Corinne Fay on why powerlifting "could make everyone feel better," and the piece of gear she despises

Photo courtesy of Corinne Fay

I’m so jazzed to bring you a new interview this month — this time with the delightful Corinne Fay. You may have heard her chatting on Burnt Toast with Virginia Sole-Smith, or maybe you’ve read her incredible clothing ideas and advice on Big Undies. You may or may not know that she’s also a powerlifter. 

I wanted to chat with Corinne about powerlifting specifically because it’s such a fantastic sport for people interested in functional fitness, building strength, and focusing on measurable exercise progress that doesn’t have anything to do with body weight, size, or aesthetics. But it can also be really intimidating, and you may not think that powerlifting is for you. Let Corinne convince you otherwise.

One note: I’m still in experimentation mode on Substack (I think that might actually last forever?) and for today’s interview, I’ll be sharing the audio and the full transcript to paid subscribers only; the paywall will come down in about a month so free subscribers can listen and enjoy too! Thanks for your support and patience as I keep working to make this project a sustainable part of my business.

Here’s Corinne!

Anna Maltby: Tell us who you are and how do you describe your work? 

Corinne Fay: My name is Corinne. I do a bunch of things. I am on the Burnt Toast podcast with Virginia Sole-Smith. I run my own Substack called Big Undies, which is about clothing. I also run an Instagram account called SellTradePlus, where people buy and sell plus size clothing. I am a fat person, I am a queer person, and I am also a powerlifter.

Anna Maltby: How do you explain to people, what is powerlifting, and then, like, how did you discover it?

Corinne Fay: So powerlifting is a competitive weightlifting sport. It basically consists of three main lifts, squatting, bench pressing, and deadlifting that you can do, like you would go to a meet. There's different like powerlifting federations that kind of put on meets. I, how I got into it is, I guess I always had been kind of interested in trying lifting, but it felt intimidating.

I think a lot of lifting spaces just have a certain type of culture that doesn't necessarily feel welcoming or accessible to a lot of people. different people for a lot of different reasons. But I had a friend who said that she was going to start powerlifting. A bunch of her co workers were doing it and they were all doing it with this one specific trainer.

And she was kind of like, yeah, you should start with me. And I was like, Oh, let me think about it. I had actually met with a trainer, a powerlifting trainer at this gym before. And was just super overwhelmed and intimidated. And it was also kind of peak COVID times. And I was just like I can't but then I looked at this trainer, she looked really awesome and.

I just decided to do it with my friend and it was so nice having like a buddy at the beginning. Just so I was basically never alone at the gym. That's kind of how I got into it and it has been about two years since we started. 

Anna Maltby: For those who haven't been in that environment before, a weightlifting kind of oriented gym, what about it is intimidating?

Corinne Fay: I feel like how I would describe it is a lot of power lifting gyms feel really macho kind of, or yeah, like masculine type space. They're usually like, the space itself is usually pretty bare bones, like a warehouse, concrete floors kind of thing. A lot of them don't have showers, no amenities, no saunas, no showers, barely locker rooms and a lot of people who use powerlifting equipment are like, really, really strong, which is intimidating.

And a lot of these gyms also blast metal music. They're also really loud just because barbells are loud, so there's a lot of crashing noises. It's just kind of a hard space to be in, especially if you feel like, I have no idea what I'm doing. 

Photo courtesy of Corinne Fay

Anna Maltby: Yeah, I really relate to that, I've never been a powerlifter, but I used to be a member of a CrossFit gym that was exactly what you describe, and I got into Olympic weightlifting while I was there, so, definitely experienced the, like, the slamming bars, crashing plates, it's loud. It can feel like a really scary place if you've never been in that environment before. So what was that journey like to go from feeling a little overwhelmed by it to, oh, like this is actually something I want to stick with?