For 10 years she was a lean and fit professional kickboxer at 70kg. And then, in just a few years, she turned herself into a powerlifter weighing 159kg. What could possibly be the motivation for a woman to undergo a bewildering transformation? “To make a statement on body positivity and emphasise that big isn’t bad and shameful,” says Dutchwoman Jackie Koorn, one of the heaviest woman powerlifters in the world. Calling herself the ‘She-Hulk’, after one of Marvel’s most notable and powerful female superheroes, Koorn boasts biceps like cantaloupes. But unlike Marvel’s She-Hulk, who had a waist-to-hip ratio of a lingerie model, Koorn is fatter and heavier. At her weight and height (5ft 7 inches), she far surpasses the body type of professional female powerlifters, but claims to be able to lift “better than most”. An average day at the gym for Koorn looks something like this―bench press 200kg, leg press 450kg, daily strength training from 80kg to 450kg, 100kg on a lat pulldown machine, 50kg dumbbells and 100 squats a day.
“A lot of men who think of themselves as macho, too, cannot do these weights,” she tells THE WEEK over Zoom. “At the wrestling academy, I lifted the men on my back, but they couldn’t lift me because I was too heavy for their backs.” With perfectly done eyebrows, fair and flawless skin and flowing, black tresses, she cuts a pretty picture. She is cheerful, chatty and laughs often during our conversation, but what is most striking about her appearance is the tattooing all over her body and her piercings―on the nose, at the ends of both eyebrows and two on the lips. “Right now, I have more than 30 tattoos on my body―on both my legs, back, arms, neck, everywhere,” she says. Didn’t it hurt? “No, I have a really high threshold for tolerating pain,” she replies. “I was sleeping in the chair when I got my throat tattooed and I didn’t even feel any pain. I can take pain better than others. To me, it is just an emotion, one I can do without.”
Koorn, 35, is the second of six children. She began her journey towards “acquiring a huge size and big muscles” in the early days of Covid-19 in 2020. Before that, as a professional kickboxer, she was “big, but not fat”, as kickboxing requires one to be lean. But with Covid-19 kicking in, kickboxing came to an abrupt halt and it was then that Koorn began her journey towards growing bigger by powerlifting, gaining calories and achieving muscle mass. “Having achieved this big, curvy and strong frame, I am one of my kind. My mum passed away two years ago, and she told me, ‘I want you to be strong so that you can survive the world.’ Fortunately she never discouraged me from piling on weight. Rather she was like, ‘Jack, you are too big, but keep it healthy, only then will I support you.’”
Koorn is antithetical to the idea of bodybuilder women―ones who have such toned bodies that one can easily spot the numerous veins protruding on their arms. “I want to give the message that I can have my curves and yet be strong, and what’s more, I have a boyfriend,” she says, with a wide grin. “When it comes to muscles, I prove that bulk does not matter. When I get my body profiling done, I pass all markers and doctors, too, are surprised that someone so heavy is not unhealthy after all.” She attributes it to her sporty and athletic upbringing, which involved judo, soccer and kickboxing.
Koorn was a professional kick-boxer for a decade before she started powerlifting.
“If it was any other normal person weighing this much at 35, we would have termed them unhealthy right away,” says Dr Tvisha Parikh, sports medicine physician at Sir H.N. Reliance Foundation Hospital in Mumbai. “But with athletes and sportspersons, it is a different story.” As a professional kickboxer, Koorn would have a fight slated every weekend; it had become her lifestyle for a decade, she recalls. “Now, it is a challenge to find an opponent as nobody wants to play against me,” she says.
At nearly 160kg, Koorn cooks, cleans and pulls herself up without any hitch. She eats every two hours, has at least eight to 10 eggs every day and takes creatine and protein shakes and vitamins daily with loads of chicken, cottage cheese, granola and spinach, totalling an intake of 3,000 calories to build muscle. “I used to be on a diet when I was into kickboxing,” she says. “But once Covid began, I was done with diets and began bulking up. I only did strength training at the gym. The cardio that I would do during kickboxing wasn’t needed as much now. I am also lucky with my genes to grow quickly. Once I stopped dieting, I began gaining weight really fast. And so instead of feeling bad and sulking, I decided to make it my strength and flaunt it. I began doing it methodically, with a team of trainers and nutritionists, and the result is for you to see.”
The problem with having biceps larger than 20 inches and thighs the size of some people’s waists is finding clothes that fit. Dresses are out of question. “I literally live in bodybuilding clothes―baggy pants and large, stretchable singlets,” says Koorn.
Having grown up on a farm, Koorn says her childhood was happy and trauma-free. Even back then, she was big, not bulky, and remembers taking on her brother’s bullies in school. Someone tried to bully her, too, but she would have none of it. A boy tried to pull on her ponytails. “So, I literally held him by his throat and warned him to never do it again,” she recalls. “Everyone is really afraid of me, at least until they have known me personally. I have to struggle to impress upon people that behind my huge build lies a warm heart.”
Koorn with her sister and father.
Koorn is preparing for wrestling shows in the Netherlands. She has also signed up for WWE in the US and will soon participate in Power Slap, a reality show. She recently bagged an acting gig, where she played a badass prisoner. “You see, being this giant-size and not toned and defined, too, has its perks. Forget size zero and flat abs, let’s embrace our curves and big frames,” says Koorn, who also runs a security business, which, she adds, is perfectly suited to her personality. “I cannot take a 9-5 job because I won’t be accepted in the mainstream. People look at me as if I am an alien. They would want selfies with me, but wouldn’t want to sit for coffee with me and have a conversation. Women ridicule me and men walk away. When I go to the gym, most of the time I’m the only woman. I believe I am a rebel.”
Koorn says marriage is not her thing. She has had proposals come her way via social media, but she does not respond to them. “Men want me because I am famous and muscular, but they do not want to know me as a person,” she says. “It’s really quite sad.”
The Koorns have a family history of heart attacks. Koorn says she has been advised umpteen times by medical practitioners to not do what she is doing and lose weight instead. She recalls a time in the hospital when they weighed her. “The doctor said, ‘You’re too heavy.’ I told him to say that after they have done all the investigations and run the necessary tests on me,” she recalls. “Once all the reports were out, they couldn’t find anything abnormal. I want to do the opposite of what people think. I don’t want people to judge me on my weight.”
Koorn has often been compared with actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. “Although I have a lot of respect for him, he is not my role model,” she says. “The one I really look up to is Fedor Emelianenko, a former mixed martial artist from Russia. I really wanted to be like him at one time.”