DivyaNair

Divya did not grow up doing this. She was twenty-nine, working shifts at the Northern General, and had not done anything you could call exercise since school. A colleague dragged her to a weightlifting club in Attercliffe and she spent the first six weeks convinced everyone was looking at her.

She mentions this constantly, to the point where the other coaches take the mickey, because it is the single most useful thing about her as a coach. She can remember not knowing where to stand.

How she coaches

Slowly, and with one correction at a time. If you have never lifted, Divya will spend most of your first hour on an empty bar and will not apologise for it. She is not interested in what you can lift today; she is interested in what you will be lifting in March, which is a different question and has a different answer.

She is the person who writes the beginner programmes, and she writes them on paper because she thinks a programme you cannot see without unlocking your phone is a programme you will not follow.

What she is less good at

Her own words: she is not the coach you want if you are chasing a competitive total. She will tell you to go and train with Rohit, and she will mean it as advice rather than a brush-off.