Women Who Defy Gravity



I've put together some warm up and competition footage of Melanie Roach, Carissa Gump, Natalie Woolfolk and Doreen Fullhart from the World Team Qualifier in early March. As of April 4, 2007, Melanie is ranked 6th in the world (53 kg class), Natalie is ranked 4th (63 kg class) and Doreen is ranked 11th (75 kg class). Carissa is coming back from shoulder surgery and needs to add about 20 kgs to her total to get into the top 15 in the world. Note the empty bar work Natalie does in preparation for competition. This is an example of dynamic warmup and should give you an idea of the shoulder, hip and ankle flexibility these athletes have.

By showing these women in action, I hope to debunk some of the negative stereotypes that people have of female weightlifters and weightlifting in general. Slow, inflexible, BULKY--you know the drill. Melanie is married, a mother of three, a former gymnast and owns a gymnastics school. Natalie is a former Level 10 gymnast and lives at the OTC, where she trains with Doreen (a former Div I collegiate thrower) and Carissa (all weightlifter, since 8th grade). Doreen (the tallest lifter) and Carissa are married and both of their husbands are also resident athletes (wrestler and weightlifter, respectively) at the OTC. Sorry fellas, Natalie is currently dating Casey Burgener, the top 110+ weightlifter in the US.

If anyone would like to purchase a high quality copy of this video, please email me: tfober@gmail.com.

The music from this video was purchased from www.magnatunes.com, a website that promotes independent artists and gives people like me the opportunity to purchase and license/use great music at a low cost, while giving the artists the majority of the profits. Check this site out; you can download a cool variety of music file types and share your downloads legally with three other people. It is fabulous.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Great video Tracy! It is very inspiring and helpful!
9:31 PM
Jo said…
holy crap, these women look amazing, this is a great inspiration to add a little more oomph to my weight workout!
12:36 PM
Christine said…
I'm watching this anytime I don't feel like working out. Fantastic!
8:33 AM
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