MONICA SWAYNE

As one of Australia's greatest exports, Soul is thrilled to have caught Monica on her return home from a wild adventure in the UK.

As well as being a coach at WIT Fitness in London, she’s undertaken a specialised gymnastics course through Invictus in the US and comes to us brimming with knowledge on everything from kipping to flipping. Not to mention, if you’ve ever seen her get under a barbell, you’ll know she’s as well-rounded a coach as they come.

During her time at WIT, Monica started and operated a very successful British Weightlifting (BWL)-affiliated lifting club. For the past three years, she’s also worked tirelessly to develop her online coaching and programming business, which works with individual clients specialising in gymnastics and Olympic weightlifting training. She particularly enjoys specialising in these two areas of training because it allows her to create interesting, fun new drills to get athletes closer to their goals each week. 

Monica considers herself incredibly lucky to have learnt from some of the best in the world during her time at WIT Fitness (and we’re lucky to reap the benefits at Soul, too!). She participated in workshops, specialty classes and coach development sessions under the tutelage of Chris Hinshaw (aerobic capacity), Travis Ewart (Invictus Gymnastics), Zak Talendar (Coach ZT), Voodoo Weightlifting, Chad Vaughn (Power Monkey) Mat Fraser (HWPO) and Erik Kelner (Weightlifting 101), Sara Sigmundsdottir, Bjorgvin K Guomundsson and Jamie Simmonds…to name an impressive few. 

In addition to being a fitness guru, somehow Monica finds time to be a professional musical theatre performer—with more than 15 years on the stage to tell you about! She’s spent the last seven years on the West End in London and before that, she was touring Australia and Asia with shows.

After all that time overseas living her best life, why is Mon so happy to be home?

“I love being home in Adelaide as some of my favourite foods include Villi’s Pies and Pasties, FruChocs, Farmers Union Iced Coffee, Nippy’s Orange juice (with chocolate protein powder… don’t judge before you try it!) and my local fish and chip shop in Semaphore. Oh yeah and I’ve missed Chicken Salt and Aussie mangos!”