Arthritis Gold Medal
Kelly Clark was 58-years-old and felt like she was 90. She was overweight and her body ached all over. Arthritis punished Kelly when doing as little as closing the trunk of her car. Her obesity worsened the condition, and she faced both severe joint inflammation and a “cocktail of drugs” prescribed for it. Clark first visited doctors when she was 49 for a pain in her side and the inability to complete simple tasks around the house. They diagnosed her with osteoarthritis, an agonizing condition which leaves sufferers with stiff and sore joints. “I was traveling around for work a lot, so not having a routine of any sort of exercise,” said Clark. “That meant staying in hotels and eating the wrong stuff and living out of the glove box. I couldn’t have a shoulder bag on one shoulder, and I couldn’t reach into kitchen cupboards if they were above my head,” said Clark. “But when I was put on medication, that was really the trigger, like I don’t want to carry on being like that,” she added, saying that it interfered with her sleep.
But 9 years later, Clark has lost a third of her body weight. Her bench was at 165 lbs. and she was able to get off all her medications. Weightlifting cured it all, but her recovery also inspired her to take up the competition side of it. In 2017 she was volunteering as a referee at a Special Olympics event when she decided she wanted to try it out lifting herself. By 2019, she had qualified to compete in the World Woman’s Powerlifting Championships for Team Great Britain, before going on to the World Bench Press Championships in 2021. After that she was hooked. She kept going and claimed gold and silver medals for England in the bi-annual Commonwealth Games Championships in New Zealand last month after lifting a record weight in ‘equipped bench press’ event in her weight category. She came home with a gold medal in the ‘equipped bench press’ and a silver medal in the ‘classic bench press’—her best results at a world competition to date. Kelly, who bagged her gold with a winning lift of 132 lbs. (60kg), said it was a “dream” to take part in world competition, which was funded by her employer, Keepmoat. “If someone had told me I would be this mobile, let alone competing in international competitions ten years ago I would never have believed them.”
Uplifting humor
Lifting weights changed my life. I dropped 25 pounds…
Right on my big toe. It’s broken now I can hardly walk.
When weightlifting, always have a friend videotape it.
Because the camera always adds 10 pounds.
Met a lovely woman at my arthritis support group last night.
Our bones clicked together.
Two burly bodybuilders walk into a bar.
“Ouch,” says the bar.
December 23rd Birthdays
1867 – Madam C.J. Walker, 1994 – Reed Alexander, 1994 – Isabella Castilo, 1970 – Shannon Bream
1963 – Jim Harbaugh, 1948 – Jack Ham, 1971 – Naked Cowboy, 1978 – Victor Martinez