OU blog

Personal Blogs

Barbara Clough

Bodyweight Deadlift!

Visible to anyone in the world

Earlier this year, not at new years, but maybe February or March, I set myself two physical goals. February and March are dark and cold and windy and winter seems always to have gone on forever in New England. Even though I was off sailing in the Caribbean and trying to power through mentally, I couldn't shake the winter blues. Even my light therapy lamp wasn't helping.

I decided that I wanted two things before I left for Ireland. Before I officially turned 60. Before I switched my life up yet again.

1. Deadlift my bodyweight. 

2. One unassisted pull up.

So I started working with my coach at CrossFit Merrimack, once a week, in addition to my regular WODs, then only about 3 x per week. Each week he'd put me through strengthening or mobility or technique exercises and sometimes they were nearly impossible for me to do and left me gasping in a hot sweat, and sometimes they were terrifying (sits ups on a GHD) but most times they were exhilarating. 

I learned so many things but the big one was this: I won't break. As I've gotten older and then with two years off CF because of the pandemic, I had this irrational fear that if I lifted too much, I'd hurt myself. Maybe it was loss of confidence; maybe being away for too long; maybe not feeling like I had a CF home. Hard to know but it doesn't really matter. 

During this time of coached sessions, I upped my attendance from 3 x a week to 5 x a week plus the coached session, and usually yoga or active recovery on another day. One full day of rest. Over time I realized I didn't need as much recovery time as I thought. That I wasn't sore every day from hard workouts but my body was tired. That I could lift so much more than I thought I could. 

So today, my nearly 60 year old body, on a 6'2" frame, lifted 173 #, which is what I weighed when I stepped on the scale this morning.

I am a Glamazon. 

The pulls up are still a stretch, but I didn't think I'd get to my body weight inside of 8 weeks, so who knows? I know I often undersell myself, even to myself. 

As I sit down tonight to fill out an application for a writer's residency, I remind myself that maybe not today or even tomorrow, but maybe in six weeks or six months, I'll be lifting my pen in a room overlooking the Pacific Ocean, one of a select few accepted. I just have to do the daily lifting. 

Permalink Add your comment
Share post

This blog might contain posts that are only visible to logged-in users, or where only logged-in users can comment. If you have an account on the system, please log in for full access.

Total visits to this blog: 68264