Transcript | Ep. 88: How to Lift Heavy Sh*t

Caroline: Heads up, y’all, this episode will touch on disordered eating and compulsive exercise.

[Stinger]

Mattie: I do remember I had one boyfriend in high school who I think it was like, right when I had started CrossFit, he was like, you need to kind of pick like either you can keep doing this or you can be with me. I was like, oh, well, that's obvious. See you later. Like, of course, I want to get jacked.

[Theme music]

Cristen: Caroline, serious question for you. If unladylike workout icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg seriously challenged you to an arm wrestle, and you had to compete, you couldn’t forfeit, who do you think would win?

Caroline: Absolutely not me. What about you, are you a little more confident?

Cristen: I’m left-handed, so it depends on whether it’s a left-handed or right-handed competition. In the past couple years, I’ve actually been trying to get stronger in my upper body and arms. And I am happy to report I’m up to five push-ups

Caroline: Cristen, I’m legitimately impressed. I’m not there yet. But I do have a hot tip for you

Cristen: Give it to me

Caroline: OK, if you want a glimpse of what it’s like to be jacked as fuck, you need to follow Team USA weightlifter Mattie Rogers on Instagram. Her handle is @mattiecakesssss — that is cakes with five s’s — and you can scroll through the quarantine workouts she’s been posting for her 650k followers or watch highlights of her just beasting the barbells at competitions.

[Clip of Mattie at competition]
Announcer: OK here is Mattie Rogers of the United States. First attempt 101 kilos [applause]

Cristen: Caroline, I am obsessed with @mattiecakesssss. Funny story — she first blew up on the internet in 2016 after posting an Instagram video of her accidentally destroying a gym window with a runaway barbell. But even if folks came for the fail, most stayed for her skill. Mattie holds multiple American records, and her career reflects just how much the weightlifting future is female, y’all.

Caroline: Yeah, Women are the fastest-growing demographic in competitive weightlifting — like, really-fastest-growing. Today, women make up nearly half of all USA Weightlifting athletes, up from just 19 percent in 2007.

Cristen: It’s almost as if women are making up for lost time. In 2000, women’s weightlifting was FINALLY included in the Olympics, 80 years after the men’s competition, and around the same time, programs like CrossFit that incorporate Olympic-style lifts instead of weight machines also started getting popular. So basically, women started seeing other women lift heavy shit — at the Olympics, the gym, on social media — and have been like hey ‘I’ll have what she’s having!’

Caroline: But as our first guest Casey Johnston knows firsthand, venturing into the weightlifting world can be intimidating ...

Casey: I mean, like I always knew of lifting, of course. But like, it was a thing that men in my life did that I was - I felt super uncomfortable with for a number of reasons. I was afraid that it would make me a lot bulkier. I was intimidated by the weight room. I didn't know what I was doing. Like I could maybe, like, walk up to some dumbbells and do some curls, but I didn't really know anything else. And I didn't know how to learn. And I wasn't gonna ask anybody.

Caroline: Today, Casey is going to share how weightlifting helped her unpack her own body image baggage and bust some persistent myths about building muscle. Then, it’s off to Orlando where Mattie Rogers reveals what it’s like to be one of the most loved — and hated — weightlifters on the internet.

Cristen: All to find out: What happens when women lift heavy shit?

[Stinger]

Caroline: Casey Johnston is an editor at Vice. She’s also a competitive powerlifter and the resident Swole Woman of the advice column Ask a Swole Woman. Each week, Casey answers readers’ questions about how to get into lifting, where to go, what to eat — so naturally we turned to her to set us straight.

Cristen: So I feel like, anecdotally at least, anytime I talk to women who have especially if they're like kind of relatively new into like weight lifting and strength training in particular, there's often this euphoria that we describe like I feel whole when I finally mastered that goddamn push up. Why, maybe this is a dumb question, but why does weightlifting feel so good?

Casey: Just that sort of like raw capability that you have to, like, do something that's like hard is really validating I think. Like I don't know if I'm deadlifting like 250 pounds for for a bunch of reps that's like I feel I feel like super capable, and that's a really addicting feeling

Caroline: A big reason that Casey is such a lifting evangelist now is because it radically changed her relationship with her own body and defied the weight-loss gospel that diet culture preaches.

Cristen: And you can see that gospel in your neighborhood gym. Even today, most women don’t workout with weights — even dumbbells. According to a recent study, for instance, men outnumber women in the free weights sections at gyms 17 to 1, while women occupy 70 percent of the cardio machines.

Caroline: Yeah, for years, Casey was stuck on the cardio and calorie restriction circuit. She figured running was the best way to get the body she thought she wanted

Casey: The barrier of entry seemed so low, and so many people were runners. I was like, why not - why not also get into running? Runners seemed like they really have it together. So I did that for a few years and along with some like fairly aggressive dieting, because I felt that I weighed too much. I didn't like how I looked. But I never got to a safe-feeling place with my body. So I started to get all these little injuries that were not like devastating but made running harder and not being able to run made me like super anxious. Now I realize like in hindsight, I wasn't taking very good care of myself. And I wanted to make a change.

Caroline: That change started on reddit, of all places

Cristen: Casey was googling around for weight-loss regimens when she came across a viral reddit post of a woman’s before-and-after pics from six months of weightlifting.

Casey: She just looked like the platonic ideal of the way we all say toned, a little bit more toned, I just want to be more toned. That happened for her. And she was not only lifting for like half an hour, three times a week, which was way less than I was running. She was eating, she said, like 2200 calories a day. And I was like, why? Why are we not all doing this? Why am I not doing this? Like, this seems - this seems perfect. It takes - it takes no time at all. You get to eat a lot and you maybe finally get to a place of their body where you don't feel like you're constantly critiquing yourself or like it was sort of like a look that I had always, like, wanted, but was never really getting.

Cristen: OK, let’s pause for a sec because "weightlifting" can mean all sorts of things. In this episode, we’re focusing on two types. The first is what Casey does — that's called powerlifting. For this, you’re focused on using your barbell in three core movements: the squat, the bench press and the deadlift. It’s all about power and brute strength.

Caroline: The second type is what Mattie Rogers does — Olympic weightlifting, which is more technical than powerlifting and focuses on getting the barbell ABOVE your head. We'll get more into what that entails later on with Mattie.

Cristen: But for both of these categories, weightlifters compete against folks who are in their same bodyweight class. And as you get stronger and more efficient, you add more and more weight to your barbell to make the lifts more challenging.

Caroline: AND more rewarding ...

Cristen: So tell us a little bit more about what it felt like when you first started lifting and why you stuck with it.

Casey: Yeah. So I looked into the program and it was super, super simple. It was like you do three movements for three sets of five and you're done. And that was the entire workout. And I was like, I can do this. I can learn like I think it's a total of five movements and you alternate two different days of training for three days a week. So I started doing it, and it was really, really compelling how sort of simple the workout seemed. And yet I could feel it like, you do after a while, like start to notice the difference. If you do, like, eat eat the food. Do the trainings. You want to rest on your off days and get enough sleep. But it all sort of forms this like constructive relationship with your body that I had never experienced before, where you're you're fueling yourself to work out and then you're doing your like sort of set workout that is fairly limited in scope and time and then just letting letting the process work.

Caroline: So can you talk then about how cis women's bodies do build muscle? Like what is - what is the process?

Casey: Sure. So muscle building happens really, really slowly. like, your muscle building will never happen faster than when you're either you've never lifted weights or you just took like, I don't know, six months or a year off of lifting weights. But the sort of rule of thumb is that men can gain about 1 to 2 pounds of muscle per month in this - in this sort of like early stage of training, women can gain about a pound. I hesitate to put a number to it, but it's not going to be like double that. So the process that's involved there is that when you lift weights, particularly really heavy weights, you're basically shredding your muscles up, causing muscle damage. And what you're doing when you eat is giving - and especially eating a lot of protein. You need carbs for fuel. You need fat for calories. I mean, these are all it's like all more complex than that. But primarily the protein helps you, helps your muscles rebuild. So you're sort of like shredding your muscles up and then giving yourself food in order to rebuild them a little bit better than they were before. And as you do that, you gain muscle, but extremely, extremely slowly.

Cristen: That continuous cycle of shredding and rebuilding muscle in weightlifting applies to all bodies, too. But Casey says the sport still has a ways to go to becoming inclusive of trans and nonbinary bodies.

Caroline: Trans inclusion is a super fraught topic in lifting. On the one hand, groups like the International Olympic Committee have OK’d trans lifters’ participation as long as they pass certain hormone tests. On the other, some people in the lifting community insist that trans women have an unfair advantage. USA Powerlifting, for instance, bars trans women from competing against cis women.

Cristen: But regardless of gender, every body is different, and hormones, musculature and biomechanics vary from person to person.

Casey: It's been really sad and unfortunate to see actually that there's a number of athletic associations that have banned trans lifters from competing because of this particular debate. It's not a debate I think to people who know who are like, educated in it. Like there's a fairly well-understood way that hormones affect people. like hormones do play a role in how you build muscle. But I would say should like it if people think it should put them off lifting weights of taking, let's say, hormones for a transwoman, that they should be afraid to lift weights. I would say please don't be same in the opposite direction. Like again, from a basic level of lifting weights, truly anyone can benefit. And I don't think you need to be focused on what the results are gonna be in order to feel those benefits.

Caroline: So in terms of body image and like how you feel about your body and how it works and what it looks like — how does weightlifting sort of change your ideas about body image?

Casey: Right. I would say that a lot of the talk about exercise and diet as we're used to experiencing it, is very focused on weight loss. And like being smaller. And that was even I admit, like, what's one of the things that sold me on it initially was just the idea that you could be smaller. One of the notable things about that initial post that I saw was the woman in it - her body weight didn't change. And that was a new idea to me that you could sort that your body could be different, but your weight could be the same. And we're always focused on specifically weight loss. But I think that what what was different about it was that while I got into it with that being a factor, it really taught me to see my body in a different way. It sort of dawned on me from doing the strength training movements that like your body is like capable of something, and you're capable of being strong. And it's not just about - like exercise isn't just about losing weight and it's not about aesthetics. It's about like sort of functionality and mobility and feeling good about yourself and feeling this constructive relationship with food and with exercise where you're not sort of chipping away at yourself over the course of doing all these workouts and just praying that you get smaller. You have this other goal that you can work towards, which is like feeling - feeling good in your body.

Caroline: Developing that constructive relationship with food can be one of toughest hurdles to weightlifting because you’re actually exercising to GAIN weight.

Cristen: Right — and food literally fuels muscles to grow. So if you want to get stronger and lift heavier shit, you’re probably gonna need a heavier diet.

Casey: I see some people try to start lifting weights, but they can't bring themselves to eat enough food in order to support the process. And then it really never clicks for them because they're there trying to lift, but then they're still eating like 1200 calories a day. And it doesn't really do its thing for your body when you're not giving yourself that fuel. So you have to like I had done some background reading that indicated you really need to like buy in fully on it and just like that sort of permission that it gave me to live a completely different way just really clicked with the way I was feeling at that time.

Cristen: So, what’s the biggest misconception about women and weightlifting?

Casey: Oh, definitely that it'll make you bulky. I mean, I think that's a fear that carries through for women. Even if they decide like they wanted, they they can tolerate some strength training. They're afraid to do the eating that's required for the whole thing to work because they're afraid of. I mean, they're afraid of gaining weight. They're afraid of like looking like they have huge muscles. Like there's a real stigma against having big muscles, even like the potential for it, even though that's really not - for women especially, but really for anybody - how it happens like muscle is actually built incredibly slowly for everybody, like we're talking a few years before it was sustained effort before you really see a big difference.

Cristen: Considering how like totally unscientific that myth is. Why do you think that it is so persistent?

Casey: I really I just like if I could answer that there would be no need for me to do like what I do and think. I. I really don't. I mean, I think it's I think it's a problem of the look that people are afraid of. But they're also afraid of like like it's unattractive. Still, quote, unquote, for women to sweat or show exertion. it's such a quote unquote, masculine activity. Like people see when people see people lifting weights, it's like a guy who's like grunting and screaming, like throwing stuff around, making a lot of noise. And a lot of women are super intimidated by that and can't see their own way to like being like that. Not that you need to be like that. Like everyone usually thinks that guy's an asshole, but it does involve a sort of like intensity that I think women are very shy about. So there's a lot of stigma around it that doesn't jive with how women are told they are allowed to be.

Caroline: We’re going to take a quick break. When we come back, it’s time to get JACKED with Team USA weightlifter Mattie Rogers

Cristen: Stick around

[Stinger]

Cristen: We’re back and leveling up our weightlifting with Mattie Rogers, who is — to put it simply — strong as fuuuuuuck.

[Airhorn sound effect]

Caroline: Mattie was effectively on her way to the 2020 Summer Olympics until COVID canceled everything, including the last qualifying competition for the Olympics. This means Mattie is going to have to compete for a spot on the now-2021 Olympic team all over again and is stuck training from home in her garage in Florida.

Cristen: That also means we got the chance to talk to her on one of her rest days

Caroline: So is there, would you say, like an ideal quote unquote, weight lifter body? Like how would you say your - your weightlifter body is built?

Mattie: So I would say I have one of the most un-ideal weight lifting bodies. Because what you want for weight lifting is not like what you see in magazines. And like the more like stereotypical like, oh, that person has a nice body like lifters that are shorter and have shorter limbs kind of have an advantage because they just they don't have to get the bar as high off the ground. And just being a shorter, more compact person is more ideal for for weight lifting. And I'm built more kind of like a giraffe. I would say I don't I don't really have a weight lifter body. But I mean, it works. It lifts weights. So it's some sort of weight lifting body.

Caroline: Mattie describing her body as “It lifts weights” is like Megan Rapinoe describing hers as “It kicks soccer balls.”

Cristen: Now, like we mentioned earlier, the Olympic lifts that Mattie performs are different from the powerlifting that Casey Johnston was talking about. Olympic weightlifting focuses exclusively on two moves: the snatch — when you hoist the bar from the floor to above your head in one swift movement — and the clean and jerk — when you lift the bar from the floor to your shoulders, then from your shoulders to above your head.

Caroline: And for a sense of just how strong as fuck Mattie is, as of this episode, her personal records are 240 pounds for the snatch, and 295 pounds in the clean and jerk, which is almost TWICE her body weight.

Cristen: Caroline you know she could lift like a Cristen and Caroline above her head.

Caroline: I wanna see that Dirty Dancing reenactment

Cristen: Now Mattie has also attracted an unprecedented following for the sport. Some are aspiring weightlifters who follow her as a role model - and others are just weirdos like us who can’t get enough of watching her dominate these herculean lifts.

Caroline: We have totally stalked you on Instagram and you’ve talked about how “Performance is always the goal. And this body is a result of that.” So how would you describe your relationship with your body now?

Mattie: When I started the sport, I weighed 123 pounds. And now I don't know what it is in pounds, but now I weigh 77 kilos. So that was 58 kilos to 77 kilos. Like that's a huge gain. And so I mean not all of that was like that. Like some of that definitely needed to happen. Like I was a very stickish-looking person before. But I don't think I've ever really. I don't know how to word this without it sounding bad, but I've never really cared what my body looked like, which obviously I do care. But it's not like, well, I'm going to try and diet down so I look better because that would totally affect my performance. Like that’s never been like a thought. It’s always been like what do I need to eat to do well in my training today or tomorrow, what do I need to do to fill out this weight class or cut to this weight class. It's not just like, ooh, what can I look like? It's like what can I do and what can this body do for me?

Cristen: Caroline, one of the most exciting things I discovered about Olympic weightlifting is that the size and musculature of women's bodies might actually be better suited to the sport than men's. Even though women have only been formally competing since the late 80s, they're breaking records muuuch faster than the men, and sports scientists are starting to suspect that our supposedly inferior ladymuscles may actually fire faster and more efficiently when making massive lifts.

Caroline: That phenomenon helps explain why athletes like Mattie can have such incredible come-ups.

Cristen: Exactly! But the funny thing is, when Mattie competed at her first national meet, it wasn’t the pursuit of muscles that really lit her fire for lifting

Mattie: And I remember I saw a Team USA singlet and I was like, wait, like, where do I order that? What store sells that. And they're like, no, no, no. You have to earn that. So I was like, all right. Well, how how do I do that then? And so that was my first meet ever. And I didn't do great, but I didn't do like terrible. And when we got home from that, I was like, this is what I want to do. I want to earn my stupid little singlet. And we kind of like broke down all the rankings and found out if I dropped a weight class, flew across the country to California like a week later and competed and did really, really well, I could make like the junior team USA. So that's what I did. And that's when I made my first USA team. And from there it's like you're not going to stop. You're not going to just say, nah, I don't feel like competitive Team USA anymore. So it's just kind of been building on that since.

Cristen: Well, we've got to ask. You were on your way to the Olympics this summer. So what has that postponement meant for you both in terms of physical training as well as like your mental training?

Mattie: Well, I was actually the alternate for the last Olympics, too. So it like it kind of feels very familiar, like getting so close and then being like, oh, no, never mind, you're not going. So I think I'm kind of lucky in that sense because I've had to deal with that before. Not that it's - not that it's a good feeling at at all. But my training hasn't really changed that much yet. I feel like it will as we get more information. But as of now, we don't really have like anything to go off of because we know we will have to requalify in some way. And that can't start until the lockdowns are lifted, which we also don't know when that's going to happen. So it's a lot of guessing, a lot of just taking things day by day and just doing really all that I can right now.

Cristen: Buuut before she started lifting weights, Mattie lifted cheerleaders …

Caroline: Yeah, Mattie’s athletic resume started with gymnastics as a toddler. Then in middle school, she transitioned into competitive cheerleading

Cristen: What was it like to go from cheerleading, which is, you know, one of the most stereotypically girly sports to weightlifting, one of the most stereotypically bro sports.

Mattie: I mean, I think luckily it kind of lined up with my weird like teenager phases because everybody has like their phases that they go through. And I did cheerleading in my very much like I need to learn how to do my hair, do my makeup and like that just that just was perfect for me. But then also in cheerleading, I well not anymore because everyone can do it now. But when I was in it, I was one of the only girls doing it's called one man's stunts, which is typically for a guy to to base a girl by himself. So there's one guy, one girl. And so I basically took the place of that guy, and it was one girl and one girl. And that was like the cool thing when like, way back. Now, I guess it's not that cool anymore because everybody can do it. But I was already kind of used to like, not playing the guy role, but like not the normal like, “All right. I'm I'm the flyer. I'm the tiny, like, pretty girl.” Like, I was never really that. So when I switched to weightlifting, I never really felt I don't know, I never felt out of place or weird or anything like that. It felt pretty natural. And I think from there it even like allowed me to be a little bit more of myself because I'm definitely not the most girly. I used to try, but I think when I started weightlifting, I like I don't even have to try anymore. Like, this is great.

Cristen: What was it about the lifting that like really clicked for you?

Mattie: I think it was very similar to how I went about like practicing gymnastics, like you had to be so nit-picky and pretty much a perfectionist. And every day coming in and having something technical to work on, because a lot of people think lifting is just like, oh, you just gotta be strong. But you can take like the world's strongest man, make him do lifts. And he's still not as good as like an actual Olympic weightlifter. So just that like little - the little technical things that are never actually good that you always have something to work on. That made it a lot of fun for me.

Cristen: Caroline, love her definition of fun!

Caroline: Yeah, whatever works, right?

Cristen: Mattie has been a competitive athlete for practically her entire life, and she brings the focus and drive you need for elite weightlifting - which often depends on these minute movements that make or break those enormous lifts.

Caroline: And her training schedule is just as intense as you'd imagine. Monday, Wednesday, and Fridays are two-a-days. So she'll put in two separate workouts - totaling seven or eight hours.

Mattie: And every time I say that, people like, how are you in the gym for eight hours, it only takes me an hour. And like, I don't know, it just takes that long.

Cristen: Then Tuesdays, Thursdays and the weekends are "light days," which means one three- to four-hour workout each day. And all of her training is focused on perfecting the snatch and the clean and jerk lifts, so workouts usually involve a bunch of squats or pulls from blocks, really isolating different parts of those lifts.

Caroline: Oh plus, she is a full-time college student. She studies sport and exercise science..and maintains a 4.0 GPA! NBD

Cristen: So we want to know about your coach, Aimee, partly because it's so fun to watch the Instagram live trainings that y'all been doing. And to hear how she motivates you at competitions.

[Clip of Aimee from competition]

Cristen: And I love the just the relationship that y'all have. So tell us about how how would you describe how she stands out as a coach?

Mattie: She she really works on the mental side of lifting. Not any more so than the physical side, but just that extra attention to that. So when she'll give you like it's called a cue when you need to focus on something. So I - say I need to focus on driving with my legs or whatever it is. She'll say like, OK, let's only focus on this one thing. Be very present, be very intentional, like one focus. And it's kind of mixing the physical and the mental aspects of both of those things make it so much more effective when you're actually in training as opposed to just trying to think about a million things and fix a million things at once. And I mean, obviously, you can't do that. So when - when she really coaches you on how to think about things more than just, OK. Do this. It's so helpful.

Caroline: So how does working with Aimee compare to working with, like, your first coach who was a guy like, does that make a difference?

Mattie: I mean, they could both be the same gender and it would still just be very different styles of coaching. I personally, before I met her, I didn't think I would respond well to a female coach because I am very like stubborn and hardheaded. And I was worried that if I did ever work with a female coach, it would kind of be catty, like we would just kind of go back and forth. But she kind of just demands that level of respect to where if she tells me something, even if I don't agree with it, it's like, OK. Like, yes, I'll do it. I trust you fully. I believe whatever you're telling me, I need to do

Cristen: You’ve posted on Instagram about working out on your period. Do you track your periods and how it affects your performance?

Mattie: So I always at the top of each day I'll write the date, my body weight that day, where I'm training. So if it's like home, my gym or like if I'm at a meet or something, and if I'm on my period, I'll also put that at the top for that week, too, because I mean, it does, it doesn't always affect my training, but sometimes it does. So it's nice to know and like if it makes my back hurt or my SI joints hurt, I'll write that in too. So that the next month when I'm on my period, I can be like, why do I feel like my spine is injured? Like, what's happening? And then I can look back. Oh, yeah. This happened last time, too. Like, I'm not dying.

Cristen: If you've got a competition coming up and you realize that it will be like happening while you're on your period, do you shift your, like, training or approach for that competition at all?

Mattie: No. I mean, luckily, that hasn't happened in a while. I feel like sometimes the adrenaline and nerves from a competition kind of negate everything that I would normally feel from my period. I know some people will try and like move their actual period so it doesn't happen. I don't want to fuck with that, so I just let it be. But I mean, if I'm if I am training for a competition, say it's like the week before and my period starts and that's like our heaviest phase of training, like we just have to accept that it might not go as great as we would like it to and just get the most out of myself that I can that day.

Caroline: So you you have dealt with some injuries and setbacks, and like a year ago, right, you were seriously injured. So can you tell us what happened and - and how you came back?

Mattie: I did have a spinal injury last I think it was April, so almost exactly a year ago at the it was the Pan Am championships. So I actually got I got food poisoning in the middle of the competition. So like mentally, I was not 100 percent focused, which I think kind of led to that because like I was lifting, but I couldn't feel what I was doing, if that makes sense, because I was like, just do not shit your pants on the platform. So I went I mean, I did all things considered, I didn't do that bad. But we put basically what I needed for the gold medal for my last attempt. And I was like, okay, let's go. Let's just let's swing it. At this point, who cares? And I made the clean went to do the jerk and it kind of like drove me into the ground at a weird angle which left me pretty injured. I mean, I didn't know what was wrong immediately, but then once I got home, like, I couldn't put my socks on by myself, I couldn't get dressed by myself. And it was like almost two and a half to three months before I could touch a bar again, like just being able to bend over and do like regular household things took a solid month and a half. So I really had to take a step back and spend a lot of time on rehab things. I basically coached myself through getting back to being able to live for that whole three months.

Cristen: Was that scary to experience? And how did you especially then, like how did you take care of your mental health?

Mattie: So it was scary yeah, because I mean, it hurt a lot. Like, I'd never felt pain that way. Like I'd been injured before, obviously. But it was never anything to where like, I couldn't I couldn't get out of bed, I was more worried, like I just blew it. Like I'm done for the Olympics. I have no shot. I knew for a fact that I blew it in that weight class. So it was like, I don't want to know the extent of this injury, because I know that if I do know, even if I feel totally fine, it'll be in the back of my head when I'm trying to come back. So I literally I got my imaging done, I think, February of this year.

Cristen: Oh wow

Mattie: I didn't even know it was coming till February. But I mean, I. All things considered, like I'm doing fine now. Like, I have no issues now. So that's fantastic news, I feel like.

Caroline: We’re gonna take a quick stretch break. When we come back, Mattie Rogers lets out her warrior call and addresses her haters.

Cristen: Don’t go anywhere!

[Stinger]

Caroline: So in in prepping for this interview, we notice that there are quite a few headlines out there that call you sweetheart, and we were wondering if you noticed that and and how you feel about that descriptor?

Mattie: I would love to know who started that. First of all,. I don't think it really matches me very well.

Caroline: Do you think it's coming from a place of like “Weightlifting’s Sweetheart,” like “America's Sweetheart,” like you're the Julia Roberts of weightlifting. I don't know what they're trying to get at maybe.

Mattie: I don't really know. I would love to know.

Caroline: I would watch your rom-com.

Mattie: What's a rom com?

Caroline: Romantic comedy!

Mattie: Oh.

Caroline: Anyway.

Cristen: We’re back with not-exactly America’s sweetheart, Mattie Rogers.

Caroline: And Cristen if we have to make a comparison, maybe we should describe her as the Monica Seles of weightlifting. Because like the 90s tennis icon, grunting is an essential part of Mattie’s game, too.

Cristen: I really, really, really want to ask you about grunting and screaming and how and whether it it helps because it's one of my favorite things about watching you lift.

Mattie: So I remember like again, at that first meet that I went to where I first saw a Team USA singlet. That was the first time I ever heard anybody, like make noise. And I always called it like their warrior call. And I was waiting for for like two years. It's like one day I'm going to do it. It's going to feel right and I'm going to find my warrior call. And like I think when I first started doing it, it was almost like kind of forced. Like you just it feels like you got a you like you don't feel right unless you make it sound. That's what it feels like. Kind of like when you have to burp and you like, I know it's coming. I have to do it like that. So, like, I'm I'm getting set up. Like, there's so much like emotional energy. And you just have to, like, let it out. It's like you feel like a little bit more, like, clear and like, ready. I don't I there's gotta be some science behind it because it really does feel good.

Caroline: So you share a lot on social about your training, you know, posting videos of lifts and going on Instagram live. You recently started a YouTube channel. And like clearly people love it. So, like what - what made you decide to be so open with your process and with just like people on the Internet? And what have you learned from training in public?

Mattie: Well, I feel like I've always been pretty open. Like I don’t know, I'm not like a super private person. So it just kind of comes naturally, I guess. And I think as like my social media grew, it kind - not it's not an obligation that I want to say it like that, but it's like people really get something out of it. So it makes me want to share a little bit more because like before I was, like just like anybody else like this is just my personal social media just going to put some stuff on here and maybe people will like it. But then when people did like it and were like finding use in it and using like my videos to better their own lifting or whatever they use where I don't know and just makes it easier to want to be more open and share because like I'm definitely not like a influencer type of person. So like what they get is what they get. And that's that's fine with me.

Cristen: Well, what kind of feedback do you get from fans? It must be satisfying to see folks getting something out of watching you and your process.

Mattie: Yeah. I mean, I love when people are like they'll tell me like some sort of like, personal story like this helped me to be able to do this and this better. This inspired me to start lifting in the first place. And like, that's really cool to see. Cause I also deal with a ton of like shit. Like I feel like I'm I'm the most hated and the most loved lifter at the same time.

Cristen: Wait but who who would hate you? Mattie?

Mattie: Oh, a website called Reddit.

Cristen: Oh, no. Oh, no. So what is the - what are the haters like, really? What are they really clinging on to?

Mattie: I. I think that my, like, openness and honest ness gets mistaken for complaining a lot. That's one that I've seen. They think I'm just like the whiniest person. Like no I'm just telling you, like what I feel today, totally happy about it. I'm just letting you know. But I think because weightlifting is more competitive now and it never was before, like everybody likes a good like battle and drama. So like people just pick sides and they could literally have no problem with you. But because they like the other person, you're on their shit list. They're like everything you do is wrong. I don't care what you do, it's just wrong. All of it.

Cristen: Oh, God. reddit. I mean, one last question about the the haters though, does it seem like they are? Are they coming from within the weightlifting community or are they just trolls being trolls?

Mattie: I think they're definitely in the weightlifting community because like the trolls that are just trolls that are just like “haha you're fat” or something like that. Those ones are like whatever. These people are like very calculated and detailed and like, know what I ate for breakfast seven years ago. Like those kind of people.

Caroline: So your uh your Instagram bio includes the quote, “You must sacrifice yourself in order to achieve greatness.” So we're curious how you have sacrificed yourself and what's made it worth it.

Mattie: I feel like as in like a professional athlete, you kind of have to sacrifice everything that doesn't benefit you as an athlete. So like, if I wanted to go out tonight and go like, get fucked up and have fun with my friends, like, I can't do that, I have a really important training session tomorrow. If I wanted to, like, move away to college and live like a regular college life, that wouldn't benefit my training. So I can't do that. I didn't do that. I mean, sticking to my diet, I feel like is sacrificing something just like every little thing that I do kind of has to be reconsidered to make sure either A, is it benefiting me or if not, is it worth it to do whatever the thing is or eat whatever the thing is that's not going to benefit me.

Cristen: Do you feel any - any responsibility as sort of a public figure in this sport? Like, do you consider yourself a role model?

Mattie: it's like a weird thing. And it sounds I think I always feel like I sound like kind of an asshole when I say it out loud, but like there was nobody before me that had such a large social media presence in the sport of weightlifting. Like weightlifting has always been such a tiny, little like niche sport. And like you knew everybody in weightlifting. And then outside of that, nobody knew who you were. So like to kind of be able to bring in different parts, like different sports, different just people in general into the sport of weightlifting has been really kind of cool to see because I feel like it hasn't really been done before and that I've gotten so much more exposure to this sport, not just to other weightlifters, but to other people who may have not even known it was a sport. Like I definitely didn't know it was sport, so I was involved in it.

Cristen: Well do you have any advice for listeners who are maybe just curious about weightlifting or are just starting out on their weightlifting journey?

Mattie: Definitely see if you can track down someone who knows what they're talking about. Because it's a lot easier to learn things right the first time than it is to fix bad habits. So step one, try and find someone. If you can't, there's a ton of videos on the internet that break things down, and just kind of go for it. Like, don't be nervous. Don't be shy. You're going to mess up, and it's going to feel super crazy and weird, and like you're going to kind of feel like a wiggly palm tree when you first start. But that's totally normal.

Caroline: So what has lifting taught you about yourself?

Mattie: Well, it's taught me - I think like most important lesson is that I am very resilient. Like, I may not always be the best or I may not have the best days. Like, I think I've definitely had more bad days than good days. But regardless, like, I'm still here, I'm still training every day. I'm still competing. And like, I've bounced back from pretty much everything bad that's happened. There's been a lot of bad things in my career so far. And I think weightlifting kind of showed me that, like, I don't really — this sounds so cheesy — but like, I don't really give up. I'm like, I don't know. I guess I'm just like a fighter. And I'm like, a little bit grittier than I thought I was.

Cristen: You found your warrior call!

Mattie: Yeah. See, it all is all because of the warrior call.

Caroline: OK unladies, do you lift heavy shit? Have you tried weightlifting? Let us know! You can email us at hello@unladylike.co, find us on social @unladylikemedia or join our private facebook group and jump into the thread for this episode.

Cristen: Visit unladylike.co to find this episode’s sources, transcripts, and our weekly Unladylike newsletter. You can also stop by our shop while you’re there to grab a tie-died Unladylike sweatshirt, perfect for brightening up the countless Zoom calls you’re on.

Caroline: Nora Ritchie is the senior producer of Unladylike. Gianna Palmer is our story editor. Shruti Marathe transcribes our tape. Our music is by Flamingo Shadow, Amit May Cohen and Sarah Tudzin. Mixing is by Andi Kristins. Sound design and additional music is by Casey Holford. Executive producers are Chris Bannon, Daisy Rosario and Unladylike Media.

Cristen: This podcast was created by your hosts, Cristen Conger

Caroline: And Caroline Ervin of Unladylike Media.

Cristen: Next week …

Mikki Kendall: So I'm doing all of this fighting to stay alive and I'm going to class. I'm, you know, psychology of sexual harassment and women's studies classes, you know, sociology classes and all of these academic theories are about people like me, but they're not written by people like me. They're not talking to people like me. They're talking to other people like them about people like me. And they're wrong, often. And then I started to figure out the problem wasn't that feminism had nothing to say,but that the thesis of feminism were deliberately ignoring what was happening to a huge chunk of the population, despite saying that they spoke for all of us.

Caroline: We’re talking with Mikki Kendall, author of Hood Feminism, about how NOT to be a Karen … and why white mainstream feminism needs a reckoning on race. You don’t want to miss this one.

Cristen: Make sure you’re subscribed to Unladylike. Find us in stitcher, spotify, apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Caroline: And remember, got a problem?

Cristen: Get unladylike.