Look at grandma’s guns: At 97, she flexes her muscle at Tampa Bay competition

Everyday Tampa Bay video series: video by Monica Herndon, Times Staff Photojournalist
Edith Traina stood in line at a church banquet hall, dressed in a black singlet with white piping. When her turn came, she stepped onto a bathroom scale. That would determine her weight class, though it didn’t really matter, as she was the only participant in her age group: 95-99 years old.
Traina, who is 97, may seem an unlikely weightlifter, but she was one of seven elderly women who traveled from Tampa Bay to compete in the Polk County Senior Games in Lakeland recently. They wore matching T-shirts that read, "Bill Beekley Academy of Powerlifting Senior Division."
The group attends about six competitions each year, including the Hillsborough County Senior Games in the fall.
Traina likes the challenge of competing, to demonstrate what she’s capable of, and because "you’re also proving to yourself that you’re able to do something you probably never thought you could do."
At the senior games, she took gold with a 60-pound bench press and a 130-pound deadlift.
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