feminism

New Year’s Eve

~ Shantelle Svarc ~ Leave a comment

After losinDSC_0103g the initial 10kg back in August, I’ve really struggled with eating well and a lot of nutritionally poor food items have found their way back into my diet. I think reaching a goal, which was the first weight loss goal I’ve managed to reach in my lifetime, really messed with my head and I felt like I deserved to ‘treat’ myself which led to an inevitable slide in food choices.

With this in mind, the Starting Strength camps arrived at the perfect time, giving me the kick up the arse that I needed to get back on track. My lifts are a fair bit weaker than they used to be, partly due to the weight loss and mostly due to work.  I don’t want to be this weak again; shame is a great motivator.

I’ve upped my hours in my day job to 4.5 days per week, mainly because I would like to get on the housing ladder at some point in my life, and so it will be easy for me let my training and nutrition go even slacker. I’ve made the decision that I’m better than that. It’s really not all that hard to prep some simple and nutritious meals for work and to get off the couch and actually go to the gym. I’m single and childless, I have no excuses. If Jordan and Tom come back next year, I want them to see a better version of me.DSC_0133

So that’s the camps’ influence on me, committing to dropping a final 9kg and getting my strength levels back to where they were at my peak – 127.5kg squat, 80kg bench and 145kg deadlift.

As for my clients’ training, it will largely remain the same. There are some slight technique adjustments that need to be made, and I really ought to teach the powerclean more, but by and large I am doing that right – linear progression and a simple stable of compound exercises are all a novice needs to progress.

Darkside is now 5 months old, I am so proud of all of my lifters, whether they are training for health or competition, and I can’t wait to see what 2015 will bring!

Happy New Year!

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The Purpose Of Lifting

~ Shantelle Svarc ~ Leave a comment

Scrolling down my FaceDSC_0209book newsfeed I found a sponsored ad from a gym chain stating that the sole purpose of ‘working out’ was to ‘transform your body’ and an article stating that men now find women who train with weights ‘desirable.’

This really annoyed me. Granted, I’d just come back from working my day job and wasn’t in the most forgiving of moods but the media’s perception of women and what they want from exercise really needs to change.

I actually thought that society has gotten past the whole ‘women want to be desirable to men so that they can find a husband and bear his children and please him in all ways’ mentality. Who gives a flying fuck if men find women who lift attractive and there are many more reasons to exercise and lift weights than transforming your body into a ‘new, sexier you.’ To be constantly bombarded with this message is damaging to all women and potentially quite dangerous to young women who are just starting to develop an understanding of relationship dynamics and the role of self esteem and respect for oneself.

Lifting heavy things builds confidence, mental fortitude and physical health and it promotes a value system that is based on performance rather than vanity. Compression of morbidity has to be the single most important aspect of lifting weights – essentially increasing your quality of life. Picking up your grandkids when you’re sixty, not falling over and breaking a hip when you’re seventy and wiping your own arse when you’re eighty. And for the younger generation, who doesn’t want to feel better, prevent a number of dangerous medical conditions and show off when moving house or arm wrestling in the pub?

SHands - Chalko fuck the media’s propagation of damaging values and fuck the gyms that buy into that mentality. I am a woman and I lift because I love lifting, for my own personal gratification and my own personal health. Conventionally attractive or not, my body is capable of great things and my mind holds a focus it never had before. The curve of my arse is secondary to these simple facts.

Why I Started Darkside

~ Shantelle Svarc ~ Leave a comment
Artwork by Phyllis Mahon

Whilst the concept of women training with weights is gradually starting to become normalised within mainstream media and culture, it is mostly polarized into two extremes.  Fitspo, with its sexy and tanned models with breast implants, posing in a sexually suggestive manner, or hardcore powerlifting and bodybuilding advocates.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot of information out there for people who are just, dare I say it, ‘normal,’ those who have never really considered weight training and simply want to enjoy good health.

Neither of the above representations are particularly appealing to someone just starting out, they certainly weren’t for me.  The former is often damaging and holds the implication that a woman’s worth lies within her attractiveness to the male viewer and that they have failed if they cannot achieve the unattainable physical or training ideals portrayed (though there are some decent examples of fitspo, occasionally).  The latter can be intimidating and imply an end point (competing) that the beginning lifter may not foresee for themselves.

It is with this in mind that when I started to seriously think about what Darkside could be, its ethos and purpose, I knew that it had to appeal to those who didn’t really think that weights were for them.  Women face enough barriers, in life as well asDSC_0153 in the gym.

Darkside’s purpose is to dispel some of the long-term myths surrounding women and weight training and to encourage anyone and everyone to give it a go.  Strength is too important for a woman’s health, physically and psychologically, to ignore.  So, I shall sign off with what is essentially my mission statement:

Darkside Training – Changing Perceptions of Femininity, Masculinity and Health.

For details of our next seminars and how to join, message me on Facebook, shantelle.darkside@gmail.com or phone 07717 202065