How I Got Into Training

Hi, my name is Jo. I love sunrise swims and the ocean, being in nature and my cat, Ollie. My strength training journey began when I was 18 and I started working in the fitness industry two years ago and haven't looked back since. I wanted to use my first post to introduce myself and give a bit of my background on how I got into strength training and how it took me to a darker place initially.

When I was 17 I got into pole dancing for strength and because I loved to dance (lots of fun). This activity requires a massive amount of upper body strength and skill. I wanted to work on my strength by going into the weights room in the gym. Naturally, I was nervous as I didn’t know what I was doing. Ideally, I should have gotten a PT but I asked a friend to show me the way and from there my strength journey started. As I got into it more, I found myself caring more and more about what I looked like and started getting a bit obsessive. I would be really proud of myself for saying no to a cupcake, looking back I can see this was incredibly unhealthy.

I moved from Edinburgh to Sydney (accidentally) in 2013. I had become obsessive about not missing any training sessions and what I ate. Going to Australia allowed me to break away from this and realise it's okay to enjoy food and not train 6+ times a week. Travel breaks you from your routine and I didn’t always have access to a gym or choose the meals I ate. I think I am very fortunate to be able to break out of this mindset. I think it’s common for women to fall into this too and I really want others to break away from this and think about training as so much more than just how we look.

I am really passionate about helping women realise how empowering it is to strength train and to train hard to see what our bodies can do. I love helping women realise their potential and I know that most are so much more capable than they believe. Strength training is about so much more than how you look and I help show women that being strong and not being worried about being 'bulky' is awesome. It also important to realise that food nourishes us and helps with our training and we need a life of balance to be happy.

Now I aim to spread the word that our focus shouldn’t be what we look like, instead we should concentrate on achieving amazing things and the great side effect of training consistently is changes in our body.