Debbie Alawode; Weightlifting.
My name’s Deborah Alawode, I’m a 2nd Year Medical Student and I’ve been weightlifting for around 3 and a half years. My weightlifting career began after my coach did a 6-week taster course at my High School. At the end of the course, he asked if I’d consider training regularly at his club just down the road from my school. Since I thoroughly enjoyed the course, I decided to take him up on his offer.
My training programme can be quite intense, but it’s enjoyable nonetheless. I train 3-4 mornings per week, with each session containing 4 core exercises and 2 accessory exercises. It usually takes me 2.5-3 hours to complete the schedule. However, since coming to UCL, I’ve had to squeeze the sessions into 1 or 2 hours. This is because I train in the mornings before lectures, so I can balance training with studying, but I often don’t have enough time from when the gym opens to when my lectures begin…
In my relatively short weightlifting career, I have won numerous national titles, my most recent two being British U20s Champion in September 2017, and British Universities and Colleges Champion in April 2018. I am currently training towards competing at my second British Seniors Weightlifting Championship in July 2018, where I will be competing against Great Britain’s most prestigious athletes, who are fresh from the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast. As a more long term goal, I am hoping to represent Great Britain at the World University Games in the not-too-distant future.
