WHEN Laoise Quinn looks in the mirror now, she sees more than the strength of muscles built up over a career in powerlifting.
The 22-year-old sees the resilience of character and the confidence of a young woman whose story started with a less flattering self-image.
She told The Irish Sun: “I look at my body and so much more than how it just looks. I’m more focused on what it can do.
“There’s different stages of your cycle. Like one week you feel great and the next week you’re like, ‘I want to go over all the mirrors.’
“It’s definitely a journey. In some weeks, it’s up and down, but I think overall I’ve definitely changed from what my body can look like to what it can do.”
This confidence has been earned through a career in powerlifting that is still only getting started.
These days, the Limerick woman has won national, European, and World honours in various categories – and she can deadlift almost four times her 62kg bodyweight.
But when she first stepped into the gym aged just 14, the purpose had more to do with losing weight than gaining muscle.
She recalled: “When I was younger, I kind of struggled with eating and things like that and I started off in the gym trying to be just a smaller version of myself.
“But then I used to follow girls on Instagram who were building muscle and I was like, ‘Okay, this looks cool. I’m going to try that.’”
Quinn doesn’t shy away from her complicated relationship with food when she was younger.
Indeed, Laoise uses her prominent social media profile – over 32,900 followers on Instagram – to encourage young women to be similarly open.
She added: “I think, especially with body trends at the minute, like I know SkinnyTok is trending – it’s so damaging to young girls, especially seeing that all over your social media.
“I think I just try and put content out there to counter the pressure that young girls feel because there is such a huge pressure on it for girls.
“When I was starting to go to the gym, it was just to lose weight.
“I would spend like an hour or two hours just on the stair master doing cardio because when I looked in the mirror, I saw something completely different to how I actually looked, if that makes sense?
“So then when I started powerlifting, I was surrounded by other girls who were training to be bigger and like fuelling themselves for their sport.
“I quickly realised that if I don’t start fuelling myself properly, I’m not going to make progress as quickly as other people, so powerlifting helped me so much with my relationship with food and my body as well.
“It’s given me so much confidence and I think it just taught me how to eat properly as well.
“When I was younger, like 13 or 14, I just didn’t have the knowledge around food. I thought the amount of calories that I was eating was enough or even too much, even though I was eating like maybe even 1,000 calories.”
Quinn’s regular use of social media to chronicle her life both inside and outside of the gym comes with it risks related to the online realm.
For every positive comment congratulating her on her various career accomplishments, there are those from anonymous trolls judging how she looks while achieving them.
Laoise sees all of these comments and more, and revealed that she used to get passive judgmental comments in person.
But if she is capable of deadlifting 200kg, Laoise is more than able to rise above the trolls.
She said: “I’m such a girly girl. I will always have my makeup and hair done, fresh layer of tan for a competition because if you look good, you feel good and that contributes to my performance.
“I think sharing my journey and stuff on social media, especially as my page has grown, you definitely are a bit more susceptible to hate comments and things like that.
“I’ve just learned that you’re just not everyone’s cup of tea. I might get one comment saying, ‘You’re too big, that’s not attractive to men,’ or something and then the next thing is like someone really hyping me up.
“Some people will like you and some people won’t and you just can’t be everyone’s cup of tea. And also some people are just idiots and it’s so easy to just hide behind the keyboard.
“I think powerlifting has helped so much and it definitely helps my mindset with things.
“Something so small, but it has kind of stuck with me is after my first powerlifting competition, I posted it on social media and I was only 14 at the time.
“The people who were following me were only people in my school and I remember walking past a group of lads and them just shouting, ‘Oh, what do you bench?’ or something.
“Little things like that in the moment, you’re like, ‘Oh my God, this is so embarrassing’, but then they kind of do help your mindset in a way as well.
“As I got better through the years, they wouldn’t say that.”
Laoise is far more than a social media personality using her platform to empower female body image.
Her CV in powerlifting – which is an event that consists of squat, bench press, and deadlift – befits that persona.
After starting working with a nutrition coach, her diet transformed along with her weight, with Quinn citing her embrace of protein and carbohydrates.
Much like many other people her age, the 22-year-old does go on social nights out but has found a balance between life inside and outside training.
Her first competition was a small, in-house club meet in Limerick in which she was encouraged to take part shortly after starting out.
Quinn didn’t win any medals but she got the itch for the sport and, having started out being coached by Steven Cusack, now works with Gareth Benn out of CityGym in Limerick.
In April 2019, while still only 15, she won her first title at the Munster Championships and followed that up by victory at the Junior & Masters Championships in October shortly after turning 16.
That was her last competition until August 2021 as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, but before gyms were forced to close down, there came the realisation that she was capable of competing at the highest level.
Quinn explained: “We decided in the gym that we were all just going to max out and kind of see where our lifts were.
“I remember maxing out and I deadlifted 160kg that day and I was like 15 or 16 at the time.
“Just out of curiosity after I did it, because I could also notice that there was probably only one other girl in the gym who could deadlift 160kg and she would have been a lot older than me, I was kind of like, ‘Oh, I wonder where I am in terms of an international standard.’
“I remember looking it up and the 160kg was two-and-a-half kilos over the world record.
“There was a competition then, it was going to be in like three months time, but Covid-19 hit and they couldn’t send the team so I ended up getting a gym in my house, a few plates and a barbell, so I could keep on training.”
Her passion for powerlifting comes despite not coming from a necessarily sporty family.
She grew up playing football in primary school and hockey in secondary school, but found solo sports more to her liking.
But when Quinn confided her intention to pursue powerlifting, her family’s reaction was one of surprise and momentary trepidation.
She admitted: “I think my dad thought I was going to turn into this huge muscle person and he was like, ‘Oh, I don’t really think you should do that or you might regret it.’
“But then I think when I got on to the Irish team, they were like, ‘Okay, this is okay, this is good.
“Powerlifting has such a stigma of how you look in it, which I think was what my parents were thinking, but I like to show how you can embrace your femininity in the sport as well.
“Just because you’re in a male-dominated space doesn’t mean you have to lose your femininity or anything like that.”
Once she got back to competing in 2021, her improvement was remarkable.
Having squatted 130kg, benched 53kg, and deadlifted 120kg in 2019, those numbers shot up to 142.5kg, 75kg, and 172.5kg, respectively, upon her return.
Her personal bests, almost five years later, now stand at a jaw-dropping 170kg, 92.5kg, and 200kg.
These improvements come as she balances studying in TUS in Limerick and working with her sister in a dress rental business.
Quinn has taken that practice in her stride now, but there were a few hiccups while she was doing her Leaving Cert exams.
She revealed: “I had a back injury and it lasted over a year. I had chronic pain in my back and it was actually caused by stress. It happened in sixth year.
“I competed at the World Championships in September, when I just started the Leaving Cert year.
“I actually won that competition, but from there I had a back injury. I was still training and stuff, but I couldn’t compete for the rest of sixth year because I was just so stressed and stress has a huge effect on your body.
“When you’re that young, you’ve no idea how to cope with stress and things, managing things outside of school.”
Quinn has travelled all over the world, ranging from Sweden, Turkey, Hungary, Malta, and Luxembourg.
She won sub-junior medals at the World and European Classic Powerlifting Championships, as well as top honours at the European University Classic Powerlifting Cup as recently as February 2025.
But it was what she considers her worst performance, 13th at the 2022 World Junior Classic Powerlifting Championships in Turkey, that stands out the most.
She detailed: “It was just after the Leaving Cert and I was injured so I wasn’t able to lift like nearly half as much as I was capable of.
“It was my first year as a junior and I’d gotten invited and I was injured, so even though I knew I wasn’t going to place or anything, I just thought this is just something I need to do for myself because I’m so grateful.
Laoise’s next big target are the World Classic & Equipped Sub-Junior & Junior Powerlifting Championships in South Africa this August.
Her best showing at the competition was ninth in Malta in 2024 and she is keen to lift herself towards a medal this time around.
She said: “This will be my last world championship as a junior.
“There’s different age categories. There’s under 19s, which is sub-junior – I won worlds as a sub junior – and now I’m in the junior.
“I’d love to place at a World Championship as a junior. I’m going to say I’d like to win, but I mean, everybody wants to win.
“After that I’m into The Open. It would be cool to do something at Worlds as a sub-junior, junior and in The Open.”
