Audacious Action Alexa

WORKOUT: ALEXA TOWERSEY alexatowersey.com // @actionalexa HAIR & MAKEUP: NICOLE KENE nicolekene.com // @nicolekene_makeup PHOTOGRAPHER: JESSICA APAP jessicaapap.com // jessicaapap_photographer STYLIST: TULLY HUMPHREY tullylou.com.au // @tullylou_

Few trainers have the skills, experience and education of STRONG Australia Head Trainer and Livin (@livinorg) mental health speaker and ambassador Alexa Towersey. Even fewer have her resilience – from dealing with her father’s alcohol abuse as a child and then quitting the booze herself in her teenage years, to suffering a horrific injury that left her unable to walk let alone train, our cover model knows a thing or two about overcoming challenges. Get ready to be inspired.

ON BOXING I developed a real affinity for boxing during my university days, when it became an incredible outlet for me. It can teach strength and power, but also patience and focus. There’s nothing like hearing the ‘crack’ as you hit the pad to make you feel empowered. Boxing is the perfect analogy for life and mental health – it doesn’t matter how hard or how often you take a hit, it’s about the number of times you get back up to fight another day.

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS Attaining my Gym Jones full accreditation, gracing the cover of STRONG Australia and moderating a mental health panel at the 2019 Fitness Show in Melbourne on behalf of the magazine, and touring the United States as the opening speaker for internationally renowned suicide prevention warrior Kevin Hines.

ON A LIFE-CHANGING MOMENT In 2017, I was diagnosed with degenerative osteoarthritis – in the space of eight to 10 months I went from being an athlete to someone who couldn’t walk. For someone who had identified her whole life with being physically strong, I felt like my identity had been challenged. Add to that the social isolation, chronic pain, sleepless nights and fears of becoming addicted to pain medication – safe to say, I was a mess. I was told by five orthopaedic surgeons that I had no alternative but to get a full hip replacement or I wouldn’t walk again.

A NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE On 12 August 2017, I was admitted to hospital at 8am. At 12pm I woke up in the intensive care unit (ICU) unable to breathe by myself. Turns out, I had had an anaphylactic reaction to my antibiotics in surgery, had flatlined and then had to be resuscitated four times. While there was no white light or conversation with God, there was an absolute moment of clarity around the type of person I wanted to be and the type of value I wanted to add to the people and places around me. The last thing I had done was a #LIVINWELL presentation at a school in Townsville, where one of the students told me that sharing my story that day saved her life. That conversation was the first thing I remembered when I woke up in ICU – I knew that I’d finally found my ‘purpose’.

MY ADVICE It’s much easier to prevent injuries than to deal with them after the fact. Learn to listen to your body (if it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it), prepare your body adequately for your training (a dynamic warm-up can be a game changer), and program in recovery sessions. One of the hardest aspects of being injured can often be mindset – it’s easy to have a pity party about the things you can’t do. Instead, use it as an opportunity to try something new with your training – I took up calisthenics with the aim of performing a one arm pull-up and a strict muscle up – and to focus on your nutrition.

GIVING UP THE BOOZE My dad, grandad and uncle were all alcoholics, so alcoholism ran in my family. When I was younger, I never drank because I enjoyed the taste of it, I drank because I enjoyed the feeling of being drunk. Following my dad’s death from liver cirrhosis, I made the decision to quit – it’s been 11 years and I haven’t touched a drop. It’s the best yet hardest decision I ever made. Decisions you make about your own life can be extremely confronting for those around you, particularly when they feel as though you’re indirectly challenging their own choices. For lack of a better term, giving up the booze was social suicide for me. I used half Ironman training to help – essentially replacing one addiction for another – until I no longer needed either.

MY TIPS FOR IMPROVED MENTAL HEALTH:

A THOUGHT ON SOCIAL MEDIA If you’ve created a presence in the online space, essentially you’re giving a whole array of people access to you 24/7, and there will always be people who don’t agree with you or like you. Some will choose to voice it. At the end of the day you choose who you interact with – you can shift your profile to private and delete and/or block negative comments. I just don’t engage.

TRAINING PHILOSOPHY Train for your objective – whether that be to put on muscle, get stronger, lose fat or run a marathon. If you don’t know what you want to achieve, it’s hard to put a plan together and it’s hard to measure results. I used to train really hard because I liked to push myself and feel like a badass, but now I train to feel good both in the gym and in the real world. Depending on my travel schedule, I will weight train or attend a Pilates class five to six days per week, and I walk at least 10 to 12,000 steps most days.

BIGGEST TRAINING MISTAKE I SEE Women making everything about the perceived ‘perfect’ outcome and not enjoying the process or celebrating the small wins along the way.

ON WHAT’S NEXT In August 2020, I’ll be competing in the Mongol Derby – a 1,000km race across the Mongolian desert on semi-wild horses. The aim is to raise $100,000 for mental health charity Livin and not get eaten by wild dogs in the process. Wish me luck! S *You can donate to Towersey’s plight via the Go Fund Me website (gofundme.com.au).

Find the things in life that bring you joy and give you purpose – be it walking your dog, listening to a podcast, going for a surf, having a coffee with mates, eating Caramello Koalas – and do them as often as you can. Find your tribe. The people you spend your time with influence everything from your opinions and emotions to your shopping decisions, so choose them wisely. Ask yourself if the people around you make you feel good about yourself – and if they don’t, then disengage. Sharing is caring, so talk it out – remember the last time you were able to help somebody else just by listening to them? Did you feel like a good human? Next time you’re going through something and you don’t want to ‘burden’ those around you, remember what it felt like to help someone else – that’s the gift you’re giving them by trusting them with your story. 1 2 3