SMALL BUT MIGHTY
Grandmother excels in powerlifting
Janet Hills describes herself as a “puny old girl who lifts heavy stuff.”
Although she treats her powerlifting hobby with self-deprecating humour, Hills has hoisted numerous Canadian master women’s powerlifting records. Powerlifting seems like an odd choice for a petite grandmother in her 60s.
“I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d be a power lifter,” she is quick to admit.
Yet Hills takes her training and active lifestyle rather seriously.
At 63 years old and only 4-foot11, she weighs 93 pounds, but she’s no 90-pound weakling. Competing for just a year, Hills has recorded an 87.5-kilogram (193-pound) dead-lift. That’s more than twice her body weight. She has a 65-kg squat and 43.5-kg bench press to her credit during her very first year of competition. She holds a number of Canadian national power lifting records in the Master’s III (ages 60-69) 47-kilogram weight class.
“I waited 63 years for my size to be an advantage,” the retired physiotherapist says. “It took a long time for my size to pay off.”
The Canadian Powerlifting Union record certificates recently came in the mail.
“I thought there’d be only three but there were 11 certificates. I kept pulling them out and pulling them out of the envelope,” recalls Hills, who has proven to be small but mighty.
At her last competition, Hills weighed in at 42.1 kilograms or 93 pounds.
“I might be up to 94. I’ve had a Christmas cookie or two,” she says with a laugh.
The lowest weight category for the master women’s age category is 47 kilograms. She doesn’t need to fast to meet the weight limit.
“I could wear my winter parka and winter boots and still be under my weight class,” she quips, again laughing.
Hills jokes about her size.
“I like to say I’m 4-foot-11 and three-quarters, whether you measure me in the morning or night, or before lifting or after,” says Hills. “I swear I’m shorter after.”
She laughs, but the good-humoured Hills looks pretty serious while gripping hundreds of pounds.
REHABILITATION FIRST, THEN COMPETITION
Somewhat dwarfed by the weight-anchored bar, Hills is sure to open a few eyes in the gym.
She initially began weightlifting for mere rehabilitation reasons.
She had suffered a back injury in 2014. At the time, she had been doing some short-distance triathlons and marathons. She was also going to a gym but not doing any heavy lifting.
“At the time, I was having trouble getting out of a chair without using my arms to get up, and I was having pain rolling over in bed,” recalls Hills. “It was quite disabling. I couldn’t run.”
Her back got progressively worse, so she went to see Blaine Mackie at Mackie Physiotherapy.
“He diagnosed me and put me on a very gentle program at the time,” explains Hills.
“He started me on a program and, as I got stronger, he added body-weight squats and he added a dumbbell dead-lift or kettle bell deadlift.
“So it (weightlifting) sort of found me. I went from there.”
Hills began some casual powerlifting classes with Mat Palmer three times a week.
It has blossomed into some rather serious competition at the national level and, possibly, international level in the future.
Hills says she wanted to continue her activity level. “I was used to being quite active.”
As a trained health professional, she always knew that as you get older you’re supposed to do more strengthening and resistance training.
“All this stuff I had been doing was basically cardio and a bit of gym stuff,” she says.
“So we (Mackie and Hills) decided that powerlifting would be a good option and we kind of took off from there.”
Her training includes dead-lifts during the week, squats and bench press on the weekends.
STRONG-ARMED GRANDMOTHER
Hills and her husband have four grandchildren all under the age of four. If she had more arms, she could carry them all at the same time.
“I can lift a bunch of them now,” jokes Hills, whose husband goes to their son-in-law’s gym six days a week and also stays very active.
Their daughter did some competing in Olympic-style weightlifting, as well, prior to starting her family. Hills says her husband attends meets to calm her nerves and load the bars.
“It’s nerve-racking before a competition, but there’s an adrenalin rush after you do it,” says Hills.
“I just like the fact that, as I get older, this is important for me to do to maintain my strength, not only for breaking records, it’s not really the reason I went into this. It was for activity and daily living, to keep up with my grandchildren and to still be able to do stuff I want to do.”
Retired since 2016, Hills stays busy training and, yes, being available to look after those grandchildren.
“And I still try to get a run in because I really like running,” she adds. “It’s more of a recovery run now than a time or anything like that. It’s sometimes hard to squeeze in when you know you’re going to be doing heavy-lifting the day after.”
She says she will be lifting weights “indefinitely” and doesn’t plan to quit any time soon.
Mackie recalls when Hills first came to see him as a patient.
Mackie worked on proper biomechanics, getting her joints and muscles moving correctly and more efficiently.
“I worked with her for a long time to get her technique right ... and then it actually blossomed into this ‘power-ant,’ like she’s been called,” says Mackie.
“It wasn’t really something I saw in her other than the will to do more and achieve. As soon as you have that raw will, then you can take it and start moulding it and now she’s an amazing athlete.”
Mackie hopes that Hills will inspire others to achieve results they never thought were possible.
He would like to see Hills take her powerlifting to the international stage at the world master’s championship in South Africa.
At this point, Hills is unsure if that’s going to happen.
“Blaine’s got lofty goals,” she says with a smile. “Blaine keeps talking about going to worlds. I don’t know about that. That will be very expensive. It’d cost a fortune to go there.”
For now, Hills is taking things one lift at a time.
“I’m such a bundle of nerves before a meet,” she says. “I’d have a stroke if I went to worlds.”
Again, she laughs.
Thanks to today’s Santas:
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Memory of Brian Williams:
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Memory of Dale Wilson, Byrne
■ Moore, Marty Weightman, Reg Morrison, Irv Senger, Abe Kroeger and Ken Britton from the Saskatoon 60-plus Hockey League players, referees, wives and friends: $4,500
Saskatoon Hilltops Football
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Lost two friends in 2018,
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