A Powerlifters Diary! – Rhiannon Leake

Our newest face Miss Rhiannon Leake, Tells her story on what she has to do, what her mindset is, and how she handles the pressure of balancing work, Uni, and sport to be the best version of herself! This is part one of the series that will take us from 3 weeks out of comp all the way through to Post competition! So read on and show your support for hopefully your next powerlifting champion!

 A Powerlifters Diary

Today marks the 3-week point until I compete in my 5^th Powerlifting competition. For those of you that don’t know what powerlifting is, it is merely lifting heavy weights. There are three lifts; back squat, bench press and a deadlift. Competitions work by lifting the most amount of weight, you get three attempts at each lift and they take the best attempts and add them together to get a total. The competitor with the highest total wins, people are split by gender and are in certain weight categories.

I’m feeling very excited to be hitting the platform again. I am also quite tired too, with a recent increase in workload and returning back to uni last week I have been getting less sleep than normal and having decreased opportunities for naps. That will not sway my motivation though! The thing I am finding most challenging at the moment though is cutting weight. With a reduced calorie diet, increasing the frequency and duration of my nightly walks and cardio sessions throughout the week to also aid in weight-loss. It is starting to take a toll on my recovery and hence my weight sessions which are becoming more of a struggle, it doesn’t help that I’m near the end of a 12 week training block so the weights are above 80% of my 1RM (1 rep max).

I am planning to make some further changes in my diet for the next 3 weeks to ensure that I meet my goal weight of 72kg. In powerlifting you compete in set weight categories. I normally easily made weight as I would sit at 68kg regardless of what I ate and how much activity I did, but mid-last year I put on some post-break up weight and am still losing it. Already down 5kgs since the heaviest I got, I still need to lose a further 3kg over the next 3 weeks. So the race is on! Things I am going to alter in my diet are;

• Drinking a minimum of 3L of water a day, will up this again after this week (currently drinking at least 2.5L)
• No processed foods, other than one cheat meal a week and my protein supplement
• Ensuring I get 5+ servings of vegetables a day (have been slack with this lately and only getting 3-4)
• Eating around 1800 calories a day (I have found if I go under I can not sustain my energy enough to function as a human nor get quality training session in)
• Not eating after 7pm, for me this is a time where I am prone to binging and also I want to give my body the best chance to digest before I sleep

Training

My resistance training will remain pretty much the same as it has all comp prep, that is 6 weight sessions a week however I will change my Monday arms session to Sunday as I will have more time. My weight split is as follows;

Monday: No weights

Tuesday: Heavy squat day and leg assistance work (front squats, weighted glute bridges are some of my favs)

Wednesday: Paused bench press and shoulder work

Thursday: Heavy deadlift and back accessory work

Friday: Heavy bench and tricep work

Saturday: Light deadlifts and squats

Sunday: Arms day

I am aiming to do 2 high intensity sessions a week to help with fat burning and increasing my metabolism. I find it hard to get motivated on my own to really push to my max which I need to do, so I will do 2 boxing or wrestling sessions a week. I walk most nights before bed with TJ my dalmatian, I will continue doing so, we normally go for around 1 ½ hrs and this is my time to unwind before bed and recharge by the power of the moon.

Rhiannon Leake

Mobile Personal Training Specialist

4 U Body Fitness