How can powerlifting empower women?

Lifting weights builds more than muscle—it  builds your presence, confidence and sense of self

How different would the world look if women were allowed to enjoy their bodies? How would that affect our mental make-up, the way we look at our whole self and the way we view other women, other people? How would agency over our own bodies change the world? Odds are, it would change very drastically, and for the better. But the world operates on a misguided principle that giving agency to one thing means depriving agency to others. There is barely any place for nuance.

So we grab onto the moments and movements to force that nuance into a reality. And sometimes that act looks like lifting weights. Powerlifting. We aren’t just building muscle, we’re ‘bulking up’ our sense of self and padding ourselves against society’s commodification of our insecurities, until we are relatively unaffected by them. 

 
Breaking preconceived notions

Powerlifting, as the word suggests, is about power. It’s a strength sport where you complete three lifts—the squat, bench press and deadlift. It comes under strength training, where a series of specific physical movements focus on getting you stronger—more muscle mass, strength and endurance. It’s becoming more and more popular now, as women are leaning away from its earlier criticisms of how ‘unfeminine’ it made you look—larger shoulders and ‘bulked up’ bodies. Instead women are focussed on how it makes them feel.

“There is a social construct of how women are not supposed to be powerful [women are the weaker sex],” explains clinical mental health professional Tanya Vasunia. Powerful women make society uncomfortable. “So things like lifting or taking charge, or having a kind of energy that exerts or puts forward power is intimidating. [When women do that] society doesn’t know what to do with it. But this is what I love about the idea of powerlifting, because when you’re in the gym and you’re lifting, it’s not about how someone sees you. It’s about how you feel, and you feel it directly. Any experience that empowers silently and individually is extremely powerful.” 

Shivali Sharma, managing director, Easy Human, has been in the business of fitness for more than two decades. She has also been working out since she was in college, opting for strength training and using weights at a time when it was decidedly ‘unfeminine’ to do so. Today, at 52, it’s an integral part of her workout, even if she’s reduced the weights to accommodate the slower recovery because of her age. “I always liked strength training,” she explains, talking about how her genetic makeup made her predisposed to a ‘larger’ body type as well as a host of lifestyle diseases. “I started working out and straightaway lifting weights, because that was something that came to me naturally, or I just enjoyed it. From the beginning, it made me feel strong, both physically and mentally.” It’s what drew her to the fitness industry too, and eventually she became an entrepreneur, co-founding Easy Human, an organisation focussed on transforming people’s lives through fitness, be it via movement or nutrition. Her 20-plus years of working out, including strength training, hasn’t just made her happy. “Everybody in my family has diabetes and blood pressure. I do not, and I no longer have any hormonal imbalances I previously had when I didn’t work out,” she says. 

Reclaiming ownership of your body

UK journalist Poorna Bell’s 2021 book Stronger articulates this relationship incredibly well. She details how women are conditioned to have diabolically debilitating relationships with their bodies. As children, we move with abandon, until someone points out jiggly bits, or detrimental physical education programmes in schools alienate you further, among other things like random comments from relatives, partners, friends and strangers. From then on, it’s a one-sided battle to reclaim ownership of your body and, in turn, yourself. Bell herself found more than physical strength when she started powerlifting a few years ago—emotional strength, confidence, resilience and power. Through personal anecdotes and interviews with other women, she builds a memorandum for her readers, inviting them to examine how their lives might change through agency over their physical bodies. 

“Psychologically, you’re doing something different, and that’s pushing you,” explains Vasunia. “It’s an achievement high, and emotionally, you’re taking charge and being in control. The three combined make you feel really, really good about yourself and that has a knock-on effect over the rest of your life and sense of self.” Bell’s journey continues on her personal Instagram account, from posts celebrating wins—powerlifting, books and generally, life. This doesn’t mean that all of life’s negatives are cleanly wiped off. No, instead it means you’re better at managing them, they don’t overwhelm you and you navigate challenges with confidence and contentment.  

Miss Lingerista (@miss.lingerista), an account on Instagram run by a young woman in New Delhi who wants to remain anonymous, originally started off because of her near-obsessive love for beautiful lingerie. Chronicling that journey, she organically started to add her own experiences and observations of mental health and physical health, with posts and Reels of her powerlifting journey. “I’m about to be very honest here,” she says via email. “I was in a very dark space personally and professionally [a few years ago]. I was still dealing with some drastic changes within my family, when I broke up with my long-term boyfriend, following which I started getting abused at work. It led me into a spiral where I developed anger within myself. I was perpetually anxious and would have frequent panic attacks, and I would then end up harming myself. I knew it wasn’t the best thing to do but I felt too weak to convince myself otherwise. I even developed stress-induced hives. It was the need to be physically and emotionally strong that led me to start training religiously.” 

Her Instagram account today is that of a sexy and confident woman, very much at ease with her body, happy to share her insecurities and vulnerabilities, while building herself mentally and physically, sharing the journey with her 12,000+ followers. “Honestly, my poor mental health was the motivation behind this. It took me about 27 years to finally realise I was happy. I haven’t hurt myself in a few years now. From working out seven days a week, I have reduced it to 3-4 days a week. I listen to a lot of self-help books to maintain this journey. I am happy in my skin. I am grateful to have a truly supportive family and a set of close friends. I am living a good life,” she shares. 

 
Shaking off the shackles 

Women powerlifting for personal gain are considered a threat to society. Even our language is biased—god forbid we ‘bulk up’. Instead we ‘tone’. Even though both mean building and adding muscle. Lifting weights is considered a ‘male space’. And women entering it without an intention to compete but simply because they like it, raises eyebrows. A woman taking control of her own body and self, without conforming to society’s version of what that means? No, thank you. “One of the biggest myths with powerlifting is this idea of becoming bulky,” says Vasunia. “Looking masculine. When someone says that, I ask what does it mean to ‘look masculine’? When they break that down, it translates to looking powerful and intimidating. And for a woman to be considered powerful, she has to have her body open up and have a foetus pop out. We have different rules of power right? Because women are validated by society only when they produce a child.”

Sharma also wants to update the definition of what it means to ‘look feminine’. With a larger body type and pronounced muscles because of her training, she found it easy to find Western silhouettes to accommodate larger shoulders and slimmer hips. But traditional Indian clothes are cut to a more petite shoulder width and wider hips. “I used to feel like an idiot at every wedding,” she says. “You feel a lot of negativity from women, and that still exists. The idea of being feminine—small and petite. But femininity has nothing to do with your size, shape or colour. It has nothing to do with your physicality.” Sharma’s enthusiasm is infectious—her 70-plus mother is now lifting weights. 

Powerlifting can be so much more than just a fad. There is so much tied to our relationship with our bodies, as the excellent book by Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score, elucidates. But even beyond resolving what we have inadvertently stored in our body, powerlifting is about visibility. It’s about building a body that announces its presence and about taking up physical space unapologetically. Your thighs and arms are a testament to you taking control of yourself. It announces the power in what you have built—you. 

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