Genesis

In April I’ll have been training for exactly half my life.

I’m proud of where I’m at. Everything I am, I deserve. I have spent years in the gym sculpting the man I’m becoming. Not bad considering I was born female. It’s a different type of personal and painful artwork.

In a way it was a blessing to have been born female as I have never been able to solely rely on brute strength and ignorance. Its technique, perseverance and discipline. If anything I’ve trained harder than any guy in my crew yet had less to show in comparison. But life isn’t fair and I’m not going to complain about that… I’d still do it even if there were no titles to win, records to break or shirts to grow out of.

The iron keeps me sane. She’s been there for me since I was 15 and she’ll be there when I’m 75+. “Stop thinking and talking about pussy and lift…Women come and go, but powerlifting is here to stay!” B’s words (to one of my crew) echo in my mind and make me smile. Every new chapter in my life just fuels me to lift harder, lift smarter, train with more intensity and tighten up the regime. Physical strength is my gift and I’d be stupid to not use it.

S&M, transcendental meditation, anger management and masturbation all rolled into one. The gym is the place I run to when I feel like I’m about to lose it. Lately I seem to be spending more and more time there! I know I’m doing my time. These are the sessions where I can’t talk to anyone. I won’t feel the weight at all, and all I want is to lift until my body hurts and the pain overrides the shit that I deal with on a regular basis, shit I’m probably going to be dealing with for the rest of my life. I need to feel the constant ache of recovery in my body, something else to focus on. The butter on the cat’s paws.

But this isn’t a sob story.

My body never screams at me to stop, if anything it just lets me take it further. I have to restrain myself on a regular basis, I don’t want my tendons to rupture because of the ego in lifting heavy. I want to still be doing this when I’m an old codger.

Gayboys watch as I keep increasing what I’m lifting. If only they knew that to do this, there was a hefty mental price to pay. Still, they come over and smile at me and shake my hard calloused hand. I don’t say much, I don’t like talking too much in the gym.

There’s this one guy at my gym who calls me “bro” and spots me. We both keep our headphones on as we help each other out and I don’t even know his name. He’s a good guy though; I know he broke up with his missus of 12 years two years ago. He’s fucking massive and I wonder if that’s what it takes to be in physical peak. I know I’m nearer to my peak than I was last year. But I’m a perfectionist and I have a long way to go yet. However, nowadays I look in the mirror and the days I can see clearly, I like what I see. A whole lot more than I did when I hit my first puberty. The iron game is one of the few sports where you peak at an older age - 38 to 40 years old from general experience. So I have 10 years left to go…I might just get there in time.

I can feel the music pounding in my ears, my blood pumping through my heart, my breath bursts out of my lungs and my spine tingling with adrenaline; I’m semi-aroused, sweat drips out of every pore and I can smell my own testosterone. My muscles are working – and I’m alive! I feel like a machine, an animal, in control of myself and my mind... I feel like I’m flying and for a split second I probably am. As everything I needed to do, and everything I came here for, is suddenly resolved.

Broadway Gym Mar 2007-Sep 2007 (Sydney)

YMCA Sep 2006 – Feb 2007 (San Francisco)

Bodies Gym 2003 -2006 (Leeds, UK)

Gangsters Gym 2003 (Leeds, UK)

Adam’s Gym 2000 – 2003 (Leeds, UK)

Newcastle University Students Union Gym 1996 – 2000 (Newcastle, UK)

Record Gym 1994 -1996 (overlap/ hometown gym in holidays) (Rugby, UK)

Fitness Factory 1993-1995 (Rugby, UK)

Bedroom! 1992-1996 (Rugby, UK)

Associacion de Tae-kwon-do 1986 - 1992 (Cordoba, Spain)