37 weeks ago Alaina came to train at the Battleaxe while visiting Miami. After 5 years of not training, she had the itch to make a comeback -- but when I first met her, she seemed hesitant about the whole idea. 37 weeks later, after making the commitment that she would compete in her first powerlifting competition, she went 9 for 9 and completely dominated that platform! She reached out to me with excitement and I thought her process and experience to get to that point was so motivating. I told her to send me a write up and this is what she had to say:
"About five years ago I was introduced to powerlifting. I fell in love with it when I did my first deadlift. I started training with guys from my gym but I never competed. I didn’t want to put in the time to train so I just gave up. Last October, I started lifting again after 5 years of not touching a weight. Originally, my goal wasn’t to get strong-I just wanted to get fit. After a couple months of lifting, I noticed that despite the fact that I wasn’t trying-I was actually getting much stronger. I talked to my trainer about powerlifting and he said that I needed to decide whether or not that’s what I want to do because that would change up my training. After thinking about it, I decided that’s definitely what I wanted to do. I started training with no competition dates in mind. I honestly wasn’t even sure I was going to compete because I never thought that I would be strong enough. Well, after a trip to Miami - I came back to Columbus, I joined the IPA and I picked a meet. Yesterday (10/24/15) was my very first competition. My goal was to get 9/9 lifts and I did! I also PRed on all of my lifts. Ended up with a 340 squat, 180 bench, and a 380 deadlift. As soon as I sat the bar down tears filled my eyes! I was so incredibly happy and so proud of myself!!! I had lifters hugging me and congratulating me on a perfect meet and telling me how amazing I did. To have incredibly experienced lifters compliment you-one of the best feelings in the world. I achieved my first powerlifting goal and that was to compete. Now, I’m going to work on an elite total!!! I’m definitely looking forward to stepping on that platform again."
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66PzsXPaTk8]
I think we've all been there where our mentality has hindered us from being our full potential, but once we break that mindset, it really is an invigorating feeling. Sometimes a little support and encouragement really can help ignite the passion and hunger we have inside us. So proud of this chick!