Live Healthy and Bee Happy!

Teehee! I was featured on my school’s Campus Lift page, as lifter of the week! My Q&A: Q. How long have you been training for? I’ve been training on and off since I started at McGill. I used to play tennis recreationally and badminton competitively, but somehow I wasn’t able to commit to them after starting university. Instead I picked up lifting as a way to stay active. Realistically though, I didn’t make serious gains until past September. Q. What keeps you motivated? Before, it was pretty difficult to stay motivated (hence the lack of gains). However, since getting my boyfriend into lifting this year, we’ve kept each other accountable! I also keep in mind that the stagnant hours of sitting at a desk and/or standing in a fumehood all day couldn’t possibly be doing anything to relieve stress, so lifting heavy helps to alleviate that! Q. What’s your favourite movement? Definitely deadlift. There’s something wonderful about being able to use the raw strength of your entire body to pick something up. Also probably the most transferable lift to real life usage? haha… Q. Do you have any advice for beginners to strength training? Doing some reading/youtube beforehand helps a lot; I skimmed Starting Strength and watched training videos of competitive weightlifters like Lu Xiaojun to get a sense of what ‘good form’ entails. Another thing I found especially applicable to women starting out is that some lifts, such as squats, require an inherent strength and stability that might be lacking, and that’s ok! I started with wall sits and body weight stuff to develop this strength before lifting with weights. Doing this also gets your confidence up too! Also with beginner gym nerves, I found that going with a friend (experienced or not) helps a lot. Not only will you have an accountability partner, but will also help with being comfortable in the gym environment when there is already a feeling of familiarity there. And lastly - it might look like everyone at the gym knows what they’re doing, but once upon a time we all started from ground zero. This is the beginning of ~your~ journey. Cheers, see you at the gym this exam season getting all that stress and class frustration out!

#flexfriday in action. Yeah, unfortunately i never consistently worked on pull ups, so I have an assisted 95 lbs. The #browakening is happening. All people of all identities can get gainz together.

Personal challenge today: grind out a set of my goal 1 plate (135lb) deadlift! I came really close last semester, but put the weights down for school, so it's been a long month and a half of regaining progress. Now on to 1.5 plates for the end of the semester! Also picked a really good day to be repping my @healthymcgill shirt haha. So lesson of the day: never let lost progress get you down. Take it slow, take it easy and it'll all come back 🙌 #lift #fitness #motivation #fitblr #liftblr #selfcarechallenge