Nikki McKnight

Transcript

foreign age that despite the heels you see guys wearing before you I was never going to be the tall skinny bikini model but the very first time I picked up a barbell in the gym I knew I could be a different kind of hot I could be the sexy powerful Superhero hot oh in 2017 I Was preparing for my very first power lifting competition it started slowly at first tingling in my legs losing feeling in my hands getting dizzy when I would put down a weight it was a couple days after the meet and I was working with a client on the gym floor I

looked down to pick up a five pound weight bent over stood back up and then fell right back down to the floor passed out on the rubber floor tiles doctors and practitioners poked and prodded me for weeks there was no diagnosis I I did it all I saw a physio I saw an acupuncturist I meditated I did rehab I did the meds and they all looked at me and said we have no idea why your body is failing you I am really good at checking things off of lists but with this nothing it's not like I had an accident or fallen down the stairs it

wasn't some random mysterious disease there was no gofundme's being set up in my name I didn't get thoughts and prayers on Facebook I had done everything I was supposed to and still I was suffering in the weeks and months that followed where I was in so much pain I could barely get out of bed I turned to movies because the powerful size and glutes that it once looked good in a pair of little lemons they turned to Shaky Knees and a body that needed to lean on a wall to stay upright I lost my job as a personal trainer because the gym would not let

me work A reduced schedule to accommodate my pain a body that had once put 255 pounds on its back I couldn't do anything more than gentle water aerobics with octogenarians and in those movies I saw powerful characters Rocky bow who held his own against Apollo Creed by running up a bunch of stairs Rudy who kept training and showing up and he finally got his moment to play football for Notre Dame my favorite The Karate Kid Daniel Russo who defeated were cut to the Head as he balanced on one bad leg I dreamed of a moment where I could go back to the gym lift 300

pounds and raise my arms in Triumph while Eye of the Tiger played one night as I lay shaking on my bathroom floor after a recent treatment I cried where is my montage where is my Epic movie soundtrack that is beautiful and uplifting when do I get to feel powerful again the church came to me in a quiet solitary moment on that floor movie montages don't happen in real life we don't get the Epic soundtrack and the quick movie cuts that show us lying in bed crying in one moment and winning the gold in the next they don't exist they don't always look like the movies

they can be found in these seemingly inconsequential decisions we make what we are lying on a bathroom floor the choice to get up the decision to have a glass of water the choice to get up off the couch and have a shower quiet little moments where it's just me by myself making a choice any choice to keep going after many months and years of treatment and Recovery I decided to join a gym again and it was in the months known as squat Tober that I decided to do a barbell back squat for the first time in over two years I walked up to the rack

and I put 100 kilos on the bar a weight that had once been my warm up I got under that bar girded those loins and I squatted and I did it I got the Applause and the cheers and the back slaps and yes Eye of the Tiger was playing in the background my trainer came up to me so excited he said Nikki you did it we can keep going I can train you to get back to what you were before I said no I had had my moment I had had so many little moments and I had earned every one of them because I had

found my power again and that was enough

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.