‘Old people are capable of more’: meet the female weightlifters in their 70s and 80s | Well actually

Joan Macdonald is an influencer. There is no other word for that, even if she grimaces a little when she says. But she is an influencer, and extremely successful. Fitness Maven was one of the magazine covers such as Women’s Health, modeled as part of the lucrative brand offer and launched its own fitness application, train with Joan. On Instagram, where she has more than 2 million followers, she shares photos of her pose in Bikinis in picturesque places and training at the gymnasium in training sets coordinated by color.

But there is a small difference between Macdonald and many other social media starlets. She is 79 years old.

“I was 70 when I started [working out]”Said Macdonald during a video call from her house in Ontario, elegantly styled white hair.” I continue to think that I am in their thirties. “

Macdonald’s training is intense, whether you are 30 or 70 years old. It lifts from earth, weighted planks and oscillations of Kettlebell, and lifts dumbbells with the size of the extinguishers above its head. His arm muscles could shame professional rugby players.

She is undoubtedly the most famous older woman who rises heavy, but she is far from being the only one. There is Ernestine Shepherd, 89, who has more than 101,000 Instagram followers and is called “the oldest competitive bodybuilder living in the world”. Nora Langdon, in the 80s, recently shared a video of 225 pounds. And earlier this year, the New Yorker published a documentary on Catherine Kuehn, who broke several world records for earth lifts in her 90s.

Many of these weightlifters seem to be delighted with the stereotype of the fragile old woman who needs help to wear her grocery store.

“Once you have reached a certain age, it’s like you couldn’t do anything anymore,” said Macdonald. “The stupid coaches and coaches for everything for the elderly, but the elderly are capable of more than they think.”

AThey age, the physical capacities of women are often underestimated by others as well as by themselves, explains Elaina Manolis, physiotherapist and professor of assistant clinic at the Northeastern University.

Manolis says that menopausal and post-menopausal women with whom she works often need help to unlearn negative messages on the exercise they absorbed while growing up. “It is a generation that has been wired to think that women should never be in the gymnasium,” she said.

Macdonald and Shepherd remember being worried that they “look virile” when they started to lift.

“At first, I said to myself:” I don’t want to lift weights, I will look like a guy, “recalls Macdonald. “But it’s just brainwashing. [Women] They say so much that we believe it. »»

Women who avoid strength training are deprived of its advantages, many of which are particularly useful for aging organs. In addition to developing muscles – which can be done at any age, Manolis notes – strength training has a significant impact on bone health and cognitive function. The first is particularly important for women, who have a much higher risk of developing conditions that weaken bones, such as osteopenia and osteoporosis.

And it’s fun. Shepherd says that as soon as she started to train in force, her favorite thing on this subject was “the joy and the way you felt”. She and her sister started to raise when they were in their fifties, and soon they form the others and built a community. “I would wear what my trainer would call my” costumes “,” she said – Shorts, crop tops, leopard print leopard.

Macdonald says that she faced criticism from the people of her life when she started to train and publish on this subject on Instagram. “I got really horrible remarks from people I thought I was my friends,” she said. They commented on how she dressed – “because I wear adjusted clothes,” says Macdonald – and his growing public profile.

“They said I didn’t have to make characteristics and continue to tell people what I was doing,” she said. “This is not what old women are supposed to do. We somehow tell you: “Go quietly through the back door, are you going?” »»

AHowever, the tits change. Manolis says that she has a lot of patients who come to her saying, “I know I should start [lifting]I listened to a lot of podcasts. “And this is the first year that national senior games – a multi -sport Olympic style competition for adults over 50 years of age that takes place on the United States – will include a powerlifting competition.

“Over the past three or four years, more and more people ask me when we will add [powerlifting]”Explains Sue Hlavaseck, president and chief executive officer of the National Senior Games Association (NSGA).

About 12,400 athletes are expected to participate in this year’s national senior games, which take place at monks, Iowa, at the end of July. Among these, 187 will participate in the PowerLifting competition – 99 men, aged 54 to 95 and 88 women, aged 50 to 82.

The oldest of competitors, Faity O’Reilly, 82, said that a friend took her to a Powerlifting meeting at the end of the thirties. “I was looking at everyone and I said to myself,” Well, I can do it, “she said.

O’Reilly has since raised. “It suits me,” she said. She likes to set goals and love the camaraderie of gymnasiums and meetings. And she appreciates the independence and the confidence that it brought to her. “I always liked to be able to do things,” she says. “And that’s what powerlifting can do for you – you can manage your grandchildren and your grocery bags.”

Whatever the age, if you have never gained weight before, it is better to start by working with a coach or a physiotherapist who can help with formal and individual needs. “In most of the gymnasiums I went to, people are happy to help,” said O’Reilly.

Total beginners can see significant improvements in force fairly quickly, explains Manolis. She had patients said that after four to six weeks of training, they were able to get out of a chair without using their hands, set up a complete staircase, vacuum the whole house or load a dishwasher for the first time in years.

“As we get older, what we really want to do is keep our independence and remain functional,” explains Manolis. Force training facilitates these two things.

This does not mean that it is a remedy.

“Being healthy and living your life at best your abilities does not mean that you will be happy every day, or that you are going to be painless or accidents,” explains Macdonald. “These things happen, but it’s life. You have to keep moving forward.”