Howdy Y’aall,
What a crazy week I have had! I have so much to update you on that I don’t know where to begin. My trip to the USA was a huge success for many reasons. Not only did I get to meet “our” Melissa, I got to meet 5 other amazing beauties who are now all friends for life!
In order to fill you in on my whole trip here are some other things I loved about visiting the USA:
- Deep Dish Pizza
- Godiva Chocolate
- An actual summer!
- Hiking in Brown County Park, Nashville
- My very first Sushi experience 🙂 Sooo goood!!
- And, this guy?!
After Chicago Melissa and I just chilled out the rest of the week, which was just what I needed.
Then, on Friday the 19th of August I travelled to Cincinnati with Julia and Matt Ladewski. Julia was competing in the Southern Powerlifting Federation PRO/AM Powerlifting meet on the Saturday. Check out her video below. This woman is one heck of a powerhouse!
On Friday I also got to meet Alli McKee, Jen Comas, Molly Galbraith, Sarah Martin and, last but not least, my Guinness drinkin’/accent obsessed/”Gard Damn” roommate Nia Shanks. We have seen some of these ladies perform some serious feats of strength and conditioning over that last few months, but what I was impressed with the most was that each one of these women is full of heart, passion, personality and great humour (which honestly made the journey worth every hour I sat on a plane or car to get there).
All of us immediately hit it off and we headed to the Sweatt Shop for some Badass training and a lot of giggles!
Here are some clips from our time there:
Points to be made:
- Alli Squatted a PR of 200lbs!
- Molly also Squatted 200lbs!!
- Nia Deadlifted a PR of 330lbs!
- Alli also kicked butt with 10 one arm push ups (5 x 5) – seriously strong!
- Both Nia and I used a prowler for the first time 😀 YAY!
- Alli kicked everyone’s prowler butts again 😛
Here are some other videos that have been kindly uploaded to showcase our training session. Some of it is repetitive, but couldn’t ye just watch this all day?!
At the end of that day we thought it might be a laugh to show what REAL “Functional Training” should look like. This cracks me up every time I watch it!
FYI if you don’t have a “poop face”, you ain’t lifting heavy enough! 😉
After the Powerlifting meet on Saturday we all headed out for dinner and drinks.
I would highly recommend checking out the following links and see what else these great women have to offer. Plus, you may see their write ups about our weekend:
- Nia Shanks (Who we thank for the “Beautiful Badass” name)
- Alli McKee
- Molly Galbraith
- Jen Comas Keck
- Julia Ladewski
I THINK that is most of the events. If I remember anything else, or get some extra footage, I will be sure to update you. I honestly wish I was back in the USA with these girls. Hopefully though I will be over there again very soon, because we are now going to be working together on many exciting projects in the future.
This is not the last of the Strong and Beautiful Badasses !
Hope you enjoy all the videos and I will leave you with how I looked when I had to go home
I will have a new workout soon btw
Cheers
Marianne
love you guys! and love seeing you guys all together training! and that the video is set to “I’m just a girl!” 🙂 🙂
Jesus I wish I had a group of girls to train with! It’s just little me 🙁 and my boy friend. Which is a good thing cuz I compete against him LOL. I LOVE THE PROWLER. Strong women are so empowering. I LOVE IT.
Battle of the sexes! Love it!!! Bet you ROCK! 😛
Hi, loved this post and really enjoyed your videos. Looks like an awesome time! I am a weight-lifting poler (huh?!) One thing I struggle with is flexibility on the pole because lifting heavy weights a lot tends to make my back particularly inflexible. Hamstrings are always tight from running but there are ways to work around that. I was just wondering how you find your back flexibility from weights and what you do to work on it. Maybe that’s another post….! Anyway, lovely to come across your site and I’ll be back…
Thanks Lynda! Polering (or what ever it’s called lol) is something that looks really tough – in a good way. As I have never tried it, I can’t say what effect my lifting has on flexibility for that sport, but I know that my overall flexibility has actually improved. Probably mostly from the Kettlebell stuff. I actually do no flexibility work :-/ eek! I have been forever wanting to do yoga, but I simply don’t have time to do any more activity right now. Maybe that is an excuse LOL!
Have you considered Yoga?
Hi Marianne,
Thanks for the reply! Yes I have considered yoga – given it lots of ‘consideration’ but am struggling with lack of ‘desire’. It seems so much less fun than throwing around heavy weights, sprint training and poling. I have done a bit of work with kettlebells, but not a lot. The foam roller helps a bit! Nice to talk to you!
Marianne,
Again, I’m relatively new to your blogsite and still catching up on some of your posts. Wow, the videos in this post of you all pounding out “real” squats (deep with respectable weights) and serious deadlifts is awesome, inspiring, and motivating to say the least (and IMHO for both men and woman). I would have loved to seen this workout live! I very rarely see any women in my workout club do squats (my wife does :>), and even the few men I see who squat and deadlift would and could learn and be inspired by the form and intensity you all showed. Hard work requires one to work hard! On a business trip/visit to NY City last year, I saw this quote above the squat rack at a gym I visited, “If you want to do what others can’t, you have to do what others won’t!” The gal who did the 3 plate DL (that was awesome to see) and the gal who did the one-arm pushup (that was awesome to see too) seriously epitomize this quote. Keep up the great work with your blogsite and posts. I’ll be back I’m sure!
Take care,
Frank
PS – the group shot of you all at the end of this post in the gym (the Strong and Beautiful Badasses!), is a great example for young women, a “healthy” example!
Thank you Frank, I really appreciate your kind words 🙂 Especially the “ps” part – I am very proud of the fact that we a setting a good example to other women. I am glad your wife has the same attitide!
Cheers
Marianne
PS – the girl that did the deadlift is Nia Shanks and the one arm push ups was by Alli McKee 🙂
HI Marianne,
My “newbie” status to your site still has me catching up on older post. So, I’m sorry for these comments coming so late to some of your older posts. But, I Just found one where you “link” to Nia Shank’s “BADASS” site (the gal that did the 3 plate deadlift). YOU GALS ROCK! Her site is awesome too and I also found her “Bro Badasses” site. Wow, there are some awesome videos of “NORMAL GUYS” doing some “NOT NORMAL THINGS” (even more great inspiration for me too :>)
Wow, I’m inspired by what I saw, especially the videos by Bret Contreas, Max Shank, and Ben Bruno.
Not to worry, I’ll be vising both sites now!
Take care,
Frank
Not to worry Frank, there is plenty of time to catch up 🙂 I am glad you found that post Nia did on Bro Badasses, it totally rocks! Actually the reason all of us ladies got together in the first place was because Bret “introduced” us all after he posted THIS on his site. I had already been following a few of these ladies’ blogs and YouTube videos, but his post brought us all together 😀 There are so many great websites about all relating to strength and conditioning, so I highly recommend you browse through them as you find them. A lot of great content!! Ben Bruno does weekly lists of both “the best reads” and “best videos” that have been posted in that week, so I would recommend subscribing to his update feed to keep you posted of a whole host of great information and inspiration 🙂
Have fun, but don’t forget to train 😉 haha!
What a great write up. I can’t wait to meet you all some day. xoxo
Thank you Kellie!! I can’t wait to meet you too! 😀 Hopefully soon xo
Looks like a great weekend, and some serious weight lifted. Nicely done!
Aw thank you Elsbeth!! Wish you could have been there with us too, maybe the next time? Hope you are well 😀
http://allimckee.com/category/bodyweight-training
I was inspired by Allies work on her website above. that is what I did tonight although I skipped rope for 45 seconds and did 3 burpee pull ups.
Nice workout, fun and challenging. Hope someone else here gives it a try.
Cheers
Thanks Mickela, dare I even try this myself. Alli is one Machine!!! 🙂
so inspiring, you girls are too awesome for words. I have been dealing with hurricanes and earthquakes here in NYC. This set of videos has certainly put me back on track.
hitting it hard after seeing this.
love myomy and I am so excited to see what you girls come up with.
xoxo
Hope you are safe Mickela! I can’t imagine what that would be like :-/
Sending prayers your way 🙂 xo
Thanks for sharing Marianne! Cannot WAIT to see what all of you Beautiful Badasses are up to! It’s going to be pretty amazing, I’m sure. Hope to be a part of it somehow. I just LOVE how inspiring you all are and with all different body types but all of you are SO amazingly strong. Inspirational to say the least! Thank you!
Thanks Erin. That’s actually something we all talked about, how there’s not one body type that can represent what fit and strong is. I actually think the fact that we are all so different in our body shapes will help dispell many myths around female weight training. As visuals are so influential, I know many women will be very encouraged to see this 🙂
330 lb Deadlift!! Damn … that’s gotta be getting close to 3x bodyweight?!? That is the definition of BAD ASS!
It sure is Tom B, Nia is such a powerhouse of strength and determination! I doubt that will be her all time max, so we will watch her closely. I have a feeling she will hit 3x BW deadlift soon!
Awesome footage! Looks like you had a blast, and I am glad you enjoyed the good ol US of A. I have been doing your workouts and they are awesome. Keep up the great work and keep rocking it hard.
Thanks Mike, I appreciate the feedback. I am so pleased that you are enjoying the challenge of my workouts. I hope that all this badass strength training will help inspire both men and women to train like this. Even the Kettlebell training I do here is considered badass – so keep up the great work 😀
Hello Marianne, here Michele from Italy (Parma) i found your amazing myomytv web site few days ago and I found it very “inspired” and “motivating”.
Thanks a lot !!! (sorry for bad English)
Hey Michele from Parma 😀 Another Italian, yay!
I am glad that you found me. Exciting things are happening here right now and you will gain a lot more from the site in the future. You are very welcome here and I hope you enjoy the workouts and the rest of what this community has to offer 🙂
Hey Marianne, I really enjoyed your pics and was glad to follow along on your trip!! Glad you had a great time. I wanted to ask you too, have you ever met Andrea DuCane? She is based out of Minnesota back here in the states and I may be having her help train me on some KB stuff when she returns from out of the country. I actually think she’s in Ireland right now.
Hey Dawn, I have never met her, but I have only heard good things about her. A guy in the gym I go to met her at the last HKC in Belfast and I believe she is coming over for the RKC soon. That’s amazing that you are going to train with her, you will learn so much 😀 Keep me posted on that, as I’d be interested to know how you get on!
Awesome recap, girl. Thanks for sharing.
I love the “if you don’t have a ‘poop face’ you ain’t lifting heavy enough”. Ha ha ha!
So many awesome memories made in such a short period of time.
Miss you so much! Come back soon. This time I just may have to steal your passport . . .
Haha!!! I might accidently lose my passport the next time I am over!
Looking forward to catching up with ya!
PS – think Alli has room for a little more weight on the bar … I didn’t see a “poop face” there 😉
Hi Marianne,
Firstly, welcome home. These video’s made my day.
I luv,luv,luv powerlifting . You girls are amazing. The lifts,
the music, the laughs, the prowler and the competition was
so inspirational. You look fantastic ! So strong. You all are
epitome of strength & beauty ! Can’t wait to see YOU compete.
Have a wonderful day
Minnie
Thanks Minnie, I would love if one day you could come and train with us. With your past experience, I’d say you could teach me a thing or two about Powerlifting.
I am so glad that you enjoyed the videos. I am so proud to know each one of these ladies!
That’s awesome. I may be able to use these videos to get my girlfriend to come and do some heavy lifting now. Keep it up! I especially like the knee-banded good mornings on the stability ball – I was jsut looking for some thing to add to my routine 😛
Haha! Glad you liked it. If these videos do not help inspire your GF to train for strength, then we have failed at our mission. If she wants to chat to me directly in private, then give her my email address, which is mvk_82@hotmail.com
I am happy to help her with any of her worrys or doubts. All I want to do is help more women realise their potential strength. Not just on the outside, but inner strength too 🙂
I’m glad you all had a great time! I’m also really excited to see what “plans” you are collaborating on! I would absolutely love to train with you girls; you’re all so inspirational.
Thanks for all of your hard work.
Maria, I am super excited too 😀
You may have the chance to train with us one day, so don’t rule it out just yet!
Cheers
I just re-watched these videos and was wondering how much you were glute bridging? (I can’t tell from the video, but it looks like a lot!)
Thanks!
Maria, I think this was 115kg or 120kg, I can’t remember. It was a good bit off my Max though, because i was still recovering from my injury, and was not pushing my numbers high in anything! Molly totally whipped my ass in these. I did like 6 or 7 reps and she did 10! 😀 Next time … hehe!!
Missing you!!!! Glad you had a blast!
Aw thank you Michele 🙂
Haha – loved “Just a Girl” playing in the background of the one video. Glad you had a blast on your trip across the pond!
Thanks Marty 🙂 I chose that song btw hehe!
Cheers
Marianne
miss you already dear! fabulous write up… i can’t believe we had such a good time!! 🙂 can’t wait to see you soon!
Cheers Julia! Hopefully see you in November though … I am working on it 😉