Fitness Expert Interview: Emma Cresswell

Today we spend a few minutes with Emma Cresswell. Emma is a personal trainer and strength coach based in Cardiff with over 15 years experience in the health & fitness industry. Emma has represented Wales at powerlifting and is my go-to person in Cardiff for all strength related matters.

• Emma, what got you started in personal training and strength & conditioning?
• I’ve always been interested in being physically active, whether it was sport in school or training in a gym.  But my real love for strength happened after a real tough time in my life, when I lost a lot of weight because of relationship breakdown.  I decided that I needed to back in control of my life.  I decided that whatever weight I put on would be ‘good weight’ as I called it then.  So I started training like a bodybuilder.  I loved the feeling of being able to move something that I couldn’t do the week before.  Feeling the exertion needed to do it was addictive for me, and the fact that I was the only girl in the weights area of the gym in those days just drove me to do it even more!  The drive to perform became more satisfying than my physical appearance so I researched and started to learn about strength and conditioning and along the way I found powerlifting.  Next thing I knew I made the Welsh team for the Commonwealth Championships and since starting have trained up a number of power lifters, 2 of which made the GB squad in 2015!
• Do you have a particular philosophy with regards to coaching and training?
• Your mind will always want to give up before your body needs to.  So, if you can master your mind, your body will follow! Self-confidence goes along way in strength progression, but it all starts with the desire to achieve. 
• Most endurance athletes shy away from strength training, why would you recommend that they give it a go and spend some time getting ‘strong’?
• There is extensive research into this in numerous endurance sports, in recreational, well trained and highly trained athletes, and all of the articles that I have read show that strength and endurance training lead to improved short (<15mins) and long term (>30 mins) endurance capacity. It doesn’t matter what level you are, you will improve your race time with relevant strength training along side your endurance training!
• What’s the biggest misconception who’ve come across with regards to strength training?
• Strength training makes you put on weight! Well if that’s the case I should be the size of a house! (I’m not by the way!)  No… eating more calories than your body needs makes you put on weight. If we are talking weight then, Strength training will increase your resting metabolic rate, so if you increase your strength and keep your regular endurance training and eat your usual diet you can actually lose weight!
•  Just how important is diet & nutrition (to help you achieve your goals)?
• Eating an unhealthy diet wont stop you from being able to do endurance training, but eating a well-designed diet will maximise your potential.  Imagine two people owning the same car as each other.  One uses standard petrol and the other, high performance fuel.  There would be no noticeable difference when filled for the first time but after a few thousand miles, who’s car would you expect to see the better ride from?  This is the same for the human body.  Food is such a powerful thing, get your diet wrong and you will make you unhappy, out of control, angry, it can make you overweight, obese, morbidly obese, and also at the other end of the scale underweight. But, get it right and you will be empowered, motivated, happy, lean, more energetic and so many other positive effects.
• What’s your own personal favourite exercise?
• I’m a powerlifter. I love the big 3! The squat, the bench press and the deadlift. But for me, nothing matches the feeling of hitting a new pb on a deadlift.  Hitting a 150kg deadlift at 59kg was my best moment in my strength journey.  That’s 2 ½ times my bodyweight, and I picked it up! me. Little old me. Noone else.  I just love the raw nature of a deadlift, you are essentially just picking something up, but you are picking something up that is heavier than you would normally attempt.  You also use more muscles in a deadlift than any other strength exercise. Want to get stronger? then Deadlift…Want to save time in the gym? then Deadlift… want to increase your self confidence? Then Deadlift heavier!  Want to feel good? Then Deadlift!
• What’s your biggest pet hate (in the gym)?
• Bad personal trainers/strength and conditioning coach! Bad personal trainers allowing their clients to execute their training with bad form!  Its unproductive, and unsafe and it makes my blood boil!  Unfortunately for this industry is that you can do a 12-week course and then call yourself a personal trainer and charge the same as an experienced trainer who has 20years experience and has produced success story after success story. Make sure you research who you put your trust into.  The most expensive is not always the best, the cheapest may not offer any value.  In my opinion, a good strength and conditioning coach will have experience, clients who have success stories to share, have a sound knowledge of the body and how it works & moves, and ideally will have competed in a sport to a reputable level themselves.
• If you had to choose one strength-based exercise for endurance athletes, what would it be?
• I cant! There is no one exercise for all endurance athletes. What I would say is that strength is general, sport is specific.  Don’t spend time doing exercises like single squats on a Bosu ball while bicep curling with a wrist weights and a Vipr bar!  What I mean is don’t think that you need a fancy exercise that is specific to your sport.  Do movements that are designed to improve strength for strength.  Yes a squat will be more beneficial for a runner than a bench press so you should choose exercises that will carry over in this way but please, don’t let me see you standing on top of a Fitball squatting!
• Outside of the athletic realm, what are some of the things you like to do in your spare time?
• I’ve always been physically active outside of work, so my big love is water/snow based sports.  Surfing, wakeboarding, skiing, snowboarding.  I would not say that I’m expert in any of them but pretty good at all of them.  However, I have recently started to learn the Ukulele and I love it! I’m just no good at it yet!
• Is there a sport or activity you’d love to try?
• Yes! Pole vaulting!  An unbelievable show of athletic prowess in one move.  You need to be a sprinter, a gymnast a power athlete, an acrobat, and seriously ballsy!
• Do you have any final tips for anyone who’s considering adding strength training to their routine?
• Yes, keep it simple.  Go for multi joint movements that move the most weight.  Cycle the amount of repetitions so starting with high reps as you learn the movements and progress to higher weights, lower reps as you get better. Having said that, focus on volume.  Endurance athletes benefit from volume training most.  Also, remember to give yourself a de-load week, every now and then (4-8weeks depending on intensity of workout and the individual).  This is where you either work at 50% intensity or you do something completely different, to allow super compensation to occur (this is when the magic happens!)

Thank you Emma for the interview, very insightful. If anyone needs ANY advice related to strength and fitness, you can contact Emma HERE, but don't delay, Emma is in very high demand and only has spaces for a limited number of people. Train smart all!