Australian professional wrestler Rhea Ripley is showing her 3.4 million Instagram followers exactly what an intense muscle-building workout looks like. Ripley, 27, shared a video of herself wearing a black Sunzel workout onesie, using resistance equipment at the gym. “Victorious,” she captioned the post. Like all professional wrestlers, Ripley’s workout routine is hardcore and focuses on being strong, fit, and flexible. Here’s how she does it.
Ripley weight trains six days a week and calls the gym her happy place. “Normally, when I go to the gym, I do 20 minutes of cardio, then lift weights for two and a half, sometimes three hours – it really depends on what I want to do,” she told GQ UK. “It’s my happy place, so I like to spend time there – it’s the one place I get to turn my brain off. At the moment, I still get in to do cardio and I’m weight training at least six days a week, but today I only did back [training] for an hour. It definitely isn’t my preference, but you just have to go in and hustle, because when it comes to WrestleMania, you want to be as fit and look as good as you can.”
Ripley learned to lift weights after a trip to Japan when she was 17. “I was there for three months, and the coaches made us do so much training,” she told Muscle & Fitness. “So, when I got back home to Adelaide, I really got into lifting weights with my coaches Chris and Matt Basso. They taught me how to lift weights properly, and ever since then, I’ve loved the gym. It’s really my happy place. A place where I go, to let go of my stress and anxiety.”
Ripley’s makeup is simple and designed to stay put. “My lipstick is the Sephora brand liquid lipstick,” she told InStyle. “It’s just the normal black one. Sometimes it does smudge, but I normally put it on early in the day. And because I’m filming so much stuff and running around sweating, I put so many layers on. By the time I go out on TV, it doesn’t move too much.”
Ripley fully embraces her strong physique. “My whole life I’ve had people telling me that I look like a man, I’m not feminine, I’m too masculine, all that stuff,” she told Revolver. “Well, you know what? Just like I was inspired by [former WWE champion] Beth Phoenix, who also looks very masculine, I want to inspire other potential female athletes to go as hard as they want and feel comfortable in their own skin — that’s why I go out there day after day and do my thing.”
Ripley knows how important it is to switch off and relax. “It’s important to have those moments of free time when you can turn your brain off, whether it’s at the gym, watching a movie, or just spending time with friends and family,” she told GQ UK. “Anything you can do to put yourself at ease and make yourself feel like a normal human for a couple of hours!”