Faced with a debilitating health condition that was affecting all areas of her life, fitness trainer Clare Strongman bravely took matters into her own hands. Ella Walker meets her
Meeting Clare Strongman in a cosy corner of a Histon pub, you wouldn’t think to look at her that she has an underlying and incurable medical condition.
Factor in that the 36-year-old, who lives in Over, runs a hectic schedule of fitness classes and running groups across South Cambridgeshire – and still finds time to lecture for the Open University – it seems even less likely.
Clare has endometriosis, a condition suffered by 5-10 per cent of women in the UK and one which rarely gets discussed.
“It’s one of those conditions that nobody talks about because it’s a bit embarrassing,” says Claire, describing it as when “bits of your womb grow in funny places” and reeling off a list of symptoms including chronic pain, extreme fatigue, infertility and bowel problems, to name just a few.
“I’ve got stage four [the worst] and something called a frozen pelvis which means all of my organs are stuck together with scar tissue,” she explains, matter-of-factly. “Most women can have a hysterectomy and that finishes it off, and you have to have your ovaries removed as well, but I couldn’t have that because basically my bowel is stuck to my ovaries and my ovaries are stuck to my kidneys, it’s all a mess.
“I didn’t really have any options available to me, except taking painkillers which, well, you don’t want to be on morphine for the rest of your life. I was at a bit of a dead end really.”
And that’s when, after a lengthy stint in hospital, Clare’s consultant referred her onto a fitness programme to help manage her symptoms which, two weeks out of every month could be completely debilitating (“At its worst I couldn’t walk let alone anything else.”)
Packing in lots of walking and running when she was well and cutting out wheat, dairy and soy products from her diet, Clare managed to get her life back on track and decided she wanted to help others achieve the same.
With her symptoms a thing of the past, Clare ditched her career as a computer programmer at Cambridge Science Park and set up her own business: Strongman Fitness.
Specialising in women’s health (including polycystic ovarian syndrome and menopause) and fitness for people dealing with illness, Clare now runs a host of exercise sessions and running groups for all ages and abilities.
“In my running groups I have pretty much every age, my oldest is comfortably in his sixties all the way down to complete beginners to people who run marathons,” she enthuses. “I like to think of it as creating a supportive group with a bit of everything in there so nobody feels out of place, nobody feels that they’re slower or faster or less able than anybody else. It gives people that motivation to come out because they’ve got to go to their running club; people are depending on them to come.”
Did I mention Clare also volunteers for the Endometriosis UK helpline and is planning on writing an e-book for the charity next year?
“Most fitness instructors want to make people thin but it’s not really about that for me,” she laughs infectiously, describing her approach to personal fitness as ‘holistic’. “I remember when I first started going to the gym, there was this little tiny lady, about a size 4, [wearing] little white Lycra hot pants and a little white crop top and she was going to be my gym instructor and she looked me up and down: ‘Weight loss is it?’ – how was she going to motivate people?
“Whereas people come to see me, I’m not fat but neither am I skinny. I’m like them and if I can run for six miles, why can’t they?”
She describes herself as ‘normal’ but has a practical, determined force about her and from just a brief chat over a coke, you can see how she would motivate you to make yourself look and feel better.
“I believe that anybody can run, you just have to start,” she says, her words like a big, encouraging hug. “There’s always somebody that has to be the slowest but that doesn’t mean you’re slow and it doesn’t mean you’re rubbish. It just happens that you’re the slowest this week, and someone else will be next week.”
Straight talking and direct, Clare is the opposite of an intimidating gym bunny (no spandex in sight) and finds her inspiration in the people she trains.
“I’ve got this one lady, in her late 40s, who started from nothing six months ago,” Clare tells me proudly. “With running, people start to feel the benefits straight away – and she goes faster than me now.”
The psychological aspect of exercise and training keeps her motivated too: “I have people that come to my running clubs with quite severe mental health problems that you wouldn’t know about to look at them, especially people with depression. You can see at the end of the session they are bright, they’re all glowing, bouncing.”
As a walking example of how exercise and believing in yourself can improve your life beyond measure, Clare leaves me with the promise that no matter how terrified you are of getting out there and facing your problems: “The barriers you think are there can be overcome.” Where are my trainers?
Clare organises a free Saturday Social run, which at the moment is focused on building up distances in time for the Cambridge Half Marathon – although anyone is welcome.
For more information visit www.cstrongman.co.uk, www.facebook.com/StrongmanFitnessUK and Endometriosis UK at www.endometriosis-uk.org.
Clare’s top tips for getting your New Year fitness regime off to a successful start:
1) Choose something that’s achievable, people will start six classes a week – you’re not going to keep that up – start off slowly but do something you know you can maintain
2) Diet is always worth looking at, people always drink too much
3) Try as many new things as you possibly can – you might surprise yourself.
First published by the Cambridge News.
