Catanzaro – a 45kg, 152cm gymnast – has blown away people all over the world by destroying a gruelling obstacle course to reach the final of the show in Las Vegas – the first woman to ever do so. Her phenomenal athleticism has commentators on the show yelling, “She’s not human! She’s not human!” after completing a particulary tough obstacle.

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Having been watched by millions on the broadcast of the show and online, Catanzaro said she has been blown away by the response to her amazing feat.

“I knew a lot of women would be excited and inspired by it,” Catanzaro told For The Win .

“But I had no idea so many people would care so much about it.”

Catanzaro also revealed the exercise and diet regime she underwent to dominate the show – which she tried out for the previous season, only to fall short.

The training ahead of her historic run was two years in the making alongside boyfriend Brent Steffensen, a free runner. They worked out four to six days per week, doing obstacles at night for a couple of hours.

“Brent and I do a lot of bodyweight circuit training,” she told Men’s Health .

“For obstacle racing, you wanna be as light, lean, and fast as possible. So, if I lift a lot of weights, I’m gonna be a little bit heavier, which will make it harder for me to hold myself up.

“You definitely want to be as strong as you can while staying light and lean, so we do a lot of pull-ups and push-ups, different kinds of squats and lunges, dips and a bunch of different jumping drills.

“Circuits also help build our cardio up because we’re doing each exercise so fast and intense, all in a row without stopping.

“We spend a lot of time training on obstacles themselves, too, whether they’re specific Ninja Warrior obstacles or whether we’re at the playground on the monkey bars and rings. Teaching your body to learn and adjust during challenges is really helpful.”

Intensity is the key, Catanzaro said. She tends to train circuits that span 12-13 minutes, as hard as possible, with several different circuits in a row.

It helped her tackle some scary obstacles on Ninja Warrior.

“The Ring Toss [the show’s version of a salmon ladder] was a really tough one,” she said.

“American Ninja Warrior hasn’t had that obstacle before, and none of us were prepared for it.

You had to skip a rung in order to get your next hand to follow you, so for me—I’m five feet tall—the reach was a little big. You can see I missed with the ring a couple of times, where I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, just hold on for your life.’ That was pretty nerve-racking.”

She also has a meticulous, “clean” food intake to build the perfect physique. Catanzaro dodges processed foods, grains and gluten, instead opting for “super natural things” like greens, fruits and nuts. Her treat food is chicken nachos.

“I’ve been eating a lot of oatmeal lately, which isn’t the complete grain or gluten-free, obviously, but it does kind of get your body moving,” she told Vulture .

“For the next two meals, it depends on where we are, but we do big salads with eggs or something like that. We love fish - salmon or shrimp, scallops, definitely lots of seafood.”