The meaning behind our name and logo: shared for the first time!

Owner and Head Coach Ro shares the meaning behind our name and behind our logo.

“Barbell Brigade” is the name of a Powerlifting Gym in America. I remember seeing this gym online for the first time and thinking “holy shit now that is a gym!”

The natural light coming in. No TV’s.

Racks and platforms. Chalk. Bars. Plates.

This was a lifters playground! I wanted to lift there.

There was open space.

Not crammed up by a jungle of machines.

Having worked in commercial gyms from the start of my career- one thing that always made me feel uncomfortable and scratch my head was the angst and pissed off people that centred around machines.

“How many more sets do you have left?” huffing and puffing if you took too long. Not sharing machines even if they were just standing around chatting, the machines were held by them.

“How much longer are you going to be?!” muttering under their breath because you were taking too long.

This always made me feel really uncomfortable.

I didn’t want that- for our community, for our women. I wanted our women to feel comfortable and confident in their training. I wanted them to have an environment to grow and explore.

I wanted to talk, laugh and share experiences together.

Barbell Brigade was a visual inspiration that showed me what a gym could look like. To bring a space like that alive for our ladies was something that I knew we needed and I knew we deserved.

You may or may not have realised that the font used is indeed the “Barbie” font for the first two words.

I had Barbie’s growing up as many of my generation and those before did. I played with them a lot. I remember looking back when I was in a pretty crappy place about my own body and remembering the Barbie’s I played with. What was being portrayed in the media at the time, really thin, tall girls that were as far from my body as can be. I was short and had a wide torso that would never resemble the synched in waist like the Barbie doll. The parallels between what was getting thrown around in the media and the doll I played with was something that stuck with me.

So I decided to use that font, followed by a bold and clear font for the BRIGADE with a barbell right through the middle.

 

The barbell image large and clear through the centre of our logo. As a personal “stuff you and your beauty standards”- we are STRONG right through the middle.

The way we look doesn’t define us. We all hold our own personal strength in our own unique ways.

The image of a barbell will always hold so much meaning for me. I look at the image of a barbell and it reminds me of the experiences that I have lived. The struggles, the failures, the times in my life that caused me pain. The personal growth, the triumphs that I have had that have helped me to get where I am today. To be in a position to share my life, my story and make connections with those going through their own battles. None of this would have been possible if I didn’t discover strength training and discover my own strength.

I will be forever grateful for the sport of Powerlifting and the many lessons I have learnt and continue to learn through lifting.

HQ is for our women. To lift, laugh and explore our own version of strength together.

Ro x