Humans of BHS: Melodie Ross

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“So I got into powerlifting after I had taken a year to try and lose some weight. Cause I had gotten really overweight and so I lost about 80 pounds and I just felt super weak. So I literally just googled strength gyms in my area, and found a really small gym that was really close to my house that had somebody who was offering some strength training coaching. I went and started just strength training with her and a couple of people at the gym saw me and talked to their powerlifting coach and then I got a phone call from her saying that they had been talking about me and she wanted to coach me when I was done with my small 12 week program. She wanted to coach me and have me start competing… I’ve been powerlifting for a little over three years… My favorite thing about it, honestly just the comradery that is the sport like when you compete you’re not competing in teams necessarily, you compete by yourself. But at my gym, anyone who’s there and who knows me they’ll stop what they’re doing in the middle of a big lift to cheer you on, watch you, or support you… So I found a really good community in it. I train four days a week, a couple hours each day… For competing I don’t like to compete more than once a year just because you’re in prep for 12 weeks and it gets pretty intense, toward the end your body shuts down. The hardest part would definitely be the mental side of things… You really have to be strong enough to choose to see your failure as a way to improve because it can be difficult to push past… I quickly learned that I enjoyed being strong and lifting weights.”