Powerlifting for Mental and Physical Strength with Sabrina Moore

The Good Gym Guide Podcast • Series 2, Episode 6

This conversation is with Sabrina Moore of Donut Barbell in Cardiff. Sabrina is a 3x British champion powerlifter in the 63kg weight category, and a women's powerlifting coach who focuses particularly on the impact strength training can have on our mental health.

We spoke about her journey to strength training, the role of training and potentially competing in supporting our mental health, and how to make a welcoming and inclusive yet appropriately-challenging lifting environment.

It was great to talk with Sabrina about finding the balance between feeling safe and included while also being challenged enough to grow and receive the benefits of this sort of training. There is certainly a balance to find but so much of that depends on the support you feel while attempting difficult things, both from yourself, internally, and your coach and community around you. And, of course, by larger societal factors too.

I am keen to think more about the buddy system and onboarding course that Sabrina mentioned, to think about if they could be useful at our gym.

I also came away from our conversation feeling much more intrigued by the idea of competing than ever before. Speaking personally, I am not particularly competitive with things like that and seem to have a natural aversion to competitiveness, but at the same time I sometimes cringe - perhaps unfairly - at cooperative games and the sort of medal-for-participation approach. In my experience, it can definitely kill the fun of playing a game if no one is invested in the result of it at all, and I quite enjoy trying to get excited about competing, even if it's in a bit of a tongue-in-cheek, not entirely serious way.

That said, the self-knowledge that can come from exceeding expectations of what you are capable of can be absolutely transformative and carry far beyond the lifting platform.

If this is something you're interested in exploring, there are two things coming up at the co-op gym that you might be interested in -

This Saturday 9th April we will be hosting the first ever Bristol Co-operative Games - a friendly weightlifting competition where you will be paired at random with someone else attending and have three attempts to lift the heaviest weight you can.

And later this month or maybe in May we will be offering a short powerlifting course in the build-up to the LGBT International Powerlifting Championships that are happening in Manchester at the end of July, culminating in going up to compete, if you'd like to, or doing a max-out session at the co-op gym. Details will be announced on the Events page of our website, bristolcooperativegym.org, shortly.

Finally, we will be doing a squat and bench press technique workshop with Sabrina and Jake from Donut Barbell at U Fit, a big and amazingly kitted-out gym in Cardiff, on the morning of Saturday 4th June. It'll be a great little gym outing and a chance to learn a couple of big lifts from some extremely skilled coaches. Full details on the events page.

Sabrina’s work

Episode links

Credits

podcastGuy LochheadSeries 2, Episode 6