Trumbull woman takes on fitness ‘Challenge’

TRUMBULL — With her hair piled up in a messy bun and pulled back with a bright headband, Jessica Hayduk’s eyes stayed fixed on her reflection in the mirror at Shelton’s Edge Fitness Club.

Her neon blue and pink sneakers were firmly planted into the weightlifting platform as she took a deep breath and lifted the combined weight of 135 pounds, pumping a couple of front squads before letting go of the weight. She rested her toned arms, exposed in a muscle tee, on the bar while she caught her breath, before adding 10 more pounds to the weight for more squats.

Hayduk, a Trumbull resident, is a rock climber and a fan of strength training. And on Tuesday, she’ll show all of America, or at least CMT viewers, what she’s made of, as she competes on “Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Challenge.”

“I’m a (expletive) alpha wolf and I came to dominate everyone here,” Hayduk says in a promotional video, over scenes of her competing in the desert.

It’s the same look in her eye in the promo video that Hayduk has as she focuses on her reflection, breathes and squats.

Hayduk, who has watched the show since it premiered in 2014, applied to be a contestant last year and didn’t make the cut. But she and her boyfriend were both accepted this year, with him competing in the season five premiere all-male episode on Sept. 26 and taking home the title.

Hayduk got the news that she’d be on the show with less than a week’s notice before filming started, so there wasn’t much time to prepare before she was on a plane to Los Angeles in late August.

The show follows a format of three challenges, which are generally wrestling, followed by a strength challenge and an endurance test. Shows start with eight men or eight women competing in the scorching California desert. The final two contestants in the endurance challenge also have to wrestle in what’s known as “the pit.”

Whoever dominates is declared the winner of the episode, but must then finish an obstacle course — and only if they beat the record set by a previous contestant do they win the $10,000 prize. To add to the complication, if the contestant fails to beat the record, the record-holder receives an additional $10,000.

“When you’re watching it you’re like, ‘I could do that.’” Hayduk said. “But then when you get out there, it’s a totally different game.”

Contestants spent a day in L.A. going through various tests at a doctor’s office. Filming for the three challenges took place in one day.

Hayduk wasn’t always a fitness fanatic. She smoked cigarettes, had an unhealthy diet and didn’t go to the gym while in college. Eventually she started running, got into lifting and her boyfriend introduced her to full-body workouts.

Now, she does rock climbing and obstacle course racing. The strength training she focuses on has paid off — she can deadlift 275 lbs and front squat 165 lbs.

“It totally helped me, having that power that people couldn’t see,” Hayduk said. “It gives you an edge.”

Hayduk’s strategy was to avoid getting caught up in all the tough talk that comes out in such a competitive environment, and to focus on the task at hand. Still, she thinks she had a couple of one-liners that made for good reality TV, like the one used in the promo video where she declares herself to be an “alpha wolf.”

“What you don’t see is me laughing between takes,” Hayduk said.

“There are going to be people that you really don’t want to see win, win and the opposite — people you didn’t expect to win, winning,” she said. “It’s always going to come down to the wire. And that’s why I like this show. It’s not about your backstory ... you show up, you say what you’re going to do and if you do it, good for you, and if you don’t, you go home.”

Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Challenge features Hayduk Tuesday at 10 p.m. on CMT.