NIPF ROokie Comp -2026
joanne Magee
Joanne's First Step Into Powerlifting
What a great day for me as a coach.
This one is extra special.
Joanne came to me in May 2025 with the intention of getting a little bit stronger and "doing something for herself." She was incredibly anxious about the gym environment and had a few obvious balance issues and needed to start very simple as her coordination wasn't always the best.
About a month into our coaching Joanne (during some ill-fated, half-cut celebrating) hurt her knees pretty badly. This wiped out our ability to train lowers all that much and put us into physiotherapy for a little while. Eventually however, she pulled through, and we could begin lifting as normal again.
This process took some time, so given her start was only in May last year, it took until late September before her knees were feeling even close to good for activities like squatting. So, you can imagine my surprise when Joanne began to take an interest in powerlifting.
Over our Christmas break I received this message:
Well, who was I to say no to such a request?
So we jumped in with both feet and began our training cycle for the first competition.
The first thing we covered was all the different calls that are given in competition, and I'm not going to lie, because of the anxiety Joanne got in the gym - I was almost certain she would jump a command on the day and get red lighted.
While Joanne had never seemed to struggle to drop the lbs quickly in the time we had been together, losing around 15lbs on high calories, we didn't want to add extra stress by trying to cut into a competition. This meant we just showed up, weighed in and began lifting. Something I'd advise to any lifter doing their first competition.
Squats up first.
The nerves are always high at this point, but credit where it's due, Joanne kept calm and nailed her first two attempts.
70, 80.
Based on the fact we had done 85 before, we wanted to push the boat out a little and went to 90kg for our final lift - unfortunately ending with a missed rep.
I really have to say, Joanne's support network came in clutch on comp day. We had a huge gaggle of sign-wielding fans cheering her on and it really reminded me what this sport is all about - that community support and sense of belonging. I loved seeing all of them cheering her on and getting excited for her.
On bench, we nailed every attempt - even hitting a micro-pb of 52.5. We were concerned going into bench, primarily because the calls can be quite variable on this, but also because Joanne was having difficulties keeping her arch before comp. Nevertheless we came out 3 for 3 on bench. At this point in the day the tiredness and hunger were starting to show so in prep for deadlifts we had a wee debrief to see what we would aim for.
Finally, we hit deadlifts hard as hell. Giving it our all and coming out with a huge PB - 120kg.
Honestly? I think she may have had 125 with how fast it moved up.
I have to say, for someone who only started the gym 8 months prior to this competition and having a pretty awful injury part way in, this is an extremely good result!
Joanne walked away with gold and a big smile on her face.
The day was a success. Joanne came away saying how happy she was that she threw herself in the deep end and went for it. I'm so happy to have been involved in the process for coaching her to this point!