On Each month we celebrate members of the Iron Lion Pride for their contributions to our awesome community and for their accomplishments inside and outside the gym.
Our Lion of the Month for February 2020 is Amie “Speedin” !
Amie is a hard worker and a tough competitor. She has won medals and set records as a powerlifter, but she will tell you about that in her own words. Coach Spencer recently sat down with Amie to talk about how far she’s come and what’s next for her.
S: What were your goals when you started at Iron Lion Training?
AMIE: I actually came to Iron Lion through an intervention from a friend who used to train with Ron and Steph. I was burning out at my job at the time and my physical health had deteriorated. I used to play competitive roller derby but then had to leave the sport due to multiple injuries, including concussions, and had a lot of post-concussive symptoms. Over the years it just kept getting worse and worse, plus inflammation, I had a lot of knee pain and my mobility was suffering, and I just felt like a really old woman. And I felt very limited. So that’s how I got introduced to the gym and my goals really at the time were just to get back to feeling healthy and move my body.
Nice. Normally I ask people at this point about what goals they’ve accomplished, but obviously you’ve accomplished a lot of those goals because you’ve gone on to be a competitive athlete. I believe you’re the most successful Iron Lion athlete to date.
That’s so funny because it was such a fluke. I had never touched a barbell before. Once we got to a state of rehab I really wanted to join a team sport again. I didn’t expect to be competing in anything, especially heading into my forties. But now I’m doing it, I’ve done I think five competitions now. On a whim we went to Nationals and I won a gold medal, which is insane because it was my second competition. And then the last few competitions…For a brief shining moment I held three records in my category.
National records!
National records, which are now busted, but I had them! And I got the certificate. And yeah, I placed at our last meet at the Women’s Open, which is really important to me because it’s all women and because of that I think it’s more competitive as well because there is such a volume of women lifters. So yeah, it’s been pretty sweet.
Yeah it has. Those are impressive achievements, especially considering how you started. It’s only a few short years that you’ve been with us.
Yeah, about two and a half years, and I started lifting in November 2017 for the first time.
So what are your sights set on now?
Definitely continuing with the sport, though I’ve kind of questioned if that’s still what I want my workouts to look like. I live in extremes sometimes, so it’s really hard to temper my need to ‘chase the rabbit’, to keep adding more numbers and more numbers. But we do it really safely here and that’s what’s important. Of course I want more out of powerlifting, being able to lift more, but the next few months I really want to focus on getting my energy levels up, feeling more fit, so that when I do powerlifting I have more endurance.
You’re definitely a competitor and that’s part of why you’re our Lion of the Month. Putting the sport aside for a second, what’s your favourite thing about being a member of our community?
There’s something special about this gym – and sometimes it’s also intimidating to me since I’m a bit of an introvert at times – it’s that you’re very much seen. And I say that in the way of being acknowledged – and the more you come here the more regularly this happens – you have people look you in the eye and ask you how you are today, and, you know, it’s a safety thing, because they’re about to train you, but also it’s very seldom that people do that and really tune in to ask you how you are. So that’s something I’ve really appreciated here. I also appreciate, and I think I’ve said this before, this gym must have a ‘No Assholes’ rule.
Because there are no assholes?
There are no assholes! Everybody is so wonderful and so supportive. The music’s good, side note. I
I also appreciate the extended team and the extended community, all this wraparound stuff that the gym helps enable. You kinda feel like you have even more of a community, whether that’s through the sport or through care: OH-FAST, Dr Ricky and Dr Paul, they’re phenomenal at fixing me. Steph and Ron and you and Aziza, all of you know the right things to change or tweak so that’s been really wonderful as well. There’s such a depth of knowledge here. Most of all I’m a nerd, and I’m into science, and everybody is just so knowledgeable, no one’s doing anything ridiculous, and it all goes back to science.
It’s definitely a gym for nerds. Hence, maybe, no assholes.
I guess so, which is nice. Go dorks!
Wide open question: what’s your favourite thing to do at the gym?
I don’t know, that’s a really…
I mean I have a guess…
Okay, I’ll pick the obvious, I love to squat and I can squat any time, all the time, any weight. But there’s a mobility drill that is my absolute favourite and I feel like it’s a gift every time I’m told to do it. It’s like a side-lying thoracic mobilization, you just curl up to the roller and you reach over and breathe and it’s the simplest thing but it just makes me feel so wonderful. It’s just really soothing.
I like that one too. While we have you here, is there anything else you’d like to say?
I think Ron once said something like you can’t outrun a bad diet and ‘diet’ to me has always been that word. I’ve struggled, I’ve done every eating plan under the sun, and this is probably the first time where I’m finally getting to a point – and I don’t know if this is my middle-aged apathy finally starting to settle in or what – where I’m comfortable with my body, and comfortable with how I move, and not demonizing what I’m eating, and finding that place of moderation. And that’s many many years to break through.
Good for you. That’s really awesome.
That’s like thirty-five years of food shame to break through. And yeah, I’ve really been trying to work on that, and everybody here is so supportive. I’m really just getting to a place where these are just habits and you do them because you don’t want to sabotage all the other hard work you’re doing. So you just learn what your body responds to and how you wanna feel and I’ve never really had that before, so it’s a nice place to be.
Thank you for sharing that. And you’re an athlete now.
I’m an athlete. It’s really…
Were you going to say surreal?
Yeah it is surreal, because I was not a sports nerd when I was a kid and didn’t really play anything until I started joining social sports in my twenties, just to make friends because I was moving far away. And I’ve just always had a sport since and then I went through a period without one and then finding one again…I just never really expected it. And then again to be athletic in it is just a whole other realm.
And to set national records, win gold medals…you know, no big deal.
Ha! Everyone can do it.
That’s coming from Amie, February 2020 Lion of the Month.
Boo yah!
Congratulations Amie!
Tagged with: community, compassion, exercise, fitness, health, mental health, powerlifting, strength
