Meet Porshia Birdsley, Wyoming’s “Girlie Girl”…

THERMOPOLIS — When Porshia Birdsley asked her hometown officials if she could borrow a fire hydrant, they had a double take.

When she explained she needed it to train for a strongman competition, they said yes.

“It’s been fun,” Birdsley said. “Having the support of the community and being able to get these different weird items for my training.

“I had to ask our city if I could have an old fire hydrant because we had to carry a hydrant 50 feet inside a mixed race with a sandbag and a barrel. I had never lifted a 160-pound hydrant before, so it was nice to be able to practice with that.”

Birdsley, 33, has been carrying fire hydrants, heavy sandbags and performing all sorts of other impressive displays of strength for the past two years, training and competing in the growing sport of strongman. Or in her case, strongwoman.

Her goal was to qualify for the Arnold Amateur Strongman Classic founded by legendary bodybuilder and actor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who Birdsley said competitors will have the opportunity to meet.

To qualify, she traveled to the Arnold Invite in Fridley, Minnesota, in July, where she won all four of her events and set a course record.

“Performance of my life”

All his hard work has paid off.

Not only did she qualify for the Arnold Invite, but Birdsley also traveled to the Official Strongman Games Southwest Regional in Mesquite, Texas, in August and won her strongwoman category.

With this victory, she qualified to participate in the official World Strongman competition, where she will represent the United States in Madison, Wisconsin, in December. Her goal is to place in the top 15.

“I had the best performance of my life in Texas,” Birdsley said. “Now I’m going to compete with the best in the world. I just want to represent America well and do my best. Of the strong women you’ll see on the field, I’ll be the one wearing pink and glitter.”

“It’s fun to be a girl and be able to lift heavy weights, which proves it’s not just for boys.”

For Birdsley, it’s not just about training for strongwoman competitions. She uses her knowledge of fitness and nutrition to help seniors and those in need of physical rehabilitation achieve their own health goals.

“I’ve always had a passion for sports and staying healthy,” she said. “Nutrition and exercise have always been very important to me as a lifestyle, and I love helping others achieve their goals.”

Online training

With no one in her rural Wyoming town who could help her train properly, Birdsley turned to the internet.

Her coaches are available to work with her on video, where she records herself and sends the videos to experts so they can critique her technique and give suggestions.

Birdsley said the process was so frustrating and difficult at first that she wanted to give up.

The first time she learned to lift 175 pounds, she questioned her choice of sport.

But she persisted and continued to win contests. She enjoyed competing so much that she took on other challenges, like figuring out the best way to carry a fire hydrant without dropping it.

To successfully tackle this difficult attack, Birdsley met with his coaches several times so they could critique his technique. Believe it or not, there’s a lot that goes into it.

“You really have to squat and bend down so you can come back up and squeeze the weight to your chest,” Birdsley says. “Have some of the weight on your chest and not too low, which would cause you to fall forward. It takes a lot of technique and strategy to do that.”

From strange to normal

She then won the fire hydrant event and her four other events at the Titans Tournament 3 in Denver.

After two years of competing, what seemed strange to Birdsley now seems normal and she takes it all philosophically.

What appeals to strongman fans is that it’s not a weightlifting competition. Athletes perform feats of strength with normal and not-so-normal objects. These can include huge tires, oddly shaped objects (like a fire hydrant), and steel anvils.

“We use a lot of barrels, really big rocks, and we load them onto platforms, onto bars or onto shoulders,” Birdsley said. “We use a ton of sandbags and we use them for different purposes, whether it’s carrying them, pressing them or loading them.”

Her family supports her new sport, cheering her on from the sidelines and watching her events on her sports Facebook page, Porshia Birdsley.

“My mom and aunts all love watching it,” Birdsley said. “They said they were really happy that I chose and invested in a sport that is fun to watch.”

“You’ll see when you watch the videos on my Facebook page or Instagram, they have commentary from the people who are announcing, just like you would hear on ESPN. It’s just really engaging and interesting, even for the viewers.”

Accepting your strengths

Birdsley hadn’t originally planned to lift weights and build muscle.

She wanted to stay fit and healthy, so she decided to take up running in 2021. It wasn’t her passion, but she was committed to training for a half marathon.

It was tough, like lifting a fire hydrant, but she persisted. Ultimately, Birdsley came through, finishing seventh out of 168 women in the nighttime half marathon in Zion National Park in Utah.

“It was an interesting experience. I fell three times, but it was fun,” Birdsley said. “Soon after, I realized I had a natural talent for bench pressing and I wanted to try a powerlifting competition.”

Birdsley believed her ability to lift weights and break records was a natural gift, something she enjoyed far more than running or any other sport.

“I was created to build muscle easily,” she said. “I was able to build muscle naturally and I’m genetically capable of doing it. By accepting that, rather than going against my physical makeup, I’ve really taken a big step forward in my training.”

Birdsley has been breaking records since she started bodybuilding and emphasizes that she did it without the help of illegal anabolic steroids.

She also started lifting weights before she even knew strongman competitions existed. She was introduced to the sport when Chad Lowry, her coach and Montana’s strongest man, became excited about her potential.

“He was teaching us the log press, and when I tried it for the very first time, he was on his phone showing stats and telling me that I could already break records even though I had never touched the tool before.”

His enthusiasm was contagious, even if Birdsley was not convinced at first.

“I didn’t really think it was something I would enjoy,” she said. “There were some weird events that seemed so different and strange at the time. I’m also a very girly girl and I didn’t know if I was going to enjoy it.”

Birdsley trained and began competing, and immediately began winning her divisions and setting state records.

She became addicted and continues to push her limits.

Helping others

In addition to her own training, Birdsley is passionate about helping others find and achieve their fitness goals.

She is certified as a personal trainer, nutrition coach and weight loss specialist by the National Academy of Sports Medicine and is the Director of Wellness at Gottsche Therapy Rehabilitation and Wellness Center in Thermopolis.

She has helped a few patients in rehabilitation, but her main clientele is people over 60 who want to improve their lives. She personalizes their fitness program according to their body type and personal goals.

“One of my clients is over 70 years old and when she loads a load of hay into her truck, she says she thinks of me and the work we do here,” Birdsley said. “It makes it all worth it, knowing I’m helping to make a difference in just one person’s life.”

As Birdsley continues to excel in wrestling competitions, she wants the younger generation to know that they can also fight to achieve their own dreams. Her daughter has started competing and her teenage son is continuing his passion for wrestling.

“I want to encourage others to pursue their natural genetic potential,” Birdsley said with a big smile. “I want them to pursue what they love and strive to be more than what society expects of them.”

“When you set goals and take steps to achieve them, sometimes you will go further than you expected.”

Jackie Dorothée can be contacted at [email protected].