Name: Kelsey Gentille
University / College: Cedarville University
Year: Sophomore
Height / Weight: 5’2 / 126 lbs
Degree Sought: Psychology
Faith&Fitness Magazine: Let's start things off with some general questions so we can get to know you just a little bit. So tell me, are you from a small town or big city?
Kelsey Gentille: I am from Lexington, OH a small town!
Faith&Fitness Magazine: Did you play sports, do outdoor adventure activities, do physical work or volunteering, group exercise or weight lifting, etc?
Kelsey Gentille: I did gymnastics for 3 years, played softball, played soccer from when I was 4 until I was 18, I ran track for 3 years, I was a bodybuilder for 2 years and competed in Women’s Figure competitions.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: What do you do for fun? Tell us what makes it fun for you.
Crossfit and Olympic lifting. I find so much joy in these two sports, I have so much fun hitting big numbers during Olympic lifting training and the community that I do Crossfit in makes it fun! Crossfit is a very social sport and that’s an aspect about it that makes it very fun.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: What are your “life” goals and how are you working toward them?
Kelsey Gentille: A few of my life goals are to have a healthy balanced life, to have a career in counseling, and to be the woman God has created me to be. With balancing Crossfit, Olympic lifting, School, friends, and family it gets a little tricky but I am learning over time how to balance it all out. Currently I am in the psychology program at Cedarville University on the Child and Family Counseling track and after undergrad I plan to go onto graduate school to get my masters. In order to become the woman that god has created me to be I spend a good chunk of my day each day meditating on his word and journaling and seeking advice from my mentor.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: Why did you decide to go to Cedarville? What were your expectations when you first started and how has the school and campus life measured up to them?
Kelsey Gentille: The reason I decided to come to Cedarville University was because I loved how completely Christ centered it is. I had great expectations for this school like hard classes, impactful teachers, and strong faith based foundation and all of those expectations have truly been met.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: How did you first get interested in exercise and living a fit lifestyle?
Kelsey Gentille: As I said earlier, I played sports growing up I was involved in almost everything from gymnastics to cheerleading to basketball to softball to track to soccer. I played soccer all the way up through high school, when we would train for soccer during the winter we would do Crossfit and that is how I got introduced to Crossfit. My soccer coach, Pam, she was a Crossfit Competitor at the time and I was very close with her; she and I would go workout early in the morning at 6 am before school and crank out WOD’s together, this is when my passion for fitness truly evolved. She taught me everything about nutrition and the ins and outs about Crossfit, running, and living a healthy fit life for Christ.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: What fitness qualities do you think your friends feel best qualify you as a top bod? In other words, have your friends or acquaintances made 
comments on how fit your are your the lifestyle you live?
Kelsey Gentille: I would say my work ethic, energy, and strength.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: What is the fitness culture on your campus like?
Kelsey Gentille: The fitness culture on campus is pretty regular, you have regular people who want to go to the gym because they know it is good for them and they want to lose weight, but not a lot of people here are educated on WHAT to do IN the gym. A lot of people go to the gym and go run on the treadmill for 20 min or the elliptical or do some abs or bicep curls and stuff. Pretty ordinary fitness culture, guys tend to out number the girls in the gym; I do not know of very many girls who take weightlifting seriously or who do Crossfit!
Faith&Fitness Magazine: What are your favorite exercises and why?
Kelsey Gentille: My favorite exercises are the Olympic lifts Clean & Jerk and Snatch, I also love butterfly pull-ups, any type of sprints, bar muscle-ups, rope climbs, and back squatting. I love Clean & jerk’s, butterfly pull-ups and sprints because I think they are fun and they are my strong suits; I love Snatching, Bar muscle-ups, rope climbs and back squatting because they are some of my weaknesses that I love to work on. They are all FUN J
Faith&Fitness Magazine: Do you workout with friends? If so, tell us about that and how it is different from when you workout alone.
Kelsey Gentille: I do not attend the campus gym here on campus, I go to a Crossfit Affiliate called Bomber’s Crossfit where I am trained in Olympic lifting and Crossfit every day and there are Crossfit class times where people go so I am always working out with the people who do competitions and such with me, we are a select team all trained under the same coaches. I love being surrounded by the Crossfit community at Bomber’s every single day, it helps motivate and push me and those people inspire me. I have had experience working out alone when I was a Figure Competitor doing BodyBuilding, it is way harder to workout alone and get the same motivation and push from others.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: Tell us about your workout routine.
Kelsey Gentille: I currently am a Crossfit competitor and Olympic Weightlifter so I have coaches who program my workouts and lifts. I have Olympic lifting training 5 days a week and Crossfit training 2 times a week. My weightlifting programming consists of a lot of squatting, pressing, snatching, clean and jerk, pull-ups, push-ups, strict ring dips, etc. My Crossfit programming consists of high intensity work capacity over broad time and modal domains, lots of sprints, rowing, heavy weights, box jumps, burpees, running distance for time, kipping pull-ups, bar and ring muscle ups, etc. Every day something completely knew is thrown at you, it keeps your body guessing.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: Tell us about your nutrition plan.
Kelsey Gentille: I currently adhere to the Zone Diet, which is a diet that is balanced in Protein (lean, natural meats), Carbs (mostly low glycemic-load fruits and veggies), and Fats. It also works to control the three major hormones insulin, glucagon and eicosanoids.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: As you have mentioned your plans to compete in athletics or in fitness or bodybuilding competitions, could you tell us more about it …
Kelsey Gentille: Yes, I am currently signed up for a Crossfit Competition on April 9th and an Olympic Weightlifting meet on June 12th. I will continue to participate in different Crossfit competitions and in the near future prepare for qualifying for Crossfit Regionals as well as continuing competing at Olympic Weightlifting meets.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: Describe briefly how you came to know Christ as your personal savior …
Kelsey Gentille: When I was a sophomore in highschool I went to a church summer camp called Momentum with my churches youth group, it was there that I accepted the Lord.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: How do you feel your college has helped you mature physically, academically and spiritually?
Kelsey Gentille: College has definitely been used by God to teach me discipline, hardwork, and diligence in everything that I do. As I have been here at Cedarville my relationship with Christ has become more intimate and I spend a lot of time in between classes in the word. It also is a plus that I have friends and mentors around.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: What are some of the spiritual discoveries you have made while at college? How is that shaping the way you live and interact with others?
Kelsey Gentille: As far as spiritual discoveries go, I have just learned an abundance of knowledge about our God. I’ve gotten to study his life by reading the scriptures and being taught how to effectively study them. It changes my attitude, my words, my actions, and my whole outlook on the day because every day I am giving up myself to the Lord and saying “God today and all it entails is in your hands”.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: How do you feel living a healthy life and being active impacts both your academic success and your relationship with God?
Kelsey Gentille: It definitely has taught me discipline and integrity and I have been able to use what God is teaching me through my physical activity in my everyday life challenges whether that be school related or not.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: What are the most visible characteristics of your personal faith in God? How do you live out your Christian faith?
Kelsey Gentille: I think prayer and the constant desire to seek him before everything I do. I just live according to Scripture and in concordance with what God’s word says.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: What is the biggest spiritual challenges you face OR in what ways do you feel you still need to grow spiritually?
Kelsey Gentille: The biggest spiritual challenge that I face is most definitely praying for little things in my everyday life that I think I can handle on my own. As much as a prayer warrior that I am, I often fall short of praying for the little things that I do during the day.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: What are some of your favorite methods that help you to experience God?
Kelsey Gentille: Definitely prayer and mediation on the scripture’s when I get alone time to relax with a cup of hot tea and soak in what God is trying to talk to me about, that and journaling.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: How is your prayer life?
Kelsey Gentille: My prayer life is honestly the strongest it has ever been. Of course like I said earlier I can improve on praying for the little things in my every day life that I think I can do on my own but I have come to realize that praying truly has power and I take advantage of that.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: How is your “church” life (tell us about any campus faith-based organization[s] you attend or church you attend)
Kelsey Gentille: Church life is wonderful! I attend Emmanuel Baptist here while I am at Cedarville and while at home I attend Mosaic Church. I love the fellowship and meeting time as we get to experience God’s word together.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: What is on the horizon for your career? Is everything coming together well for it?
Kelsey Gentille: Currently I am on the Child and Family Counseling Psychology track here at Cedarville. I am pursuing an education in Psychology and planning to pursue counseling as a school counselor in the future. So far everything is coming together greatly, I am only a sophomore so things are going pretty smoothly.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: How do you feel you will balance your career and your commitment to fitness in the future?
Kelsey Gentille: Definitely just making sure that I make time for fitness while having a full-time job because I know that my fitness is my release, the time where I let go of stress and that I get to also engage in fellowship with others who are passionate about the same realms of fitness as I am. Fitness will always be a huge part of my life as I also continue my career in Crossfit and Olympic Lifting.
Faith&Fitness Magazine: Will it be more difficult to maintain your fitness regimen, do you think, after you graduate and begin working?
Kelsey Gentille: No, I feel as if it will be a tad bit easier because I will have a stable schedule and no homework every night. Even though work still puts a lot on my plate, my fitness schedule will be easier to adjust. I look forward to that day!
Faith&Fitness Magazine: Kelsey, thank you so much for your energy and passion! I'm sure that you will inspire our readers through your goals and fitness lifestyle. I truly hope everything God has put in your heart comes to fruition and you continue to excel in the areas where He has placed you!
This Top Bods On Campus story featuring Cedarville University's Kelsey Gentille appear in the June/July 2016 issue of Faith & Fitness Magazine.
