'Stronger' by Poorna Bell

This book has changed the way I think of exercise, women, age, ageing, older women, and the timeline of life. 

Bell frames her journey through health issues and grief alongside a journey in powerlifting, where she found an anchor, a community, and her own strength. She beautifully weaves autobiographical accounts and epiphanies into a homage to women’s strength, aesthetic and social expectations, stereotypes, and cultural differences that create barriers to exercise that begin from girlhood and influence us as women.

Boldly challenging narratives held by herself, society, and the reader, this book is a call to action for the individual and the collective to take charge of their own strength, to take up space, and to find joy in their body. She dispels myths about who the gym is ‘for’, what a healthy body looks like, and what is the ‘correct’ way to exercise. She speaks to women who took up athletics in their 70s, Mums who paddle boarded the canals of England, and the women in her family to frame where exercise sits, and should sit, in the collective consciousness.

Its preciousness for mental clarity, bone health, menopause symptoms, fitness, freedom, happiness, and community is proven in-depth. She faces head-on the assumption that exercise, particularly for women, should be hours on the stationary bike and should be for weight loss.

Bouncing back after a baby, that we should stay out of the weight section, or that we shouldn’t build muscle are narratives that influence women’s experience of exercising and consequently their bodies. She challenges these in turn through a multi-layered and nuanced approach, breaking stereotypes, and journeying to the very core of why many women don’t enjoy exercise.

She leaves the reader with the optimism of freedom. Life doesn’t end at menopause, you can take up athletics in your 70s, getting older is exciting, don’t be afraid of working out your shoulders and of eating more, enter the weights section, dance, run, and lift weights. It is an autobiography of women’s strength in all manifestations ‘body, mind, and spirit’ and unites us in a collective reminder that we are stronger than we know.