Its always great to hear stories of kiwis going overseas and conquering the world whether in business, sport and life.  One such story is that of Tim Bean and Anne Laing who spent many years building up their Performance Training Company Gym in Timaru.  One day they decided to visit their children in UK and decided to stay longer, 7 years infact,....sound familiar? a very typical kiwi story but this couple have made some extraordinary inroads into the UK health and fitness industry.  They've done a TV series called 'turn back your body clock', written a book, created fitness programmes for celebrities and also carved a niche amongst the corporate health market in England and around the world.  So its all go for these high flying kiwis! read more below to find out what they think of the UK fitness and bodybuilding scene and what else they have in their sights.

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Recently I had the opportunity to check out the Commonwealth Powerlifting Champs which was held in Chirstchurch 5-9 December and boy did I feel like a 50lb weakling. The girls and guys who competed were just amazing and I was just in awe of their super strength.  Ofcourse we already know the amazing feats of Ali Gascoine but there's plenty of girls who also do great things in powerlifting for New Zealand who include Maria Brightwater-Wharf of Wellington and Trish Muldrock of Northland who I snapped during this event.

Lisa and Ali

Maria competed in the Masters 1 class ie in the 40 - 49 age group, Trish in Masters 2 ie 50-59 while Ali decided to go into the Open age 'for a challenge' although she usually competes in Masters along with the 2 girls.  They have a great spirit and are very supportive of each other during the contest.  Actually it was the friendship and support shown by all athletes in powerlifting that I noticed most.  Most athletes cheer each other on no matter which country they were from and there was also plenty of cheering by the audience to will the athletes on to lift the super weights. Check out BIG Boys of powerlifting here

Ali, Trish and Maria

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Raechelle Chase

When I saw Raechelle Chase at the NABBA North Harbour on 3 Nov 07, it was her beautiful bikini that caught my eye (yes its a girl thing!). After getting the bikini discussion out of the way I discovered she had other eye opening revelations to tell me too! Its hard to believe seeing her on contest day with her contest bod and tight abs that this youthful 29 year old only had a baby 10months earlier! and that she has 2 others at home, 8 year old Annalise and 2 year old Carlos.

a year earlier

Making her story more interesting is that Raechelle, who's occupation is fulltime mother and part time model, lives on Denarau Island in Fiji. She flew especially over to compete at the show!. So I thought she'd make a great candidate for Wonder Woman, read on:

Where do you train?  Ocean's Edge or The Hilton Resort & Spa (depending on what I'm training) or if I'm training legs I train at The Kennedy gym where the Fiji rugby team train.

I think it's the oldest gym in Nadi you have to be careful you don't fall through the floor, there is no air ventilation at all, I have to go to the window to get some air between sets or I feel like I'm going to pass out. And the equipment is so ancient allot of it is unusable, but it's the only gym with a squat rack & leg press so that's where I train legs.

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