I'm very disciplined in many aspects of my life, and I think a lot of that has to do with how I was raised and the sport I've been in my whole life.

There's mornings where I have to clear my mind and think, "OK, why am I doing this? Why am I putting myself through this kind of training every day?" I can literally see myself standing on top of a medal podium winning a gold medal next to my teammates, something I've never accomplished. It reminds me: That's why I do what I do. That's why I love it. Let's get in the gym and have a good workout.

When I was 22, I finally reached that huge goal. Now I'm going for another one. It's so satisfying. It's something that I worked for for so long, and just to know that I got it feels so great.

It's hard to put what it means into words. It's just a dream I had when I was a little kid. It's not every day [you] get to make your lifelong dream come true. The point of doing things in life is you pursue a goal, and you go after it, you reach it and you pick another one. But they're hard to attain.

There's mornings when my body aches or my mind is just not with it. But that's part of being an athlete and accomplishing a goal that seems unattainable. You have to find your motivation, what inspires you.

There is a period of tapering when we're not in the gym quite as long to try to save our bodies, but leading up to the competition we try to keep things similar to the rest of the year.

I'm on my own, luckily doing well, but like I said, we don't make a ridiculous amount of money and I have to be disciplined with what I do with it.