blog
Welcome to my blog. Thanks for being here.
I like to write a lot. Mostly about powerlifting, strength training, body image + women in sport. They’re kinda my things.
If you ever have questions or want to learn more, please reach out. I would love to hear from you.
Billie x
Why I Compete in Powerlifting.
This year will be my eighth year competing in powerlifting. Eight years of this niche sport. I’m not elite, I don’t get paid, I compete entirely recreationally. And still, I see so much value in pouring a stack of my time, effort and energy in to participating. I derive a huge amount of enjoyment and fulfilment from powerlifting, which has only increased over my years of involvement.
So here are four reasons why I still compete in powerlifting after all these years (and admittedly after numerous claims of retirement).
What it’s taken to spend a year abroad.
We started assembling the pieces of the “year in Spain” puzzle in January of this year. Setting our lives up to permit us to step away for a year has been so hard.
I wanted to write this primarily for my own reflections. I’ve stared down unreasonably long to-do lists every day for the last eleven months. It’s easy to never look back and see that you’ve actually completed each item on them, so I did want to do that for myself. Secondly though, I love hearing insights from other business owners, the behind the scenes stuff that is rarely shared. I suspect that someone will enjoy or get something out of this, so why not make it public.
So here goes, what we’ve done in 2022 to permit us to spend 2023 in España.
Persevering in Powerlifting & Navigating Low Motivation
I’ll be the first person to tell you that my love for lifting has been tested at times; that showing up has gotten hard, many times over. But even so, I have consistently resistance trained for over ten years now. A few breaks for travel, but otherwise 3-4 days per week for the last ten years.
I’ve not always trained extremely hard, I’ve not always trained for a heap of hours at a time, and lifting has not always been overly salient in my life, but I’ve always showed up. And because of that fact I have continued to improve — improve my skill, improve my strength and improve my toughness in persevering through those harder periods.
There are a few tools, strategies and trains of thought that I’ve adopted over the years to stop me from losing my mind when I feel like I’m falling out of love with lifting. Right now I’m feeling pretty disenchanted with training. That’s been the case for a few months now. But never do I catastrophise and think that my powerlifting career is coming to an end; and never do I throw in the towel and stop training altogether. Here is what helps me with that.
Intangible gains - reflections from and about my more resilient brain.
I am an anxious person. Dreading things I enjoy because I expect the worst case scenario to play out is a special skill of mine. Getting in my own head to derail my performance on important days, also something I’m really good at.
I’ve gotten a heap better at this though which I am extremely proud of. I’ve never been more excited for a comp as I was for this one, and every time I compete I have more fun than the time before. That has not been by accident. I’ve worked really hard on this.
So, here’s some lessons that I’ve learned to manage my brain that I think are really valuable.
It took me five years to add 2.5kg to my total. Here’s what I learned.
In 2015, I put up a 347.5kg total. It was my first year of powerlifting and my second competition. Five years later in 2020, I finally registered a new PB total of 350kg. There were significant ups and downs across that five year period: great training blocks, horrendous ones, weight gain and loss, success in some lifts, major regression in others, injury and recovery, breaks from competition and breaks from structured powerlifting training altogether.
I am in hindsight appreciative of this experience: I’ve matured considerably as a lifter and just in general; powerlifting has taken up a really nice spot in my life among numerous other activities and pursuits that are meaningful to me; I’m a more compassionate coach and training partner. I’ve learned a number of lessons that I believe are immensely valuable for anyone experiencing their own seemingly endless training plateau.
So, on top of that whopping 2.5kg that I slapped on my total, here are some valuable insights I gained over this recent five year period.
Your Fear Of Weight Gain Is Holding You Back
You want bigger glutes, you want more muscle tone, you want a bigger squat and you want to look like the fit girls and guys on the gram? There’s definitely a few factors feeding into why you haven’t yet achieved these things and one of those factors is very likely your intense aversion to weight gain.
Post-Competition Reflection
Despite that fact that I compete in powerlifting very recreationally, I do take my preparation and performance quite (very) seriously. I really love powerlifting as an avenue of self improvement. While the objective goal is more weight on the bar, to me the more meaningful goal is becoming a better person in the pursuit of that — and that comes from self reflection and holding myself to a consistently high standard.
After each comp, I send my coach a debrief on everything I thought I did well, could do better, what went well, ideas I have, things I want to do for fun, etc. It’s positive for me personally in getting some closure on the day and identifying areas and means for improvement, but it also gives coachy guidance too. He knows where I want to go, what I’m willing and not willing to do to get there and demonstrates that I want to collaborate with him.
In this article I share here how I personally reflect on my competition preparation and performance in the hope that it may prompt some thought in you on how to get more out of your training and competition experiences.
Quit Majoring in the Minors. What Actually Matters for Strength Development?
If there is one thing that gym-goers do really well, it’s major in the minors. You know, have a $500 supplement stack but squat high. Have carbs and protein within 15 minutes of every training session but eat nothing more than a tall latte and a sushi roll outside of that. Wear blue light glasses before bed every night because #recovery but also take a week off training every month for the same reason.
So much time, money and effort is wasted on misguided training and nutrition interventions.
Personal Powerlifting Equipment
Buying equipment/apparel for a new hobby can be a little daunting. Like, you don’t want to be that guy with all the gear and no idea. But also, should you have it? Would you be safer? Would you lift better? Would lifting be more enjoyable for you? More comfortable? Would you be stronger? Would you train better? Is your coach going to think you’re a moron for asking? (lol, no.)
I’ve put this article together as a little crash course in individual equipment you might like to use in powerlifting training. I talk about heeled shoes, belts, knee sleeves, wrist wraps, competition suits etc, covering what they do, why you might wear them and how you know if you’re ready for them.
Trade Offs: You Can't Have Your Cake and Eat It Too
For every decision we make, there is an alternate decision we could have made but didn’t. When I choose to read at night, I am choosing not to watch Sex and the City. When I choose to train for 90 minutes in the arvo, I am choosing not to go to the beach. When I choose to compete in an ambitious weight class, I am choosing to forgo dessert for a few months in the lead up.
Similarly, when you make the decision to lose fat, get stronger or pursue any other health/fitness goal (or any goal!) there are trade offs that you will be required to make in order to be successful.
The problem that many people run in to, is that they are either unaware of the trade offs required of them, or they are not willing to make them, resulting in immense frustration when they think they are doing enough, but still aren’t seeing the desired amount of progress.
The solution? Read on.
Willpower & How To Get More Of It
Willpower is poorly understood. The term is thrown around a lot, typically when we talk about what is holding us back from achieving some goal. “I just need more willpower” is repeated like a battle cry. But how many of us actually know how to get more? Without some plan for how to increase your willpower, your cries for more are null, void, and sub in as an accidental excuse for addressing what is actually holding you back.
So what is willpower, actually?
Moral Licensing - Why Telling Yourself You've Been Good Is F*cking You Up
Anything you moralise is fair game for moral licensing. So when you refer to your diet as good or praise yourself for being good because you’ve consistently hit the gym, you are fair game for moral licensing. If your diet has been good, you’re entitled to a little bad. And if you’ve been good with the gym, baby girl, you deserve a day off. But isn’t this just balance you say? Hear me out.
"Physically Attractive People Have It All" And Other BS We Tell Ourselves
“My worth as a person depends on how I look,” “physically attractive people have it all,” “if people knew how I really look, they probably wouldn’t like me so much,” “my life would be happier if I looked a certain way,” “I don’t need to change my body image; I need to change my body.”
Chances are, you’ve had some of these thoughts before. These are common assumptions we make about our appearance in order to protect ourselves. The problem is that these assumptions that we make to protect ourselves end up having the exact opposite effect — they are self deprecating and promote self rejection.
Overhauling long-standing appearance assumptions is a big job. It’s one thing to question them lightly; it’s another thing to challenge your deepest held beliefs and wrestle with the discomfort for as long as it takes to take the f*cker down.
How to Warm Up for Barbell Training
There aren’t really any hard rules when it comes to warming up for barbell training, which is why it can be hard to understand at times. There are however considerations and guiding principles which can help you to make better decisions when it comes to warming up and improving your preparedness for the session ahead.
How to Improve Your Body Image - Tried and Tested Methods
The people who are most resilient to threats and challenges to their body image are not so because they are beautiful or thin. Instead, they are protected by being not relying on their physical appearance for their identity or self worth and keep their looks in perspective by investing in other things for self-fulfilment such as family, friends, achievements, work and leisure interests. This sounds all well and good, like “yeah I’d love to feel that way, but I don’t”. So, how do you achieve a positive body image?
So You're Thinking of Entering a Powerlifting Competition?
I never set out to coach powerlifting. I just love training with a barbell and I share that with my team. But naturally, training in a powerlifting gym, watching powerlifting competitions and generally being surrounded by the sport, you start to get curious. And now, a number of my team are getting ready for the competition debuts.
They have a lot of questions though. A powerlifting competition is not the same as maxing out in the gym. Powerlifting is a sport and has rules that govern it. What are the rules? What do I need to wear? How much does it cost? What does the belt do? What’s with the suit?
This is not a comprehensive guide, nor is it designed to replace the role of your coach in educating you on how to prepare and what to expect. Rather, my hope is that this article will give you a little more insight in to how competitions run, and some things to consider in preparation.
Diet Tips
We can yell “calorie deficit” at the people til the cows come home, but along with the psychological component (which is way deeper than is given credit), weight manipulation is a skill. There are however, plenty of tips and tricks we can employ to make losing fat or building muscle easier for ourselves.
Metabolic Adaptation is F*cking with my Fat Loss - Now What?
In my last article, I spoke about the myth of “survival mode” and what is actually going on when you’re eating very little, but still not losing weight. But, the battle is not lost and there are certainly strategies we can employ to mitigate these effects and keep us moving towards our body composition goals.
Survival Mode Isn't a Thing
… but your body does change when you lose weight.
Way back when our ancestors had to hunt for their meals, food availability was unpredictable. Some times they caught dinner; some times they did not. Therefore, storing body fat was favourable, as it provided an energy source in times of famine, when dinner wasn’t being served up.
We don’t really need this in a first world food environment. We can access food pretty effortlessly [unless Karen has been panic buying] from the supermarket / our pantries whenever we damn well want — but try telling that to evolution.
So now, the human body has adapted mechanisms to prompt the storage of body fat, you know, just in case. These adaptations can throw a spanner in the works of our weight loss efforts, so it’s worth understanding what they are, how they happen and most importantly, what we can do about it.
How Weight Loss Works
Many people that want to lose weight, don’t understand how. Many who have successfully lost weight, don’t understand how they did it. There are many methods by which to lose weight, any number of them can work, but the problem, and the ring a round, and the yo-yoing stems largely from a lack of understanding of the principles that govern weight loss.