Southern Illinois Women Prove You're Never Too Old to Start Weight-Lifting

Lyn Flahardy and Janet Russell are not your typical retirees. And, they aren't your typical opower lifters either, and that's okay with them.

Less than a year ago, when Lyn decided she was ready to retire from her job as a social worker for the federal government, she and sister-in-law Janet decided that they wanted to get healthy and lose a little weight.

The first option was a diet program, but neither woman particularly liked the program and they stopped going.

Then, they found their way to S & M Fitness in Harrisburg and the tutelage of co-owner Suzanne Motsinger. They began lifting weights and working out at the gym in October, 2006.

They started working out just to get healthy and lose a little weight, but after a couple months, Suzanne approached them with a seemingly strange proposition-joining the gym's team at the Illinois championships for power lifting.

"I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard. We're old women. What business do we have in weight-lifting competition," Lyn said. "Thenw e found out that there wouldn't be much competition"

"Suzie told us there wouldn't be a lot of competition in our age group, so we decided what the heck," Lyn said with a big smile. The two women have been sister-in-laws for the past fifty years and decided to make it a personal competition.

With a friendly rivalry between them, they agreed to see what they could do with the competition and started working toward their first power lifting championship in May. "I told my grandson that I was bench-pressing 25 pounds and he said, "That's good Grandma", and then I had to tell him that was just the bar," Janet said,

Janet was 68 when they went to the competition in May and Lyn was 58. Janet has since ahd a birthday and Lyn has one this month.

"We thought there would just be a few people there, but the gym had about 200 people in it," Janet said.