Huntsville women are doing some pretty heavy lifting

It was cold outside but inside things were heating up as 11 women gathered at a ‘mock’ powerlifting competition at Huntsville’s CrossFit Hatchet gym in mid-December.

The event was organized by Mitch Friend of CrossFit Hatchet and Ashley Bird of The BarBelles, as a way of introducing the sport to more people in the community.

“Powerlifting seems to be something that not very many people know about here,” Bird said. “It’s very, very popular pretty much everywhere else in Canada and the popularity is growing.”

Bird is especially interested in introducing women to the sport as it is a great way to gain strength and change body composition. But it’s also more than that for her. “It’s a really great way, especially for women, to really feel empowered.”

A powerlifting competition includes three events: the squat, bench press and deadlift. The amount lifted in each event is combined for a total.

One of the women Bird helps train is already a nationally qualified athlete. Kelly Murray will be travelling to nationals in 2019. In order to qualify, Murray lifted a combined weight of over 265 kg (583 lbs) between the squat, bench press and deadlift. In fact, Murray lifted 625 lbs in total: 235 lbs squat, 115 lbs bench press and 275 lbs deadlift.

The mock competition also raised some money to help local lifters travel to regional and national competitions.

After all the heavy lifting was done the winners in each class were announced.
Class 1 – Kelly Murrary
Class 2 – Jocelyn Markle
Class 3 – Ainsley Bladon

Bird was very happy with how the day went. “We had a lot of people come out who were brand new to powerlifting,” she said. “They blew us away with how much they could lift. We thought it was a great little way to promote the sport. It was pretty awesome to see how many strong women we have in this community.”

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