About Karuna Waghmare - India's First IFBB Women's Physique Athlete in Janki Kutir, Juhu Church, Juhu,, Mumbai

KARUNA WAGHMARE

Two decades ago, in the year 1995, the now-renowned Karuna Pandurang Waghmare first saw her childhood interest in sports and fitness come to life in the form of her career, and it’s all just been uphill since then. Coming from a conservative family with six siblings (consisting of five older sisters and a younger brother), Karuna has always realised the importance of working hard to fulfil her dreams of being at the top of whatever she did, be it work, status, lifestyle or anything else.

And the hard work has paid off indeed. What started off as countless routines of push ups at a gym where she worked as a fitness trainer, soon pushed her up in quite the literal sense as she went on to achieve her ACSM certification, Reebok Master Trainer certification, Yoga certification and Group Training certification from U.K. and rose steadily in the ranks of the fitness industry.

And the journey did not even end there. It was only the picture of the six-pack of a mother-of-six fitness model in a magazine that sparked the inspiration in Karuna. After years of focusing solely on male body-building competitions and strategies, it was this picture that set ablaze an interest in Karuna to focus on female physique competitions that were held all over the world instead. She was then driven by her goal to be able to represent India on an international scale, and started working on and researching about how to achieve the kind of body she had seen in the magazine.

The zeal for success then spread like forest fire. In September 2011, Karuna secured 3rd position in the IBBF Nationals. She then engraved her presence into the industry in China, August 2012, during the Asian Championship, where she won 5th position in model physique and 7th in fitness physique. In the same year, at the November-held World Championship in Thailand, she earned the 5th position for athletic physique and 7th for fitness physique. The success escalated quicker and quicker as she became the overall winner for athletic physique at the 2013 Budapest World Championship and also at the 2014 Macau Asian Championship, both of which were feathers in her cap, or indeed in her case, finally the six pack on her flesh and bones.

Karuna Waghmare is the first Indian IFBB Woman Physique Athlete to compete on the stage of Amature Olympia 2015 in Hong Kong.