”
Jenneke’s travel tips are to always opt for the carry-on instead of checking luggage. “[My musts for competitions are] my race uniform and competition shoes, both of which are obviously really important,” she told Escape. “I like to travel with some cones I can put out on the track – they’re really useful for warm-ups. I make sure I have a trigger ball and foam roller with me. Lastly, I always bring medication in case I get sick.”