At ninety-five years previous, Catherine Kuehn was a world-record-holding powerlifter. “It’s been very simple for me,” she explains with a smile, “as a result of nobody my age was doing it.” “Sturdy Grandma,” the documentary brief by Cecilia Brown and Winslow Crane-Murdoch, follows Kuehn as she prepares for what could also be her last competitors. (Kuehn, who was ninety-five years previous throughout filming, is now ninety-seven.) We see Kuehn within the health club, engaged on her deadlift, hips hinging with practiced precision—her purpose within the upcoming competitors is to deadlift 100 kilos. She works out together with her coaching associate, Peggy; we see the pair at a meet collectively, carrying their singlets (“not very turning into,” Kuehn remarks), sharing pastries and commentary. Kuehn got here to powerlifting late in life. She picked up the game in her eighties, alongside her husband, Dick, who has since handed. Her story is as a lot concerning the enlivening energy of connection as it’s about grit and athleticism. “When you will have your soul mate rooting for you, you gotta do it. You simply gotta do it.”
