The Ruthless Report 7: Monica Labriola and Her Long Short Trip to the Pros
Life gets in the way of a lot of things. Sometimes you get to make up for lost time. Just ask Monica Labriola, who who got her first weight set—a pink one—for her eighth birthday and has been hitting the iron ever since, with some notable gaps. The latest four-shows-to-the-pros sensation in figure earned her card at the ’12 IFBB North American Championships in Pittsburgh on September 1 after a stellar freshman year of all first-place finishes, and I suspect it won’t be long before she’s making her mark on the pro stage as well. That she’s been winning in masters as well as open competition suggests a lot of life getting in the way between her eighth birthday and now.
I met the 5’, 100-pound mother of four from Medina, Ohio, last June at Lonnie Teper’s NPC West Coast Classic, where she swept the open and masters-over-35 divisions. She had done the same at Dave Liberman’s NPC Natural Ohio Championships a couple of months earlier, after her debut at the NPC Cincinnati, where she also swept every division she entered, including the novice and open. If ever there was proof positive that the judges are big suckers for a perfectly portioned and conditioned body, it’s Labriola’s contest history thus far. The story of how she got there is even more compelling.
Born in Caracas, Venezuela, Monica moved to the United States with her mom at age five and grew up in New York, on Long Island. As indicated, she started exercising at a rather young age—“religiously and as seriously as any eight-year-old would,” is how she described it. At 15 she spent a year in the country of her birth and trained with an aunt who shared her passion for bodybuilding. They trained “like freaks,” she recalled, and Labriola “devoured” the many magazines and books in her aunt’s collection, Her favorite physiques? “I always admired Arnold—who doesn’t?—and Lenda Murray was another, but it was Tosca Reno who won my heart,” she said. She promised herself that one day she would look like the women in the magazines. How determined was she, even at a young age? “One morning during our cardio session, my aunt and I were nearly mugged; however, that didn’t stop us! We still went out for our runs every morning.”
Back in New York she got a job as a receptionist at the local Powerhouse Gym so she could train in the hardcore atmosphere there. She was on her way to a lifetime of the bodybuilding lifestyle, but, as mentioned, life sometimes has other ideas.
School, marriage, children—the years went by. Now based in Ohio, where she’d gone to school, Monica gave birth to five sons, all close in age, all high-risk pregnancies that left her bedridden. Training had become a thing of the past. “I was tired all the time and didn’t recognize myself,” she admitted. “I could barely jog for even two minutes. I was in the worst shape of my life.” Vowing to snap out of it, she started increasing her intervals and working out around the “five little guys running around.”
“Looking back, I don’t know how I did it,” she said. “I could only train for brief periods. It was more like finish a set and tend to one of my babies.” Slowly, the old Monica returned.
More years went by, the kids got older, things were good. Enter life once again—in the cruelest way imaginable.
“In 2008 my middle son, Joshua Alexander, at age eight, was diagnosed with brain cancer, brain stem g
lioma, to be exact,” she related. “Needless to say, life came to a standstill.”
Labriola became her son’s primary caregiver and was consumed by that heartbreaking endeavor as well as keeping her family going. “I wanted to spend every moment I possibly could with him…. My exercise became carrying him to the restroom, dressing him him and loading him in the car to take him to his radiation treatments.”
Joshua passed away just before Christmas. “I was numb for a while,” she said, but she knew could not shut down. “I had to keep going; I had to stay strong for my other children.”
It was another turning point. “I could either give in to my grief and depression, or I could go back to what has always brought me happiness, inner peace and joy—hitting the weights.” She called up her training partner and started the long road back. Inevitably, given the lady’s spectacular genetics, someone suggested that she try competition. That was last fall. The results—all those first-place finishes—suggest that though her debut was a long time coming, it was meant to be.
“I am astonished by the fact that I was able to obtain my card so quickly,” said Monica, who also enjoys a career as the administrator of the North East Ohio Spine Center.” The more I talk with people, the more I realize just how unique this is. In my opinion, once I made my mind up to compete, because in my heart I was always a competitor, it all came together. It was as natural as riding a bike.”
Since finding her partner in life, Dr. Mark Grubb, her family has grown like something out of an old Doris Day movie—her four children plus his five equals nine: “Anna, 20; Elle, 18; Chrissy, 15; David, 15; Zachary, 14; Joshua, 12; Jack, 11; Giorgio eight; and Jullian, seven.”
All that and contest prep too—you’ve got to wonder what her secret is. No secret, she said. “I make time for what I love. I love my children, Mark, my career and my hobby. Therefore it works.”
About her goals in the sport, Labriola has a sense of humor and proportion. “I would absolutely love to be Ms. Figure Olympia!” said the gal whose physique in fact reminds me of another petite figure athlete from the Midwest, ’08 Figure O champ Jenn Gates. “I understand we all share that dream, but this is my story you are writing about. Wouldn’t it be great if we could write my fantasy?”
Wouldn’t it?—although maybe not such a fantasy.
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