How it all started

How it all started. I am referring here to the gym thing, rather than how I became an archaeologist. If you're interested in that you can read all about it here. So, the gym - some background. I was never ever into fitness or sports when I was younger, in fact I was one of those kids that absolutely dreaded PE lessons and would come up with any excuse not to do it. Not because I was lazy - actually when I was really small I used to love running around playing outdoors. I can't really remember when I started hating physical activity, but I do remember it being linked to being diagnosed with asthma as a child (not really bad asthma, but enough that I needed an inhaler), which made me really nervous about exerting myself. That, and being a very shy child, I found the team sports that we focused on at school very daunting. It didn't help that the PE teachers didn't really pay any attention unless you were already really good at something. All in all a combination that led me to label myself as being crap at any sort of physical activity, with a medical condition to justify it.

Fast forward to university. I still considered myself crap at sport, but I did begin to wish I wasn't. For some reason though it never occurred to me that maybe I could do something to change things. I tried stuff like climbing with friends, but there was always a voice in the back of my head telling me that I wasn't any good at it and that I would never be a 'sporty' person. I was good at academic stuff and books, and that was that.

Funnily enough the major change happened as a result of a personal crisis with the academic stuff. Back around 2013 I found myself in a situation where I didn't have a permanent job (contract jobs are the norm in the early stages of an academic career, and there is no guarantee that you will ever get a permanent contract). My future was hugely uncertain, and I thought I might have to give up everything that I had worked towards. At the same time I became pregnant, which made everything even harder. I sank into a bit of a depression, probably post-natal combined with the career crisis. It was pretty bad if I'm honest, and I knew I had to do something to help deal with all the negative feelings. Putting on my researcher hat I read that physical activity was a really good way to combat depression, and something clicked. I thought, honestly nothing can be as bad as the way I am feeling right now, and even if I'm crap at it at least it will give me something different to focus on.

Julie Bell self portrait

So I started running. I was bloody awful at it to begin with. I spent 40 mins to an hour at a time on the treadmill, slowly slowly increasing my pace and aiming for 5k. Sometimes I made it, sometimes I didn't, but after about 4 weeks it suddenly got easier, like really noticeably easier. I started doing 5k in around 20-25 minutes, and better still, I didn't feel like I was dying afterwards, all the tightness in my chest that I got from the asthma disappeared. I started to feel more confident, and plucked up the courage to start running outdoors. Up and around Arthur's Seat in Edinburgh (where I lived at the time) nearly every day. The feeling was so exhilarating. Not just the running, but the feeling of achievement, having done something I never thought I would be capable of. Once you have that moment where it 'clicks', everything else becomes easier. I started to wonder, if I have managed to become a runner, maybe I can do other physical things as well.

So I started lifting weights. Despite being anti-sport when I was younger, I've always had a huge admiration for athletic female physiques. I was (and still am) very much into sci-fi and fantasy books and comics, and some of my favorite artists since I was young have been Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell (NB some of their art is a bit NSFW). Julie Bell was a bodybuilder in her youth, and the women (and men!) in their paintings are all very muscular. I would spend hours trying to draw women that looked like that, but I never imagined it would be possible for me. I didn't have a clue what I was doing though. I spent about a year randomly doing bicep curls and lat pulldowns. Not much happened to my physique but I did find it oddly relaxing.

Then, at the end of 2015 I achieved the impossible and got my dream job in my hometown of Newcastle! After the stress of the house move I stopped running for a few months, but was desperate to get back into doing something physical. I tried doing some classes at the university gym but didn't really enjoy it. My new route to work took me past a private personal training gym, and I thought maybe I should talk to someone who knows what they're doing and see if I can really do this muscle building thing. I cannot stress the difference this has made - I've been training with guidance for 6 months now, and in that time I've learned so much about biochemistry, biomechanics and nutrition. It's a perfect applied science in many ways, putting ideas into practice with yourself as the experiment, and seeing how amazing the body is at responding to change. And it's a huge challenge - if I can get the job I always wanted, maybe I can master this as well!

Phoenix versus Magneto - one of Julie Bell's X-Men paintings