Shy Trish

It still isn’t easy for Miss Fitness 2003 and the reigning TT Sport Aerobic Champion, Trishanti Rocke, to pose in a bikini in front of cricital judges, let alone a gawking audience. Even at the gym and during rehearsals with her trainer, Ian Levia, she would crouch her legs and fold her arms over her shoulders in an attempt to hide what she termed as one of her best physical assets, a well-defined upper body. The somewhat shy and physically fit Trishanti didn’t make it to this year’s Eastern Caribbean Championships due to a vehicular accident. While making her way to the event with a friend and fellow competitor, “we got a bad drive from a truck and ran into a wall”. Fortunately, the two came out unscathed. “Most of it was the shock and being shaken up. We were just glad we had no broken bones,” Trishanti told People. Trishanti’s 20 years old, and two years after entering the Fitness arena, she possesses the necessary ingredients — strength, flexibility and agility — to stay at the top of her game.

She’s not a bodybuilder, so you wouldn’t see the bulky biceps and muscular shoulders. Incidentally, Fitness Sport came out of bodybuilding. However, it entails mastering plyometric routines such as tuck and straddle jumps, cartwheels, somersaults and turn straddle moves, to name a few. Her brother, Gervais, though taller and younger than she is, oftentimes gets his laughs out of teasing her about being the stronger. “He says sometimes, ‘I have to come to your gym because your arms looking bigger than mine’,” said the Chaguanas resident. No doubt, she wears the outfits “that show off my assets and hide my flaws”. She gets the welcoming and “unwelcoming” eye of the opposite sex, which she believes comes “whether yuh big and flopping up or skinny. Men would always call you out.” She had no plans to enter this field. It was all in the name of getting fit for Carnival and fitting into her Hart’s costume when she met with Levia at the Trinidad and Tobago Fitness Academy, Cunupia. “I saw her and thought she had some potential and I said she would do well in fitness. I talked to her about it and didn’t think she was sold on that, but when I told her she would get a six-pack and this is how you would look, she said ‘yeah’,” said Levia.

Trishanti switched to competitive training, shedding some fat and building muscle. Levia confided: “When Trishanti started out, she couldn’t do one push up, maybe half of one. Now, on average, she could do 35 in one minute.” Training entailed four hours of work-out, four days a week, a change in diet and a deduction in social activities. Trishanti said, “I didn’t mind, it was all geared towards something and I liked it.” At the time, she had just completed A’level studies at St Augustine Girls High School. Her grades were excellent — A’s in Biology and English Literature and B’s in Chemistry and General Paper. Her plans were to pursue medicine. She’s a step closer to her ideals. Trishanti’s into her second-year of studies in medicine at Mt Hope Medical Sciences Complex. “It’s a lot of work, late night studies inclusive. You have to do a lot of the stuff on your own and I have to balance that with training.” For the most part, Trishanti is maintaining her balancing act because of her dedication to both activities. She was recently nominated for a distinction at school. Additionally, upon her debut at both competitions, she attained 1st place titles. “It’s not just the title,” she said, “but when you put in all the hard work and you see all the training pays off.” Apart from that, she has her parents’, Elizabeth and Selwyn Rocke, support and she’s keeping the boys at bay.

She described the feeling of being judged and on stage. “I try not to think about getting nervous. I tell myself, ‘Keep smiling,’ and then I study how I’m standing up, if my shoulders are crooked.” This year she made her second appearance at the World Sport Aerobic Championship in Miami, “coming ahead of three countries ”. “It was primarily for the experience and training tips and ideas. I’m working on at least making the semi-finals by next year,” she said. “It’s achievable, but it calls for a lot of hard work.”