The day my dad asked me to help him with lifting weights
On changing the narrative the world has designed for you
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There are some sentences I never thought I would type. One of these is that my 76-year-old father asked me to help him with his deadlifts. So what? Someone might ask. What’s the big deal? You lift weights, and so it makes sense he would ask you. And perhaps that would apply if he was asking me to sort something out with his computer. Or to help him pick out a present for my mother that she will inevitably return because she thinks he spent far too much on it.
But for my septuagenarian Indian father to ask his youngest daughter to help him with weightlifting? It is an entire world shifting on its axis. It also demonstrates how narratives can change, and that sometimes we can change them for other people too. To show you the full measurement of the request, it requires context.
When I was growing up, my dad was known as the ‘strong dad’ in our extended family. He lifted weights (more along the lines of bodybuilding work), and he was known for his love of fitness, which by stark contrast, none of the other dads were. There is a picture of him holding all three of us – my mother, my older sister and I – in one go, and although my mother’s head was chopped off in the photo, we are all giggling. An entire universe held in his arms, bound by love and laughter.
During a period of my childhood starting when I was seven, we were separated from him. My mother, sister and I lived in India for five years, while he earned money as a doctor in the UK, with the plan to eventually move over and join us. It didn’t end up transpiring because he realised he didn’t want to practice medicine in India, and we ended up moving back to the UK to join him. But during those precious moments when he’d fly out to visit us, I remember his physicality. Broad shoulders and muscular arms. I remember feeling proud that I had a strong dad.
Although I had a father who lifted weights, I never thought it was something I could do myself. I write about this in my book Stronger – it wasn’t that I wanted to do it and was prevented from trying, it was that it wasn’t even a thought in my mind. Like most women who grew up in the 90s, lifting weights wasn’t role modelled or roadmapped for women, and we didn’t have anything like it in school.
Back then, body types were trends, and the trend was hyper-thin. Building muscle, even if girls and women had been given access to it, would not have been conducive to adhering to this body standard. Being South Asian added another layer because in our culture, hyper-femininity is the dominant beauty standard – even to this day. Lifting weights and developing muscle is slightly more acceptable now, but it was non-existent in my community back then.
Fast forward many years, and at the age of 35, I realised that I needed to get physically stronger after my husband Rob passed away. Unless I wanted to rely on men the rest of my life – which wasn’t realistic with an ageing father and male friends who lived miles away – I would have to make it happen myself.
What started off as an initial goal to get strong enough to carry my own luggage and move heavy things around the house, progressed to me signing up to my first powerlifting competition at the age of 38. For those who aren’t familiar with my beloved, weird sport – it is lifting the heaviest weights you can manage, usually in squat, bench and deadlift.
While my father was supportive of me initially getting strong when it was gym work, he was worried for me when I started powerlifting. In the main because he was worried I would injure myself and he sustained an incredibly bad back injury when he was younger doing a 100kg deadlift. (By his own admission, he did something a lot of men do, which is that he didn’t seek any advice and tried to teach himself). My dad thought my competing in powerlifting was a phase, and asked me how long I would be doing this for and I replied: ‘Until I die or am physically unable.’
The main thing that changed was time, but also the realisation that having a strong daughter could be an amazing thing. The longer I kept doing my sport, the more it became a part of my identity. My dad had always been the one to do the heavy lifting around the house – whether it was lugging things into the house or carrying heavy suitcases. But as he started to experience a deterioration in his back due to health issues, it became my job.
The first time he asked me, I know it took a lot to overcome in terms of male pride and the general status quo of physical strength, but what radiated from him was actual pride that I could do it. When I heard them boasting about me carrying their suitcases to friends of theirs, it made me feel incredibly proud.
Slowly over time, my dad and I started training together in the gym – on family holidays and whenever I’d visit them at their house. It became our thing. We’d drive to the gym, train and then have coffee and catch up before heading home. He has a training ethic like mine, so no matter how much sleep or wine we’d had to drink the night before, if we said we were going, we were going.
Last year, my dad reached the point where he needed surgery on his back because he started to be in great pain when he walked. The surgery had risks – he might end up paralysed. But it also potentially promised him the ability to do the things he had slowly lost the ability to do. When I saw him in the hospital just after the surgery, the emotions that rose up were complex and vast. Here was my strong dad, unable to move, looking so small when usually - to me - he was a giant, and we didn’t know how his recovery would go.
A combination of the surgery being successful and him doing his rehab work religiously, meant that he made a full recovery and then some. In recent months, he got the all clear to lift weights again, but I didn’t want to pressure him. He’d normally do bench press and other exercises – at 76 he can still do pull-ups – but never deadlifts after his catastrophic injury all those many years ago.
I was recently talking to him about coming over to visit, and he said: “Can we go to the gym, and can you show me how to deadlift?” I paused for a moment, the emotion gathering in my chest, and I said: “Yes, of course.” It sounds like such a small, simple question but it wasn’t. Not just because my father was asking his daughter – the daughter he was worried about being a powerlifter – to show him how to do something, in an arena he had spent most of his life in.
But because the bravery it takes – not just for a person to return to an exercise that injured them, but particularly after major surgery – is enormous. It demonstrated not just how far he had come in terms of his own journey, but how much he must trust in me and my abilities to help him return to the very thing that scared him.
When we went to the gym today, I saw the fear in his eyes but I talked him through it, calmly. The reason he was injured before is because he lifted without anyone showing him what to do and how to do it. I placed that barbell on the ground with reverence, showed him exactly what to do and gave him encouragement throughout.
But the sense of pride that filled my heart wasn’t just for him. It was for the many women I know, who message me about taking up weightlifting, who talk to their children about it, who have no idea that in rewriting their script, their narrative, they are changing the narratives of the people around them. When I saw my father lifting, listening to every word I had said with perfect form, I thought this is how the world changes, little by little, until all of those steps really do become a giant leap for humankind.
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Fantastic. I've been fortunate to teach many adult women to do the powerlifts for health and fitness, and it's so great to see them feeling strong and capable, and keeping track of what they lifted because they are proud of themselves. And I like being able to point out that for strength training, being heavier instead of skinny is an advantage. It's such a great, inspiring activity. I've been lifting for 19 years. I don't compete like you do (well, I participated in two meets in 2017), but lifting is so good for me that I'll never stop if I can help it.
This is so beautiful for so many different reasons but your dad showing a different type of strength by asking for your help is just…it’s a lot in the best way 💙Thank you for sharing this Poorna 🫶🏽