Josie aims to be Britain's strongest woman

When we think of any competition with “Britain’s Strongest” in the title, we tend to think of a competition for men.

All that will change if a Swindon woman called Josie Keck has her way. The rigours of weight training have never held any terrors for her.

“Women have a higher pain threshold,” she said. “We have babies.”

On Saturday, June 19, 36-year-old Josie will be one of a small group of women who gather to compete at Whitminster Playing Fields, near Gloucester. Some time later, if all goes according to plan, Josie will officially be Britain’s Strongest Woman, and any trophy will almost certainly be the lightest thing she lifts all day.

A bodybuilder as well as a strength competitor, she has little time for people who look askance at women who do things not typically associated with their gender.

“It’s the same with strength training as it is with bodybuilding,” she said.

“Females are meant to be small and petite and not powerful – but if I like what I’m doing, why shouldn’t I do it?”

Josie lives in Swindon’s Old Town with partner Barny du Plessis, 35, a champion bodybuilder with countless competition trophies and several magazine spreads to his name.

The two own and run Fusion PT, a mobile physical training service that operates throughout the region as well as from the Next Generation Club at Kembrey Park, where Josie is finance manager, and the Ironworx Gym in Greenbridge.

Ironworx, owned by Richard Scott, is Swindon’s only gym specialising not just in bodybuilding but strength training, and is where Josie prepares for the competition.

She said: “Because I’m training with boys and they’re doing heavy weights, it really helps with my training.”

The people at Ironworx are delighted by Josie’s achievements, but none more so than Barny.

“I’m very proud,” he said, “but I’ll be even more proud when she wins!”

The inventory of events at the forthcoming competition read like the trials faced by some ancient hero of legend, albeit updated to include modern items such as railway sleepers and large lumps of metal.

There’s the Frame Carry, for example. This is a slightly – just slightly – scaled-down version of the familiar men’s event when a hole is cut in the floor of a car and the competitors have to stand inside and carry it over a distance. For women’s events a special frame is used instead.

Rather than the weight of a car, the women must carry a mere 140kgs or so. In lay-person’s terms, that’s “merely” the weight of a couple of average six foot blokes, or a fully grown male giant panda who needs to go easy on the bamboo shoots.

There’s also the Axle Press, in which a scaffolding-type pole with tyres at either end must be hefted from the ground and held above the head. The weight goes up to about 70kg. So only one six-foot bloke or about half a panda this time, then.

Josie posed with a 30kg axle and tyres for our photographer. That’s a wee bit shy of 70lbs in old money. I was able to lift it to about knee height with relative ease, but if I’d tried to do what Josie did I reckon the next Hudson at Large would have focused on a day in the life of an osteopath.

Another torture awaiting the competitors on June 19 is called simply the Loading Event, in which heavy and often awkwardly-shaped objects must be carried over a series of ascending platforms. What sort of objects? Big rocks, beer kegs full of concrete, that sort of thing.

Then there’s Conan’s Wheel, in which lucky participants must carry up to 160kg in weights that are suspended from a bar attached to a central anchor point. And finally the Walk of Pain, in which a milk churn full of concrete is carried by its small metal handgrips until the competitor’s fingers, body or willpower simply give out.

Josie said: “It’s all about testing different parts of your body, and breaking the pain barrier.”

Testing herself is something she knows all about. With a first degree in engineering and a Masters in business, Plymouth-born Josie began her career in supply chain and logistics work. Early achievements included setting up a factory in Sri Lanka, and by 25 she was a highly-regarded executive with the Mars confectionery empire.

However, a few years of commuting between London and Slough, plus all the chocolate bars she cared to eat, left her overweight, unhealthy and unhappy.

At 30 Josie decided to abandon the rat race, and began applying her fearsome determination to her own health.

So began a journey that took her from size 22 to size 10, and whose next major waypoint is that competition near Gloucester on June 19.

Further information about Ironworx Gym can be found at www.ironworxgym.co.uk