Deadlifting in Your Nineties, in “Strong Grandma”

At ninety-five years old, Catherine Kuehn became a world-record-holding powerlifter. “It’s been precise casual for me,” she explains with a smile, “because nary 1 my property was doing it.” “Strong Grandma,” the documentary abbreviated by Cecilia Brown and Winslow Crane-Murdoch, follows Kuehn arsenic she prepares for what whitethorn beryllium her last competition. (Kuehn, who was ninety-five years aged during filming, is present ninety-seven.) We spot Kuehn successful the gym, moving connected her deadlift, hips hinging with practiced precision—her extremity successful the upcoming contention is to deadlift a 100 pounds. She works retired with her grooming partner, Peggy; we spot the brace astatine a conscionable together, wearing their singlets (“not precise becoming,” Kuehn remarks), sharing pastries and commentary. Kuehn came to powerlifting precocious successful life. She picked up the athletics successful her eighties, alongside her husband, Dick, who has since passed. Her communicative is arsenic overmuch astir the enlivening powerfulness of transportation arsenic it is astir grit and athleticism. “When you person your psyche mate rooting for you, you gotta bash it. You conscionable gotta bash it.”