Swindon barbell is opening its doors once again for our Summer open day Saturday 7 July 9am – 12pm. This is your chance to learn to: Squat Bench press Deadlift Strength training Weight training Health and fitness Strength and power for Sports development All for free! That’s right! You can book your 45 minute session by emailing lifter@swindonbarbell.com and be taught by world class coaches Charlie Shotton-Gale and her team. Places are going quickly so book early to get the time you want ..read more

Swindon barbell shone through at the South West Powerlifting championships this Chris Guttridge squatting 180k weekend with 2 winners, a bronze medal, many south west records, and a hoard of supporters enabling the competition to go ahead.   The weekend began with the Ladies on Saturday morning. The club had: Emily-Jane Sheppard lifting equipped in the -63k category Kasia Huchrak-Reed lifting classic in the -72k category Dawn Morrell lifting equipped in the -84k category   Day 1 Team for the women’s and lightweight men’s   The Sunday saw the Men’s team perform including: Joe ..read more

Emily started powerlifting with Swindon Barbell in January 2017 as a grass roots outreach section of the club. This was a once a week session run at New College for their students to diversify the sports available to them. What a success this turned out to be. She competed at her first novice competition that year, just months after taking it up. She then went on to an affiliated competition hosted by Swindon Barbell where she managed to qualify to compete in both Classic and Equipped British championships. Opting for the Equipped champs, she competed in them in Jan 2018 against some fierce co ..read more

January 21 sees some of Britain’s finest Powerlifters competing at the British Open championships in Horncastle, Lincolnshire. Amongst the lineup we have 6 of Swindon Barbell’s best Equipped lifters in attendance as well as a strong team of coaches, managers and supporters Click on their names to jump straight to their profile. Meet The Team Ladies team: Emily-Jane Shepard Christie Civetta Charlie Shotton-Gale Men’s team: Matt Watson Akin Makinde Dawid ‘Wozza’ Wozniak (Bench Press Only) Management and support team: Helen Toms Karl Marillier Joe Humphrey Chris Guttridge Jon Coe You can fi ..read more

By Emily-Jane Sheppard I first started lifting at New College, Swindon as part of the Powerlifting enrichment that ran once a week during my Tuesday lunch break. After a few months I joined the college gym and ran a basic training split alongside the enrichment, and in August I began training at SBB. After completing head coach Charlie’s novice programme I started one of Sheiko’s 4 day programmes. In November I competed in the SBB Bitesize competition to test my openers for the West Midlands (WM) Championships on December 3rd. Going into the WM comp, I was hoping to hit numbers that I hadn’t p ..read more

Swindon Barbell had 3 coaches competing at the IPF World Powerlifting championships last week including Matt Watson, Christie Civetta and Charlie Shotton-Gale.   Matt, who had recently competed at the Western European Championships and now completing his first ever World competition, was aiming for some good personal bests in this competition and, started strongly achieving a PB squat. Next up was bench, and after an easy opening attempt, unfortunately, Matt miss-grooved his second attempt meaning he took it again for his third attempt but it flew up leaving him with a personal be ..read more

November 11 saw the South West Powerlifting Association bitesize competition being hosted again at Swindon Barbell with 3 of our members competing: Emily, Nick and Akin. Emily-Jane 18 year old Emily-Jane was competing in her first powerlifting competition after taking up with sport through the club’s college session at New College Swindon. Emily started powerlifting through the college’s lunch time powerlifting club in 2016 and since has become a full member of Swindon Barbell, enhancing her strength and technique. She competed in the -63k female junior category and opened her squat with an ea ..read more

Next week sees 3 of Swindon Barbell’s coaches competing at the IPF World Open Championships 2017. Matt Watson Matt will be competing in the -93k mens category with some incredible athletes. Matt’s training has been looking incredible these last few weeks so we are hoping to see him smash out a few personal best’s next week! Christie Civetta Christie is facing some insane competition in the -72k category but is focused on the national records that she is so close to. Charlie Shotton-Gale Charlie, attending her 7th world championships, has said she is bowled over by the incredible ta ..read more

This year’s Devon and Cornwall championships saw 4 SBB lifters competing: Kasia Huchrak-Read Christie Civetta Joe Humphrey Matt Watson Kasia Following the 2017 South West Championships in April of this year, Kasia decided to take some time away from competing to focus on her training and getting her body working at it’s optimum. It has clearly worked out well for her. Working closely with Coach Charlie, Kasia has put in huge amounts of hours in the gym complimented with the correct amount of relaxation and recovery time. Results Squat = 110k √  117.5k √  125k √ That ..read more

Masters lifter Dawn Morrell talks about powerlifitng, equipped lifting and societies attitudes to older people in exercise. Aren’t you too old for that sort of nonsense! This is the sort of comment I usually get. That or ‘you don’t look like a weight lifter!’… To be fair, I was a relative latecomer to the party, not starting to lift until I was a couple of days shy of 50. I sometimes wish that I had discovered my ‘talent’ when I was in my 20’s. Who knows what a great champion I might have been. Despite this, I am a big believer in making the most of your talents whatever your age. Powerlifting ..read more