One look at the arm muscles on University of Georgia cheerleader Anna Watson, and you’ll think she should be playing football instead of cheering for it.
The sports science junior can bench 155 pounds, squat 255 pounds and dead lift 230 pounds, respectively, according to the Red and Black. The school newspaper also reports that she added an impressive four inches of muscles on her arms in just 10 months by drinking 900-calorie mass gainer shakes, mixed with milk and peanut butter.
She did all this to try and achieve her goal of becoming a fitness model, but that dream ended when transferred from Hawaii Pacific University to Georgia and joined the cheerleading squad.
“It’s an elite position to be a cheerleader at UGA,” Watson told Red and Black, her school’s award-winning student newspaper. “They have hundreds of girls try out, and to be selected out of all of those people to be on the team, it’s kind of a big deal. So those girls were very humble and gracious and patient to help me just learn the basic stuff.”
Cheerleading, though she’s been doing it since she was 5, wasn’t the only reason Watson stopped wanting to be a fitness model. She was actually on the brink of a $75,000 fitness-modeling contract that could have set her up for a lifetime career in modeling, but the deeply religious Watson couldn’t agree to a modeling agents request.
The modeling agent wanted her to use Anavar, a legal anabolic steroid to help her gain up to 50 pounds of muscle. Worried about the effects on her body when she decides to have kids, Watson passed.
“I don’t serve a modeling agent. I serve the Lord,” Watson said. “I’m not going to compromise my morals and my beliefs just to take pictures. I believe that my body is a temple and a beautiful creation, so I don’t want to put anything into it that can harm it.”
Despite being somewhat of a cult hero for her large muscles, Watson says that’s not really who she is.
“I know that my identity is not in working out,” Watson said. “It’s not who I am. It’s not what I want people to see me as. Yes, on the outside, I’m a very fit individual, but when you get to know me, my life is not all about exercise and working out.”
After cheering at three home Georgia football games, Watson is on the disabled list right now after rupturing her Achilles tendon.

