Shetland's Strong Women - Tank Built Conditioning Camp

Kirsten Tulloch is a strength coach with over twenty years of experience. She spent a number of years bodybuilding in the figure and physique classes in Scotland and New Zealand, representing Scotland at the National Amateur Body Building Awards (NABBA) Worlds when she was 19. Ten years later she was selected for the New Zealand NABBA Universe Team.

She knows her stuff and she's now using this knowledge to strengthen and empower other women.

After the birth of her daughter in 2008 she moved from body building to strength coaching, and in an ice cold village hall in Mossbank, Shetland, last weekend, I paid her a visit during her Tank Built Conditioning Camp Open Day.

Kirsten set up this camp to create challenging, dynamic and diverse workouts with the aim of making all those she works with stronger, both physically and mentally. Enabling her clients, she says, to create a strong, resilient body and mind, means that they can take whatever challenges and curve balls life throws at them.

Over 20 women attended this open day, women of all shapes, sizes, strengths and ages. It was a very welcoming and inspiring two hours where we were shown how to use a variety of strength training tools, and taught the correct form for doing certain exercises (ie: proper push ups, etc).

I had my first ever play with kettlebells, cast iron steel weights resembling cannon balls with a handle. Kirsten is a certified kettlebell coach under the IKFF (International Kettlebell & Fitness Federation) and she showed us how versatile these tools can be.

Other toys on offer to play with were thick battle ropes anchored to the wall. Using these to create waves offers a full body strength training workout as well as cardio.

Slam balls, atlas balls, wall balls and sandbags were all available to use, and we were taught correct technique to get the best out of all of them. I surprised myself with how much I was able to lift!

There was also a 120 kg truck tyre, which I'm pleased to say I flipped over four times! (small sense of achievement there!).