Hi there, and thanks for visiting!

I'm Susanne, known in some internet fitness circles as the lady who is obsessed with Bulgarian split squats. 🙂

After I started strength training in 2022, I learned to love challenging myself (and what better way is there than Bulgarian split squats?!) and my previous beliefs of what I can and can't do. This is my new blog where I continue to write about the ups and downs with barbells, how fitness helps me improve life, and I share about other bits of life too, because that's a fun part of personal blogs. Read more below!

Susanne Marcus Svalefelt

If you were previously a fan of my photo posts, rest assured that I'll always share photos here, but for the geekier photography posts where I talk more about photography as a craft, I've moved them to a dedicated photo blog.

This is a personal blog where I share my fitness journey, parts of life, about dipping my toes into hiking, and how I strive towards becoming who I want to be, enjoying life more and beating self-doubt through fitness.

You will find fitness recaps, achievements as well as setbacks, and posts about how I dip my toes into hiking, our travels to Italy and more. Although I probably sort of fit into a “niche”, I’ll use this as an old-school type of blog where I want to share bits of life as well, a fun part of blogging that has been forgotten in modern days. (If you knew how often I see people express how much they miss the days of personal blogs!)

What this blog is

I write to share my story, document my fitness journey and parts of life, and connect with people. In today’s internet of mostly bot-created content and algorithms, there’s a growing need for connection and realness, and the internet is full of expert advice and generic BS. We need more personal stories and that’s why I keep writing.

What this blog is not

I’m not a fitness professional (in fact, I still train with a coach myself) and I don’t share fitness tips or listicles of the best exercises or nutrition “hacks”. I will share my own experiences, what works for me, and my journey towards getting stronger and fitter and how that helps me become the version of myself that I want to be. Having said that, I hope to inspire others to take up some weights, and if you ask for advice I will probably have ideas based on my own experiences and what I’ve learned.

Is this a fitness blog?

Yes and no. I will talk about fitness and strength training, but my plan is that it’ll be more about how it’s made my life better and enables me to do good things.

My story with fitness (and blogs)

I’ve been experimenting with various blogging projects since 2019 – topics, platforms, domain names, blog names etc… until this year when I took a break from it all to focus and think through the what, why and how when it comes to writing online.

Now this is my home for fitness-related topics but also to share about life events, hiking, travel and more.

As the title suggests, I’ve decided to rebel against the idea that at a certain age you need to downgrade your goals and ambitions. I never had any proper goals until I was 49 and I’m not going to stop when I just started. At the time of writing this, I’m 51 and my goal is still to get stronger and kick a**.

I started strength training in 2022 when I was 48 years old. I’ve had a lot of ups and downs, with some huge highlights, but at the time of writing this (November 2025) I’ve had a year full of setbacks in the form of various aches and pains that later were suggested as caused by menopause. This is probably at least to some extent correct, but the statement triggered a massive personal crisis. I felt like “Ok, so this is the end now? Everything is unfixable from now on because I’m just old?” and that I had started too late and was doomed.

That crisis was what made me rework my blog.

I was more or less inactive until 2022, and getting into fitness now feels like it woke me up from a slumber. I started realising what a wonderful feeling it is to challenge myself physically, to show myself that I’m capable of so much more than I previously thought. And this made me start TRULY LIVING and being more present. Seeing I could make a positive difference for myself gave me a new purpose.

So no, I’m not going to stop here.

Even if women after 40 is a very fast growing demographic in gyms, society still seems to promote the idea that at a certain age we should slow down and get soft.

F*** THAT.

My goal is still to get strong. I was in my peak form in the early spring of 2025 and I want to get back there. I feel my best when I feel strong, make progress and see myself able to do things I previously thought I could never do. I’m not giving up on my goals just because I’m a certain age. Yes, we need to listen to the body more, recovery is slower and there are more ifs and buts – but we can (and should) still have fitness ambitions and keep lifting those weights.

In fact, strength training is absolutely essential when we get older. Building strength and muscle mass is an important part of creating a foundation for health and quality of life. So, after 50 we are simply too old to not lift weights.

What is my definition of strong? To me it is to be confident in the gym, continue making progress, and be stronger than I was yesterday. It’s pointless to compare yourself with someone else!

And to finish off, again I only share my own story and I’m not a fitness expert and I don’t write to give advice about health. Read more in the disclaimer.