source : the age
A social media post prompted Kayla Lampe to walk into Fortitude Barbell for the first time one sunny Wednesday afternoon.
She’d never been in this gym, and didn’t know anyone inside, but knew she’d be in for a challenging workout – and a good time. She was met by four other women, all of whom were ready for their regular weekday class; several had been attending for at least a year.
Leading the group was 20-year-old Maja Andrysiak, a competitive powerlifter who, over the past year, has worked to empower like-minded Brisbane women and make powerlifting more accessible and less intimidating through the creation of Gym Gals Lifting Club.
And she’s succeeding.
“I just wanted to give it a go and see other gym girls,” said Lampe, a CrossFit regular and Toowoomba export. “I just want to be strong and fit.”
For Andrysiak, that’s the whole point of Gym Gals.
“There’s this inflated idea on social media that there are so many women in the gym, and women in powerlifting, but there’s really not. It’s just this illusion on social media. So I really wanted to just create this large community of women that can access the equipment, access the community without having that financial barrier.”
She also wants to challenge the stereotype that powerlifting is a sport for men.
“[It] is very intimidating if you haven’t been in powerlifting before, or around these people in these gyms.”
The group meets at the Bowen Hills gym every Wednesday for a free session and again for a $15 session on Sundays. While the group has been meeting since June last year, it wasn’t until a recent feature on local social account Brisbane Baddies that things have “really taken off”.
Andrysiak has been powerlifting for four years and coaching for three. In a typical class, she’ll run participants through a warm-up before explaining the basic lifts – squats, bench and deadlift. While she keeps her classes engaging and casual, there’s a focus on safety, having fractured her back early in her career.
“I teach everyone how to spot and how to do the movements safely and to the best of their ability with the skill set that they have.
“We do variations on [a standard powerlifting program] so that people can feel confident in their abilities, and when they go off to a different gym … they know how to do those exercises safely.”
Andrysiak knows first-hand the financial burden that accompanies this sport, after it cost nearly $10,000 to keep herself “afloat” in a recent competition campaign.
She originally anticipated having up to six people in the classes, but now, due in large part to promotion on social media, she’s had up to 20 participants in one session.
Though admitting her bias, she described Brisbane as one of the “it” locations for powerlifting.
“It’s a city with so many fit and strong people, and people willing to engage with this community.
“I know over 20 gyms in Brisbane with the coaches, the athletes, that are powerlifting gyms. For a sport that’s so small in comparison to other sports that are in the Olympics, it’s really cool to see that there are so many people engaging with this sport.”
The Brisbane athlete was now preparing for Nationals in mid-April, hoping to exceed her gym PBs of 195-kilogram squat, 95-kilogram bench and 205-kilogram deadlift.
For those eager to get started, Andrysiak’s advice was simple: don’t believe everything you see online.
“I know that from some of the gym videos you might see online that you might think it’s intimidating, but I promise you that everyone is so friendly and you will find the community amazing.
“If you don’t come for the gym, you come for the community, and that’s why you stay. It’s a lot less scary than you think, and you just have to come once and then you’re sold.”
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