TD: Your youngest client is 12, oldest is 80, and the disabilities you work with can range from blindness, to cerebral palsy to intellectual disabilities. How does training your clientele differ to a more typical gym and what sets Raw Strength apart and makes it appealing to all demographics?

MM: It's a challenge that's for sure. From a coaching point of view you need to be very knowledgeable in terms of physical differences and shaping movements to suit. But you also need to adapt your behaviors to suit the age/ability groups to make them feel welcome. For example you can't demonstrate a movement to someone who's blind the same as someone who isn't, and you can't talk the same to a twelve year old girl as you can to a 30 year old man. It's about adapting yourself to suit the needs presented to you. I still find myself making mistakes from time to time and upsetting someone, but every time I do I learn from it. And that's the key. Experience. 


TD: Historically sports and disability have not been a regular match. What perceptions have you been working against/trying to change?

MM: The main one we are trying to push for is that it's unsafe, or "bad" for you. We have lots of differently abled people and particularly older women that come to us with this stigma that sport and especially weight training will injure them or that they can't participate. Which is just wildly untrue. In fact as you age the statistics show a decrease in the injury rate. Especially for disabled or chronically pained people, weight training and regular exercise tends to increase energy and mobility levels and decrease pain. Not to mention the confidence they gain from learning how strong they actually are. Which is why we push so hard for the health side of sport. Not so much the competition side.  


TD: With your background in the disability sector, and as a current mental health care worker, can you give us insight into some of those benefits that come from enabling every person the opportunity of physical training and education?

MM: The benefits are endless. There's weight control which can be a real challenge for people who are disabled or on specific medications. There's pain reduction which is a big issue within the disability community. There's also a big correlation between regular activity and lower depression rates. There's also the community aspect too. Being involved and being accepted is very helpful to keeping people active and happier. Plus you get more people checking in with them, which can be a difference maker when things might be going wrong. Someone might notice a change in behavior or that they haven't seen them in a while or in extreme cases marks or wounds that might indicate things aren't ok. For people that otherwise might be isolated, that can really make a difference. 


TD: Competitively as a team you’ve had quite a bit of success. You’ve hosted several national powerlifting competitions including the Australian Masters Games, attended the Asia Games, and have multiple World Record holders in the team. What are the next steps of growth for Raw Strength?

MM: The next step was to win best team at the Juniors and Masters championship, and then take our team to Worlds (first time) and Asia's (once again) at the end of the year. We are one of the biggest individual teams in AUS now so it was looking promising however that plan is in shambles from Covid-19 now so honestly we aren't to sure. Hopefully we can still do that, otherwise postpone it to next year.