About me: Going from chronic pain, to competitive Powerlifting, to being a parent
My name is Anthony, and I am a qualified British Powerlifting Coach with 9 years coaching experience.
I’m not just a coach though. I also live with chronic pain and fatigue due to having joint hypermobility syndrome. I am also a father to 2 young kids.
Training will not always be straight forward. Injuries, family, work, other hobbies, and life in general, can all get in the way. Having a coach who is able to help you navigate training so you can still improve, is a game changer.
Managing my Hypermobility Syndrome
Hypermobility is a complex condition with a huge spectrum in severity. For some people, they’re a little bit more flexible and can hyper extend their joints without any issues.
For others, it comes with chronic fatigue from trying to hold your joints together with lax connective tissue. Chronic pain from the constant overuse of the body keeping everything together. And being easily susceptible to tendon, ligament, muscular, and bone injuries
I went from pursuing a career in professional football as a goalkeeper, to being bed-bound on days where my symptoms flared up. I knew something needed to change, so I researched what I could do to help my symptoms.
There wasn’t a whole lot of useful information out there about HMS. I booked an appointment with a doctor to see if he had any advice. Fortunately, he had 3 kids with HMS. He told me the best thing I could do was strength train and get stronger. So that is what I did. Which eventually led me to powerlifting.
Discovering Powerlifting
After messing around with general strength training I discovered Powerlifting. Which was exactly what my body needed. High standards to meet the expectations of a competition lift, controlled and deliberate training, and lifting heavy weights to make daily life easier.
When I started doing competitions I realised how much fun powerlifting actually is. As well as how many great people you can meet through it.
Lifting heavy helps you to stay injury free. But on the flip side, lifting with the wrong technique, intensities, and imbalanced weaknesses can be just as likely to injury you. So I consumed as much knowledge as I could about how to balance programming and understanding biomechanics of the body in order to make sure me and my athletes are able to get the benefits of hitting new PBs, whilst staying pain-free and injury free.
Life as a powerlifter and a dad
Fast forward to now, I have 2 beautiful and funny children. Which adds a lot of joy to my life. But also means my training looks a bit different to what it used to. Shorter sessions, lots of last minute changes to training to fit around family and work life.
But I wouldn’t change it. It has given a new layer to my coaching. Learning through failure and practice as to how to balance powerlifting, with a chronic condition, a hectic work schedule, whilst being a present father to my kids.
I love my job, and helping my amazing clients smash new PBs. Not just seeing them grow as lifters, but also as people.