I hated sports at school and now I'm a competitive powerlifter - here's how I train
A long read about my approach to training, nutrition and balancing life
From doing rolypolys on a climbing frame in 1986 to lifting 130kg off the ground in 2021
If you are a free subscriber and you’ve enjoyed my work for a while, or you’re new and you like what you see here, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
Aside from my eternal gratitude, you’re directly supporting my ability to work creatively and pay the bills. For years I’ve put out free content, and many journalism outlets have not increased their rates since I started out 20 years ago.
I’m going to start what feels like the world’s longest Substack with some short, sharp facts. I’m 42 years old, and currently, I am the strongest and fittest I have ever been. I can lift twice my own bodyweight, and a recent health assessment showed my risk of heart attack or diabetes is extremely low. I also have strong bones. While this may sound like a brag, context is everything.
I’m someone who has overcome congenital heart disease in my early 30s (a one-inch, undetected hole in the heart), and long covid for 11 months in 2020. I also come from the South Asian community which runs a 40% higher risk of heart disease and diabetes, and my mother like many women of her generation, has osteoporosis. My achievements and results are not because I’m special, genetically gifted or overly restrictive. I just decided to change my narrative, which previously, was that I was bad at sports, that women shouldn’t lift weights, that getting older meant getting weaker.
I don’t think a person should have to go through illness or trauma in order to take care of and appreciate what their body does for them on a daily basis. (‘Take care of’ can be such a loaded term – for me, that means eating and sleeping enough, being kind when you talk about yourself, movement of any kind, having compassion for this living, breathing home of yours, an entire universe keeping you alive.)
As someone who went from having zero inclination for sports to being an amateur competitive powerlifter (with a sprinkling of other sports in between), I get asked a lot about how I train. An enormous disclaimer that I’m not saying this is what you should do, and many of us may be working around illness, disability, low incomes and 100 other challenges in life. I would take what’s useful and leave the rest. I don’t even think this article is really about powerlifting. It’s about habits, decision-making and overcoming old ways of thinking.
I am very average as a lifter – but what may be interesting to some is how I went from someone who did no strength training to loving it. I was never a sporty person at secondary school, in fact I hated it. I was one of the shortest and smallest in class, and among the last to be picked for sports. (I think the only reason I wasn’t definitively the last is because the other girl had a tendency to not know when to stop running in rounders and would whack straight into the wall).
I only started learning to lift weights in my mid-thirties, and started competing when I was 38. I did no exercise of any kind during university apart from lifting pints of beer to my mouth, and somewhere in my 20s, I remember joining a gym to ‘keep in shape’. Shorthand for weight loss or weight maintenance.
It was all cardio – barring the odd occasion when I would pick up a small set of dumbbells. But only as long as those dumbbells were located in the main gym – stepping into the free weights section felt awkward and exposing. And now? Now that free weights section is my home; the barbell and the iron anchors me.
Here goes…
Overall training and exercise
I believe everyone should do strength training of some kind, because of the overwhelming health benefits as you get older. Strong bones, cardiovascular health, and mental benefits. I do powerlifting, which is a strength sport, as is Strongman, CrossFit and bodybuilding. We lift the heaviest weights we can manage on competition day while wearing a deeply unflattering Babygro.
Normally I compete about once or twice a year – I don’t care about medals – it’s more about getting my heaviest lifts to a competition standard. This year I’ve had a year off competing because I wanted to try other sports. I still lift every week, but I also wanted to get my cardio levels back up as they had dropped a bit, and have fun trying different things. (Normalise changing your goals and adapting it to where you want your life to be, versus squeezing it into the shape of societal expectations).
I may or may not have been pleased at getting this lift at my first comp post long covid… (credit: Shots Like Sumo)
In addition to lifting, I took up spin which was enormously fun and with a body positive instructor, and I decided to try Brazilian jiu jitsu. The latter was because it seemed great for cardio, but I also wanted to push myself out of my comfort zone because I had never done close contact martial arts. I have friends who do the sport who helped me get into it, but it was the most intimidating thing to get going. Now that I’ve started, it is incredibly fun, if challenging.
Of course, there are only so many hours in the day, so I can’t juggle all of these activities at the same time. I’ll explain below how I work out what I am doing, and when.
What an average training week looks like for me
A big caveat is that I don’t have children. I do have a busy career that includes book deadlines, pitch proposals for projects, journalism and public speaking, but I am able to be flexible as to when I train, which will be different to someone with kids. That being said, I know people who are parents who train and work in between, and consider it to be a fundamental part of their mental wellbeing. I also compete alongside parents and grandparents so by no means is it prohibitive.
In an average week, I will train weights four times a week, do jiu jitsu at least once a week, and I try and get between 8,000 to 10,000 steps done a day. An alternative week might see me swap out jiu jitsu entirely for spin, if for some reason I’m injured or if I don’t have the mental capacity for both martial arts and weightlifting.
The important thing with training is to have a pitch point between stretching yourself in some weeks, and knowing when you need to take your foot off the gas in others. If you stay consistent over a year, a few days or even a few weeks off won’t make much of a difference in the long term.
Powerlifting is my dominant sport, so it is prioritised above jiu jitsu. Even when I am not competing, I have to still train consistently, and progressively. If you aren’t familiar with the term ‘progressive overload’ it is where every week, you increase what you are doing – either in terms of the weight or the volume. It is not only how you build muscle, but it keeps you motivated. Some weeks are much lighter in weights than others - we don’t train heavy all the time - and it’s a slow sport.
If I don’t train this week, it will impact how much I can lift next week, and that acts as a positive motivator. It doesn’t feel like punishment, or how it used to be in the bad old days when I’d go on the treadmill to ‘work off’ what I ate. The goals are primarily performance-based, and anything weight loss related sits separately to that.
There is a squat day, deadlift day and two bench days. As my coach Jack Toczydlowski says ‘we don’t train body parts’ so we don’t have things like leg day, chest and arms day. All of those main lifts are compound moves, and usually they are done first, followed by four or five accessory exercises.
Like a lot of people, I will top load my week, so I train on Mondays and Tuesdays. I will always do at least one day on the weekend, and the other day I will fit in around my social engagements. On average, I have at least two social engagements a week, a busy week would be four including work events.
Normalise changing your goals and adapting it to where you want your life to be, versus squeezing it into the shape of societal expectations
My work week can be unpredictable, but I follow some basic habits around making sure I get it done:
If I have a heavy or significant weights session I don’t drink alcohol the night before or have a late night. Thankfully most of my friends are in mid-life and everyone wants to be in bed by 10pm.
I prioritise my training alongside my work, so even if I am very busy (last week I had a book edit deadline and two live events I was hosting) I will prioritise training over socialising.
That doesn’t mean I’m a hermit, more that if I don’t prioritise it, it doesn’t get done.
If I have to travel for work for more than a day or two, I train remotely. I will Google the nearest gym and do a day pass.
If my workload is very busy, I tend to wake up very early to get my work done (I am simply not wired to train in the mornings – it makes me too tired to work) and train in the afternoon or evening.
On top of lifting, I will attempt to do jiu jitsu once or twice a week – currently I’m still seeing how I like the sport and whether it is realistic to do two sports at once. One of these days will be rolled into my lifting days, so that I have a full two days to recover. It may change if I am on my period. I don’t pre-emptively avoid training because my mind doesn’t always know best during this time, it just thinks it does. But I see how I feel on the day. If it is a heavy flow especially on a day two, then I give myself the grace to come back the next day.
Rest is important throughout – some people push far too hard, and their bodies suffer as a result.
An average week would look like:
Monday – squat day
Tuesday – bench day one
Wednesday - rest
Thursday – deadlift day
Friday – jiu jitsu
Saturday – rest
Sunday – jiu jitsu (maybe) and bench day two
I love walking, but sometimes steps can be hard to work into a day so I spread them out. I always go for a short, 15-minute walk first thing in the morning to clear my head, and it helps my productivity. I then have mini walks during the day. What I’ve learned though is that if you don’t try and chip away at it in the morning, it becomes this onerous burden.
Other cardio: weights is great for cardiovascular health, but for cardiovascular fitness, I need cardio. I hate HIIT and anything that causes me to gasp, so if I wasn’t doing jiu jitsu or spin, I would do an elevated walk (roughly on gradient 12) for 30 minutes, three times a week and not hold onto the handles).
If you are a free subscriber and are enjoying this so far, consider becoming a paid subscriber. Not only would you have my UNDYING loyalty, it means I can continue to produce more work for you. I promise I won’t spend the money on more powerlifting kit.
Sleep
On average, I sleep around seven to eight hours a night. This may not be feasible for everyone, especially people with young children, but I think it is worth assessing your sleep hygiene particularly if you don’t sleep well, and you’re not diagnosed with insomnia or there is no discernible outside factor. The people I know who have bad sleep also have bad sleep habits.
They watch TV way too close to their bedtime, and they are on devices. I don’t watch TV after 9pm, and I have a slow wind-down. Although I am guilt of scrolling on my phone in bed, I stop using it about an hour before I know I want to be asleep. I don’t chat on the phone or Whatsapp after 9pm. When I’m stressed, I tend to journal a lot, and I always read before bed to calm my brain down.
Supplements/caffeine
Pre-workout makes me too wired so I stick to black coffee and Diet Coke before a training session. In terms of hydration, I drink roughly two and a half litres of water a day. I take a strong probiotic (60 billion live) which unexpectedly had a massive impact on my immune system and dramatically reduced the number of colds I get in a year - as a result my training doesn’t get interrupted so much. I take creatine, zinc, collagen and Vitamin C. I also work on prevention – if a friend has a cold or isn’t well, I will cancel meeting them. It may sound prissy, but it’s just not worth getting sick. Especially as I’m also a freelancer.
Holidays
I train while on holidays. Not obsessively, and there are times when it just isn’t possible. But I try and keep my routine as consistent as possible, and I Google local gyms. I don’t like losing progress, but most important for me, is that training is good for my mind. I really start to feel it mentally if I’m not doing something physical or in the outdoors. I’ve also learned that if you like what you do, you will do it consistently. If you don’t, you won’t.
Nutrition
I’m not really going to go into great detail with nutrition because this is such a personal thing, and there are things I do at certain points of the training cycle – eg tracking macros, or sometimes bulking and cutting weight to put on muscle mass that will not be appropriate for others.
What I will say is most people I know do not eat enough protein, and if there is one thing that will help in so many different areas of life, it is – you guessed it, protein. It helps repair your cells, recovery from illness and training, and improves bone health. My skin, hair and nails have all improved since increasing my protein intake. I struggle to get it just from food and frankly poached chicken breast gets old FAST, so I have a protein shake daily.
Make sure you research where you get your protein from because the internet is awash with misinformation. I’ve seen so many cooking videos tagged as ‘high protein’ when they aren’t, and supermarkets stock products that have similar misleading labels. Make sure the dominant macro-nutrient is protein. I once saw a ricotta gnocchi video on TikTok being sold as ‘high protein!’ and I wish that were the case but it isn’t. Eat cheese because it’s delicious, but don’t eat it because some rando is telling you it’s a high-protein to get extra clicks.
I eat a fairly balanced diet of carbs, fats and protein. I don’t restrict. There are no banned foods, and I don’t ever use words like good or bad to describe food. As a consequence, my eating levels feel pretty stable year-round.
If I want to drop some weight, I make some gentle adjustments to what I eat, and I may track for a week to see what my intake is. But generally I don’t track, and I’m mostly in maintenance.
I will always eat before a training session – if I haven’t timed my meals correctly, I’ll have a bowl of porridge, or yogurt and granola an hour before training. If I don’t eat enough, I can’t lift weights, and that makes me sad and crumple-faced. It also teaches you a lesson that food actually has a job – to give you energy to do stuff. It’s not rocket science.
We are all capable of changing the narrative we have about ourselves – especially one that has been thrust upon you.
Finally, a word on goals.
I don’t judge anyone who has weight loss goals, but I believe for a long term relationship with your body that is healthy and sustainable, there are more important goals such as performance, and building the body for your old age which will allow you to do the things you love doing for the longest time possible.
Maybe you’ve always wanted visible abs and that can be a goal for a period of time – but visible abs are not a sign of anything other than low body fat. People who are extremely ill might have visible abs. What you want in the long term is to think about what you are doing and why, what you enjoy doing, and what will give you the most consistency.
In terms of performance goals, when I am competing, I set aside two months of that year to go into what we call ‘peaking’ which is where you prime the body for competition day to lift your heaviest weights. It has a huge toll mentally and physically. Outside of that, I train in 10-week blocks, which include rest or deload weeks, and I’m programmed by my coach who I see twice a month, who works with me on technique and my goals. I wouldn’t have been as ambitious with my goals without him, and I wouldn’t have learned as much.
While money is always a concern, I think if you are trying anything new, it is ideal to get someone to teach you even just the basics, whether that’s in a class, sharing PT sessions or a 1-2-1.
As for coming back after illness, a break or having a baby, I strongly advise sitting down and setting out those goals based on where you are physically at right now, versus what you used to do before. Keep them small, but keep them consistent and progressively build week on week. Where appropriate connect with health professionals, experts in recovery, post-partum PTs, or even a community of people who are going through what you are. It requires patience, but as someone who has lost their strength three times and regained it, it isn’t impossible.
And finally…
Although there is a lot more I could say, this piece is already incredibly long and life is short. If you have any questions, pop them in the comments box and I’ll try to answer them or do a part two. The last thing to leave you with, is that we are all capable of changing the narrative we have about ourselves – especially one that has been thrust upon you.
A lot of the themes I address in this piece feature in my book Stronger which won a Sunday Times Sports Book Award in 2022.
Lastly, for anyone still sitting on the fence about upgrading to a paid subscription, if you found this useful, please do consider it - it helps enormously to fund my work. I look forward to being able to interact with you and I promise not to regale you with more weightlifting stories. Unless you ask me to.
Great read as always.
I wish I listened to Ameesha and started lifting when she first recommended. I love it, the nicest community I ever been part of even at competitions.
Today is bench day 🫠 I don’t know how you manage two of those a week, I would rather do an other HIT class, even if it’s the same as yesterday 😂
Hey Poorna, great piece – thank you. What protein shake do you have? I'm struggling to get enough protein in my diet but the choice out there is baffling.