 When she was young her family moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico where she grew up, and eventually moved to Southern California where she settled along with her family in Orange, California.At the age of 23 in January 1987, she was introduced to weight training through the book "Hard Bodies" by Gladys Portugues and began to lift at a local gym (Brainum, 166).She took up weight training mainly to lose weight.