Uploaded June 2018 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
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60-something year young Great-Grandma Val Swaine is a beautiful blend of opposites: shy yet courageous, sweet yet...a real badass! She’s overcome fear and personal loss to become a champion powerlifter and a passionate advocate for living well in later years.
This is the fourth in our 'Mastering Youth' series which celebrates athletes, movers and fitness heroes who are over 60 years young.
fizzYcaL is an independent, self-funded labour of love, but if you'd like to help maintain the quality of our work please visit our store - fizzycal.com/store
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Transcript from the video:
I'm Val Swaine. I'm 62 years old. I was born in 1955 and I was born in Bradford. I joined the gym three years ago. I decided to go down the route of training with a personal trainer. And I went to see Mike. I was impressed by his attitude towards technique. He was very keen that we got the technique right.
And Mike said to me one day, "Would you like to do a competition?" and I thought 'He thinks I'm good enough to do a competition,' so I said "Yeah!" So we turned up on the day and we were like kids
peering through a curtain into this other world. We could see all these real strong looking women, but at the end of the competition it was just absolutely fantastic. I had this absolute fantastic feeling of achievement.
I'd actually qualified to do the British Championships at the end of that
competition. I entered the category for 56 kg, 60 to 64. And I got the British records. So I was really, really pleased with myself. It's shown me that I can do things that I never imagined I could do, which is great for my confidence. I think things happen in life and your confidence quite often takes a dip. And I find that I come into the gym and my confidence goes up, and I believe in myself, I believe that I can do things that I just never thought were possible.
Initially when I was chatting to one of the girls that I train with I said I'm really nervous about doing this. She said, "If you can inspire one person then that's a good enough reason." And I thought 'of course!' If by doing this somebody is watching and thinks, "I can do that too." Then that's worth it. And I just think anybody in fitness, if they can get people moving, keep people moving or people move a bit more then it's all worth it at the end of the day.
If you enjoyed this video please like, share and or comment to help it spread.
60-something year young Great-Grandma Val Swaine is a beautiful blend of opposites: shy yet courageous, sweet yet...a real badass! She’s overcome fear and personal loss to become a champion powerlifter and a passionate advocate for living well in later years.
This is the fourth in our 'Mastering Youth' series which celebrates athletes, movers and fitness heroes who are over 60 years young.
fizzYcaL is an independent, self-funded labour of love, but if you'd like to help maintain the quality of our work please visit our store - fizzycal.com/store
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcript from the video:
I'm Val Swaine. I'm 62 years old. I was born in 1955 and I was born in Bradford. I joined the gym three years ago. I decided to go down the route of training with a personal trainer. And I went to see Mike. I was impressed by his attitude towards technique. He was very keen that we got the technique right.
And Mike said to me one day, "Would you like to do a competition?" and I thought 'He thinks I'm good enough to do a competition,' so I said "Yeah!" So we turned up on the day and we were like kids
peering through a curtain into this other world. We could see all these real strong looking women, but at the end of the competition it was just absolutely fantastic. I had this absolute fantastic feeling of achievement.
I'd actually qualified to do the British Championships at the end of that
competition. I entered the category for 56 kg, 60 to 64. And I got the British records. So I was really, really pleased with myself. It's shown me that I can do things that I never imagined I could do, which is great for my confidence. I think things happen in life and your confidence quite often takes a dip. And I find that I come into the gym and my confidence goes up, and I believe in myself, I believe that I can do things that I just never thought were possible.
Initially when I was chatting to one of the girls that I train with I said I'm really nervous about doing this. She said, "If you can inspire one person then that's a good enough reason." And I thought 'of course!' If by doing this somebody is watching and thinks, "I can do that too." Then that's worth it. And I just think anybody in fitness, if they can get people moving, keep people moving or people move a bit more then it's all worth it at the end of the day.
