AUBURN – Bundled in sweats, Cheryl Davis looks like an ordinary mom. She looks fit, but there are no bulging biceps popping through her clothes, hinting of her decade-long obsession.

“I get that all the time,” says the 46-year-old West Farmington woman. “Then, they see me strip down and say, Oh my God.'”

This petite little woman is a champion bodybuilder.

In November, she won a national competition in Coral Springs, Fla., seizing the overall prize despite competitors who were bigger and younger.

In women’s competitions, bulky muscles matter little, Davis said. Attributes such as muscle definition and a well-sculpted physique matter more.

And sometimes it’s better to be older. “Mature muscles seem to build faster,” she said.

It’s the kind of wisdom she hopes to share.

After winning dozens of titles, Davis is probably finished with competitions, she said. Instead, she wants to help other people sculpt their bodies.

She has begun taking on personal-training clients in Auburn, working from Central Maine Strength and Conditioning, 377 Turner St.

“I’ve done everything I can in competition,” Davis said. And there’s plenty to teach, whether that’s someone who wants to lose weight, firm up or begin competing.

So many trophies

Davis was 36 when she started bodybuilding. She had worked as an aerobics instructor and was working out in a gym when someone suggested that she might enjoy muscle training.

“I didn’t want to get big,” Davis said. But most women don’t, she learned. And she loved the sense that she could change the shape of her body.

About six months later, a friend encouraged her to enter a state competition.

“I’m quite a reserved person,” Davis said. The thought of walking onto the stage and having judges examine her body was unnerving.

But two facts eased her into it. Her posing routine would last only 90 seconds or less. And she wouldn’t have to speak.

That day, she came in third in the novice category.

“I was hooked,” she said. Her husband, Bob, became her trainer. The University of Maine at Farmington workout room became her home gym.

She began competing. In 1995, she entered three or four contests. She began earning titles and trophies, so many that she gives them away.

“They are just objects,” she said. “No one can take away my titles.”

And unlike some competitors, she says she has never taken growth hormones or steroids. Most of her titles were earned in “natural bodybuilding” competitions, run by groups that either administer a urine test to screen for drugs or a polygraph, the so-called lie detector test.

The latter takes 15 minutes, she said. The examiners wired her fingers and her chest as she answered yes-or-no questions about athletes’ substances, the good and the banned.

Davis passed every test, including the one before her recent Florida win.

That was the title she dreamed of when she began. But there was something missing. The trip was hastily planned, based on her win just prior to a Nov. 13 competition. None of her family or friends could go.

So when she won, she had no one to share the thrill. There was no party or celebration.

“I just wanted to say, Look what I did,'” she said. “It was terrible. I just cried.”

Diet the key

It was time for a change.

She and her husband are moving to Lewiston-Auburn, where they hope to build a steady group of clients.

Davis says she is open to helping anyone. However, those who pay her $25-per-hour fee ought to be ready to work hard.

“I want them to see results,” she said.

In her own workouts, she spends three hours a day, broken into two 90-minute sessions.

“I know not everyone wants to do what I do,” she said. “But while they are here, I expect to work people.”

And she plans to teach people one of her secrets: Success is determined by the diet.

“If you cheat, you’re cheating yourself,” she said. Even one misstep can have an impact.

“That’s the difference between first place and last place,” she said.