Embodied Soul

23/10/2026

I think so.

It is though, isn't it?! 💪😅

23/10/2026

Definitely true!

Everyone wants the muscle. The strength. The confidence.

But those things are built through the habits you repeat.

Lifting when motivation is low. Making time for your training. Eating to support your goals. Getting your rest. Sticking with it when progress feels slow.

You don’t have to live in the gym or get everything perfect. You do have to keep showing up.

Every woman you admire for her muscle started somewhere. You’re allowed to start where you are, too. 💗

What’s one habit that has helped you build muscle?

23/10/2026

A little update about class sizes 💜

I’ve always preferred to work with five people, rather than six.

I allowed six because there always seemed to be last-minute cancellations. However, that seems to be happening less and less as people become more aware of how cancellations affect me and others who want to attend.

People are also realising that you don’t always need to feel 100% to come and train. Sometimes you can lift a little lighter, and we can adjust the session based on how you’re feeling.

So, to create a more spacious environment for everyone, I’m reducing the maximum class size to five.

I encourage everyone to book early to secure your space, and to please honour your bookings as much as possible.

I’ve added an overflow session on Thursday at 4pm (because Wednesday 4pm is currently my most popular session). This may become a mixed session, as I have a couple of men interested.

If the session you want is full, message me and I’ll add you to the waiting list.

One thing I ask is that you’re considerate when booking ahead. If you book several weeks in advance and then cancel on the day, it can leave me running an under-capacity session, which impacts me financially. It can also mean someone else has missed out on a space they would have used.

Of course, unexpected things happen. You can still cancel and rebook, with at least 3 hours notice. I’m just asking that everyone does their best to follow through on the bookings they make.

Treat it like an important appointment.
Because it is 💜

23/10/2026

Yep. I get so many people coming to me in their 50s surprised about how much muscle they have lost. The reality is that if you don’t lift, you will lose muscle.

Use it or lose it. Literally.

21/10/2026

We have been conditioned to think that muscle soreness is a sign of a good workout.

20/10/2026

One of the most addictive things about heavy lifting is watching the numbers on the barbell go up.

That moment when a weight that once felt impossible becomes something you can lift for reps. When what was once your working weight becomes your warm up weight. When you look back and realise just how much stronger you’ve become.

But here’s the thing.

Every increase has to be earned.

These are my deadlift working sets over the past 10 weeks.

I’ve worked up to 115 kg for 3 reps. I’ve also deliberately dropped the weight back and worked on building my reps at lighter loads.

Because heavy lifting isn’t just about adding more weight to the bar every week. It’s about building the capacity to lift that weight well.

Progress isn’t linear. Some weeks you push forward. Some weeks you consolidate. Sometimes you deload. And sometimes life gets in the way.

I moved house three weeks ago. There was a lot of extra lifting and activity, my routine was disrupted, and I had to adjust my training.

I didn’t skip my deadlift session, but I did drop my working
weights back and focus on building up again.

And just because I lifted 115 kg a few weeks earlier doesn’t mean I should go straight back to lifting that weight after a major life change.

I decided to build the reps back up til I could get a solid 5 reps at 110 before I’ll increase beyond that.

Next week I plan to do 3 sets of 3 at 107.5, 110 and 112.5, but only if my body feels up to it.

What you lifted last week, or last month, doesn’t automatically determine what you should lift today. Fatigue, recovery and how you’re feeling all matter, too.

Especially when you’re lifting heavy, you need to know when to push and when to pull back. There’s no point chasing a number on the bar at the expense of good technique or sensible training.

And it’s how I approach things with my clients, too.

If you skip a session, I won’t increase your weights just because it’s the next week on the programme. You need to do the work to earn that increase.

You can’t consistently miss workouts and expect your body to adapt as though you’d done them. We need consistency to build strength, and we need to progress at a pace your body can manage, taking into account everything you’ve got going on in your life.

Because when you keep showing up, repeating the movements and putting in the work, things start to change.

You start lifting weights you never thought you’d lift. You get stronger in ways you can feel. And you start looking forward to finding out what you’re capable of next.

That number on the barbell becomes pretty addictive.

But you have to earn it, patiently, one session at a time.

19/10/2026

You know what’s hard?

Finding the discipline to work out when you have more than enough time to do it.

I work out four days a week on average, sometimes five, occasionally three. I’m highly motivated, I love lifting, and I know how important it is to me.

But today is Tuesday. My quietest day. A rare day with no appointments, no 1:1 clients booked, nothing I need to do until school pick-up at 2:45 pm.

I could have got my workout done an hour ago.

Instead, I’ve spent the last hour lying in the sun and doing admin.

The admin needs doing, but I could do it anytime. My priority should be getting my workout done while I’m fuelled and ready for it, so I can have lunch straight afterwards and have plenty of time for recovery.

An hour lying in the sun after my workout would feel so much better as well.

If I had just one hour in my day when my workout had to fit, I’d have done it already. That’s most days. Most days are tightly packed and the workout needs to get done, if I lie in the sun for an hour, the opportunity is gone. There’s no spaciousness around it.

And that’s the thing. When there’s no particular time set aside for something, it’s surprisingly easy to keep putting it off. Even when it’s something you really want to do.

This is why I tell people to book their workouts in advance. Schedule them. Put them in your calendar.

When you’ve booked a session, you’ve made a commitment. And if you wake up and decide you don’t feel like coming, knowing you’ve paid for that session might be just the incentive you need to get yourself through the door.

Even people like me, who are highly motivated and enjoy training, benefit from having that structure.

So if you struggle to fit exercise into your week, try taking the decision out of your hands.

Book your workout in like it’s an important appointment.

Because it is!

19/10/2026

Haha, this is all true for the parenting phase of our lives. Most of us can relate to these experiences when our kids were younger.

As a solo parent the whole way through, this was my life.

At some point though (usually in peri-menopause for women), you get to reclaim your life.

And in that phase of life, prioritising your workouts over everyone else's needs can become one of the most empowering and liberating things you can do.

18/10/2026

Your back hurts after deadlifts.

Does that mean deadlifts are bad for your back?

Not necessarily.

One thing I think we need to understand better when it comes to injuries and niggles is cumulative load.

We often blame the exercise we were doing when something started hurting. We were deadlifting, so the deadlift must be the problem. We were running, so running must be bad for us.

But what if we zoomed out and looked at the bigger picture?

Your body doesn’t just experience each workout in isolation. It has to manage the cumulative demands of everything you’re doing over days, weeks and months.

And I’m not just talking about physical demands.

Maybe you’ve gradually increased your lifting volume. You’re also running a couple of times a week. Work is stressful, you’re not sleeping well, you’re going through a relationship breakdown, or you’re carrying a lot of emotional stuff.

Maybe you’re worried about a family member. You’re dealing with financial pressure. You’re trying to hold everything together for everyone else, and there’s very little time left for you to recover.

All of these things can affect how your body responds to training.

Emotional stress can affect your sleep, increase muscle tension, influence pain sensitivity and make recovery more difficult. When we’re under prolonged stress, our bodies are having to adapt to more than just the physical demands of exercise.

And we don’t always recognise how much we’re carrying until our bodies start giving us signals.

You might have been tolerating your deadlifts perfectly well for months. But as the total demands on your body increase, the amount of training you can comfortably manage and recover from might change.

Then one day, your back starts hurting during a set of deadlifts.

It’s easy to conclude that the deadlift caused the problem and needs to be eliminated.

But the deadlift might only be one part of the picture. Your training, recovery, emotional stress, sleep and other life demands may all be relevant.

Of course, deadlifts can contribute to pain or injury, too. We shouldn’t automatically blame stress or assume that an exercise is never the problem.

The point is that the exercise you were doing when the pain started doesn’t automatically tell you the whole story of why it happened.

I’ve experienced this myself. I was managing my usual volume of heavy lifting. Then I added running a few times a week, right before I started moving house, and my hips started niggling during deadlifts.

My overall demands had changed, even though my usual lifting routine hadn’t.

This is why I think we need to look beyond individual exercises and consider the bigger picture.

What has your training looked like over the past few weeks or months? Have you increased the volume or intensity? How have you been sleeping? What’s happening in your life emotionally? Are you dealing with things that are taking up a lot of mental and emotional energy?

And if you’ve got a lot going on, you’re allowed to adjust your training.

You can lift less. Reduce your sets. Take a lighter week. Modify an exercise that aggravates your symptoms.

You don’t have to keep pushing at the same intensity regardless of what else is happening in your life.

Although I prescribe gradual increases in weight for your deadlift each week, you can always override my suggestions.

And I encourage you to do that.

You live in your body. I don’t. And I can’t know everything you have going on.

If you’re having a particularly stressful week, sleeping badly or feeling more fatigued than usual, you don’t have to increase the weight just because it’s what the programme says.

Tell me how you’re feeling, and we can adjust things.

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do for your training is to recognise that your body is managing a lot outside of your lifting, too.

We’re not just training muscles. We’re training human beings who have entire lives happening around them.

And good training takes that into account. 💪

Send a message to learn more

17/10/2026

I heard something on a podcast last night that really made me stop and listen:

“If you’re exhausted or depleted, it means you’re doing too many things that are not meant for you to do.”

And as a solo mum and business owner who has carried so much of the load on my own for a long time, I understood what this meant straight away.

I don’t feel depleted by my work. I feel energised after every session, whether it’s healing work or personal training.

And I’ve never felt depleted by parenting my daughter on my own.

It’s the extra obligations that drain me.

Being constantly asked by my daughter’s school to volunteer, provide transport or contribute baking. Being asked to give my time and energy to her Scout group or her Gangshow production.

I’m learning to say no to these things. To recognise that they don’t fill me with enthusiasm, and they aren’t necessarily mine to do.

In the past, I’ve said yes out of guilt and obligation. Because I thought that was part of being a good mum.

Even though these things didn’t bring me joy or excitement.

And the funny thing is, my daughter didn’t even want me to do them. She wanted some time to spend independently of me.

Recently, I was talking to another dad at Scouts who told me about working night shifts and how that had allowed him to show up for school events. He was often one of the only dads there, and being able to show up in that way brought him a lot of joy.

And I get that. I can understand how meaningful it would be to have the time and opportunity to be that present, and how much he enjoyed it.

But our circumstances are different.

He isn’t parenting on his own. He has a partner, and that relationship gives him space and support to do things like that.

When you’re a solo parent, there isn’t someone else sharing the load or picking up the pieces while you give your time and energy elsewhere.

And I think that’s an important distinction.

It’s not that volunteering is wrong, or that showing up for school events isn’t valuable. It’s that we each have different capacities, different circumstances and different things that genuinely bring us joy.

What energises one person can deplete another.

And we don’t all have the same amount of time, energy or support available to us.

I also feel depleted when I’m the only one doing the household chores, when I’m the only one cooking.

But when I ask my daughter or my stepdad, who has moved in with us, to take responsibility for cooking, they actually enjoy it. It energises them in a way that it depletes me.

So why was I automatically taking responsibility for it?

Sometimes we fill our lives with so many things that don’t really matter to us. Maybe because we think that if we don’t do them, who will?

But what if we’re doing things that aren’t ours to do?

What if, by always stepping up, we’re preventing someone else who would genuinely enjoy those things from stepping into the role?

Maybe me volunteering for Scouts is preventing someone else from taking that role.

Maybe the role needs to remain unfilled for a while, so the right person has the opportunity to find their way to it.

Maybe things don’t always need us to step in and fix them.

I think we can become so accustomed to being the capable one, the dependable one, the person who makes things happen, that we forget we actually have a choice.

Just because we can do something doesn’t mean we have to.

And just because someone asks doesn’t mean we’re obligated to say yes.

I’m learning to pay attention to the difference between the tiredness that comes from doing something meaningful and the depletion that comes from continually giving myself to things that don’t feel right for me.

Because my time and energy are finite.

And I want to spend them on the things that matter to me.

Not just on the things I feel an obligation to do.

Send a message to learn more