LEARNING TO LOVE THE ARMS I ONCE HATED

 

When my daughter was 12 years old, her best friend said “You know, I really really hate my thumbs!” Hopefully she was kidding, but you never know. On that day I could not have predicted that eventually I would end up hating my arms.

Those super strong and useful, once beautiful arms, have ended up as these skinny things that are wrinkly, crepey, cellulite ridden with batwing like tendencies. The emotions generated by this sorrowful state of affairs have run the gamut between fury, misery, and despair.  At the root of it all is the fear that no man will ever want to touch these monstrosities.

 However in my efforts to become a tad more mature about my sense of urgent need to fix everything about myself, I have learned I can choose to be happy I have this particular challenge, as New Agey as that might sound.  And not only is my issue a “first world problem”, but  also there are supremely healthy activities I can engage in to make these floppy little things “better”, if you will. 

Of course I have done the usual perusing of the net for cosmetic surgery fixes. The Arm Lift, or Brachioplasty, is purported to reduce excess sagging skin and reduce “localized pockets of fat in the upper arm”, etc.  (from plasticsurgery.org). Adding to my distress I have also discovered that plastic surgeons report this is a “…condition that cannot be corrected through exercise”.

So despite the fact that most likely I could easily undergo the surgery and not have a scar running down the underside of my arm,  (In fact, just a little tweak under my arm pit would do), I have decided to return to 4 years ago when I began pursuing the sport of Power Lifting. Visualize bulked up men lifting frightening heavy weights, while groaning, sweating, and looking about ready to die. Sometimes the weights are so heavy they cause the bar to bend.

When I first started to Power Lift, I worked with a man, Pauli, who had competed successfully as a teen and had also been a Calvin Klein model. Early pictures feature his impossibly large biceps. Most importantly he was fun, supportive and unusually knowledgeable. His first words to me were: “Are you ready to start working out in a real gym?”

Working with Pauli was always a delight.  I felt like my body was made for this sport. That’s only because I have a body with about 640 muscles within, longing to be worked. In other words, I have a body like anyone else’s.

Pauli would never let his clients say things like “this is too hard”, or “I hate squats”. Sometimes he would say, “Diane, you are my most favorite person in the world over the age of 50”. The sport brought out something in me that no other experience ever has. When I would finish a hard lift, I felt like dancing or getting into a street fight.

Essentially, Power Lifting consists of three basic lifts-the bench press, the squat, and the dead lift, all of which target multiple muscle groups at a time. My favorite, the dead lift, uses almost every all the muscle in one’s body. For the dead lift, you squat down in front of a super large and long dumbbell, pick it up, stand up, and then put it down. People ask “what about lifting the bar over your head?” Hard to do when you are lifting 672.4 pounds, the world’s record for female lifters (its 1102.3 pounds for men).

Instead of the bathing suits and spray tanned getups required of the Body Building set (you might have seen them on TV or in a magazine), Power Lifters wear chalk smeared shorts, singlets, and non-glamourous footwear. Their arms are often lined with bulging veins. Power Lifting women seem to come in all shapes and sizes, and actually the same is true for men as well. Intriguingly sometimes tiny women have tremendous strength. Take, for example, 80 plus year old Willie Murphy who weighs about 105 pounds but can deadlift at least 225 pounds.

I first became interested in Power Lifting after reading about Faith Ireland, a judge who, at the age of 55, turned to the sport to help with weight gain and a bad back caused by a rear end car collision.  Soon after beginning the sport, this highly determined, disciplined woman was flying around the world, winning multiple competitions, sometimes against women younger than she. But she started the sport as anything but a “winner”. In a book about older athletes, Second Wind by Lee Bergquist, she describes her mindset on her first day at the gym as feeling old, tired, fat, and full of self-pity. She intrigued me. People who overcome adversity at a late stage in life always have.

Altogether Power Lifting is a dramatic way to build sheer strength, fuel the metabolism, fight heart disease, help with stress and anxiety, and increase resistance to diabetes. The pituitary glands of Power Lifters are stimulated to release human growth hormone. Happily the sport also stimulates the body to metabolize fat. Given that the average person begins losing large amounts of muscle after the age of 40 (one third to one half pound of muscle per year), done right, it’s a great mid-life cure all. Studies show that men and women can increase muscle mass into at least their 80’s. There are not many sports at which you can improve your performance at an older age. An added plus is that practicing the sport places you in a gym with young, muscle bound, friendly and clean living men and women. Strong, young and fit has a tendency to rub off.

You might say that lifting has helped me create a new relationship with my body. We like each other so much better now. I love feeling strong and powerful, and let’s get real, to what extent can a woman of my age expect to have the body of a much younger woman. And Power Lifting rules dictate that working out too frequently and foregoing rest days is a no no, another lovely aspect of the sport.  Not only that but my current trainer says that my” condition” can be helped by Power Lifting. Take that you Plastic Surgeon Devils!

FOR INSPIRATION AND MORE INFO, try googling Health Benefits of Power Lifting!