Dorothy Trojanowicz

Written by Hans
Photography by James Cook

One of the most striking new competitors to emerge at the 2005 Junior Nationals in Chicago was a local girl – kinda. 27 year-old Chicago resident Dorothy Trojanowicz, originally from Poland, had in fact had only been in the United States for five years and had only done her first show a year before. But, at 5-foot-5 and just under 140 pounds, she looked spectacular onstage and placed fifth in the light-heavyweight class.

For Dorothy, getting up onstage at Junior Nationals was the culmination of a dream she’d had years ago in Poland. As a girl who had lifted weights since her teens, she had been dying to compete as a female bodybuilder. But there were no female bodybuilders around, all her friends and family disapproved, and Dorothy began to yearn to move to America to pursue her dream. “I remember thinking, if you don’t like what I love to do and you constantly put me down, then I will go my way in America, the land of freedom, and I’ll show you all how it’s done!”

Dorothy finally moved to the United States in 2000 after qualifying as a beautician. After winning her first show, the NPC Illinois, last May, the judges encouraged her to do the Junior Nationals a month later. But she was not yet an American citizen, and she quickly discovered that without citizenship, she wasn’t eligible to compete at the show. “I was very disappointed,” she says. “I promised myself that I would improve and enter Junior Nationals the next year.”

Dorothy’s struggle to get onstage made her especially proud and happy with her placing at Junior Nationals. In fact, she was so thrilled about making her dream come true that that she was reluctant to get into off-season shape after the show and photo shoots were done and says that she stayed at around 142-145 pounds and 6% bodyfat. “I’ve worked extremely hard these five years in America to look the way I do right now, and I won’t let it go!”


Growing up in Poland, Dorothy had always felt different from everyone else.“My body was always way more muscular than other girls and I was also super strong physically,” she says. “In high school I could throw a baseball the furthest and I could climb the highest.” But as well as being an athlete, Dorothy also had an artistic streak. Even as a child, she was fascinated by anatomy and copied Michelangelo’s drawings of the human body.

In her first year of high school, a friend of hers took her to a gym. “The very first day at the gym I felt like I subconsciously knew I belonged there,” she says. He showed her the basics of training and she loved it. By the age of 16 she was on her way to achieving her ideal, which she describes as a “sexy, lean, muscular and feminine physique.”

Dorothy spent the next six years training by herself in Poland. She had boyfriends who were bodybuilders, but they tended to be more focused on their own training than hers. It was only when Dorothy met an up-and-coming Polish female bodybuilder, Joanna Krupa, that she was inspired to take it to the next level. “I saw her at the gym and I wanted look like her and compete,” she says. (Joanna herself went on to be one of her country’s most successful female bodybuilders and placed third in the lightweights at the World Championship in Spain last year).

Even after moving to the United States in 2000, it took Dorothy another four years to compete for the first time, but when she did, it was an amazing experience for her. At the 2004 NPC Illinois she placed first in the novice class, first in the middleweights, first in the open and overall, and, if that wasn’t enough, also got an award for “most symmetrical”. “I was crying from happiness!” she says. “I was overwhelmed by everything!” she says.

After her impressive placing at Junior Nationals, Dorothy plans to continue competing at national-level shows, but is tight-lipped about which. “I like surprises!” she says. Now working as a professional make-up artist, Dorothy could not be more happy with her new life in the United States. The only thing she doesn’t like about being a bodybuilder is the negative reaction she sometimes gets from some members of the general public. “People either hate us or love us,” she says.

But despite the occasional stare or negative comment, Dorothy has found in the United States the supportive environment she always wanted. And most important of all is the support she gets is from her fiancé Zee Trojanowicz.“He recognized my abilities to do this sport and encouraged me to keep doing it,” she says. In fact, he is exactly what she never had in Poland. “I could not have had these results without having such a devoted and caring person at my side.”

Dorothy can be reached at: dorothytrojanowicz@hotmail.com

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