Tag: strength

Yesterday I did a thing. I volunteered at the Special Olympics Minnesota 2020 Winter Games State Powerlifting Meet. This is my fourth or fifth year (I lost track) and it is a meet I will continue to volunteer for and support. The athletes who compete and the families and friends who support them are amazing – overcoming stereotypes and just working to be their best. It warms my heart every time. These are people with goals and year over year I get to see some of them achieved.

I have met so many athletes and am in awe of their strength. They face so many obstacles that I have never known and they come out smiling and wanting to to do their best. Sure, they have off days like the rest of us but they come back time and again.

This year, one athlete didn’t hit his deadlift attempts and his coach came up to the platform as we were tearing down after all official attempts had been completed and asked if we would load the bar to a weight he hit in warmups. Irregular? Sure. But to help someone end the day on a positive note was a chance I couldn’t pass up. We loaded the bar to the weight and when he hit that deadlift and I can tell you I cheered just as loudly for him as I did during the official competition, if not more because now he had a win to take home.

That is what I love to do: give you the chance to be the best you and cheer you every step of the way. I am happy for you no matter what you do. If you hit the lift, great! If you don’t hit the lift, great! Either way you tried to do the thing and that’s what I love. Really.

Why did this come up? Well, at the end of the meet I was talking with other volunteers and they said the thing they loved most about watching me on the platform spotting was that I was genuinely excited and happy for each lift. And I realized that I truly am. I am happy for you showing up and doing what you can, no matter what that is. And I will cheer as loud as need.

I’m happy for you, really.

How did you get into powerlifting? This was a question asked on the registration form for the USAPL Raw Nationals. I typed an innocuous answer, something about a coach at my gym (JVB) asking if anyone wanted to try powerlifting and I decided sure, why not? I like lifting heavy things. But as I lay in bed after submitting that I realized it was only part of the answer, the easy part. What was missing was the answer to WHY did you get into powerlifting.

I alluded to my answer for WHY in my very first post but even that didn’t get to the heart of the answer. And maybe the answer is ever-evolving and what I am about to write is just the most current understanding I have of WHY.

I got into powerlifting because I believed that having a strong body would influence my state of mind. Strong body = strong mind = strong person. And at the moment in life when I began powerlifting I did not have a strong mind. Or rather, I didn’t have confidence in my strong mind. I was looking for something of a magic bullet to help me believe in myself again and lift me up from the outside in.

As we are learning more each day, being a woman is really hard. From birth (it seems) we are inundated with images of what girls are, should be, and should aspire to be. I never fit any of those molds – I am a smart, short, brunette with a “solid” frame. My eyes I affectionately (OK, derisively) call “shit brown” and I am sarcastic to a fault. And I have always been strong. And not just for a girl. I was the one people asked to lift heavy things and to literally pick them up when they were down.

What did this do for me, growing up in our society? It marginalized me and instead of learning to live my own life I was trying to live the life that I perceived society expected of me: girls should be delicate and tread lightly, not rock the boat. Girls should not be physically stronger than boys – that intimated boys and you would never get a boyfriend that way. Girls should not be intellectually smarter than boys – boys preferred their girls dumber so they could feel superior.

Did I actually believe those things? On some level I must have believed because they certainly influenced me. I broke up with my high school boyfriend because I thought I was too physically aggressive and not “delicate” enough – I outweighed him and it freaked me out. I didn’t try dating anyone else because I didn’t think anyone would be interested in me. I didn’t believe in myself.

Until I met my husband. And boy did he believe in me. Remember that first post where I mentioned rock climbing and kayaking and everything else that I love? Because he believed in me I was better able to believe in myself and try everything that I wanted – whether it was “normal” for a girl or not. These activities helped me gain strength and confidence. All was good but there was a nagging in the back of my mind, like I was missing something. And then in the midst of dark times in my life I found it: lifting heavy things.

Lifting heavy things was like getting back to my roots, getting back to me. I once again felt strong, like the one people could call when they needed help, when they needed someone to help them out of a jam – emotional or physical. In my search for me I found powerlifting and through powerlifting I was lucky enough to find a tribe of supportive women and men, people I can turn to when I am not strong. People who lift me up and believe in me. It’s kind of like Santa exists only as long as you believe in him – I can be strong mentally and physically only as long as I have a group of supportive people who help ME believe in me.

So, what is my REAL answer to the question: how did you get into powerlifting?

I got into powerlifting to strengthen my body and to use that physical strength to help strengthen my mind and my belief in myself. I got into powerlifting to learn who I am and who I will become.