Hayley Butler Weight Training Hayley Butler Weight training
Images: Warren Clarke

Self control

“I’m very strict with my eating. My diet’s very much high protein, low carb, low sugar. And it’s also about eating at the right times. I’ll wake up and have breakfast, which is where I get my calcium – cereal with milk or yoghurt. Before morning training I’ll have fruit. Lunch, I’ll have a salad with ham or eggs or tuna. Before afternoon training I’ll have some nuts and after training I’ll have all my protein supplements. And then for dinner I’ll have meat with heaps of vegies. The important thing with dinner is portion size – I make sure my meat is always palm-sized. I also don’t drink anything but water – not even juice. I even don’t drink too much water because I like to feel light when I’m training. So, yes, I’m very strict. My one splurge is banana on toast when I’m going into competition – it’s the only time I’ll have bread.”

Core beliefs 

“Everything I do in the gym is very specific to hurdling and sprinting. Every exercise – from upper body, to core, to leg work – is about using every single part of my body. I’ll never sit down and just do leg presses, for example. In a typical core session I’ll usually do three exercises, broken up into three sets of ten repetitions. Most of these exercises are centred around a prone hold position, with my feet up on the Swiss ball. A typical exercise involves doing a push-up with my feet resting on a ball then, at the top of the push-up, I pullthe ball in with my legs. That’s a typical core exercise – it hits my stomach, but it’s also working my arms, my chest, my legs. And as I get stronger at that exercise we can always make it more difficult. So, for example, I could just have one foot resting on the ball, or I could have my hands resting on a stability ball. All these little variations just make it harder to stabilise the movement.

“At the end of each session I’ll always finish with another ab exercise on the floor. Today I was doing seal rolls, where I start on my back, roll to the side, then do a V sit-up. The trick with this exercise is to make sure your arms and legs don’t touch the ground, so your core is switched on throughout the movement.“Also, every night in front of the telly, I’ll do 300 sit-ups. No one’s really told me to, but it’s just that little bit extra. You know, after having a baby I can always afford to do a little bit more!”

Full-body strength

“Again, my weights work is very specific, with each exercise hitting my entire body, not just a single group of muscles. I want to get stronger, but I don’t want to bulk up with muscle mass. Basic exercises I do are clean and jerks, dead lifts and power cleans. Another exercise is single-leg squats, where I stand on a box, hold a weight out in front of me, and drop my gluts to my heel. I also do an exercise where I rest the end of a barbell on the floor, then hold the top of the barbell [which is weighted]. From there I drop to the start position, then explode out, pushing the barbell into a vertical position as I drive up. It’s a great exercise for working that strength from the blocks. With each of these exercises I’ll normally do around four sets, with reps ranging from four to eight.“Sometimes I super-set my exercises. So if I’m doing, say, power cleans, I’ll super-set that with a med-ball exercise. For example, I’ll begin in the start position, holding a four-kilo med ball, and I explode out of that position, throwing the ball to my trainer who’ll be standing 15m away. That just adds some fast-twitch, explosive work to my gym sessions. At the moment, I’m only super-setting one exercise per session because I’m focussing on heavier pushing. As I get closer to competition I’ll be doing lighter pushing with more super-sets.”