‘My muscles are my favourite accessory’: Six-foot Oxford rower talks sport, body image and feminine strength

A six-foot student who competed in the Boat Race has said she always felt insecure about her height, but rowing has helped her celebrate the “cool things my body can do”.

Flo Brooke, 22, who studies physics and philosophy at the University of Oxford’s Brasenose College, juggles her third-year studies with a gruelling 12-session-per-week training schedule, involving “a lot of time in the boat on the water”, as well as gym workouts three times a week.

This year, she took part in the annual Boat Race between Cambridge University Boat Club and Oxford University Boat Club on the River Thames in London, which has been held annually since 1829. Flo raced in the Oxford Reserves team Osiris on Saturday, April 4.

While she has felt self-conscious about her height – which is almost a foot taller than the UK average for women of five foot three inches – since puberty, Flo said rowing has helped her feel more confident in her body and to not “be afraid to take up space”.

“When you’re hitting puberty, you’re becoming aware of how you look more than ever before,” she told PA Real Life.

“The first thing for me to notice was my height. I’ve always been tall and when you’re younger you don’t really mind being tall, but suddenly you’re 14, at school and the tallest person in your year, taller than any boys at that age.

“I was also quite a shy person growing up so that kind of clashed with me feeling like I was taking up a lot of space and I didn’t really want to.

“These issues actually had an impact on my posture because I was physically trying to make myself smaller.”

Flo explained that now, at six feet tall, she is comfortable in her height – but it took time.

“I would say that sport has played a part in making me comfortable in my height because it’s such an asset,” she explained.

“I used to play cricket at school and it was obviously great to be tall then. The same is for rowing – I now want to be tall and bigger so sports has helped me reframe how I perceive myself.

“It has made me see my body in more of a functional way, rather than an aesthetic way.

“Now, after a really hard session, I come back home and look at myself in the mirror and instead of thinking about how I look, I think about the really cool thing I did that day and what my body can do.”

“This whole kind of shift from judging myself based on aesthetics versus based on what I can do through any sport is a really good perspective I have,” Flo added.

“Even now, my muscles are my favourite accessory.

“I love to wear backless dresses, for example, that show off my shoulders because I’m proud to show of the progress that I’ve made.”

Flo admitted there were times when she struggled to embrace femininity because of her height or having broader shoulders.

“I think I have now been through a process of re-understanding what it means to be feminine and then have been able to embrace it in a slightly different way than in the past,” she said.

“There’s also the mental side of it and how any sport you do can release those endorphins and make you feel good.”

Flo got into rowing after trying it out at school in year nine. Because of her height she said everyone told her she would be good at it.

“A lot of people were pushing me into it, but I decided at the time I didn’t really like it so much,” she said.

“When I came to university, I was adamant that I wasn’t going to row,” Flo explained.

“Then I went to a taster session with my college and they could tell that I’d done a bit of rowing before and then I immediately got roped into the community at my college boat club which I loved.

“I was kind of absorbed back into the rowing world and then, in my second year, I did the Oxford University Boat Club development squad. I never considered the Boat Race as a remote possibility but a coach told me to try it out and I did.

“I trialled this year and it’s very unexpectedly led to me racing in the Boat Race.”

Explaining that rowing is the most intense sport she has done, Flo said: “We train 12 sessions a week, which is basically twice a day with one day off, and that started back in September.

“It’s pretty consistently 12 sessions a week but the intensity is obviously ramped up recently. We will start tapering soon to make sure that we are fresh for the race itself.”

As a third year student, she said she is very organised with her time. “Training is the same time every week so you can get into a routine with it and just being disciplined after training by bringing all your stuff with you,” she explained.

“I can go straight to the library and then I’m working up until whenever the next session is, and me and my team hold each other accountable. We will go and do study sessions together – it helps having people around you who are finding ways to manage.”

Explaining what a full day of training looks like, she added: “We do a mix of two or three sessions in the gym lifting weights and then we do a few sessions on the rowing machine and then a lot of time in the boat on the water.

“We actually have a bell in the gym to ring for whenever we hit a PB (personal best),” Flo said as she explained the gym routine usually consists of bench presses, squats, leg presses and a lot of barbell and dumbbell work.

Flo attributes her changing attitude about her body image to sports, but also curating her social media page to be positive. “I don’t know if social media is getting better or if I have managed to mould my algorithm to push me towards more positive influences,” she said.

“Social media can generally push one sort of body type, however two people can be on the exact same training schedule and not look the same. There’s no chance they ever will look the same – and that’s OK. It’s about realising that you don’t have to look the same as someone else to be able to do the same things or to be just as good in your own skin as them.”

When it comes to advising other young girls about their body image, she said: “Don’t be afraid to take up space. Not just physically but also take up space and be confident.”

If she had a chance to speak to her younger self, Flo said she’d tell her: “Pick up something new.

“I was adamant that I wasn’t going to start rowing and then it did, and it’s probably one of the best things that’s ever happened to me.

“Putting yourself out there to try new things, even if you’re at an age where you think you’ve tried everything – it’s very much worth doing.”