Capability With Chelsea

The best of luck to the Mighty Marlin 2024 Nationals Team! I’ll be watching on 9Now whenever I can. 💙💚

LESSONS WERE LEARNED ✍️

With my final comp of the year out of the way, let's chat about what I'll do better next prep...

1. You can't have it all ❌
👉 In the lead-up to comp, I was living my most social life while coaching, all the other business things and training super hard. Looking back on it now, I had burnt myself out in the lead-up to comp and I really felt it come comp day.

2. An away competition needs to be approached differently 😳
👉 There was a lot that went into this. Driving 4 hours with very little food or water before weigh-in left me feeling pretty trash. My hip injury didn't love the drive either and I backed it up with a pretty subpar sleep.

3. You can't run on an empty tank ⛽
👉 I definitely could have done a better job with my nutrition after weigh-in & on the day. Smashing two Grill'd meals in one afternoon/night probably wasn't my wisest nutrition decision before game day. I could have used easily another 1000-2000 more calories that night which would have also helped me sleep better and wake up fresher.

4. Comp day nutrition is important 🍔
👉 This is something I SUCK at, especially at longer events. I find it super hard to eat on competition day while being filled with adrenaline and caffeine. When you are hitting PBs, running around like a headless chook and enjoying lots of chats, you also need to eat plenty too. Unfortunately, adrenaline and caffeine won't fuel you on their own...

5. Your body will tell you when enough is enough 🤕
👉 In the 2 weeks prior to competing, I started developing a hip injury. I've since been told it's hip flexor tendinopathy which is a hard pill to swallow considering I LOVE squats and they flare it up the most, but it's definitely the aftermath of poor self-care and running three comp preps back to back.

So priorities are now:
1. Listening to my body and resting more than I think I need
2. Rehab my hip flexor tendinopathy
3. Hit my training hard where I can and build my bench and deadlift to be my strengths
4. Prioritise my nutrition
5. Nail my focus on all things coaching & business

Improvement season is here, let's get after it! 😝

SUCCESS LOOKS DIFFERENT TO EVERYONE 🏆

Meet Holly! She began training with the goal of learning to lift safely and to get super strong - and we've certainly done that ✅

After a lower back injury at the gym a few years ago, Holly was pretty nervous to hit any relatively heavy lifting, especially deadlifts....

So instead of never lifting again, she did the right thing...
👉 Saw an allied health practitioner to find out what was going on
👉 Sought out a coach so she could learn to lift safely
👉 Prioritised her mobility and recovery
👉 Followed her program without fail

This process reignited her love for lifting and she soon decided that she wanted to try powerlifting out. And so the prep began... 😝

Holly's goal for the comp was simply just to compete. She didn't care about placing or winning. Of course, she wanted to hit PBs but the goal was just to be there and enjoy the process 🥰

Everything went super smoothly until a little over a week out from comp. Holly sustained a glute injury which left her unable to lift or walk without pain until only a couple of days out 😳

Luckily with some help from Joe at Cairns Osteo & Rehab, Holly was able to hit her planned openers and made it through to comp day pain-free 🥹

Holly walked away with 9/9 successful lifts, 2nd place in her weight class and a spark in her for her next comp!

Despite the challenges thrown her way, Holly remained positive and her result on the day was the perfect example of why that's so important 🫶

A VERY OVERDUE COMP RECAP 😅

I had an absolute blast down in Townsville for the APL Townsville Cup, held by the legends at Nexus.

This was my third comp this year and it's shown me that though competing is so much fun, a loooooooong improvement season is necessary and probably overdue.

SQUAT
112.5kg ✅✅✅ (equal PB)
117.5kg ❌❌❌

BENCH
55kg ✅✅✅ (2.5kg comp PB)
57.5kg ❌❌❌

DEADLIFT - 125kg ✅✅✅ (5kg comp PB)

Failing my final squat threw me a little. I thought I had it in the bag and didn't respect the number as much as it deserved. That's definitely the first time that too optimistic of a mindset bit me on the ass 😂

My third bench attempt was pretty ambitious and we knew it, but it would've been pretty cool to have gotten that up!

I walked away with a 7.5kg total PB in an 8-week prep which is still pretty great 😌

Lessons were learned and plans have since become actions. For now, I'm going to soak up all the knowledge I can and enjoy a decent improvement season before competing again next year 💪

THE HARDEST PART OF COOKING IS KNOWING WHAT TO COOK 😖

When we are looking at creating ‘healthy’ meals, we often turn to clean, basic and often boring meals i.e. chicken, broccoli and rice 🥦

By choosing options like this, we are creating a distinct difference in the way we eat when dieting versus when we are not - enter the yo-yo dieter 🪀

It can be challenging to know how to make a recipe more nourishing, so here’s a guide 🧑‍🍳️

1️⃣ Find a recipe online, in a recipe book or magazine, or on social media
2️⃣ Understand your goal for the meal e.g. larger/smaller portion size, high protein, high fibre, high carbohydrate, increased vegetable intake
3️⃣ Make changes to the existing recipe to move you towards that goal
4️⃣ Don’t be afraid of adding to the recipe - we don’t always need to remove things to make the recipe ‘healthier’ or more enjoyable

For example:
1️⃣ I found a prawn pasta recipe on Taste.com.au
2️⃣ I liked the ingredients, but wanted to make larger servings with a higher serving of protein and fibre
3️⃣ I increased the serving of prawns and chose Vetta high protein spaghetti
4️⃣ I also added parmesan to the mix and on top 🤭

With the changes I made, this was the outcome:
✅ My recipe made 5 servings versus 4
✅ My recipe has 43g of protein versus 20g
✅ My recipe has 8.8g of fibre versus 2.7g
✅ Both recipes had similar amounts of carbs & fat, nearly to the gram

Don’t be afraid to experiment. You might change too many things and it tastes a bit weird, or perhaps the serving comes out too small - but that’s the beauty of it!

Drop some ideas below and I will work my magic and make some new recipes to post here ⬇️

Just working on the perfect ratio of 🤭 and 🏋️‍♀️ with .0

KEEP YOUR EYE ON YOUR GOALS 🫣

I’ve done a few vision boards in the past and they work EVERY time. I finish each year with pretty much every single goal ticked off - a vision board never fails 🥳

On Sunday I caught up with some of my clients for a goal setting event and catch up. We didn’t have a Christmas party this year, so I thought this would be a nice way for everyone to catch up and set some intentions for the year!

The day looked like:
📝 Journalling with prompts (Do You F***ing Mind card game)
📸 Making our 2023 Vision Boards
🍹 Some food and drinks
🏝️ And a nice little swim…

We set intentions around what 2023 will look for different areas of our life. We chatted about places we want to visit, things we want to do, goals we want to achieve - and now we have a visual reminder of the goals we want to work towards this year 😌

Everyone finished the day with a feeling of fulfilment and relaxation and I’m SUPER excited to see everyone manifest these hopes and dreams into a reality 🥰

2023 is set to be amazing!

WELCOME TO 2023!

Thank you all for an incredible year filled with learning, growth, fulfilment and laughs.

A fire is in my belly for 2023. I have big goals for my clients and business, and the year will be absolutely awesome. Let’s do this ⚡️