Weightlifting Gold: My Back Story

In Olympic-style weightlifting—a sport where you hoist your heaviest weights over your head with your fastest, most powerful motions—you can never be fully “careful.” You can only be prepared. Anything less than 100 percent confidence is a recipe not just for failure but for a disastrous crash.

So I prepared. But that didn’t stop me from injuring myself. 

Backstage at Reno Nationals in 2024, just a little stressed! I had just crashed my opening weight and hyperextended a joint in the process. Here with coaches Jim Schmitz and Mo Semu.

I was two months out from the Worlds championship in Fiji. I can’t remember much about the injury, only its aftereffects, in which every action in the day took as much effort as a maximum-weight lift. Tying my shoes, getting into a car, walking, cooking, standing, writing, reading, breathing: All of it an effort equivalent to squatting 200 pounds. And because all of that is an effort, so too was the physical act of smiling. It’s rough.

The Fiji trip and competition were out of the picture. I didn’t have the confidence to get on a flight, let alone the confidence to lift weights. I would be realizing I was 58 years old after all, despite the notion I introduced in a podcast on being "fit over 50" to not let “age be your cage”.

I was caged.

Fortunately, Esther Gokhale’s free workshop found me at the right time. I loved the slides Esther showed of people with upright backs, lengthened hamstrings, and strong cores. I had witnessed individuals with that ease in my own travels: A woman sitting long-legged and talking to me as she sorted beans in a basket; children walking to the watering hole returning with jugs on their heads; someone bending over with straight legs to pick a flower. They were postures I couldn’t do, so I remembered them all the more. I was, basically, physically uncomfortable in so many locations where others were relaxed. It was personally embarrassing, as I always thought of myself as physically capable.

I was lucky that Esther was able to slot me into an in-person course less than an hour’s drive from where I live. The uncomfortable drive gave me the chance to test out one of the key Gokhale Method® techniques—stretchsitting.

It worked. And I “worked” at it—at first. But the most exciting part for me was learning that I could improve my chances of a pain-free life not by “trying” all the time, as I had been so used to doing in the various sports I’d done over the years, but by… relaxing.

I finished the class with Esther, and started feeling better. And I started feeling better in my lifts. As a masters lifter, especially over the age of 50, “perfection” is never the goal. What was new with the Gokhale training, however, was the idea of how to handle the imperfection. I wouldn’t continue to yank my shoulders back to try to “look like” I was standing up straight. I would instead gently realign from my “inner corset” and support myself like a coat rack. I learned to give my back a break by letting my core do the “heavy lifting”.

Before and After: Notice the difference in my back shape, from swayed (left) to straight (right).

I regained enough confidence to realize that I really did want to enter the Fiji Worlds competition after all. I began lifting heavier—and found I actually could, without getting injured. “This is the craziest thing you’ve ever done,” I remember my husband saying, unhappily. But he did wish me well.

The first hurdle was simply the 12-hour plane ride. Something I could have never imagined living through while I was struggling with my back pain. But as it turned out, the vibe in Fiji was so chill, it placed me right back in the Gokhale frame of mind. If you can believe it, I actually found a way to “relax” into a weightlifting competition.

My third snatch attempt at the 2024 United Masters Weightlifting Federation competition.

For my final lift, I jumped up by four kilograms, which is unusual. The weight felt light as a feather somehow, and when the judges called it good, I had set a new world record, and a personal best.

As we walked to a restaurant on a warm Fiji night to celebrate, I realised something I had forgotten. The back pain! I had no memory of it. Not even a whisper. Which, I have to say, was the real achievement of the season.

Travel to Fiji and get some lifts in? Everyone’s a winner in the end…

Story adapted from "My Back Story," Terrain Training on Substack.

Susie will be joining me in our Embodied Empowerment—Posture, Presence, and Personal Power free online workshop. This is a special, unique live workshop for beginners on Sunday March 15 to celebrate International Women’s Day. Sign up here.

We are also running a special empowerment event for our alumni on Saturday March 14. All Gokhale Graduates have been sent an invite by email. (If you are an alumnus and are not registered to our newsletter and would like to join, please write to [email protected] and we will help you sign up.)

I hope you can join us,
Esther

Watch Esther and Susan in conversation

Best next step

Join one of our upcoming FREE Online Workshops using the sign-up below—and give yourself a lift!