Powerlifting has instilled a
confidence and resilience in
the life of Poorna Bell after
her husband’s sudden death
Sport has helped to remove my
I
have cried over a lot of things,
but never sport. Perhaps
because, until 12 months ago, I
had never taken part in a
sporting competition before.
But in June this year, I
found myself fighting back the
tears as I stepped off the platform
at the amateur World Powerlifting
Congress Euros in Ireland, having
been unable to complete my final
dead lift of the day.
The music and lights faded into
the background. I flicked the catch
on my belt to release the pressure
around my waist, and as the
oxygen flooded my body, so did the
realisation that I had failed.
I forgot that I had attempted a
dead lift of 130 kilograms (286lb) at
a body weight of 62.5kg and had
actually got it to just below my
knees. I did not think about the
months of training, the personalbests, all the achievement that had
led me to that point.
Or the fact that – despite having
a hole in the heart that only got
fixed at the age of 31 – I had even
taken up powerlifting. All I was
focused on was the failure, and
what it meant in that moment.
In the long, dark corridor
leading away from the competition
space, I called my mother to tell
her what happened. I could feel
the tears rising.
After comforting me, she said:
“You’re used to succeeding. Every
time you’ve started something, you
put your maximum effort in, and it
almost always pays off. But sport is
new for you, and you’re not used to
failure. But you’ll learn from this,
and you’ll get better.”
Until she mentioned the F-word,
I had not made the connection.
That is what I was struggling with,
my ability to fail.
Unknowingly, I had
weatherproofed almost every
aspect of my life to prevent me
having to deal with failure. Even
when I did fail, or something did
not go my way, the failures tended
to be small and low-risk, so the
impact was less dramatic.Sport, though, was different.
While as a child I was active –
running around with friends and
playing tennis occasionally – I was
never sporty.
Like a lot of girls, when I hit
secondary school, I almost
completely disengaged from
physical activity.
A combination of puberty and
self-consciousness means that
self-confidence starts to plummet
in girls starting as early as seven,
and increases once they hit
secondary school.
Factoring in the terrible way
sport was taught in school, I was
sure it was not for me.
I was not tall, I did not have the
physique to survive being battered
on a muddy field, and once
teachers realised you did not have
much aptitude for hockey or
rugby, they merely tolerated you.
In my twenties, I started going
to the gym as a half-hearted
means of weight maintenance.
But in my mid-thirties, as a
means of coping with my husband
Rob’s sudden death, I decided I
wanted to get strong and learn
how to lift weights, even though it
terrified me.PAUL GROVER FOR THE TELEGRAPH AT RICHMOND FITNESS4 ***^ Friday 16 August 2019 The Daily Telegraph
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