Keeping fit, eating well and having a healthy lifestyle has always been “my thing”. From childhood, in my native Kazakhstan, where I was encouraged from an early age to push myself and be active, to moving to the UK in 2003 I have always been interested in physical activities especially those that took me outside my comfort zone. Over the last few years I’ve tried various activities and disciplines, enjoyed most, but I was always looking for something that would really challenge me. A chance encounter with a barbell at a fitness class in January 2017, was an eureka moment for me and my passion for power lifting was born. A year on and I have qualified to represent Great Britain in the World Championship held in Manchester in August this year! And at the European championship in France in June of this year!
The journey to this point has been both challenging and demanding in equal measure. It started in March 2017, training at the local powerlifting gym (Top Bodies) with a personal trainer. The aim “How strong I can I get?” At only 4’9”, weighing 50kg, coupled with the fact that I have a husband and two young daughters to take care of, I’m perhaps not the stereotypical image of what a “strong woman” looks like. However, that has made me all the more determined to prove that with hard work and determination I could succeed. The hard work means training at least five times a week, juggling the demands of part-time employment, family life, and at times missing out on time with my children. The determination requires financial sacrifice as I have to self-fund all my training, competition fees, travel costs etc as powerlifting is currently unfunded, but it is a sacrifice that I’ll be willing to make to achieve my ambition. So far I have competed in Folkestone as part of South Coast qualifier for the Nationals, which took me to Birmingham (NEC) for National Championship at Bodypower Expo where I broke Deadlift ABPU British Record. 137.5kg versus 50.9bodyweight!