Fitness Freedom Personal Training

21/04/2026

Very excited to be back outside!!

27/02/2026

Back in July I found out I have scoliosis. It contextualised a lot of long-standing niggles - things that had always felt a wee bit off but I couldn't quite pin down. I did nothing about it for years, and now it's progressing. Movements I've always loved are causing pain under load.
Including deadlifts.

But here's the thing: everything has a workaround.
I'm learning what works for MY body right now - intentional movement, lots of bilateral work, adjusting what I can while I figure out the rest. It's not the training I'd choose if I had my way, but it's what my body needs in this season.

I had a prospective client in this week dealing with the same issue. And it reinforced something I already believe but sometimes forget: my own experience makes me better at this work. I can empathise with the frustration, the grief of stepping back from movements you love, the process of figuring out what works when your body won't cooperate the way you want it to.

What works for one person won't necessarily work for someone else. And it's okay to need help navigating that - I'm figuring it out too.

Deadlifts might be beyond my grasp right now. But it's just for a season. I'll get back there.... and it'll be much sweeter when I don't have the looming threat of a week of pain to follow the session 💛

18/02/2026

I climbed with Abby at the weekend.

She's one of my SGPT OGs - been training with me since the beginning - and I see her every week in Monday PM SGPT, but we haven't climbed together for a minute... And I was absolutely floored.

Her hip flexibility and strength have always been a limiting factor in climbing - it restricted her range, the positions she could get into, what she felt confident to reach for. We've worked hard on it: high step-ups, Bulgarian split squats, and a lot of squat reps to reinforce good quality movement patterns.

But you don't always see the changes when you're in it week to week. Progress is gradual. Incremental.

So on Sunday, mid-route, Abby turned around with this shocked face (I have a picture 🤣) - she'd just done something she physically couldn't do before. More range. More control. More power through her hips. That sustained, consistent approach to unilateral leg strength paid dividends.

This is what I love about this work. It's not just about what happens in the gym. It's about what you can do with your body in your actual life - on the wall, in the hills, wherever you need it.

So bloody proud of you, Abby 💛

13/02/2026

We maxed deadlifts on Monday PM ... We also ate traybakes and banana bread between sets.

I brought baked goods for our festive max testing week, and apparently I've set an expectation - when we started talking about this week's testing, I got asked if I'd be baking again 😂

So yes. Heavy lifts and homemade treats. Both matter.

Fitness culture loves to make food the enemy, but here's the thing: community includes sharing food, not just suffering together. And you can absolutely eat banana bread AND pull a new PR.

Fuel is fuel. Joy is joy. Strong bodies need both.

Max testing comes with baked goods now. That's just how we do it 💛🍰

06/02/2026

There's a difference between pushing through and working with your body.

Pushing through ignores the signals. It trains through pain, dismisses fatigue, and treats your body like something to dominate rather than something to care for.

Working with your body means paying attention... Learning to tell the difference between "this is hard but good" discomfort and "something is wrong" pain. Adapting when you need to. Meeting yourself where you are, not where you think you should be.

We talk about this a lot in sessions - it's often a learning curve. The cultural narrative tells us to go harder, push further, ignore weakness. But that doesn't nurture the joy and consistency that sustainable movement requires.

Your body gives you cues. Fatigue. Soreness. Sharp pain. Reduced range of motion. Those aren't things to override - they're information to use and respond to! Training smart means listening to that information and adjusting accordingly. Some days that means backing off. Some days it means embracing discomfort because growth lives there. The skill is knowing which is which.

Meet yourself where you are. Celebrate your progress and developments, even if they don't look like what everyone on Instagram seems to be doing.

Your body. Your timeline. Your strength 💛 Happy Friday!

03/02/2026

Joanne sprained her ankle a couple of weeks ago - badly. Bruised, limited mobility, proper functional limitations from a prior injury that's been aggravated. She could have taken weeks off and waited until it was "back to normal." But instead, she showed up to SGPT this week with adaptations.

We modified her deadlifts to work around the limited ankle flexion - adjusting her stance, managing the depth, finding a position that let her load through her posterior chain without compromising her ankle. No dynamic work and workarounds for anything that put excessive pressure through the joint.

Is it frustrating for her? Absolutely. She has goals, timescales and was making amazing progress with her climbs. But she's determined. And she knows (it was she who sparked my thoughts about "movement as medicine" last week!) that continuing to move, even in a limited way, is far better for her in the long run than sustained immobility.

This is what fitness freedom actually looks like... Not perfect. Not always what you planned. But adaptable. Sustainable. Focused on what you can do, not what you can't.

Injuries happen. Life happens. Your training doesn't have to stop - it just has to adjust.
Joanne's doing exactly that, and I'm here to make sure she can keep showing up safely while she heals 💛

30/01/2026

28/01/2026

I had to cancel my Monday AM sessions this week - my son was under the weather - but when I checked the group chat for SGPT .studio later, I realized something brilliant had happened.
They'd met up and trained anyway.
Not to prove a point, not to show off, just because that's what they do. They show up every Monday for themselves and for each other.

This is what I'm working towards - building confidence and competence so that my clients can show up on their own terms, whether that's in our sessions together or on their own when life demands it.

Classes give structure, accountability, community, and expert guidance - all things that matter. But being able to walk into the gym independently when you need to? That's fitness freedom.

These women did exactly that this week. They've built the skills and the confidence through our work together, and now they can access it whenever they need it.

I'm so bloody proud of them 💛

23/01/2026

January gets a lot of hype... New year, new you. Fresh start. All the energy and motivation and perfect routines, right?

Except... it's dark. It's cold. Everyone's ill. You're knackered from the holidays, not recharged by them.

So why do we treat January like some magical reset button that's supposed to fix everything? Don't get me wrong... I've felt it too - the pull to do ALL THE THINGS because it's a new year. But I'm also tired. I've been ill. My body is asking for rest, not intensity.

Here's what I know: consistency matters more than the calendar date you start on. You don't need January to give you permission to begin. And you don't need to apologize if January feels hard instead of inspiring.

Show up when you can. Rest when you need to. Build momentum gradually, not because the date changed but because you're ready.

The arbitrary significance we assign to January? There's no bloody need. 💛