First, a bit of background about why I feel qualified to talk about changing oneself.

Training in the gym, for many hours a week has given me a self-confidence and feeling of capability that I never managed to create before. Let’s get this straight – I don’t suck, I am pretty strong, but I am not going to be winning anything other than plastic competitor medals anytime soon. But I don’t care. I keep trying.

For someone who never really stuck at anything, why has this one stayed the course? We are 6 years in now and they are going to have to rip that barbell out of my cold, dead, hand.  Other things did not stick. We have had….

• A 600 euro investment in ‘all the gear’ for an adult riding career that lasted exactly one lesson
• my grand plan to start a ‘craft’ business where I was planning to be the new Cath Kidston which folded after making my first piece of craft – a slightly shit floral purse – but only after significant outlay in a new sewing machine
• running with my friend in the early 2000’s which was going to be the ‘new’ us. One jog of about 15 minutes around Tooting Bec common followed by a joint reading of ‘Zest’ magazine whilst having a cuppa was our one and only effort
• A sponsored channel swim (in the pool) over 3 months where I ran out of motivation about 40 lengths from the end, of admittedly a fuck of a lot of swimming
• I have never run a marathon or a half marathon though I am an avid armchair sports enthusiast
• I was in no sports teams at school – more fags, boys and mags for me at that stage of life
• I rowed at University for two terms and was actually quite good at it (a little seed was sewn but would lay dormant for decades) but I gave up because I got a boyfriend, and basically just like Bridge Fucking Jones, my whole life basically revolved around the acquiring of a boyfriend

I don’t really regret this. I mean I did develop a bit of personality and had confidence in other areas, of course. There are a number of things I am good at – but stickability, and also sporting achievements in particular were just not in my wheelhouse. I remember another boyfriend of my 20’s spitting out on one particular Saturday that he had a ‘weekend to run’ and could not be lounging around in bed on a Saturday. I couldn’t understand this point of view, after all, my entire university career had been sitting smoking and watching either Neighbours, Supermarket Sweep or someone else playing Sonic the Hedgehog.  This was the same person that dumped me a few months later for my bad diet and smoking habit. Still so far, so Bridget Jones.

One decade on and I was a somewhat different animal and there’s nothing like giving up smoking, earning a freelance living, meeting said perfect man, co-habiting, and then producing and keeping alive two children to make one feel some tiny seeds of accomplishment….

But the seeds of competitiveness in the physical sphere started to germinate over 20 years after they were first sown in my novice university rowing career. I had been No.5 in the boat and the ‘powerhouse’ of the B-team no less (for 2 terms) – even despite the 20 a day Silk Cut habit – and I really loved the gym circuits sessions because they were hard, and there were opportunities to out-burpee, or out-sprint boys.

Cut to 6 years ago. A friend saw me in the local swimming pool and dragged me along to a gym class. In this class I was screaming the house down attempting arm exercises with the smallest dumbells in the gym, amongst a group of silver-haired ladies to whom this weekly torture was considered fun. It is no exaggeration to say that the list of things I could not do was pretty long.  Just over 6 years ago I could do a burpee, I could row a bit on the erg (see above). What I could not do was:

• A pull-up, or a dip
• Any sort of chest or overhead press with anything at all heavy
• An air squat, let alone a weighted one
• A reverse lunge getting my knee anywhere to the floor, or a forward lunge for that matter
• Jump onto or off anything (sore knees)
• A deadlift- what’s that?
• A back squat – ditto
• Anything involving triceps, or shoulders
• Anything involving glutes – in fact I did say that I thought perhaps I had been born without them

When pregnant my knees had hurt a lot walking up and down stairs. After the births I did some jogging (eventually) but I really don’t think this if this is the answer to a lack of real functional strength overall….if you’re not strong in other parts of the body I think it’s more like simply falling from foot to foot. Somehow I got over the first gym class and started going regularly but didn’t get any stronger really. I only really discovered strength training when I started with a coach, because really I was completely ignorant – I was generation X and we didn’t even know about strength training, we only knew about trying to be thin.

I just decided that I was going to be the person, this time, that never gave up, this resolution would stick – I would not cancel, I would show up and I would be 100% consistent. And I was, and I did. So now, I train 5-6 times week, probably for about 10+ hours in total. I have been really fit and sometimes really lean as well in the last few years, but my bae is strength training. Despite the inauspicious start in my non-sporting life it has been a revelation to find that I am actually deadly serious about the gym. My old self would not believe that I look forward to training and doing the hardest thing possible. Where before I was all about the easy life I find that doing the most difficult, the most scary thing is actually the best, most enjoyable and at the same time, fun thing.

So I have competed, lifting the heaviest things possible in front of people, and in my training practice I have done that thing daily, over and over that has built a completely new body, and also a renewed sense of self. I like the me that lifts heavy stuff. Anyone can do it if they work hard enough but the ongoing challenge of trying to execute the best reps will never go…. and I do feel, well, badass.

It’s a never-ending process (sorry to my friends and family that sometimes have to hear about it) in the same way that the stereotypical 1970s middle-aged man (my Grandad in fact) would spend his life trying to perfect his golf swing or reduce his golf handicap. Only I have big muscles to show for it.  I feel attractive now some of the time. I feel alive. My body looks full, capable, strong in a way that belies my numerical age. I have changed my taste in clothes and my expectations of who I am and what I can do. I am at the stage of life where there is a lot of duty involved and I sometimes feel nostalgic for days of ‘freedom’… but then again I didn’t always use those hours very well. So now I make sure that I embrace every moment I get to do what I love and laugh about the time when I thought I was going to be a horse-rider, a craftsperson, a marathon swimmer in moments of short-lasting enthusiasm. Lifting weights is just the thing that stuck and in this blog I am going to explore a bit more of reasons why this might be….