A mum has shared her incredible transformation after shedding an incredible six stone and winning her first strong woman competition.
When Jo Spence hit 19 stone in 2017, she decided to it was time to hit the gym and shed some pounds, Teesside Live reports.
As her fitness improved, she took up strength training to further challenge herself and by 2018 she was qualified as a personal trainer.
Now, the 38-year-old runs her own business, Joanne Spence Personal Training, working out of a workshop in Hartlepool and is an award-winning strong woman competitor.
Jo said: "I started doing strongwoman training in 2019, I just wanted to really challenge myself."
However, the sport was put on the back burner for a while when covid hit and all her sessions had to be carried out online.
But, the mum-of-one, took up her training again after lockdown and at the weekend was thrilled when she won first place in the Ashington Strongest competition.
Jo, who lives in Kendal Road, Hartlepool, with her partner, Darren Pearson, 38, and daughter, Maddi, 16, said she had only taken part in two strongwoman competitions before and was placed near the bottom.
She said: "When I walked into the competition there were the same girls who had beaten me before, so I thought I had no chance.
"But, I still took part and it worked out because I took first place."
Jo said it is not about winning for her, but the enjoyment of taking part and challenging herself.
She said her most recent competition involved some of the traditional strongman/woman rounds including a truck pull and a log press.
Now Jo has won a regional competition she will be placed into intermediate level to compete instead of beginners.
She said: "It is a massive jump, but again it gives me a new challenge to work on."
Jo has her next competition coming up in Skelton later this month and says she is going to carry on to see where the sport takes her.
She said if she had been asked before she would have said there was no way she would ever be able to take part in national or world events, but now she says it could be a possibility.
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