Sarah gets exercised about staying healthy

City Lives – Bernie Ní Fhlatharta meets Sarah Smith, sports coach and an advocate of living well
Many people will use the next few weeks as a last ditch effort to lose a few pounds for Christmas, so that the women can fit into party dresses and the men can justify a bit more indulgence! So, it’s timely then that Sarah Smith has published an eBook aimed at those very people – well the women anyway.
The Busy Babe Bootcamp is a 14-day detoxification plan which boasts ‘eat wise – drop a size’. But it is also another way that Sarah can deliver a message she has been sharing for over 13 years in the fitness and health industry. She works as a personal trainer, nutritional advisor, tutor, sports coach and group exercise instructor.
As she says herself, “I just don’t talk the talk, I walk the walk” referring to her own healthy lifestyle and her passion for fitness, especially Kettlebells.
Sarah was one of the first in the West of Ireland to introduce Kettlebells into fitness regimes and she is the only one coaching Kettlebells as a sport. She is self-taught and was in Russia earlier his year as part of the Irish team at a Kettlebell competition, where she secured a gold and silver medal in her discipline, the Long Cycle.
She is very active as a member of the All Ireland Kettlebell Lifting Federation (AIKLF) in a campaign to make it an Olympic sport. In her Galway hub in the Hibernian FC premises on the Headford Road, Sarah coaches people who are interested in competitive Kettlebells and holds classes in the weight for people who just want to exercise.
“I love Kettlebells. I am passionate about them. I love their history too. The oldest Kettlebell is about 800 years old. They were used to weigh meat centuries ago and there’s evidence they were used in training for nearly 200 years.
“I love the way people can use them in exercising at different levels, starting with weights of four kilograms and going up to higher weights. I have been collecting them for years too, so I have them in every size.”
Sarah doesn’t do things by halves. Once she sets her heart on achieving something, she goes out and gets it, she says. A tall, slim — and very fit — blonde, Sarah has been combining healthy nutrition with exercise for almost two decades. In fact at the tender age of 17 she managed one of the first Evergreen Health Food stores in the city.
Since she was a child she has been helping out in her parents’ health store which they ran for 27 years in Ennis before opening up Open Sesame Healthfoods in Gort nine years ago. At the age of 21, she opened her own shop, Bliss, in the Eyre Square Centre. That has since closed so she could concentrate on exercise and her beloved Kettlebells. She ran the gym at the NUI Galway Kingfisher club until recently.
“For a while I ran an exercise class in my little rented house in Mill Street, but I also did house calls, lugging the gear in and out of my small car, but I loved it at the time,” she smiles.
She probably got her work ethic from her parents, Sally and Hugo, both English, who settled in Kilbeacanty, near Gort, to rear their family. Hugo was also a musician who played with the band Pyramid, formerly known as Love Biscuit. They were “a bit alternative” and home-schooled their children, including Sarah, until she reached the age of seven.
She has a natural curiosity and sense of adventure that must have been nurtured during those early years. Sarah has worked in Australia where she honed her gym skills and, having been brought up with organic food and natural products, she makes her own skincare rather than buy it – she has sensitive skin and wants to know exactly what’s she’s applying to her face.
For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.