Picture courtesy Cristina Vance Pictures @cv_photography_llc
This story initially appeared within the Winter 2025 challenge of Forks Over Knives journal, now out there in print and digital.
Sister Pat Farrell remembers the primary time she stepped right into a gymnasium and powerlifted a barbell weighted with 10-pound bumpers. It was simply final March, and it was a defining second. “I felt highly effective,” says the 72-year-old Catholic nun. “It was like, ‘Oh, I like this.’”
A mere 4 months after her inaugural powerlifting session, in July of 2025, Farrell—who adopted a vegan weight loss program 12 years in the past—entered her very first powerlifting competitors. Her goal? To deadlift her personal weight. Farrell not solely reached her aim, however surpassed it, deadlifting 160 kilos and taking house a first-place medal.
“I used to be the one individual in my weight class and age class to be competing that day, so I used to be assured first place,” she says with amusing. “However the factor is, I exceeded my aim.”
A Dominican Sister of San Rafael, Farrell initially took up power coaching after injuring herself whereas participating in a really mundane exercise: placing on her pants. “I ended up pulling my hamstring, and it was tousled for fairly some time,” she says. “I noticed that I actually wanted to be attentive to a few of these extra structural components of this physique.”
Picture courtesy of Cyndie Cammack, OP
Why Weight-Bearing Train Issues Extra with Age
Whereas powerlifting is rising in recognition worldwide, particularly among the many Gen Z set, specialists say it’s older folks, and ladies specifically, who profit most from constant weight-bearing train, serving to them stave off the progressive lack of muscle and bone mass prevalent amongst older adults.
“Individuals lose mobility with age,” says Katya Gorbacheva, creator of Vegan Powerlifting Starter Information: For Ladies Aspiring to be Robust and Assured and the powerlifting coach Farrell enlisted to assist her attain her health targets safely. “Patricia may barely do any decrease physique actions with out knee ache to start with. She may barely squat with out assist,” says Gorbacheva.
However as soon as Farrell bought into a daily coaching groove, “she bought extra mobility in her hips and in her ankles and in her thoracic backbone—the areas that normally get tighter with age.”
Most Individuals, by the point they attain the age of 65, aren’t solely grappling with a decline of their bodily well-being, but in addition juggling a number of prescription medicines for illnesses together with hypertension and coronary heart illness, which Farrell has managed to sidestep. “I don’t have diabetes, I don’t have hypertension, I don’t have excessive ldl cholesterol,” she says. ”I credit score it to being vegan.”
On the San Francisco Bay Space gymnasium the place she trains a number of instances every week, Farrell has discovered a welcoming neighborhood that cheers her on and commends her for her consistency and dedication to the game. With that assist behind her, Farrell plans to compete within the 2026 USA Powerlifting California State Championships in January, with a aim to raise and press greater than she did at her first meet. This time, the stakes are a bit increased.
“It’s statewide,” she says, “so I’ll have competitors.”
