In May 2021, Daniella Means was walking her dog in Los Angeles when a man holding a hammer approached and demanded her bag and phone. When Means refused, he dealt a blow to her head. She went down hard, blood gushing from her face. “I thought I had gone blind. I thought I had brain damage,” she recalls. The incident left her shattered, physically – her eye socket and nose were broken – and mentally. “Coming out of it, I was scared to walk around on my own. I was driving a kilometre from my apartment to work.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dani Means 🌐 IFBB Pro | Gym Owner | Coach (@daniellameans) Still, Means did not let it hinder her life. Two months later, the Hong Kong-born powerlifter competed in the United States Powerlifting Association (USPA) national championships, taking her place on stage as one of the best powerlifters in the country. “I didn’t win overall, but what a comeback. I just remember coming offstage and crying, because it was like, ‘Oh my God, I did it,’” she says. “That was the biggest ‘Screw you!’ to this guy that I could make: ‘I am not going to compromise what I want to do, because you decided to do this.’” It is that mental toughness and determination that have helped 35-year-old Means, who is half-Malaysian, half-American, to become a multi-hyphenate athlete. The champion powerlifter is also a professional bodybuilder and a former rugby player for the Hong Kong national team. Her sporting life began in Hong Kong with gymnastics when she was six years old. She practised for eight years, and at one point was training 12 hours a week. “I credit all of my athletic ability [to gymnastics] – agility, conditioning, balance, strength, body awareness, all that stuff. Gymnastics was just a fantastic foundation,” Means says. As a teenager, she began taking part in various sports, including netball, basketball, cross-country and swimming. When a friend suggested she try rugby, she was keen to give it a shot. While playing in her first rugby game, an opposition team member caught the ball and Means’ teammates shouted, “Dani, tackle her!” “So I sprinted down and just nailed her, and I knocked her out,” she recalls. She was concerned for the player, but it was a clean tackle. “When it turned out that I was half-decent at [rugby], it was like, ‘Wow, let’s just see how far we can go with it,’” she says. She played for Hong Kong’s under-20 team before making the full women’s team. On her 18th birthday, in 2008, she played for the first time in the annual Hong Kong Sevens tournament. Shortly afterwards, she left Hong Kong to study business at the University of Nottingham in England. There, she started cooking for herself and doing her share of drinking, which saw her put on weight. To lose it, she began working out at a gym and quickly developed a passion for fitness and strength training, which allowed her to shed the weight and build muscle. She took a job in public relations and marketing in Hong Kong after graduating and began coaching at the now-closed Epic MMA gym – all while still playing rugby. She trained with the Hong Kong rugby team until she was 24, when she fell out of love with the sport. At the same time, her knees and lower back started giving her issues. “You have to put your body on the line. You have to be willing to be injured, you have to be willing to get broken, and they wanted me to put on a lot more weight … I didn’t love that.” Still, she kept her competitive streak, and when she met Jonathan Bond – who is now her husband – through CrossFit, he came up with a training programme for her to compete in powerlifting. Six months later, in August 2016, she competed at her first powerlifting competition in Singapore and placed first in her weight category for squat, bench press, deadlift and overall. In December 2017, she won her category at the Asian Classic Powerlifting Championships. “I just pulled it out of the bag on the deadlift, and did just enough to win,” she says. She went on to win the under-60kg category at the 100% RAW Powerlifting Federation’s World Classic Powerlifting Championships in the US in 2018. The same year, she deadlifted 180kg (397 pounds) at the AusFitness Expo in Australia – a personal best. She weighed 61kg at the time. “That’s the only time that I’ve ever lifted that in a competition, to this date,” she says. “To this day, I don’t think anyone [from] Hong Kong has deadlifted that at my weight.” Typically, training for a powerlifting competition involves a four- to five-day rotation that includes two bench days, one squat day, one deadlift day and another day of supplementary workouts. Bond usually plans her programme. “That’s why I always say we competed,” Means says. Her husband was also a major source of support as she was navigating the aftermath of her attack in 2021 while preparing for the USPA competition. “My husband was really instrumental in helping me come out of that. He was like, ‘Look, just … rest for the next couple of days. If you feel up for it, just try a couple of barbell movements, don’t do much weight, just feel it out.’” As she discovered that she could still move without pain, she decided to go full steam ahead with training. The incident also prompted her to pursue bodybuilding at the age of 31. “Getting attacked made me realise that I should stop sitting on the fence on anything,” she says. “If not now, what am I waiting for? Am I going to wait until I’m 40 to do it?” She began training with bodybuilding trainer Rawdon Dubois in January 2022 and competed at her first show six months later, following a rigorous programme that had her working out up to seven days a week. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Dani Means 🌐 IFBB Pro | Gym Owner | Coach (@daniellameans) She also adhered to a high-protein, low-fat meal plan, with planned “refeed days” with increased fat and calorie intake. It was a strict lifestyle, but one that she welcomed. “It was absolutely terrifying, thrilling. I loved the process. I loved the structure. Totally thrived in it,” she says. “Something that made bodybuilding attractive to me was the fact that it was so uncomfortable. You need to seek things that make you uncomfortable … to grow.” At just her third competition, in May 2023, she won her “pro card” – signifying professional bodybuilding status. “I won my pro card on the [anniversary of the] day that I got attacked,” she says. “I got attacked in May 2021. In May 2023, I got my pro card.” For Means, each sport she has taken over up over the years has taught her something. Gymnastics gave her a foundation in flexibility, strength and balance, teaching her the importance of discipline. Playing rugby helped her gain mental toughness, especially when competing. Powerlifting taught her self-belief and visualisation. Bodybuilding encouraged her to trust the process and crystallised the importance of a good coach. Today, she helps others achieve their goals at her personal training gym Hybrid, in Los Angeles, a brand that her husband started in Hong Kong in 2018. Together, they established Relentless Online Coaching. Now, Means is set to compete in Amazon Prime Video’s American Gladiators reboot as a gladiator, though no official release date for the show has been announced yet. It is yet another challenge that she is embracing. “Just because you do one thing, it doesn’t mean you need to do it forever,” she says. “Take what you can from anything, and then you move on to the next thing. “That’s just what I’ve kept doing. And I like taking things as far as I can.” Like what you read? Follow SCMP Lifestyle on Facebook, X and Instagram. You can also sign up for our eNewsletter here.