Ever felt the urge to lift an awkward patient, or persistent journalist, above your head and escort them from the practice?
Manchester-based optometrist Helen Cartwright must show more restraint than most, and this is not because she lacks tolerance – far from it.
Cartwright, who competes under her married name of Helen Fore, is a masters championship weightlifter able to raise around 500 copies of Optician journal from the floor, into a crouching position and then up above her head.
She welcomed Optician to her training gym in Stockport, Greater Manchester to explain how she became involved in weightlifting, and manages to dovetail training commitments with running a busy independent optical practice. She is later kind enough to coach Optician through doing a legitimate, albeit featherweight, lift.
Cartwright explains how women’s weightlifting was only officially recognised as a sport at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, Australia. Having only started in Olympic-style weightlifting two years ago, she has since been building up a collection of medals despite never having seen herself as the weightlifting type.
‘To my mind it was fat men in leotards,’ she quips. Her perceptions have now changed, but not too many patients at Cartwright Optometrists in Denton will be aware of the physical prowess of the well-mannered practitioner testing their eyes.
[CaptionComponent="1723"]Cartwright only entered her first weightlifting event in February at the Northern Masters. Adapting to the cut-throat competition after decades serving patients with a smile on her face took some adapting at first, she reflects. ‘The first competition I felt sick,’ she says. ‘When on the first lift the judges said “good lift”. I responded “thank you very much” [not knowing they call this out every time a competitor’s technique is legitimate].’
But there was no need to be nervous, because Cartwright won gold lifting a total of 75kg in the snatch and clean and jerk disciplines. Next followed the British Masters, where Fore picked up a silver medal with total lifts of 70kg.
‘It was such a thrill to achieve something like this,’ Cartwright says.
Having reached the required standard, Cartwright was able to enter the European Masters Weightlifting competition at Bangor University in June this year, where she first experienced performing in front of a crowd. ‘You build it all up in your head but it’s all over in a matter of minutes,’ she says.
Mind games
It was at the European Masters where Cartwright faced her first barrage of gamesmanship and mind games, which are played out in the warm up area ahead of events. Because the bar can only be increased as the tournament goes on, she explains, competitors sometimes change the weight of their starting lift intentionally to put off the opposition.
‘It’s all quite exciting and they’ll suddenly say “you’re up next” and you have only one minute to begin the lift,’ she adds. ‘That bit of time pressure takes your attention from the audience. In fact, I didn’t notice until afterwards but it was so nice because my husband and three children were there and I hadn’t known they were coming.’
Again Fore rose to the occasion, lifting a tournament personal best of 78kg in the snatch and clean and jerk to win a silver medal for the Great Britain team in her W50 class.
‘I felt incredibly proud to be stood on the podium wearing a Great British track suit, and to represent my country in a sport that I really enjoy,’ she says.
Her next aim is to qualify for next year’s European Masters Competition in Azerbaijan, which will require an 85kg total – something Cartwright has already achieved in the gym setting. She also has ambitions to complete an adjudicating course to become a referee for the British Weightlifting Association.
Meanwhile, as the competition stakes have heated up, so too has the training, and her three visits to the Manchester Strength and Conditioning gym at the Pear Mill Industrial Estate are only possible through the support she receives from family and colleagues.
‘I’ve got an incredibly supportive husband and brilliant staff,’ she says.
Cartwright’s strategy for Azerbaijan is to drop down one weight division to gather more points at the World Masters. ‘I’d like to get a gold medal there,’ she says. ‘It’s a personal thing and you always want your total to be going up.’
The art of weightlifting is as much about speed, timing and technique as it is raw strength, Cartwright explains. As Optician is walked through the lifting technique (see picture above) it also becomes clear that without high levels of balance, flexibility and co-ordination it can be difficult to even get started in the sport.
However, as Cartwright’s coach Mark Beck reassures his ungainly visitor, the doors of Manchester Strength and Conditioning are open to all abilities. The pair first met through a personal training arrangement 12 years ago before he encouraged Cartwright to move onto weightlifting, and compete in the over 50s national and European competitions.
There is a vibrant atmosphere at Beck’s gym on the Pear Mill Industrial Estate, Stockport, where he drives on individuals of all age ranges and sizes to jaw dropping lifts. As a cross-training session involving some impressive monkey bar scaling and chin-ups continues in the background, Cartwright tells Optician what she enjoys about the sport.
‘You are very much by yourself out there on the platform, just as in the consulting room you work on a one-to-one basis with each patient. I have never really been a team player and maybe that’s why I work for myself.
‘In weightlifting and in optics you are striving all the time to improve yourself. You want to do the right thing for each patient and give them the best result you can for yourself, so there are similarities.’
However, she says seeing a difficult patient is more difficult than pushing on to the next weight, with weightlifting ‘a great release’ to provide a physical aspect to her lifestyle in complement to the mental challenge of being an optometrist.
In addition, strengthening her back has helped allay some of the nagging back troubles commonplace to those spending time in the consulting room.
‘Before I started doing weightlifting I had a problem with my back,’ she says. ‘You are sat in a very peculiar way; since we’ve been weightlifting I’ve had none of these problems.'
Indeed, she is also well positioned to recommend her patients lead a healthy lifestyle, encouraging them to eat healthily, hydrate and avoid smoking. Her family practice, which employs three receptionist staff and uses locums, provides a diabetic retinopathy screening service in the community. Cartwright describes the rise in numbers of diabetes patients as ‘unbelievable’.
In a business sense, the steely determination needed on the weightlifting platform can be transferred directly over to independent practice. While ample patients coming through the door means her practice is full to capacity, keeping pace with larger competitors remains a challenge.
She adds: ‘I can’t keep up on price. The frustrating thing now is not being able to get the choice of frames and we have to order 40-50 pieces minimum. By the time you have sold them they become discontinued.
‘But what we can compete on is level of service. That is all you can do to compete with the big boys.’
Read more remarkable roles
Photo opportunities for optom Graham Coates
Getting into character with an actor optometrist
How international cyclist Anna Turvey keeps her career on track