A native of Fort Hood, Texas, Monica Brant was born on October 26, 1970. She grew up on a 20-acre ranch in Castroville, a small town outside of San Antonio, where her mother was a professional horse trainer. With this background, it’s little wonder that Monica’s first love was horses.
At the age of 5, Monica began riding and showing ponies and horses; by 14, she was giving riding lessons and training horses almost on her own - getting only occasional tips from her mother. Brant’s love of riding continued into early adulthood. In high school she competed not only in more common sports such as volleyball and track and field, but also in a number of equestrian competitions: western pleasure, barrels and pole bending, English pleasure, dressage, and hunter/jumper, her personal favorite.
After graduating high school, Brant went to college in Fulton, Missouri, where she studied equestrian science for a year. She next moved back to Texas, taking classes at San Antonio College and giving riding lessons at local stables. For a time, Brant also worked as a waitress, did promotional work as a Budweiser girl, and competed in bikini competitions.
Brant’s early wins in bikini competitions would soon lead her away from horses, and into a field - fitness, to be exact - that would bring her more success. In 1991, when Monica first started a weightlifting regimen, she came across a photo of Marla Duncan, a famous national fitness champion. “Her beauty and physique impressed me enough,” Monica says, “that I wanted to try what she was doing - fitness competitions.” At first, Monica competed only for fun, and won a number of regional Fitness USA competitions. In 1994, she graced the cover of Muscle & Fitness magazine for the first time.
With such a promising and increasingly profitable start, Brant decided to pursue fitness as a full-time career. In 1995, she relocated to Los Angeles, and the same year placed ninth in the Fitness USA Nationals and first in the Jan Tana Pro Fitness competition. In the years that followed, Monica competed two or three times each year in events run by the International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB), including the Fitness International, Fitness World, and Fitness Olympia competitions.
In 1998, Monica Brant won the IFBB Fitness Olympia after placing in the top 10 for the previous three years. She also finished second that same year in the Fitness International. Brant returned to the Fitness Olympia in 1999, but she was unable to successfully defend her title, placing a still-respectable fourth. In the meantime, Monica has appeared in dozens of books, calendars, and fitness magazines all over the world.
Monica took a break from her extensive training and traveling schedule after 1999, working to educate others about fitness. In 2003, she made a triumphant return to fitness competitions, finishing second in the IFBB Arnold International Figure Championship (named for the most famous muscleman of them all, Arnold Schwarzenegger). But Monica feels, after over 10 years of consistent excellence, that she has gone as far as she can go in her sport.
Although Brant eventually wants to settle down, there is a lot more she wants to accomplish and experience before starting a family.