Category: Unseen Disability

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Learning Olympic Lifting – A Diary

A year or so ago I decided to start learning Olympic lifting (if you do a search you will find a post somewhere about it) then a tweaky elbow and a slew of family ups and downs meant that I just did not have the time, capacity or finances to learn a new thing. Obviously I continued exercising but the free weights and HIIT style workouts I was use to.

Late this spring I decided I wanted to try again. Due to time and caring commitments realistically it made sense to find an online coach. I looked at a HUGE number of websites until I found this one https://www.trainingweightlifting.com/ the content was informative, educated and well written, I really felt like this was someone I wanted to work with. I was right, the coach in question is Lionel Isaac a coach who has a lifetime of experience training, coaching and competing. Not to mention many an academic qualification (we all know how much of a nerd I am!).

After a brief online chat Leo agreed to take me on as client, I have to be honest I feel genuinely grateful that he did. I don’t think I have ever learned as much from a trainer or a PT. What I particularly like about Leo’s method is it is very technical and incredibly precise, there is no single aspect that is left out of any of the lifts and honestly I love it!

Right now I have had 33 coaching sessions with Leo, between 90 mins and 2 hours each and all have been highlights in my day. Without stating the obvious there are a few obstacles in my way when it comes to learning a new physical skill, firstly I’m 52 and in surgical menopause then of course there is the hypermobile ehlers danlos, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and femoral anteversion.

As far as the being a touch on the older side the way I see it is that means there is all the more reason to learn a new skill. I firmly believe that it’s not just that we stop learning or experiencing the new because we get old but that we also get old because we fail to push our boundaries. We become complacent within our comfort zones, settle into routines and gradually find our capacity for the new becomes diminished. Plus all resistance training reduces the risk of both osteopenia and sarcopenia.

With regard to the slew of this and that my body has going on, I understand that various diagnoses mean I am classed as disabled, but I have always refused to see the various hurdles I have as reasons to not try anything. If anything the fact I am so naturally rubbish at athletics makes me more stubbornly determined to prove I can, what I lack in natural ability I have always made up in consistency and determination.

Then there is the fact that for me getting strong was life changing, I went from having chronic fatigue due to my lack of natural physical structure to having a close to normal level of energy. Joints sublax and dislocate less and my POTs symptoms are negligible as long as continue exercising. In other words some form of resistance work is essential to my day to day health so why not Oly style lifting.

With the ability to have 3 sessions a week with such an amazing coach I know over a year or so I will begin to feel stable and confident in the lifts. The biggest issue I have is that from what I understand in order to fully enjoy the sport at some point I really should enter a contest. It is after all a sport and sports tend to involve doing something outside the house with other actual people. The thought of that fills me with utter terror. I was horrendously bullied as a kid, my femoral anteversion was a large target for the bullying but so was my utter incompetence at sports. Sadly the more unsure I became of my body the less I ran, played or tried sports which meant that I continued to incredibly weak, slow and generally physically unstable. It became a chicken and egg situation where the more I was mocked the less I did, the less I did the less likely it was that I would develop any athletic skill and the weaker and slower I remained.

Sports days were a nightmare for me, being forced into races that I knew I would come dead last at every single time still leaves me with a feeling a dread that actually makes me feel sick. It was an exercise in public humiliation each year. If my parents had allowed me stay off sick I would have in a heartbeat. At the end of of a race when coming dead last…again what was worse than sniggers was the pity clap. Oh god, the pity clap makes me actually want to curl up into a ball. Usually it was part sarcasm, part “oh bless, poor thing can’t do better” the implication being not only bad at sports but just a bit useless generally. If you are someone reading this with any form of visible physical disability you likely have also had the experience of people presuming it extends to your mental acuity. That was very much a part of my experience with any kind of public physical endeavor, dread, followed by failure accompanied by pity and being treated as though I was mentally disabled.

You can imagine then that the idea of doing anything in public in particualr a contest does not fill me with much joy. In fact sitting here typing even thinking about it brings a welling of that nauseous terror to the pit of my stomach.

Still at some point I want to do it, for me, for my daughter who has as many health issues as I do plus some worse ones her genetics through in for good measure and because I can do better. Because I always was more capable than I showed and if one person had taken me in hand, helped me develop some running ability helped me build some structure I may never have developed chronic fatigue. I can’t say I wouldn’t have been bullied because once it starts it very often never ends but maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad that as a teen I would go to bed praying fervently and in all sincerity that I just…would…not…wake….up again. Finally I want to do it for each and every person who experienced growing up not trusting their own body or is capability to do anything athletic, When the truth is they likely absolutely can, those of us not naturally gifted may never set world records but we can learn new skills, improve our health and longevity and have huge fun while doing so.

I don’t know where I am going with the Olympic lifting but I have always firmly believed that a new skill learned is of value in itself. Mostly I am enjoying the process.

For the moment I am going to plod along with 3 coaching sessions a week and give myself time to grow in ability and confidence, there is no rush to get anywhere or achieve anything. Right now it’s about taking time and enjoying the process.

If you are interested in learning Olympic Lifting I thoroughly recommend Leo both his coaching and books and resources.

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When the magic fix no longer feels magic

When someone is feeling less than wonderful it’s common to try something and after a while it’s amazing. They start to feel better. Feel better to the point where yoga, Pilates, weight training whatever it happens to be becomes a passion. They want to tell everyone how fricking amazing Pilates is, how they felt awful beforehand, but now they feel pretty good.

Photo by Prasanth Inturi

But then it stops working, but that’s ok they try something new. Maybe going plant based or paleo and that becomes the new magic pathway. Then that stops working and so on.

So what gives? Possibly a few things. Firstly there is a very reductionist and polarising attitude towards life at the moment and it’s prevalent in the health and fitness space particularly. People are in particular camps, they are yogis, or weight lifters or runners. You can see fitness folk arguing in the comment sections of social media about which is better and why. Each of the adherents arguing their case as to why they are right, why weight lifting is better for far loss, or runners have the best VO2 max and that’s more important. How yoga reduces cortisol which does xyz.

Photo by Anna Shvets

Reality is we need a bit of all of them. We need some cardio for heart and lungs, strength training to prevent sarcopenia and frailty in later years and yes mobility too. Because what’s the point of the first two if you can’t get off the floor due to zero mobility?

So that’s a possibility, you had a piece of the movement puzzle but not the whole thing which meant that for example if someone was dealing with POTs they made progress through running but needed strength work also to improve blood flow.

Perhaps someone started a program but haven’t progressed. In other words still doing the same exercises again and again without any progressive overload. Without making them harder. When that happens the body responds to the stimulus but then gets to that stimulus, unless it’s  made more challenging in order to again introduce stimulus detraining can even occur.

Or maybe once someone has an exercise routine sorted their body starts to change and needs better nutrition, more sleep. Other pieces of the puzzle.

Photo by Monica Silvestre

If this has happened to you think of the following

What is the quality of your sleep like?

How much daylight do you get each day?

How many steps do you take a day?

How much blue light are you exposed to?

Do you have time away from blue light before sleep?

How much of your diet is real food? Doesn’t matter what your preference is but looks at how much is something that would have existed before processed food.

Do you have time to relax? Are you genuinely de-stressing?

Are you too comfortable all the time? Do you ever deliberately get out of breath, too hot, too cold or hungry?

Weirdly the body responds to adversity the rule of hormesis. In other words the biological phenomenon where a low exposure to a potentially harmful agent, like a toxin or stressor, can have beneficial effects on an organism. At a low dose of course.

Photo by Pao Dayag

Obviously I’m not saying try and do all these things at once, a total life overhaul is unsustainable BUT if you found an exercise routine that is working or a dietary pattern that helps you but you feel you are no longer getting results. Don’t stop what was working and do something entirely different, maybe tweak it. Make the exercise tougher or add in cardio/strength and then look at sleep or steps. Then after a few months add something else.

The reality is for optimal health we eventually need to look at all of it. Rather than expecting a magic bullet we need to accept that the human animal needs to eat well, move regularly, get daylight and sleep effectively. Any single piece of the puzzle missing can leave you feeling less than awesome.

If you would like to have a personal trainer with a holistic approach working out of a private home gym in Alnwick Northumberland get in touch!

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Exercise and increasing your daily capacity/energy

This is particularly for those of you who are struggling with energy limiting disorders that generally are helped by exercise.

An example would be uncontrolled Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. With POTs the uncontrolled heart rate spikes and dysautonomia means that a person’s body is working twice as hard just to exist.

These are two heart rate graphs of a client with uncontrolled POTs one shows a POTs attack while sleeping, the other a day at university. No exercise was done the heart rate spikes were due to sitting up.

If your body is working as hard just to exist as someone’s body would do when undertaking a busy athletic day add in anything on top and it is simply exhausting.

The good news is a combination of strength training and low heart rate cardio can reduce symptoms to the point where the body works close to a normal person. An increase in muscle strength and efficiency helps blood flow work more effectively particularly when pooling. Cardio conditioning increases the stroke volume of the heart. This in turn reduces attacks helps the heart regulate when tachycardic moments hit.

Overall exercise has been found to expand blood volume and plasma volume and increase cardiac muscle mass and heart size. These in turn have been associated huge with improvement in symptoms.

Above is after 6 months of training, you will notice the heart rate is lower here during exercise than it previously was just during sitting. It is also lower and more uniform across the entire day.

More importantly they now are able to live a life close to the one they want. They make plans without worrying about crashes and spend a day busy yet still have a little energy left over.

Although it’s a different (often related) condition hypermobility spectrum disorders can also have a similar impact of daily energy.

Here the lack of functioning connective tissue leads to a general instability within the body. Connective tissue is not limited to the joints but throughout the entire body. When it doesn’t function joints are loose and the entire body lacks structure.

Again this means simply existing is exhausting. However strength training and muscle development can help counter balance the lack of structure.

In both situations the end result is an increased energy capacity and an ability to undertake a normal day/life without utter exhaustion.

You can’t cure underlying health conditions, but with the right help there is a strong chance that you can control them. A regular routine of movement designed to be suitable for your body might allow you to regain your life.

If you would like a female personal trainer, yoga teacher or Pilates instructor in Alnwick Northumberland who is well versed in different types of training including working with health issues please get in touch.

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Last picked for every team


Some people excel at sport and athleticism from an early age, it is woven into their DNA. They take to any physical activity they try with ease and grace. The kind of people who won every race at sports day and captained every team. Then there’s those like me who were quite literally picked last for every team in PE, I swear to god if my classmates could have chosen the school bench over me they would. To be fair it would have probably done a better job at the time.

I was skinny, knock kneed, had an undiagnosed hypermobility spectrum disorder and the serious lack of muscle tone that goes with it. As is often the case when we are awful at something I avoided it like the plague, I don’t know if things have changed but in my day PE teachers had no interest in those without natural athleticism never mind the reasons why.

To be entirely honest my experiences at school with regard to fitness were not just negative they were actually traumatic. I was openly bullied for my lack of physicality and knock knees and viciously name called. I’m not sure though out of the laughter or the pity clap I would sometimes get coming in dead last for something…again which one was worse. I still won’t even so much as take part in a 5k race in public as a result, the idea of any type of competition fills me with horror to the point where I actually feel physically sick.

Why am I telling you this? It’s not for pity or sympathy, I am honestly quite fine. The past is the past. I want you to read this if you like me had no natural ability and let you know that it does not and never did exclude you from looking after yourself physically. No matter how rubbish you were at PE you can still benefit from various forms of movement. Heck you might even enjoy it. I certainly do, in fact I can’t imagine a life where I don’t get up and exercise pretty much every day. I am so grateful that I discovered first yoga and Pilates in my 20s which I found I actually quite naturally built for and being the antithesis of competitive sports allowed me to tune in with my body and learn to love moving it. It was this love of movement I took into CrossFit and strength training, the difference being in that situation I was pretty rubbish to begin with. However many years later of keeping at it I am actually

pretty strong and certainly fit.

That for me is the important aspect, being fit and healthy, being strong enough to squat down to the ground with a heavy back pack and stand back up, being able to walk briskly up hills without losing my breath, being limber enough to fold into my legs with no discomfort, being able to lift heavy suitcases over head for other passengers on trains. These are the things that matter to me. That and the sheer love of movement, oh heavens it is simply glorious to just move, there is a delight in using your body that is with language almost inexpressible. As though different movements all have their own flavor and to engage in more than one is like a banquet for the body. Plus as a result I honestly feel better at nearly 50 than I did my entire adult life.

Don’t let a perceived idea of not being athletic dictate to you that exercise isn’t for you, it is for everyone from those like my husband who are naturally talented in a particular field (running) and thrive in competition to those like myself who myself who had to work at it. In fact I think those of us who are not naturals potentially benefit even more as there are often underlying conditions that make us that way which are improved by movement.

Exercise is for all of us and is certainly one of the keys to health and longevity.

If you would like to work with a personal trainer in a quiet setting in Alnwick Northumberland get in touch!