Powerlifter Goes Primal, Lifts Very Heavy Things for the Win
It’s Friday, everyone! And that means another Primal Blueprint Real Life Story from a Mark’s Daily Apple reader. If you have your own success story and would like to share it with me and the Mark’s Daily Apple community please contact me here. I’ll continue to publish these each Friday as long as they keep coming in. Thank you for reading!
On Primal I’ve gained about 10 pounds – 10 pounds of muscle that is.
Over the two past years, I’ve been trying to increase my strength and add muscle mass.
The first year, even though I was lifting heavy weights, I didn’t add much, if any, muscle. I was eating a low-fat, low carb diet (which was extremely flavorless and hard to maintain) and just got plain old skinny. Not toned. Not jacked. Just skinny.
I then of course fell off that diet and put on a bit of fat, which is when my fiance and I decided to start Primal.
Since starting Primal about a year ago, I’ve seen the scale jump up 10 pounds, but I look lean and more muscled than I’ve ever looked before. And my strength has also really increased over the past year.
It actually increased so much that two months ago I decided to train for my first powerlifting competition.
When I started training, I was told by another trainer at the gym, that I would need to eat carbs, like bread and stuff, if I expected to really see results.
I just shook my head and kept eating Primally and my numbers just kept going up. And actually the couple of times I did cheat, I had my worst workouts EVER the day after!
Although throughout the two months I planned to compete, I didn’t actually enter the MA/RI Powerlifting State Championship meet until right before the deadline. I was super nervous and could think of a bazillion reasons why I wasn’t ready.
One of my reasons not to compete was because my training wasn’t true powerlifting workouts. The second reason was that I’d gained a bit of weight throughout the training and especially over Thanksgiving.
But I’d committed to doing it, so I refused to back out. That last week before the competition, I threw in some longer fasts and only ate meat and vegetables. Everyone at the gym told me that I shouldn’t fast and that I needed to eat “real” food.
I didn’t listen to them when it came to fasting because I was eating real food just later in the day. Delicious meals like pulled pork, oxtail, rib-eye and chili.
And I dropped every ounce of fat that I needed to and felt super strong on the day of the competition. (I also did throw in some potatoes the day before and the day of the competition just to feel extra energized.)
Anyway, on the day of the competition I sat there in my wrestling unisuit, with no equipment and no belt, eating my Primal snacks (potatoes, apples, macadamia nuts and 100% grass-fed whole milk yogurt and protein) while everyone else sported some sort of equipment and chowed down on peanut butter banana sandwiches, protein bars, candy and Gatorade.
I definitely felt slightly out of place, but my fiance thought it was pretty “gnarly” and “bad-ass” that I didn’t wear a belt or use chalk or anything that lifters were supposed to use.
And the meet was a success even though I didn’t lift as much as I had in practice. I won both my weight class and received the MA/RI Powerlifting State Championship award for Best Lifter – Women’s Raw Division (PDF).
The Best Lifter award is a measure of relative strength, which means that this Primal Powerlifter, weighing in at 118, was the strongest woman in the Raw division at the meet!
I was thrilled to receive the award! And so was my fiance. He also ended up loving the fact that I kicked all of their butts while eating Primally. He liked it so much that he encouraged me to send my success story in to you! Actually he was SO excited that he told you I’d won when we saw you in the Boston airport. 
(Here is a video of the competition if you want to check it out!)
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
That video is totally awesome!!! I love seeing women empowered by eating real food and lifting heavy things. Too many ladies slog it out at the gym focusing on hours of cardio….seeing them at peak hour reminds me of hamsters madly spinning in their wheels…they are going nowhere fast! Congratulations on your primal eating transformation and awards at the power lifting competition. You truly are an inspiration! Strong is definitely the new skinny
Congrats Cora, you are an inspiration… truly! I got a new, used weight bench 2 days ago and benched 35lb on my first try. No problem! I’m headed out today to buy more weights!
“strong is the new skinny” — love it!
Oops… Cori!
Great job Cori! That is so awesome. Thanks for sharing.
Wow awesome raw lifting there.
Mark, thanks for sharing and offering a guest blog, that girl kicks some serious butt, awesome of her to challenge herself in so many ways, BIG respect!
Very cool story! Congratulations Cori!!
Congrats, well done. I had a similar experience. I won NY state championships in my weight class while eating primal/paleo. Crushed all my PRs and was the strongest I’ve ever been in my life.
Awesome! Congrats!!!
Wow, congrats! Very impressive! (I’m a Cori too!)
Another female powerlifter!?!
Great job! You are cute, strong, and Paleo. That is my definition for a perfect woman.
Absolutely fabulous! Congrats!
Shirley
Awesome video!
I love it! Primal girl power!
Two thumbs up!
Gyday People..
Thats a very uplifting story to be sure….
Well done mate.
PS: The ‘Grand Canyon’ is awesome…..someone lifting is not awesome….it can be alot of things that need adjecives to describe it/them. But awesome is a very tired worn out word to describe someones achievements.
Can we ban the word ‘awesome’….please!
It’s really time for me to do less cardio and lift heavier things. I have the plan in place, and now this gave me the inspiration!
Awesome! If Charlie’s looking out for some new Angels I’ll let him know to give you a shout.
I am inspired! Definitely have to kick it up and lift heavy things. New goal to shoot for over the the next year. Thank you for sharing Cori!
It’s great to see that so many “serious” athletes are starting to lean towards paleo type nutrition. That’s inspiring.
Regards,
Tom
Very impressive work! However, please be careful on the deadlifts. I hope you talk to your weightlifting coach about the proper alignment for your back when doing deadlifts. It looks like you are rounding your back, which is an extremely dangerous thing to do when lifting heavy things.
Thanks for the critique! I actually train myself. And I know I round when I get super high in weight…it’s the nerves..what can I say haha
Hey Cori,
You are doing great. You do more raw than some of my old teammates at similar weight were able to do with gear, especially for deadlift.
This is not meant as a critique but a suggestion. If you could have someone coach you on your form your weights moved would go up dramatically. I noticed this the most on your bench. If you arched your back, pulled your shoulder blades tight together, and pushed through your legs, you’d be up to 135 before you could believe it. For your squat you could keep your chest out a little bit more at the bottom and that might get a few more pounds out of it, also again with the squeezing of your shoulders. Deadlift, man, I won’t even try to coach you on that!
Hi Kat
Thanks! I’ve actually been working on correcting my bench form and my weights have gone up.
Thanks!!!
Cori
Awesome! And some muscle on a woman is pretty sexy, too! Women shouldn’t be afraid to be strong and confident – real men dig that.
Great story! You totally kicked ass! How awesome that your fiance is so supportive of your sport, and that you are doing it all by eating primal. I am inspired by you to stick with my heavy lifting workouts and remember that lifting and eating primal gets results. Great job Cori!
As a beginner powerlifter, I am extremely impressed and insanely jealous!
How long did it take till you started lifting the biiig numbers? And did you do any extra training to improve grip strength? Grip is what is really letting me down in deads (stoopid girly grip!)
Shoot me an email and we can definitely talk!
I’ve been really focusing on lifting heavy for at least a year now, but only over the last six months have I been working on maxing out.
Just be patient!
Farmer walks are great for grip strength. Also, all back exercises really work on grip!
That was awesome. Great job. Gives me something to work toward.
Get a pl trainer to teach you better form and I bet you will get 25% more on each exercise. Bench especially. You have natural talent.