{"id":66337,"date":"2020-05-19T16:18:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-19T20:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=66337"},"modified":"2025-10-17T16:49:22","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:49:22","slug":"history-professor-medals-powerlifting","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/history-professor-medals-powerlifting\/","title":{"rendered":"Carleton History Professor Wins Medals at Powerlifting Nationals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Carleton History Professor Wins Medals at Powerlifting Nationals\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Jennifer Evans knows all about heavy lifting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A respected author, scholar, Carleton University history professor, graduate adviser\u2014she\u2019s all that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in early March, just before the coronavirus pandemic hit Canada and shut everything down, Evans also nabbed masters class gold and bronze medals at Winnipeg\u2019s National Powerlifting Championships, earning her a spot on Canada\u2019s powerlifting team for the world championships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Prof.
Prof. Jennifer Evans prepares to lift<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The May 2020 Worlds in the Czech Republic got postponed, of course, and an upcoming North American championship in October, in Puerto Rico, is also up in the air. So like thousands of athletes around the world, Evans is at home, trying to stay in competition shape with no competition in sight.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cA lot of the smaller gyms like mine rented out equipment to their members, so I actually have a squat rack and I built a weightlifting platform in my basement,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cWith powerlifting, it\u2019s not about machines. It\u2019s back-to basics barbells and weights, so I just train at home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting are different. Instead of the clean-and-jerk and snatch lifts you see in Olympic-style contests, powerlifting is raw strength\u2014dead lift, squat and bench press.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Winnipeg, Evans earned a bench press gold medal and a bronze in the three-lift category\u2014the total of your best squat, bench and dead lifts. That\u2019s because Evans can bench press close to her own weight and deadlift double that. When flexed, her upper arms have a circumference of 14 inches (35.5 centimetres). She is a machine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is surprising because she only started powerlifting about four years ago after chatting at the gym with powerlifting medalist Phoebe Mannell, a Carleton graduate student in History.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Professor<\/figure>\n\n\n

Trainer Was Former Student<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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Incredibly, history as fulcrum didn\u2019t end there. When Evans started training at JustLift<\/a>, a gym owned by national weightlifting and powerlifting coach, Greg Chin, she discovered Chin is a Carleton grad (BA\/2008) and former student of hers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI said to him: ‘I hope you did OK.’ Because he is my coach and he could give me awful things to do if he was angry,\u201d said Evans, laughing. Chin had taken Evans\u2019 course on 20th Century Germany. \u201cHe said yes, he did well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Carleton<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Evans, whose interest in Germany began during a year-long exchange there in high school, still teaches that undergrad course, as well as a graduate seminar in theory and method. A social historian, her interests lie in alternative stories often absent from textbooks\u2014the evolution of sexuality and gender, for instance, and how people have used photography to understand themselves and their culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And while she is an accomplished academic and teacher, that doesn\u2019t matter when she\u2019s poised over a loaded barbell with fellow lifters\u2014EMTs, tradespeople, cooks and school teachers. No one cares what you do for a living, only whether you can lift that thing. And if you can\u2019t, they\u2019ll help you learn how.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s an incredible example of regional diversity and the friendships that come together between people who would otherwise never have anything to do with one another,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very giving, supportive community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evans has always been an athlete. In her teens, she was a competitive swimmer. But powerlifting and swimming are quite different, especially when viewed through a body image lens.<\/p>\n\n\n

\"Professor<\/figure>\n\n\n

Positive Body Image<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cWhen I was a swimmer, I was fat-callipered and measured and weighed in front of the team. I was 125 pounds and was told I was too big. The messages were so different then. These sports of powerlifting and weightlifting are so positive, for women especially,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is why she brought her daughter Gillian to Chin\u2019s gym at age 11. Now a teenager with Chin as her coach, Gillian is earning her own podium hardware in weightlifting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Positive<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not about trying to be tiny and trying to lose weight. It\u2019s about maximizing strength and so, for a 15-year-old who lives in this world, that\u2019s such an important message.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evans turns 50 this year and with age come changes to the body. She\u2019s been sidelined by injuries and draws upon strength inside and out to balance training and recovery. But with women lifting into their 60s and 70s, there\u2019s no shortage of inspiration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chin, who describes Evans as an iconoclast, says she stays in the game because she sets goals and pushes herself, but doesn\u2019t punish herself.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWhat I saw in Jen, when I started working with her, was tenacity, like this really good mix of serious determination, but at the same time, she\u2019s good at not being too serious.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Evans is now focused on writing a book about the role of social media in preserving memories of the Holocaust, a heavy topic to be sure. But when she needs a break, she cinches a belt around her waist, heads down to her basement and does a different kind of heavy lifting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LVD Media<\/a> and its parent company, LVD Fitness, were founded and are run by Carleton graduates Mallory Rowan and Josh Reyes.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\"Carleton<\/figure>\n\n\n

—
\nMore Stories<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jennifer Evans knows all about heavy lifting. A respected author, scholar, Carleton University history professor, graduate adviser\u2014she\u2019s all that. But in early March, just before the coronavirus pandemic hit Canada and shut everything down, Evans also nabbed masters class gold and bronze medals at Winnipeg\u2019s National Powerlifting Championships, earning her a spot on Canada\u2019s powerlifting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":66339,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[28],"cu_story_tag":[1928,1920],"class_list":["post-66337","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_story_type-community-partnerships","cu_story_tag-athletics","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-arts-and-social-sciences"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":"blueprint"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/66337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/66337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97846,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/66337\/revisions\/97846"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=66337"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=66337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}