Athlete Spotlight: April Franks – Peninsula Boxing
April Franks felt so unhealthy and overweight she viewed herself as “the fat PT”. But that all changed when she discovered a particular love. There was a time when April Franks couldn’t bear to look in the mirror. As a personal trainer, she felt embarrassed for “letting herself go” and viewed herself at “the fat PT”.
“I couldn’t believe how I let it get to that point,” Ms Franks said. “It would put me in a depressed feeling where I didn’t want to even go to my job as a personal trainer. “I remember feeling like ‘who would want to be trained by someone like me’.”
At her heaviest, the 26-year-old from Mornington, in Victoria, weighed 73kgs and while it doesn’t sound like a lot, she said it was unhealthy for someone of her petite size and height. “I was feeling quite depressed about myself”, “I even had a fellow work colleague at the time ask me if I was pregnant, I was horrified, and it made me so upset that I didn’t want to go back into work.” Today April’s Instagram page is filled with inspirational workout videos and fit selfies of her toned physique, but life was very different for the amateur boxing champion four years ago.
Today, April can exercise up to two to three times a day depending on whether she has a fight coming up. April won her first international tournament at The Arafura Games in Darwin/ Australia in 2019. She is a silver medallist in the National Australian Championship and currently holds the (Victorian) State Title in the 51kg division.
“I had always wanted to give it a go, so I looked up local boxing gyms around my area and was super lucky to have found the best
one. I was nervous but determined to give it a go and fell in love.” April said when she first started boxing, she would often have people say, “Oh but you’re not going to fight are you? Why would you want to do something like that? Why would a young lady like yourself want to be punched in the face? Girls shouldn’t punch each other.”, “It only fuelled me even more to fight. I wanted to show everyone who said I couldn’t, that I could,”. “I wanted to show boxing is a sport, it’s not a brawl. There is a lot of skill and talent that goes into even just stepping in that ring.”
She said the sport helped with her confidence. “It gives you a feeling that you can protect yourself if you need to. I believe every woman these days should learn a little something to do with mixed martial arts as it brings some power back to the woman.”
Ms Franks currently weighs 53kgs, but she fights at 51kgs.
Be sure to check out April’s profile below, keeping track of the journey in which has only just begun!
Leave a comment