PERSONAL INTRODUCTION

Coach OC has asked all 6 members of the Body Composition team at Priority 6 (beginning Monday 4th April 2016) to write an introduction, helping us all start interacting and also to understand each other's journey and goals. We will be training together for the next 12 weeks, so the introductions are a great way of learning how to support each other by knowing what our motivations and struggles are.

My introduction

Right then - introductions! Apologies in advance as this is probably going to be far too long (Rach fact no.1: perfectionist, thinks too much, struggles to keep things concise)
I’m Rachel (creative, designer, quiet person, bloody loves metal and simon's playlist). I discovered Ollie (coach OC) at Radley College in early 2008. I sought out a personal trainer as I had suffered a spinal injury from a motorbike accident (fact no.2: adrenaline junkie) and as a result my weight reached a horribly uncomfortable level and I was extremely unhappy. Despite rowing, running and weight training I was really struggling with my back and not shifting the weight. Training with Ollie was invaluable and I lost nearly 5 stone in 2 years (4x 1hr sessions a week). Once Priority 6 was born I quietly followed, I say quietly as one of my biggest challenges is integrating myself with other people - which is why I only ever trained with Ollie on a 1:1 basis and Priority 6 is a very different atmosphere to the gym at Radley College. Simon appropriately called me the P6 ghost once, as I am there almost every day yet mostly at times when no members are training or hiding in corners, so I'm fairly unknown to other P6-ers.

Goals.
I’ve simplified my goals in to three main categories: abs, arms and head.

(Abs)
I’ve never had my body on any sort of show in public (including tops of arms – no strap tops etc…) I've never had a stomach I feel I can show anybody and this has gone to absolute extremes (including doctors and relationships) so obviously this causes many difficulties and is something I desperately want to change. I won’t be unrealistic and set myself the goal of rippling Ollie abs in 12 weeks, but I would like to know they are under there somewhere and have some noticeable definition. I’m not sure what my current body fat % is, but I really hope I can achieve sub 20%.

 (Arms)
I really want to focus on my upper body strength (most of my workouts focus on this currently). I have never done a pull up in my life and this is one of my biggest goals, so far I’m still on assisted with black and red bands. I also want to set a realistic lifting target and set some pb’s for Olympic Lifting, I really enjoy lifting and how technical it is, but am still afraid to put much weight on the bar, which brings me to my final goal…

(Head)
Confidence!!! Both in myself and my training around/with other people. My head and my lack of confidence are pretty much my biggest enemy in life. For the sake of clarity and understanding I will tell you that I was diagnosed with BPD a few years ago (Ollie and Simon are both already up to speed on this) so my head can be pretty wobbly. For the last 3 years I have been receiving intensive therapy which I am now out the other side of, but my diagnosis still has a big impact on my life. I want to fight my default behaviour and be more confident, train with other members of P6, take part in more classes and competitions, make friends and not be a ghost anymore.

What else have I tried?
As for other things I've tried, since December 2014 I have been keeping to Paleo and training 4x a week and so far I have lost just over 5 stone which is a fantastic start. I currently stick to my 4 open gyms a week and I’ve recently started going to Olympic Lifting classes on Saturday mornings as well as the St Birinus workshops which was fantastic. Simon encouraged me to Crossfit and I went to his Tuesday morning class in December just before christmas (my first ever class - forever marked with Simon wearing his fantastic Mr Tumnus bobble hat) but afterwards I felt that my confidence needed a little more work as it was extremely challenging in the head department, but I would love to get more crossfit confidence and ultimately take part in the competitions when ready. I feel body composition will be invaluable in helping me to achieve this.

What am I worried about?
Now as for the what am I worried about bit - how I’m going to manage training with other people and if I can beat my own head I think pretty much covers it. This is going to be completely new territory for me but I want to throw myself in 200% and break through my own barriers.