World-record powerlifter Tamara Walcott: ‘What does 641lbs feel like? It feels light!’

The Chiseled Life gym in Columbia, Maryland, is buzzing with a soundtrack of weights clanging and lifters grunting. Then Tamara Walcott paces in front of the deadlift bar and the room stills. The men by the bench bar stop and turn, ready to see a world-record holder in action.

Walcott faces the bar and sets one foot in position, kicks back the other and places it a hip’s width apart. She flicks one wrist out in front of her, and then the other, showing off her long nails, painted yellow, a different design on each finger. Holding a squat briefly, she then stands up straight and bends over to take a grip on the bar. She starts pulling. “Let’s go!” the men shout. “Come on!” yells a woman leaning on the squat rack. Walcott pauses with the 455lbs load by her shins before lifting it up to the level of her hips. She sets the bar back down … then repeats the motion five more times.

Done with her first heavy lift of the day, Walcott starts taking off her wrist bands. The gym goers return to their own weights; grunts and conversation resume. Her accountability partner registers my shock and laughs. “Everyone stops to watch Tamara lift,” she says.

Walcott, to put if mildly, is strong. The 38-year-old mother of two set a world record for the women’s deadlift at the Arnold Sports Festival earlier this month, lifting 641lbs (290kg), or roughly the weight of an average-sized grizzly bear. She broke a record that she had set the previous year with style – her signature prep, along with her immaculate nails and hoops so big they could be worn as bracelets, caught the eyes of casual sports fans and professionals alike. But the professional powerlifter remembers a time when going up and down the stairs to do laundry would have been