I LOVE Being Strong

Kristin McCarthy didn't start lifting weights until her mid-40s. Now 53, she's a three-time America's Strongest Master champion, an Arnold Masters Strongman podium finisher, and an accomplished Highland Games athlete.After struggling with an eating disorder and years of wanting to be skinny, Kristin has completely transformed her relationship with her body. We talk about that transformation, how losing her nephew made her question her motivation for competing and ultimately discover a deeper purpose in it, and the example she tries to set for her college-aged daughter and the young women she feeds every day as a sorority chef.We also get into:How CrossFit opened the door to powerlifting, Highland Games, and strongmanWhat it's like to train for competitions involving everything from huge tires to logs, stones, and sandbagsHow she's still getting stronger in her 50s, nearly a decade after she started liftingHow the relationships she’s built through strength sports have become as important as winning medalsWhy she believes community is one of the best ways to bring more women into strength trainingWhat it takes for an experienced lifter to get started in strongman, even if you've never picked up a stone or flipped a tireAnd why she absolutely loves being strong.Content note: This episode includes discussion of eating disorders and disordered eating.Send us Fan MailFor show notes and past episodes of That Badass Broadcast, visit thatbadassbroad.com/podcast.Writing on strength, training, and competing later in life at thatbadassbroad.com.Clips and training on Instagram: instagram.com/mirslam.Full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@thatbadassbroad.

Personal trainer and powerlifting coach Hendrik Reinold has seen firsthand what older people are capable of when we stop treating them as fragile. He’s coached women in their 70s and 80s to both national and world records.Over his 15-year career, Hendrik’s understanding of how resilient and adaptable our bodies are has evolved as he’s both immersed himself in the scientific literature and worked with clients of all ages, many of them over 50.His approach now is simple: Find where you are. Start there, however you can. Get stronger.In this episode, Hendrik and I talk about:Why strength training is much safer than most people believeWhy he trains 70- and 80-year-olds pretty much like anyone elseWhat age does—and doesn’t—change about training and recoveryHow he went from being afraid of hurting clients to realizing he was dramatically undertraining themWhy autoregulation matters more than blindly following the numbers on a programWhy barbells can be an exceptionally useful tool at any ageWhat it means to “overprepare for life”How much our strength can be limited by what we believe we’re capable ofThe tricks Hendrik uses to help lifters get out of their own heads and discover what they can actually doHow to find a trainer who sees you as capable instead of fragileWhat he’s seen happen when older women get stronger and start taking up more spaceBottom line: you don’t have to know exactly what you’re doing. You don’t have to use a barbell. You don’t have to find the perfect gym, program, trainer, or coach.You just have to start.Follow Hendrik on Instagram @foundational_strength. Hendrik offers online coaching; message him on Instagram to learn more.Send us Fan MailFor show notes and past episodes of That Badass Broadcast, visit thatbadassbroad.com/podcast.Writing on strength, training, and competing later in life at thatbadassbroad.com.Clips and training on Instagram: instagram.com/mirslam.Full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@thatbadassbroad.

Sandra Calvillo spent a lot of her life thinking about the size of her body. A former ballet dancer, she spent her formative years in a culture where being thin was everything and disordered eating was the norm.Decades later, after marriage, kids and a career, Sandra decided she needed to lose weight. She turned to what she'd learned as a young dancer: massive caloric restriction and endless cardio. At one point, she was eating only 500 calories a day.It worked. Sandra lost 70 pounds and became, in her words, “hella skinny.” But she was also incredibly weak.At 59, frustrated that she couldn't get stronger, Sandra found a coach who told her something she didn't want to hear: if she wanted to build muscle, she needed to eat more. A lot more. She might even need to gain weight.That was the beginning of a huge transformation.Sandra and I talk about:Learning to trust food again after decades of fear Walking into her first powerlifting team session absolutely convinced she didn't belong thereThe striking difference between the competitive culture she experienced in dance and the supportive community she found in powerliftingGoing from doubting she'd ever compete to making it all the way to Powerlifting United Nationals at 60Tearing a hamstring and immediately wondering whether it meant she was too old to keep liftingThe body-image baggage women carryHow having the right people around you can radically change what you believe you're capable of Building habits and systems around nutrition that actually work with a busy lifeToday, Sandra isn't worried about getting older. She's planning to keep getting stronger—she has her eye on the records held by a 90-year-old powerlifter—and she has no intention of aging the way we've all been told we're supposed to.Content note: This episode includes discussion of disordered eating.Send us Fan MailFor show notes and past episodes of That Badass Broadcast, visit thatbadassbroad.com/podcast.Writing on strength, training, and competing later in life at thatbadassbroad.com.Clips and training on Instagram: instagram.com/mirslam.Full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@thatbadassbroad.

Every day, Tara “Taz” Kittrell sees what happens when people stop moving, stop challenging themselves, or slowly withdraw from the world. A competitive powerlifter and psychiatric nurse practitioner, Tara became an EMT at 54. During the week, she helps college students facing mental health challenges at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock. On weekends, she rides the city streets in an ambulance. Those two worlds have led this freakishly strong deadlifter to one simple conclusion: we have to keep moving. In this episode, we talk about: How both terrible and extraordinary coaches have changed the course of her life Training through injuries, arthritis, and a thyroid storm, and why she sometimes deadlifts in street clothes Why she became an EMT at 54 and how she earned the respect of her much younger colleagues The heartbreaking consequences of immobility she sees in her work as a first responder Student "bed rot," mental health, and why movement matters at all ages How getting stronger changes so much more than your body Why driving an ambulance terrified her, and how she’s managed to overcome that fear and do it anyway How her "Deadlift to Uplift" program is getting everyone from college freshmen to the university chancellor to pick up a barbellTara sees every day that building strength isn't just about lifting heavier weights. It's about preserving our independence, our confidence, and our ability to keep living life on our own terms.  By the end of this conversation, you'll understand why she keeps coming back to the same simple message: We have to keep moving. Follow Tara on Instagram @tarathewalkingdeadlifter.Send us Fan MailFor show notes and past episodes of That Badass Broadcast, visit thatbadassbroad.com/podcast.Writing on strength, training, and competing later in life at thatbadassbroad.com.Clips and training on Instagram: instagram.com/mirslam.Full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@thatbadassbroad.

Mava Wery Brydges first walked into a gym in 1981, age 23, drawn upstairs to the "men's floor" by the sound of clanging weights. She stayed despite a few unhappy male lifters, and by 1983 had broken a deadlift record at her very first powerlifting meet.Then she walked away to raise her sons and run a daycare. 34 years later, she found herself out of shape and suffering chronic back pain so bad she cried most evenings and couldn't walk more than a few steps. Her doctor said she should just walk for exercise. Her answer? "Hell, no."She rebuilt herself through CrossFit, then the barbell, and returned to powerlifting in 2017. Now in her late 60s, Mava is a multiple national record holder and IPF medalist. She's still setting PRs despite knees that badly need replacing.In this episode of That Badass Broadcast, we talk about breaking boundaries at a time when exercise for women meant step aerobics; the chronic pain that nearly sidelined her from life; how lifting fixed her back; the coaching team that’s become her second family; and what she says to anyone who's been told they're too old, or too broken, to lift.Follow Mava on Instagram @granny_gainz2nd and on Facebook at Mava Brydges.Send us Fan MailFor show notes and past episodes of That Badass Broadcast, visit thatbadassbroad.com/podcast.Writing on strength, training, and competing later in life at thatbadassbroad.com.Clips and training on Instagram: instagram.com/mirslam.Full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@thatbadassbroad.

Jennifer Perrier has been throwing barbells over her head for over a decade. A 5-time Pan American Masters champion, two-time World Championship medalist, and USAW Level 2 coach, she's one of the most accomplished Masters Olympic weightlifters in the country. She's also 56, has osteoarthritis in her hip, and just went six for six at Masters Nationals less than a year after emergency surgery for a ruptured appendix and an accident that totaled her car three weeks before competition.In this episode, we talk about how a friend's road trip to Kentucky launched Jennifer's weightlifting career; what it took to come back from abdominal surgery in a sport where everything starts from the core; how she manages the "critical mind" and limiting beliefs both in herself and in her athletes; what a woman lying in the next hospital bed with a broken hip did to Jennifer's sense of mission; and how she coaches athletes who are navigating pain, aging bodies, and the constant recalibration that Masters sport demands. We also get into the mental game of Olympic lifting, her unorthodox approach to competing with arthritis, and how she's building what she calls "an army of people who are harder to kill."Find Jennifer at www.jenniferperrier.com, on Instagram at @jp.weightlifting and @kittyperrier, and on Facebook at facebook.com/jpweightlifting.Send us Fan MailFor show notes and past episodes of That Badass Broadcast, visit thatbadassbroad.com/podcast.Writing on strength, training, and competing later in life at thatbadassbroad.com.Clips and training on Instagram: instagram.com/mirslam.Full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@thatbadassbroad.

Ren Collier has spent 15 years helping older adults get strong, build confidence, and do things they thought were behind them. A certified personal trainer and the founder of Fit RX, he's spent his career pushing back against the "light weights, take it easy" approach to aging.We talk about how Ren found his calling working with older adults (it was not the plan), what older bodies actually need versus what the fitness world often tells them they need, why he's never had a single client hurt their back in 15+ years of deadlifting, and how we can drop the barriers that keep older women out of the weight room. We also get into the mindset transformation that happens when older women start getting stronger, how to find a trainer who won't treat you like you're made of porcelain (or like you're 25), and what to do if the one you have isn't working out.Whether you're brand-new to strength training or a seasoned older lifter who just needs ammunition to share with the skeptics in your life, Ren's perspective is one you'll want to hear.Find Ren on Instagram at @renfitrxvt; Facebook at fortitudetrainingsystems; and online at his website vagaro.com/fitrxvt.Send us Fan MailFor show notes and past episodes of That Badass Broadcast, visit thatbadassbroad.com/podcast.Writing on strength, training, and competing later in life at thatbadassbroad.com.Clips and training on Instagram: instagram.com/mirslam.Full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@thatbadassbroad.

For Karan Sanford Taylor, what began as a dare from two coworkers in 2017 turned into a full-blown love affair with powerlifting. At 51, Karan had never seen a competition. She signed up anyway.Now on the verge of turning 60, Karan is a seasoned powerlifter who’s competed on national and world stages, stood on the podium in Sweden, lifted in Australia, Greece, and the Virgin Islands. Now she wants world records. Karan has also been a personal trainer for 26 years, working with clients from their 40s into their 80s. In this episode, we talk about how the rampant chronic disease in her family drove her toward fitness at 33; why she calls herself "uncoachable" (her former coaches agree); how her grief at losing her sister to Covid nearly ended her lifting career and how she’s finding her way back; and her tips for competing successfully on an international stage. We also get into her personal training philosophy, how both trainers and clients can show up better for each other; and her two Harley Davidson bikes and the epic cross-country adventure she’s getting ready to take.Karan calls herself "six ounces of whoop ass", and that's probably the most accurate handle in powerlifting. She’s a tiny powerhouse of energy, strength, and joy. You may find this episode is all the pre-workout you need.Follow Karan on Instagram: @6_oz_of_whoop_ass, on Facebook at karan.s.taylor and on TikTok: @6_oz_of_whoop_ass  Send us Fan MailFor show notes and past episodes of That Badass Broadcast, visit thatbadassbroad.com/podcast.Writing on strength, training, and competing later in life at thatbadassbroad.com.Clips and training on Instagram: instagram.com/mirslam.Full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@thatbadassbroad.

Rosemary Nichols didn’t step into a gym until she was 71. Now 86, she’s deadlifting over 200 pounds and setting all-time world records.What began with Zumba Gold and a free personal training session evolved into national competition, world records, and a weekly training volume that would intimidate lifters half her age.In this episode of That Badass Broadcast, we talk about what motivated her to go to the gym at 71; how she got into lifting and what she looked for in a coach—and why not all trainers are the right fit; how she stays injury-free at 86, including mobility, warm-ups, and recovery; what it takes to train seriously later in life; and what she wants other women to understand about starting late—and starting anyway.If you’ve ever wondered whether it’s truly “too late” to get strong, Rosemary is your answer.Follow Rosemary on Instagram @nichols_rosemary and on Facebook at Fit Nana: facebook.com/profile.php?id=100022381397354Send us Fan MailFor show notes and past episodes of That Badass Broadcast, visit thatbadassbroad.com/podcast.Writing on strength, training, and competing later in life at thatbadassbroad.com.Clips and training on Instagram: instagram.com/mirslam.Full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@thatbadassbroad.

At 69, Linda Franklin is the strongest woman in the world in her age and weight class. She has type 1 diabetes, survived melanoma, and has battled multiple injuries—and just put up her best total ever. And until her early 60s, Linda had never even picked up a barbell. In this first episode of That Badass Broadcast, we talk about training for longevity, managing setbacks, competing at the highest level, and what it means to keep getting stronger, both physically and mentally. Whether you're a new lifter or a seasoned competitor, you’ll appreciate this honest conversation about strength, resilience, and showing up—long after most people think it’s “too late.” Follow Linda on Instagram and YouTube - @Linda.gets.strong Send us Fan MailFor show notes and past episodes of That Badass Broadcast, visit thatbadassbroad.com/podcast.Writing on strength, training, and competing later in life at thatbadassbroad.com.Clips and training on Instagram: instagram.com/mirslam.Full episodes on YouTube: youtube.com/@thatbadassbroad.