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It\u2019s not every day you get flexed on by a grandma.<\/p>\n
Marlene Flowers<\/strong> was 65 when she entered her very first bodybuilding competition. She worried it\u2019d be a tough crowd, but she was used to tough things. She\u2019s been through a lot in her life, she explains, including two divorces and a years-long struggle with an eating disorder.<\/p>\nWith her second husband, Flowers founded an auto repair shop; after their separation, she became its sole proprietor, and spent more than a decade doing everything from running the front office and managing employees to diagnosing cars herself.<\/p>\n
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Subscribe<\/span><\/div>\nIt all started catching up with her\u2013and<\/em> her body. \u201cI live on a small farm,\u201d she says. \u201cI have horses and I had to climb this hill up and down to go feed them every day, and I was getting really weak doing that. I decided that I had really poor eating habits. So I started exercising, which I did here at home, to try to build my strength and my stamina because I was really losing it at that age, and that\u2019s a little early to be doing that.\u201d<\/p>\nShe made significant progression at home, completing follow-along programs like Body Beast. It got to the point, she says, where she\u2019d mastered those and wasn\u2019t making any further progress.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when her son Ryan stepped in. \u201cHe\u2019d started going to the gym, he\u2019d been a little bit of a couch potato and decided to get physically fit, and he transformed his body by going to the gym,\u201d she says. \u201cWhen I got bored, he said, \u2018Well, why don\u2019t you go to the gym with me and try it out and lift weights?\u2019 So I did\u2013hesitantly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her main concern? Anxiety about exercising in front of a bunch of people. \u201cI was used to the isolation,\u201d she says. But she went, and kept going. \u201cI guess I started bulking up, and people in the gym noticed,\u201d Flowers says. \u201cThey were suggesting, like, \u2018Wow, she\u2019s got some muscles. Why don\u2019t you go compete?’\u201d<\/p>\n
She initially dismissed the idea, but with further encouragement from gym folks and Ryan, she agreed to enter a competition. She competed in the Women\u2019s Classic Physique division, which involved getting up onstage in a bikini and flexing, followed by a short pose routine set to the theme from 1983 classic Flashdance<\/em>.<\/p>\n\u201cI was really proud of myself,\u201d Flowers says\u2013and for good reason.<\/p>\n
She decided she\u2019d keep going. That first competition was in the spring; she enrolled for another one in the fall. Somewhere in between, Ryan decided to start filming her. He set up accounts across YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram\u2013all under the name \u201cGranny Guns<\/strong>\u201c\u2013to document Flowers\u2019 already impressive accomplishments and continued #gains.<\/p>\nOne of his earliest videos is a pretty excellent encapsulation of Flowers\u2019 content. Set to an uber-slowed, meme-y rendition of The Neighborhood\u2019s viral \u201cSweater Weather,\u201d the clip has Ryan asking, \u201cGrandma, do you wanna go to the gym?\u201d Flowers, dressed in a demure pink sweater, shrugs and says, \u201cI\u2019ll try it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Smash cut to her bulging biceps as she dominates the curl machine.<\/p>\n