A woman recently overturned in front of Peeps Nicol at the grocery store and virtually landed at her feet. The huge woman was pushing a cane as a walking aid. Nicol “got her under the arm and got her back on her feet” as her husband attempted to assist her. I reasoned that I was now a powerlifter. I am capable of doing this.
Nicol, who is 71, competed in her first powerlifting event in March. She only recently joined the gym. “I think I’m really starting to find myself. Never before have I felt this confident in myself, she claims. Maybe my mother and society conditioned me to think that way. I always walked behind my hubby a little. He wanted it, so. In any of the years prior, I can’t picture doing what I am doing today.
Nicol was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2005, and she and her triathlon and ex-soldier husband, Brian, had a life plan that stated that “when I got really disabled with MS, he would look after me, and push me around in the wheelchair.” He was a great cook. That would be the end.
Back then, “I was shaky from the inside out, and my balance was awful,” she recalls. I was unable to recall how feeling well felt. However, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) was identified in Brian after a short period of time. You have three to five years from diagnosis, according to what we knew.
Brian made a good suggestion to relocate to Spain. “But there was no outrunning IPF,” Nicol adds. “He passed away in our cozy, sunny apartment close to the Med in April 2020. I assured him that everything would be fine. He was concerned that I wasn’t strong enough.
She moved back to the UK, where she has two daughters from her first marriage. She now resides close to the younger daughter in a static caravan outside of Weston-super-Mare. Although she didn’t have any acquaintances there, she came across a Facebook advertisement for the community health center’s cafe and pool.
“My membership included the gym induction,” she claims. TJ, the trainer who welcomed her, made her think of her younger brother even though she had no intention of joining the gym. “I reasoned that perhaps he could help me. I am seriously unfit. I could use losing some of the extra belly fat that comes with getting older. I’m going to try it.
Resistance training sessions later, Nicol and TJ started conversing. I’m not sure how the subject of powerlifting came up. If you want to learn, I can teach you, he said.
“There was something appealing about the concept. becoming bigger, stronger, and capable of taking care of myself. I was curious about how far I could take it. Nature doesn’t seem to encourage women over 70 to gain muscle or do much of anything, in my opinion.
Nicol could not squat when she first started exercising because her ankles were too stiff. She can now deadlift 55 kg. She visited a weightlifters’ gym in March to prepare for her rookie competition. In the triathlon, Brian competed for Team GB in the 60-64 age group, and Nicol eventually plans to compete in the over-70 division of the International Powerlifting Federation.
She’s always been a risk-taker, right? Having two children, she recalls, “was a huge adventure for me.” I lacked any ‘womanly talents’. I didn’t think I was ready to be a mother. Can’t really cook, has no housekeeping skills. When she was 20 years old, she first met her spouse, and they were married two months later. At age 22, she gave birth to a child—she was still a child. He “had always, as they say in the army, done ‘the recce'” afterwards, after she married Brian. I’d accompany him as his acolyte.
In actuality, powerlifting is Nicol’s first independent decision. She claims that it has significantly improved her self-esteem. “I can take care of myself. Oh God, please make it stop when the pain is at its worst for me. I’m getting better at thinking, “Come on!” The power is being generated here! I’m fighting through the discomfort. I’m becoming into a skilled powerlifter.
