Hi I’m Simone West, and I’m 50 years old. I’ve been here for 3 months now.

I hit 50 about a month ago. I’d been on a long, long drive, trying to get my diet better, and I had been trying and trying and I had actually done a bit of running, but nothing.

I saw this and I just thought, “Well it’s another thing to try.” I mean you either give up or you try and I realised that I was starting to think I can’t do things. So I was starting to feel older and I knew that that wasn’t going to get any better all on it’s own.

So I thought, “I need to take positive action.” I didn’t know what that was but this came up on Facebook and I thought, “That sounds good, I’ll give that a go.”

I joined the gym and never went. It’s intimidating. I didn’t know what to do when I was there, I’d get bored of it, there was nothing driving me. I did a lot of walking and I really enjoyed that but again I guess that’s quite limited on what you can achieve with that.

I went from couch to 5k, that was probably about a year ago. But as soon as I had done the 5k, I kinda lost interest. Why is the DVCC different? DO you know what I really love about this? I don’t really have to think about it. All I have to do is turn up. I mean that’s all I have to do. And if I turn up, someone will tell me, someone will show me, someone will make sure that I’m alright.

I did have an injury before I came here, that was another thing. That was another thing I was trying to do, I did aerobic off of YouTube And I ended up where I virtually couldn’t sleep or lie-down for 6 months, I damaged my shoulders. I realise now, because I kept trying to go through the pain and I realise now, I just wasn’t doing it properly but of course no one was there to tell me.

Actually the biggest thing about here, in the first month I had all sorts of aches and pains. It kind of scared me thinking, “Oh I’m not going to do this.” The guys simply took that on board, changed what I did, told me how to live something better and it literally went.

I feel brilliant since joining. I’m surprised about that. I’ll tell you where it’s been evident. There’s a few silly little things but I think that’s quite a big thing. I’ve been coming and I just knew that whatever that I thought was happening with my body or wasn’t happening, I was just going to keep coming. I just had to keep coming.

There’s no going backwards, I couldn’t stop, I just have to keep coming. The result of that was that quite quickly actually, everything became a bit firmer. I just didn’t feel so flabby. So that was a good feeling. Also a big landmark for me was I couldn’t do a sit-up when I came here.

I mean I literally could not do a sit-up and that was for about a month and a half so if we did any bench work where you’re lying on a bench doing weights I’d have to put the weights down and roll off because I couldn’t sit up. It was impossible.

And then one day I did a sit-up and of course I’ve been able to do all kinds of core work since. It sounds like nothing, but when you can’t do something like a press-up or a sit-up and suddenly you can, that’s noticeable. A couple of weeks ago I went on holiday and we climbed a very big rock in Sri Lanka and I know I had been training but I don’t think I’d realised the difference it’d made.

I mean I got up that really, really easily and it was easier than our training sessions and I couldn’t believe that. Up until then I know before that I would have done it but I would have been really slow and it would have been really painful. My husband usually used to push me up.

So, he didn’t see me for dust and I got to the top and it was the most amazing feeling and it’s just this feeling that I can now do stuff, that I was starting to get to a point that I maybe couldn’t do. I’m not really a bystander, I’m a join-er in-er and now I’m probably fitter, just in 3 months than I than I probably have been for the last 10-15 years.

I’d recommend it because as I say, it’s up to you if you want to come but all I think you have to do is decide to come. If you decide to come, the rest is all taken care of. These are people who know what you you should be doing, what you shouldn’t be doing, getting the mix of exercises right. I’ve seen the results, whereas I could wander around the gym and not have clue what things are.

All the work that we do by doing squats absolutely killed me to start with. But again it wasn’t until climbing that rock the strength that you need, and the support they give to you body. I didn’t know that and I didn’t know what I needed to do to make that happen. Whereas here, people know. Not only that but it’s welcoming, you don’t have to feel intimidated, you don’t feel intimidated, I haven’t from the time I’ve been coming.

It is hard when you start, I’m not going to lie, I cried after my first session because it was so hard and I just thought, “How can I do this?” But actually, everyone is so nice and you realise now, I’m not the new person anymore.

Of course with the new people coming in, you realise, how far you’ve come. There’s simply so many people at different stages on the whole thing that you don’t feel intimidated and there’s people older, younger, fatter, thinner, it just doesn’t matter. So I think it’s welcoming but I think it’s the expertise I like most.