State Powerlifting Champ, Linda

Last weekend I had the honor of coaching Iron Science athlete, Linda Konkel, in her very first powerlifting meet. Powerlifting is a sport that requires a ton of determination and resilience, you have to be willing to push yourself beyond what you think is capable and that is exactly what Linda did.

Linda has been a client of mine for about three years and in that time, fell in love with lifting weights. She has come in to every training session with a positive attitude and has always been excited to do more. Over the past two years we have talked about her doing a meet and in August she finally gave me the green light, she wanted to compete in the USPA State Powerlifting Championship.

When I say Linda absolutely killed it… I mean she really killed it. At 71 years young, she was able to bench 71.5lbs and deadlift 203.7lbs, both of which were state records and helped secure the win for her. While seeing her win and execute clean lifts was very exciting, the best part of the meet was seeing her pull her third deadlift attempt, a whopping 220.2lbs. It didn’t count in competition, but the heart and grit that Linda put into this lift proved her to be a true athlete.

There are not many athletes that would have grinded out a deadlift for this long and it was incredibly inspiring to see someone represent what powerlifting is truly about, not the white lights, but pushing the limits and hanging on to the bar no matter what.

I am so proud to coach someone with so much heart, humility and courage and cannot wait to see what she does next.