The Big Strong Lasses

 The groups are lovely - very friendly, supportive and the classes are suitable for anyone (as long as you've not just had surgery - if that's the case we need to wait a few weeks). There's a lot of shared wisdom while we train, as we've all been in the same boat. 

 Courses begin each January, April, July and September with groups for beginners and for those who have gone through the first course and are ready to get even stronger. The workouts are designed to be safe for all, including those with stage 4 and with lymphoedema.  

 The beginner’s weights courses are live zoom based courses, one on Monday evenings and one on Friday mornings. So, they’re done on camera, from wherever you are – having us all on camera allows me to keep an eye on everyone’s technique, and to keep it safe.

Once you've taken part in the beginner's course, join the advanced groups on Wednesdays - we do more complex and challenging moves and we start to lift heavier. 

 The courses are usually 10 live classes, spread over 12 weeks, and except for July/August we normally avoid school holidays. Each class is roughly an hour long – I leave plenty of time for chat as one of the things other participants have told me is that they really value the sense of community that we build during the course. Each class is recorded and then I send an edited version back to everyone, for her to repeat once or twice before the next session. 

 I also send everyone shorter films, just with me in them, where I run through the routine that we’ve done together – these can be handy if you’re trying to repeat your workout without pausing where the class chat or ask questions etc. The recordings are for you to keep, and therefore you’d have a 12 week progressive strength programme that you could repeat over and over.

In the classes we use hand weights – dumb bells mostly – and to start you’d need a couple of pairs. Often we start with 1kg or 2 kgs and maybe something a little heavier but we can work around what you’ve got. Which can be tins of beans at first if that’s what will work best for you. 

It’s fine to do the course on chemo, with a PICC or port, and fine with lymphoedema. I have mild lymphoedema myself and have chosen the moves we use to be useful and safe. If you were concerned that treatment might prevent you completing the course, I’d be happy to roll your place over to a future course if you wanted to take a break. There are several stage 4 lasses who have done just that.

The timings of the classes are UK time. We have however had women join us from Canada, the US, France and Ireland as well as having them drop in from all over the place when they’re away from home.

Outside of the live classes we have a closed Facebook group for sharing things and egging each other on, a Whatsapp chat and a strava training group.