Sarah Davies is a decorated professional weightlifter whose career highlights include competing in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and earning gold at the 2022 Commonwealth Games. Her impressive accolades also include a silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and two silver medals in the 2021 European and World Championships. Known for her dedication and resilience, Davies shares glimpses of her training and life on Instagram, inspiring her followers with her discipline and motivation. In a recent video, she demonstrated a snatch session and reflected on her progress: “Now I'm touching at least 90 every snatch session. That's a win!” Beyond weightlifting, Davies is an advocate for women’s sports and finds balance through hobbies like dance.
1. She Lifts Weights
Weightlifting is obviously one of the main ways Davies keeps herself in shape. According to ACE Fitness, this exercise has a lot of benefits. “Lifting heavy weights elevates levels of anabolic hormones—specifically testosterone, growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor (IGF-1)—which are used to repair muscle fibers damaged during exercise. This helps the muscle fibers to become thicker and capable of generating higher levels of force.”
2. She Does Squats
One workout that Davies does with weights is squats. She shared this video on Instagram of herself doing them. Davies captioned the post, “Looks like I've learnt to keep grinding out of a squat. Only taken me 12 years! Big love to the hype squad this morning helping me through. Did myself dirty with the camera angle though 🤣😵💫” Piedmont states that squats are very beneficial. “Squats are a compound, multi-joint movement, which means they exercise several muscle groups. When you perform a squat, you work your calves, quads, hamstrings, glutes, core and part of your back. A squat has more overall benefits than, say, a bicep curl, which strengthens an isolated area.”
3. She Works Hard
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Davies is all about hard work. In an interview with Image, she advised others to do the same. “Keep pushing,” she said. “There will be people who try to stop you being successful because they are jealous you have the discipline to be great. If it makes you happy then be the best athlete you can be.”
4. She Wants To Inspire Women
Davies talked about wanting to be an inspiration for other women and her desires for women’s sports to be more popular in her Image interview. “I think it’s very much a vicious cycle at the moment and we need one company to break the mould for it to open up women’s sport. Companies do not sponsor women’s sport because it doesn’t get enough air time and visibility, yet television does not show enough women’s sport because it does not have enough financial backing. I think the women’s rugby and football lately have started to break this cycle more but it needs a big shake up.”
5. She Dances
Davies revealed in her Image interview that she has taken up dance. She says that it’s not just a way to stay in shape, it’s also a way to help her mental health. “I recently started going to dance classes so that I have a hobby because weightlifting is now my job and I wanted to have something and somewhere where I was just Sarah rather than Sarah the weightlifter. I love the new challenge and the friends it has brought me. I think as an athlete it can be too easy to get fully wrapped up in the sport so when it doesn’t go well in training, you can easily spiral downwards. Having something that reminds you that you still have an identity without sport is really important.”
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Sarah Lanzillo/Instagram
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