Kendall, the new East Coast figure champ.
The time had come for Shayna Kendall to approach the Body Master, grab the handles, pull the cables, work her triceps. She left behind the other thoughts that had occupied her mind: Her investigation of a grandfather’s sexual assault of his 11-year-old granddaughter. Or her brother’s murder. Or her cousin’s murder.
Earlier in the day Kendall (her first name means “beautiful” in Yiddish) had reviewed the sexual assault details as she prepared an arrest warrant at her job as a detective in the New Haven police’s special victims unit.
And she has found herself thinking every day about how her 15-year-old cousin Jacob Cragget’s was shot to death in the Hill two years ago, and about how her brother Jason was shot to death in the Hill in 2004. In fact, the police response to Jason’s murder inspired her to become a cop.
But now the work day was over. Her time at the Montanari Brothers Powerhouse Gym on Middletown Avenue was hers alone, cut loose in a sea of other sweaty, gleaming, hard bodies, tuning out trauma, tuning in to the thumping music from the sound system and the demands from the Body Master to lift more weight.
Hayden Photo
Kendall winning this month’s NPC East Coast cup.
Kendall has made this a daily afternoon routine. The routine has in two years propelled Kendall to a new side career as a competitive figure athlete. She has become good enough at it to win her first regional championship earlier this month.
And she’s just getting started.
The routine keeps her strong, Kendall said. She’s not talking only about the muscles ripping from her calves and triceps.
“There’s always someone [physically] stronger than you. That’s not what this is about,” she said in an interview.
“My strength comes from everything I’ve been through and not giving up and not giving in. To be able to replay the words of my parents telling me to move forward, to keep pressing on and improving. “
While she has only recently taken the competitive figure plunge, Kendall started down the path 12 years ago, when she met Cheach.
Paul Bass Photo
Cheach and the champ.
Kendall was 19 at the time. A 2002 Hillhouse graduate raised in the Newhallville and Hill neighborhoods, she was the first member of her family to attend college. She also had a job at Yale-New Haven Hospital. That’s where she met Cheach, a.k.a. Frank Celentano, a hospital protective services employee with a sideline as an athletic trainer.
Cheach suggested pursuing a career as a figure athlete. “I could see she had that competitive drive in her,” he recalled. But “it took years before she gave it a try.”
For a while, Kendall was sidelined coping with grief after an armed robber confronted her brother Jason on the steps of his grandmother’s house, then shot him in the back as he turned around to walk inside.
Kendall admired the way detectives handled the investigation — both how they dealt with the family and how they cracked the case. She decided she wanted to become a detective herself one day.
But for a while she drifted. She took a leave from college.
Then something changed.
“For a long time, you ask: ‘Why Why? Why?’ Then you realize you’re not going to get answers. Something inside propels you to stop asking the questions, almost accept it.” She also determined to be strong for her younger brother, who had been present when Jason was killed.
She reenrolled in college, this time at Albertus Magnus. And she graduated with a degree in psychology. She subsequently made it through the police academy. She became a city cop seven years ago, walking a beat, then making detective in 2014.
She also started making it to the gym and working out with Cheach. She needed a daily release, a break from both the memory of her brother’s slaying — and then, later, the similarly random and brutal killing of her cousin Jacob. She also needed a daily release from the horrors she encounters in investigating sexual abuse.
“You have to be able to take a break mentally and then return to work,” she observed. “Without that form of release, it’s just draining. Seeing kids being penetrated by grown family members, hearing children tell you about this godawful stuff…. There has to be a way to compartmentalize.”
The daily Powerhouse gym workouts under Cheach’s direction offered that release. Cheach noticed her discipline, how hard she worked.
He suggested Kendall try enrolling in figure competitions, in which contestants execute mandatory poses to showcase their physique, from broad shoulders to tapered waistlines to muscular but lean quadriceps and hamstrings.
At first Kendall wasn’t buying.
“I was like: ‘I don’t want to look like a man!’ I thought of the women who take steroids. I said, ‘No thanks.’”
Then she learned more about what was involved, and saw how women maintained their femininity. She also learned that steroids weren’t part of the routine. The routine involved discipline, setting and meeting goals, getting healthy. They didn’t look like men. She decided to give it a try, including the healthful eating part (lots of protein, whole foods, no preservatives or added sugars). A naturally competitive person, Kendall enjoyed the challenge. And the results.
She said she sees a parallel between training and the methodical work of building sexual-violence cases: “You have to be consistent. You have to be dedicated. You have to be motivated to get to the end — the next show. Or with work, did I interview everyone who could assist with this investigation? You have to have goal-setting.”
Reigning Powerhouse-based champ Evan Centopani, at left, said Kendall stood out at the gym for both her natural ability and “the time and effort” she puts in.
Kendall got good, fast. She bulked up from 112 pounds to 150 (which she drops to a lean 134 for competitions). “I feel strong,” she said. “Not just on the outside.”
She qualified as a professional, meaning she was recognized by the World Natural Bodybuilding Federation (WNBF), which holds competitions and conducts drug testing to ensure participants don’t take steroids. She also signed up for competitions conducted by the National Physique Committee (NPC).
It was at an NPC competition held two weeks ago at East Haven High School, drawing contestants from the Atlantic states, that Kendall had her big moment: She won the East Coast cup as the overall figure champion.
She was blown away, proud of how far she’d come in just two years.
With Cheach at the gym.
“I expected it,” remarked Cheach, who has been fitness-training and coaching for 45 years. “I’ve been in this so long; I could tell.”
The first member of her family to have a full-time career, Kendall has more goals in mind. She expects this fall to complete Albertus Magnus’s master of science program in management and organizational leadership. She intends to keep advancing in the police department.
And Kendall intends to win more bodybuilding competitions. Her first pro competition sponsored by the WNBF is on Nov. 6. Then she’s setting her sights on her first national NPC competition next summer. Kendall made a choice not to succumb to despair, to take the challenges life threw at her — and to keep winning.
Read other installments in the Independent’s “Cop of the Week” series:
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• Craig Alston & Billy White Jr.
• Joseph Aurora
• James Baker
• Lloyd Barrett
• Pat Bengston & Mike Valente
• Elsa Berrios
• Manmeet Bhagtana (Colon)
• Paul Bicki
• Paul Bicki (2)
• Sheree Biros
• Bitang
• Scott Branfuhr
• Bridget Brosnahan
• Craig Burnett & Orlando Crespo
• Keron Bryce and Steve McMorris
• Keron Bryce and Osvaldo Garcia
• Keron Bryce and Osvaldo Garcia (2)
• Dennis Burgh
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• Elizabeth Chomka & Becky Fowler
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* Elisa Tuozzoli
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