Daphne Harvey was interviewed by FT Weekend for this article about weight training for women…
Here’s the excerpt featuring Daphne:
If strongwoman training feels borderline ridiculous, weightlifting is a viable alternative. In the airy, vaulted environs of Hackney Weightlifting Club(opens a new window), its walls lined with trophies and press clippings, Saturday mornings are for all-female strength classes. Coach Daphne Harvey, a former opera singer who soundtracks the lifting with the strains of Classic FM, admits “it’s still niche, but it’s changing. You see it at the competitions — as you go down the age classes, it’s getting more female and more gentrified.”
Harvey only started weightlifting four years ago, and part of what got her hooked was the speed of her progress. “Particularly when you’re a beginner, you make very quick gains,” she says. “You find that you are constantly doing things that you thought would always be impossible. It gives you so much confidence and belief in yourself.”
Her classes revolve around the barbell — the classic strongman accessory — employed in various ways: in squats, with lunges, pressed or rowed or hoisted from shoulder-height to the sky. Some people start training with a broomstick, if the women’s Olympic bar (15kg without weights) proves too heavy.
There is something almost meditative about it: holding the right shape as you lunge or squat or balance on one leg, dipping the barbell to the floor, takes concentration as much as strength. With each repetition, you add weight, but there are pauses to recover.
As an innately lazy person, unhappy on a treadmill, I find the rhythm of the moves surprisingly pleasant. And the atmosphere, with about a dozen women working in pairs, is upbeat and welcoming. “Weightlifting clubs are different from gyms,” says Harvey. “They’re smaller, and generally everyone knows everyone else, so you never get that feeling of intimidation.”
By the time the hour is over, I am certain that I will return the next week. There is, however, an ironic twist: the day after the class my muscles are so tight that I am barely able to winch myself in and out of a chair. Fortunately, Harvey had warned me that this is normal for a beginner. It may not be obvious as I hobble down the street, but I am on my way to becoming a strongwoman.
