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Within Deb Knapp's petite build lies a frame of steel — or at least one of pure muscle. Capable of doing 500 sit-ups in a single evening or turning her back into an array of ripples at a moment's notice, she possesses all the prowess of She-Ra — and all the grace of Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman.

Sure, she might appear less than intimidating in her civilian disguise, but those who have seen her in action at the local gym aren't fooled. At just over 5 feet tall, Knapp ranks as a veritable body-building giant after her recent win in the Masters Division at the 1998 Amateur Athletic Union National Bodybuilding Championships. Just as impressive, she did so at age 41 after 10 years away from the competitive circuit.

Yet Knapp's physical feat seems even more incredible in light of the emotional struggles she has overcome. Faced with thyroid problems, depression and a constant drive for perfection, she has learned to build up her inner strength just as persistently as she has her physique. In a way, her sculpted muscles represent her new approach to life in general: to strip away the excess baggage and reveal the real person within.

Warming Up

Neither the physical nor the emotional bulk has fallen away easily, however. Although Knapp grew up an active child — she danced for five years, played football and baseball with her siblings on her parents' Cicero farm, took up softball in junior high and joined the cheerleading squad in high school — an underactive thyroid brought on weight problems in grade school. By the time she hit fourth grade, she weighed 120 pounds and endured merciless teasing as the biggest child in her class. Just as upsetting, she learned that year that she would have to take medication every day to control her hypothyroidism. "I remember sitting across from my mom at the kitchen table listening to her explain everything to me," Knapp says. "But I just cried because I wanted to be a normal kid who wasn't fat and who didn't have to take medicine."

During her early teenage years, Knapp discovered she could control her condition through diet and exercise, so she began to monitor her calories and sugar intake and increased her physical activity in hopes of combating the extra weight. In three and a half years she shed nearly all the excess pounds and gave up the medication entirely. Except for a brief bout during finals week her freshman year at Anderson University, she has never again had to rely on medication to manage her weight.

Her success prompted her to pursue an enhanced fitness program in college. She continued her cheerleading and also parlayed her skills as a backyard tumbler into positions as an aerobics and gymnastics instructor. Her love for exercise grew so strong that she decided to take up a degree in physical education. "I've always been fascinated by the human body and how it works," she says. "I figured there was no better job than to share my love of exercise and also get paid for it."

What started as a healthy diversion, however, turned into a dangerous obsession when Knapp faced a personal tragedy the year after she graduated. Her fiancé, fellow Anderson student Miguel Cruz, drowned in June 1982 while working at a resort in the Pocono Mountains. The two had met during Knapp's last year in college and dated for two years; they had just set their wedding date that Memorial Day for the following May. "I went from the height of happiness to the lowest of lows, all within about a week," Knapp recalls. "I had already envisioned our life together and had no idea how to move on to a new one."

As an escape, she turned to exercise. Already working full-time as a substitute teacher for Hamilton County schools, she took on as many as 12-17 aerobics classes a week to stay busy. "It was basically an obsession," she says. "Using my body meant I didn't have to use my mind." The physical stress eventually proved too much, and doctors told Knapp to cut back on her activity or face knee surgery. She dutifully decreased her workload to three classes a week and underwent physical therapy to stabilize her knees.

Aching joints marked only the beginning of her ailments, though. That fall she underwent a stress test to teach at a local Christian academy and rocketed 150 points over the top of the scale. The administering nurse told Knapp she stood a good chance of health problems with such a score: Sure enough, in November she had a fibroid tumor removed from her left breast and soon afterward began experiencing chronic fatigue and collapsing spells. She saw five specialists in five years, consenting to tests for everything from epilepsy to pesticides, only to see the doctors shrug their shoulders in confusion. No one seemed to know why a woman who didn't have anything more than the flu before that point would experience such problems. "My body was a complete mess, as if everything was shutting down," she says. "I couldn't exercise, I couldn't focus — I couldn't even function."

Operation Overload

Finally, a physician suggested to Knapp that her physical problems might stem from stress. Rather than mourning Cruz's death, she had bottled up her grief and was essentially poisoning herself with negativity. "I had no idea how to go about coping," she says. "Everyone kept telling me how they thought I should handle it, that I should throw away all the pictures and just find someone else. But something inside of me was screaming to talk about it — and no one would let me do that."

Instead of confronting her grief, Knapp buried herself in work, taking on substitute teaching, secretarial work, waitressing, catering and miscellaneous coaching jobs in gymnastics and aerobics. The litany continued until 1985, when her father helped her complete her tax forms and found that her final package included 15 W-2 forms. "That was the eye-opener that finally showed me how overloaded I was," she says. "My schedule was so overbooked that if a parent stopped to talk to me for even 10 minutes after a gymnastics class, my whole day was thrown off."

Still unable to unload her emotional burden, however, Knapp sought familiar territory and joined Hildebrandt's Health & Fitness Center in Noblesville as a substitute for her aerobics classes. That same day she was approached by another member, who suggested that she take up bodybuilding because her physique seemed suited to the sport. Knapp at first welcomed the idea because it would mean another diversion, but she found almost immediate success when she hit the competitive circuit. Just one month after she walked through the gym door, she entered her first local contest. Out of 23 women, she placed 18th in the national qualifying competition.

From that point on, she was bombarded with invitations to local and regional competitions. She increased her weight training to build muscle mass and spent at least an hour and a half in the gym five or six times a week to increase her endurance and flexibility. She watched other bodybuilders as they trained and sought advice on everything from diet to intensity to posing in front of a crowd. The hard work paid off: She won the AAU Ms. Indianapolis competition in 1986 and placed first in her class in several regional contests. "Everything was a new challenge for me, which I desperately needed," Knapp says. "I had something to look forward to when I got out of bed."

Strengthening the Soul

Her already overloaded schedule couldn't accommodate her growing list of contests, though, so Knapp gave up competitive bodybuilding after three and a half years. Though she continued to train simply to keep herself conditioned, she devoted the majority of her time to teaching gymnastics, coaching high school and collegiate cheerleading, and directing competitions for the World Cheerleading Association. She also eliminated most of her additional work over the next five years, slowing down just enough to allow her repressed emotions to rise to the surface.

Then early in 1994 she began experiencing insomnia, crying jags and bouts of sadness. After a few months a girlfriend told her she was depressed, but Knapp brushed off the comment — until a year later, when her situation hadn't improved. When three separate doctors offered the same diagnosis, Knapp checked herself into a local hospital for treatment. She still remembers watching the steel doors close behind her as she walked into the building. "I was absolutely terrified because even though I knew this was something I needed to do, I had no clue about what was going to happen."

For 10 days she underwent discussion sessions with therapists and even climbed a wall to symbolize the process of overcoming personal obstacles. Most importantly, she examined her old thought patterns and found that the perfectionist within needed to let go of her original ideas. Nicknamed Miss Perfect throughout her youth, Knapp displayed the classic signs of what she calls an A+ personality. The oldest of four children in her family, she matured quickly to rise to her parents' challenge. "I very early was the third parent, the very independent role model of the big sister I was supposed to be," she says. Over the years that desire for achievement mushroomed into an all-encompassing need for emotional control. "I had been in survival mode all those years because I felt like I had lost control of my life," she says. "My cover-up was taking care of myself, eating right and exercising — deep down I knew that total control and perfection were totally unattainable, but I felt like I could achieve them if I just tried hard enough."

When she walked out the hospital door 10 days later, Knapp had learned to accept what she had originally perceived as imperfections. She now likens herself to the children's literature character the Velveteen Rabbit, a stuffed toy who becomes real after experiencing several unpleasant adventures. "The reason that rabbit became real was that he had to go through some uncomfortable things, and his fur had to get rubbed off," she says. "That's exactly what had to happen to me — my old ways had to get rubbed off for me to become a real person."

Power Play

She also re-evaluated her priorities and delved into competitive bodybuilding again last April after seeing an entry form for the AAU MidAmerica Classic, a national qualifying event. After spending 10 years away from the sport, Knapp didn't expect to win; she merely loved the idea of competing at age 41. She originally intended to enter only the Masters Division competition (for women over age 40) but agreed to compete in the Open Division competition (for women of all ages) based on a friend's urging. At the end of the month she proved she still had what it took to win medals: She placed first in both divisions and captured first place overall. Even more incredulous for Knapp, that win meant she was headed for the national championships in Buffalo, NY.

Then the battle began. For seven months she hit the weights at least an hour and a half each day; in the evenings she did 500 to 1,100 sit-ups and at least 150 leg lunges to further sculpt her body. She choreographed her own floor routine, drawing on her cheerleading, dance and gymnastics skills for inventive poses. She drank 100 to 120 ounces of water and logged her six to eight meals each day, recording her protein, carbohydrate and sodium intake. When August rolled around, she increased her workout to three and a half hours seven days a week, but even then she didn't feel the least bit ready for her challenge. "My biggest problem was my mental outlook, my fear over my age and abilities," she says. "Physically, I was probably in the best shape ever, but I needed to convince myself of that."

For a psychological boost, Knapp began attaching pieces of paper to her shoelaces with inspirational quotes. She also asked her friends and colleagues to write in the pages of her journal to safeguard her confidence level. When she got on the plane to Buffalo Sept. 25, she felt ready to give her all. "That was a victory itself, just stepping onto the plane," she says. "I didn't expect to win anything, but I knew I could at least compete."

To Knapp's surprise, she not only achieved her original goal to finish her routine, but she even surpassed her dream goal to place — she won the title of 1998 Masters Division national champion. "Winning that competition was a testament to the good that comes out of hard work," she says. "I've come so far personally and physically that it's great to take it all in now. Some day I'll tell my future kids, ‘Look what Mom did when she was 41.'"

Now a personal trainer and nutrition consultant, Knapp says the past two decades have served as the most intense workout session she could imagine — both physically and spiritually. Not only has she earned one of the most impressive national bodybuilding titles, but she also has built up her emotional strength to realize that admitting defeat sometimes marks the first step toward achieving ultimate victory. "No one can do everything alone — even the strongest soul needs support at times," she says. "Now that I've learned balance and how to release my frustrations, I've found that life is so much more joyous and fulfilling."

For the first time, Knapp holds only three jobs: She teaches part-time preschool at a local church, works three hours a week at a children's bookstore and runs her personal training business, Precision Moves, with another exercise consultant. Although her 100 or so clients demand most of her attention, she still makes time for her hobbies, especially cooking and baking. She dabbles in cake decorating, and each month she invites several clients to her house for an informal cooking class. Sometime down the road she even plans to write a cookbook sprinkled with nutrition and wellness tips.

She also has finally accepted Cruz's death and looks forward to eventually developing a new relationship. Though she won't date simply for the sake of dating, she constantly keeps her eyes open for what she deems "a soul mate type of person." Such progress seems fairly remarkable, considering that before last September, Knapp went out only three times in nearly six years; since then, she has quadrupled that count. "I had to get past all my personal struggles first before I could even think about another relationship," she says. "But now I'm ready for a family, whenever that family comes along."

Of course, her most important relationship continues to be the one she's building with herself. Every morning as she begins her daily workout regimen, she thinks of her tremendous physical and spiritual success and feels rejuvenated. She'll continue to compete for bodybuilding honors as they come along, but even if she never wins another contest, she says strengthening her soul seems just as worthwhile a pursuit. "Whenever people compliment me on my body, I'm flattered," she says. "But I also tell them that I want them to see what's inside. To me, the ultimate compliment is that I'm a real, true person."