'I wasn't going to make a holy show of myself': The Tipperary captain who became world bodybuilding champion

Cahir ladies footballers made waves across a variety of sports and continents last year.

Aisling McCarthy has relocated to Australia again for the winter months, playing Aussie Rules with the Western Bulldogs after a year spent winning All-Ireland Intermediate honours with clubmate and player of the year Aishling Moloney.

They weren’t the only medals to come to Cahir as their former team-mate, Leanne Barrett, won gold at the World Natural Bodybuilding Championships in New York.

Her GAA bona fides are certainly in order; a former Tipperary minor captain, she played in the 2009 All-Ireland Minor ‘B’ football final for her county. It wouldn’t be her last All-Ireland final as she kicked Cahir’s only score from play when they lost the 2012 Intermediate club decider. She had moved to Dublin and away from GAA by the time her hometown reached another final in 2015, losing again, before getting their Celtic crosses a year later, winning the All-Ireland Intermediate camogie title.

Even in the build-up to that success, Barrett’s early influence was remembered by club founder and former mentor Mary Howard: “We started out in Under-12C and didn’t get a single score in our first five or six games. When Leanne Barrett scored our first point against Kilsheelan we all went mad on the sideline.

“How do I remember? Because she was the only one who could hit the ball out of her hand at the time!”

Tipperary’s Leanne Barrett bursts past Roscommon’s Rachel Corcoran in the 2009 All-Ireland Minor B final. Barrett won gold at the World Natural Bodybuilding Championships in New York last year. Picture: Matt Browne /Sportsfile.

Whatever about U12 level, a switch to bodybuilding hardly seemed likely even when she was playing senior. She wasn’t one of those gym addicts in the dressing room, lifting weights between sessions. What she was, though, was an all-rounder. She played football, camogie, soccer, gymnastics, and even travelled to Boston with her basketball team.

But when she moved to Dublin five years ago, she was looking for something new.

“I realised football didn’t light my fire anymore,” says Leanne. “It was just the club that did it for me.”

She wanted something she could do when it suited her, something she could fit around her work schedule as a senior consultant with Morgan McKinley, something she had complete control over. That’s where bodybuilding came in.

She got in touch with Vinny Craine, a professional bodybuilder from Kildare with years of coaching experience. It didn’t take long for her competitive edge to kick in.

“I was improving at a steady pace but I felt I needed an extra edge so I decided to get into the competitive side.

I was just throwing my hat into the mix. What’s the worst that could happen? But at the same time, I wasn’t going to make a holy show of myself either so I put everything into it.

As they did with her school, her club, her county, results came fast. She won her first competition in October 2018 after four months of serious training.

That gave her the opportunity to represent Ireland in Spain last May at the European Championships. She landed a top-10 finish in the Body Fitness category but it prompted a change of lane.

“It was great but I knew I wanted to be involved instead in a natural federation. There’s some great athletes and I’ve no problem with that side of the sport but it’s just not me. I just want to compete on a fair level ground, a space where I was up against people who were 100% natural. I knew that’s where my heart was at.”

The Natural Bodybuilding Federation of Ireland is part of a global movement promoting stringently drug-tested bodybuilding events.

Athletes must be 10 years free from prescription hormones and two years free from over-the-counter hormones on their lengthy banned-substance list. “You’d be surprised at some of the products, even plant-based stuff,” says Leanne.

Her development from off-season into the business of competition follows a model of grow and cut; increasing her food intake out of competition before refining her preparation in the months leading up to the big events. It’s a menu of six meals a day, depending on the time of year, and training twice a day, seven days a week, in the 16 weeks before competition.

“I went over to the UK Internationals three weeks before Worlds and came third. But I knew I couldn’t come in 100% for that show because it would cost me three weeks later if I did. That’s how much you have to get the timing correct.”

Her ticket to the Worlds came despite the Women’s Bodybuilding category being scrapped at the National Championships in Cork last September due to a lack of entrants. She participated in the Toned Figure category and although she didn’t win, she was noticed.

“The president of UK Bodybuilding and his wife called me after the show and they said, Leanne, we’d love for you to come over and complete in the UK Internationals and also, we’re giving you an invite to compete in New York in the Worlds. They said, you’re not in Toned Figure, you fit in Bodybuilding.

“I was absolutely thrilled because they told me on the day that I was too hard. In Toned Figure, you can’t be anyway hard, meaning striations on your shoulders, striations on your glutes.

“I was fairly lean at that point, very low body fat, and the phrase would be cut to the bone. Sometimes you see male bodybuilders and they get very lean but it’s very hard for a woman bodybuilder to get that condition.”

In training, Leanne is always thinking of the strengths and weaknesses of both her and her opponents. At the Worlds, however, she resolved to focus on herself on stage. It’s a tougher task than you’d think, given that you’re being swapped around depending on how you compare to your rivals in the opinion of the ten or so judges.

“This time, I kept my mind to myself, I didn’t even look. A lot of this sport is in your mind and you have to stay hugely positive, especially when you have to put on a bit of a performance as well.

“A lot of the stage is related to the posing. You could look 100% but you have to showcase that. We had about eight mandatory poses and a routine. They have to be 100% because you’re standing beside your fellow competitors and they’re marking you on every part of your body compared to the person next to you.

“I had a good idea I was doing quite well because throughout the comparisons I was staying in the centre, which is a good thing because they’re comparing people from the centre outwards.”

The competitors are judged on stage presence, conditioning, symmetry, and muscle tone and definition. Judges are looking for the whole package from all parts of the physique, according to the criteria.

“I don’t have a huge amount of interest in the glamour side of it and that’s what I love about this federation.

“I don’t need to wear heels because it’s bodybuilding and they don’t really judge you on your appearance. They judge you what they’re meant to judge you on, your body.”

She hit all those criteria in New York, winning her Bodybuilding category and even taking silver in her back-up entry to the Fit Body class.

She had already been taken aback when local businesses pitched in to make sure costs were covered for the trip but she was overwhelmed again by the volume of cards and congratulations coming her way, including from those former teammates.

The one thing I took from it was the amount of support I have because sometimes it’s a bit of a lonely sport. From family, from friends, from my hometown, from my workplace, you don’t realise how much people admire the dedication.

“It’s like eating your breakfast, you just get up and do it. I would never look back and be like, oh my God, that was hard work. I enjoy every little bit of it.

“This is everyday life for me. It’s not just, go over to New York, compete, have a great time, and show off your medals. It’s the everyday grit and grind that I enjoy and get satisfaction from.”