Let’s pull the front pose one more time. A little to the left. Jeez!
The sound comes from a computer placed on a small podium in the hall of mirrors. Robert Back sits at home in Vaasa and watches when Elin Liewendahl 350 kilometers further south is demonstrating its new program.
Kind and goofy fool. A social introvert with a huge drive. In a nutshell, Back’s description of his Åland wellness fitness training.
– Elin really knows how to train, says Back, recalling the first gym workout together a couple of years ago.
– I was like, wow, he’s getting more out of himself than any bodybuilder or Men’s physique athlete I know. But then came my first posing practice and I thought oh shit. Bambi on slippery ice.
Liewendahl himself adds that he walked about as gracefully as a refrigerator.
The change has been perfect. From a timid junior national team shooter who devoured chocolate bars on the couch, he has quickly emerged as a confident Fitness World Cup medalist who wants legs like Corner Sofas and a back like a Boeing plane.
– I’ve heard a lot of comments, but it doesn’t matter to me at all. When I close my eyes at night, I feel proud of what I do. No one else lives my life.
Watch Sportliv’s mini-documentary on Elin Liewendahl:
Heavy weights, heavy music. Elin Liewendahl, 27, turns up the volume on her headphones and disappears into her own world. To his own happy place.
It’s Thursday and spring Mariehamn is waking up from its winter sleep. But Elin Liewendahl is somewhere completely different. He is on the battlefield in the middle of a fierce battle.
– I’ve heard that what you do with muscles, we have the men for that. What if the man next to me falls? Then the responsibility falls on me.
He describes his world of thought as “a caveman’s survival instinct”. He wants to make it, no matter what happened. When he has to push his body to the limit, he puts a loved one in a life-threatening situation in his mind.
– Do I want someone to be in danger? I don’t. But if that were to happen, I have to do everything I can to save this person. This may sound terrible, and I don’t usually talk about these thoughts with others, but this is the method I use when I need to get everything out.
Liewendahl discovered strength training at the age of 14. Her mother put her in the gym with the intention of easing her daughter’s rheumatism. It helped – and at the same time Elin found the great passion of her life.
Back then, her main sports equipment wasn’t dumbbells and barbells, let alone bikinis and high heels. But an air and miniature rifle.
– I’ve been a tomboy since I was little. I’ve never been afraid of getting dirt under my nails. And for a long time that dirt consisted of gun oil, gunpowder and lead, Liewendahl says and laughs.
His under-16 Finnish record in the 10-meter air rifle from 2008 is still valid. Two years later, he was two points short of the world junior 50m record.
– When I looked at my really girly friends at school, I quickly realized that I’m really… not different, everyone is what they are, but I’ve never felt feminine.
Turku, summer 2021. Panic hits Elin Liewendahl in the face. He can already see the spotlights that will invite him on stage for his competition debut, when he suddenly realizes: I don’t know stage commands in Finnish!
After a few shock-filled seconds backstage and a rapid language bath, he steps onto the stage. A feeling overwhelms him: This is where I belong.
Since then, Liewendahl has marched from one success to another. He progressed from Finnish and Nordic arenas to European and finally international arenas. Last season culminated in October in the World Championship silver in the under 158 centimeter series, ahead only of the world champion Meriliis Tamm.
The competition was Liewendahl’s seventh in wellness fitness. He has developed by leaps and bounds, especially in stage performance and building a competitive persona.
– Let’s just say that it was quite difficult to get the boy Eli to trot around in heels.
On stage, he unearths another persona. Heartbeat, music, flashing lights. Accurate make-up, finished hairstyle, a couple of layers of self-tanning spray and a dollop of oil. From under the so-cautious shell, a brazen steam train emerges that wants to roll everyone down.
The text of the kitchen magnet hanging on the hood of the home sums up the attitude: Be a badass with a good ass.
– I’m actually really introverted and shy, and I don’t like to be loud. But I don’t need to when I’m on stage. There, my physique does the talking for me.
It has not been an easy change. She has created a “neutral feminine” stage persona for herself. An alter ego where he feels at home.
– It has been difficult for me to fit into feminine frames. Others move naturally as a feather, while I, during the first posing lessons, was stumbling in like a boot.
Liewendahl does not want to call stage performances theater. The competitions are an opportunity for the participants to proudly present the result of their hard work.
– Many people think that we only think about appearance, appearance and appearance, Liewendahl says and compares fitness clothing to a soccer player’s cleats and shin guards.
– When I’m not in a competition look, I think I look quite natural. What you see on stage is a microscopically small part of our work.
Wants to be bigger and heavier
Three, two, one – and off we go! Pedal, pedal, pedal!
The sun hasn’t even risen over Mariehamn yet, when 10 people from Åland park their backsides in the morning. The spinning class led by Elin Liewendahl is about to start.
In the beginning, the only goal of training was to become strong. He wanted to pump big, visible muscles into his lean shooter body. The idea of competing was born when someone came after a workout to ask if he does fitness. Liewendahl replied: “What? No, I don’t!”
The thought started to pop in my head. Maybe others see something I don’t?
A few years later, he is a World Cup medalist.
– When I started, I had no idea that this would be the funnest thing I’ve ever done. It feels completely unreal that I am standing with a World Championship medal around my neck already at the end of my second competition season.
Liewendahl’s sport was chosen to be wellness fitness because of his body structure. She was too muscular for the more common fitness sport bikini fitness, and wanted to continue shaping her body in an even stronger direction.
The focus is on strong thighs, a broad back and strong shoulders.
– It’s not a problem for me that I’m getting bigger and heavier. My goal is to have legs like corner sofas and a back like a Boeing plane. I think it’s really pretty. Not everyone will agree with me, but I absolutely love it.
Are you really that appearance-oriented? That’s not pretty. Maybe you should come up with something else.
Elin Liewendahl is used to bitter comments and questioning looks. But when she looks at herself in the mirror, she smiles. Wider than ever before.
– Many people think that this is a sport where you automatically have to win badly because we fool around with the food. But that’s not true.
Competition categories are determined by height, not weight. Liewendahl wants to increase his muscle mass and therefore also his weight from race to race, and so far he has succeeded every time.
– People think that I do this because I want to be thin. But skinny is not a shape.
Liewendahl says that many people in Åland come to talk to him about fitness and training. He hopes that more and more people will find their way to the gym.
You never know who you’ll find inside.
– When I first opened the hall door, I was 14 years old eating chocolate bars on the couch. I started from scratch.
For some, the threshold to start is huge.
– You really don’t have to be a super athlete to start working out. Everyone starts somewhere.