23 July 2009

You're doing...what???

That's what some of you might say to me when you hear that I'll be taking part in a weight lifting competition. You might look at my profile and picture and come to the conclusion that I'm either stark raving mad or not to be taken seriously.
Neither is the case (I hope).
For about 6 months or so I've been going to the local gym again using the treadmill and various weight lifting machines. I nornally go 2 or 3 times a week, but once a week, a personal trainer (more about him later) puts me through my paces with an intense workout. This has increased my fitness levels tremendously and I've slowly started losing some weight which is a big issue with hypothyroid people. (People who suffer from an underactive thyroid gland often put on weight as their metabolism slows down and subsequently find it very hard to lose any weight, even if on thyroid medication.)
Last week, during one of my gym sessions with my trainer, he commented on me being quite strong and asked me if I wouldn't consider taking part in the upcoming weight lifting competition in the gym which will be for men and women for the first time. I thought he was joking. But he told me that to the best of his knowledge there wouldn't be many women lifting the same weight as myself. He was under the impression that women would be allowed to use the chest press while men would use the bench press. That would have been fine by me as I've often used it in my training sessions.
Plant an idea into my competitive brain and off I go! So I made a few enquiries and found out that there is no favouritism for the girls - it's the bench press or nothing (although women obviously don't compete against the men but against the other women participants.)
That would've been it for many, but not for me (blushing). So I asked my trainer if he would consider training me for the competition using the bench press. - He agreed.
After giving it a lot of thought, I started training last week for the competition which will take part on 6th August in the local gym. I have no idea how many other women will be competing, but I'm not really worried about that. It's the taking part and doing something I've never done before that counts for me. Not being a young woman anymore helps as I'm confident enough within myself to accept this challenge and I'm not too worried about how "good" I look in the competition. In saying that, of course I will compete to the best of my ability and I will try and win just like anybody else. The will to win has nothing to do with age.
So I hope you will all wish me good luck in my endeavour on 6th August.
Watch this space for a profile on my personal trainer as well as my honest report about the competition.

ChampionUSA.com

1 comment:

Dazediva said...

That's awesome ! Wishing you all the best on the weight training competition !

Just go for it :)

And can't wait to hear about this personal trainer of yours hehehe