Trainer Tessa Glover hasn’t let the loss of a leg stop her from exercising and living life to the fullest. Her own success of not letting adversity stop her becoming a Trainer is rubbing off on her clients as she shows them that not matter what the obstacle you can overcome it, and exercise is one of the best ways to. Believing in in yourself is one of Tessa’s best strengths, best summed up in her own words;
“Anything you can do I can do better on one leg”
Sporty childhood
Tessa grew up in Cockaleechie and Cummins on the Eyre Peninsula, which is about a 7hour drive from Adelaide. Sport was a major part of Tessa’s life from a very early age, the sporting community in her home town was huge. Tessa has always been active and tried as many sports as she could, including tennis, netball, cricket, AFL, swimming and basketball. After a few years she started to push more towards tennis in the summer and netball in the winter. Tessa got into netball at the age of 9, and continued playing and coaching until 3 years ago. Her tennis career started when she was only 10 years old in juniors, and continued until 16 into seniors.
Achievements
Tessa reached quite a few sporting achievements during her years in her many sports. She played representative netball for the Whitsundays region after moving to North Queensland in 1997. After moving to Brisbane she played in the Metropolitan Districts Regional team twice, she has successfully played in 9 grand finals winning 3-night season grand finals and 1 day season grand final! Tessa would always feel up to a challenge, so she got into running and completed the Gold Coast Marathon 10km run for the first time in 2016 after moving there.
Tessa would always feel up to a challenge, and after her accident was determined to not let it stop her getting the most out of life. She got into running and completed the Gold Coast Marathon 10km run in 2016 with her prosthetic leg.
Life-changing injury
Tessa has worked in many different jobs in her life, but what finally got her into fitness, besides her long, successful sporting career, was an accident that happened when Tessa was 33 years old. This resulted in her becoming a below the knee amputee. Obviously losing a limb has a pretty major impact on your lifestyle and ability to play sport. A year from the accident Tessa was determined to get her fitness back. She walked into a gym and asked the local Personal Trainer for help. Tessa had such a great can-do attitude, and a great sense of humour. Her Personal Trainer noticed Tessa’s potential, and suggested that she should become a Trainer herself. Tessa had the ability to assess what is needed and breakdown an exercise to make it easier and achievable for any fitness level. She loved the idea of helping people with different backgrounds, goals and injuries. Now, as a qualified Personal Trainer Tessa enjoys training clients with the equipment that she has available at the time, she loves to show her clients that exercise can be fun and done anywhere, even with no equipment at all! Tessa now lives on the Gold Coast and works as a Personal Trainer for Fitness Enhancement Springwood.
5 Questions with Tessa Glover:
1. What is your biggest achievement as a Personal Trainer?
Having a client say “I can see the difference in my body shape, it’s working”, and “We do team stretching exercises at work and I got my colleagues to do the one you showed me. Can you show me another one I can take to work?”.
2. What is your most memorable training session?
Seeing my client combine a core exercise with a cardio exercise using a rehabilitation fit hoop. Tough to do, but can be done.
3. What is your favourite exercise as a trainer?
Combination of Core strengthening, balance and agility.
4. What is your favourite exercise or sport outside of work?
Bike riding and netball.
5. What is your favourite quote?
Life is to short not to have a go, so don’t be afraid to try as you might surprise yourself with what you can achieve.