Super strength: YMCA trainer becomes one of the strongest women in the world

Carrying over 400 pounds on her back, bench pressing a log and pushing her limits, Liz Pothel-Pereira competed against some of the world's strongest athletes.

Pereira, 46, is a Dartmouth resident and trainer at the Gleason Family YMCA. On Sunday, March 2, she competed in the Arnold Classic, a sporting festival hosted by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The competition features athletes from around the world putting their bodies to the test in a variety of events including, bodybuilding, weightlifting and strongman.

The competition was held in Columbus, Ohio from Thursday, Feb. 27 to Sunday, March 2 and Pereira competed in a four event competition held on Sunday.

"My first event is a max log press so I will have a big piece of wood from a tree and I have three tries to press the heaviest that I can," Pereira said. "After that I have a deadlift where I get 60 seconds to lift 440 pounds as many times as possible."

Pereira's last event of the day was a timed event where she had 60 seconds to lift four sandbags of varying weight over a bar 4 feet off the ground.

"One bag weighed 150 pounds, the next two were 198 and the last was 225," she said. "I got the last one over the bar right at the buzzer which felt good."

There were a total of eight athletes in Pereira's division and she placed fifth.

In order to qualify for the competition, Pereira first had to win a local competition and place well enough in a national competition hosted by the Strongman Corporation, the governing body of the strongman sport.

"The state competition was in Stoneham and after I won that I went to Tampa, Florida for nationals in 2023 where I came in second," she said.

The athletes are told the events they will compete in three months in advance. Since receiving her list, Pereira has been training four times a week to prepare.

She said that she works two jobs on top of training and said it has been difficult to dedicate the time she needs to train.

"I manage to train at night or sometimes my alarm goes off at 3:50 in the morning and I train then," Pereira said. "Training varies between two to three hours at a time and I usually drive to Rhode Island because there is a gym there that has better equipment."

Competing and testing her strength is nothing new for Pereira. She has been an athlete her entire life, competing in collegiate track and field before transitioning to bodybuilding, weightlifting, and strongman competitions.

Pereira said her first taste of strongman competitions came in 2022 when she participated in a truck pull fundraiser in Hyannis.

"I pulled a hummer, a pickup truck and an 18 wheeler," she said. "This gave me a lot of confidence so I tried training for a strongman competition."

She described the first week of strongman training as "absolutely horrible," and said "everything hurt from the tip of my hair to the tip of my nose."

Despite the pain, she said she became hooked on the training and getting to the Arnold Classic has been her goal for the last three years.

"If you would've told me three-years-ago that I am going to be at the Arnold deadlifting 440 pounds and running around with 450 lbs on my shoulders I would've told you you're crazy," Pereira said. "Getting to the Arnold means I have achieved and accomplished what I wanted to."

She added that while getting to the Arnold was always a goal of hers, she didn't think it was actually possible until the Gleason Family YMCA community rallied around her.

"When I qualified for the Arnold I said 'oh man this is not in my budget' but the whole YMCA community helped and pitched in," she said. "We did a fundraiser and I had people donating $10 bills with little notes saying 'you got this!'"

Despite not winning the competition, she said the community support she received feels even better.

"I feel like I won and I love the people around me even more than I did before," she said. "The whole community really stepped up to the plate."