ZEBULON - Laurie Middleswarth laughs as she remembers the day she realized she had job security at the East Wake Fitness Center in Zebulon where she performs routine gym maintenance.

“The boss lady walked in and caught me picking up a treadmill with one hand and vacuuming under it with the other, and said that’s when she knew I was a keeper,” Middleswarth said.

Middleswarth’s boss, Robbin Sollars, is delighted to have her work at the gym she owns with her husband, Don.

“Laurie’s a great girl,” Sollars said. “She’s breaking state records.”

In fact, Middleswarth owns three USA Power Lifting records for North Carolina in the over 198-pound women’s open division. Her record lifts are: squat, 353 pounds; bench press, 198 pounds; and dead lift, 424 pounds.

Town folks in Zebulon will remember the tall, strapping girl who played softball all four years of high school at East Wake. She graduated in 2005 and enlisted in the United States Marine Corps where she worked as an ordnance technician, loading ammunition and bombs onto flatbed trucks and helicopters for transport.

One day, during a deployment in Iraq, a superior watched her load 100-pound boxes of ammunition onto a flatbed trailer.

“He said ‘Hey Marine, come over here and lift this bar,’” indicating he wanted her to perform a dead lift, she said. “He didn’t tell me there was 315 pounds of weight on the bar.”

She picked it up and lifted it waist high with no trouble.

“I had never lifted weights before, but I guess I was strong from moving ammo around,” she said. “I used to carry 70-pound mortar rounds on my shoulders.”

After leaving Iraq, she deployed to Afghanistan. She was discharged in 2009 and for Middleswarth, four years in the Marine Corps were enough. She is in school now, working toward an associate degree in criminal justice at Nash Community College. Time not spent on school work is spent in the gym.

One day last year, someone at the gym told her she was “pretty strong for a girl,” and urged her to start competing in power lifting competitions.

Her first contest was the Battle on the Border in Charlotte in 2010 and she won third place overall.

Middleswarth is quick to point out the difference between power lifting and body building.

“Body builders lift weights to build, shape and define their bodies. They go for an ‘X’ frame – big upper bodies, big legs and tiny waists,” she explained. “Power lifters tend to be short and stubby.”

Middleswarth, far from short and stubby, is tall and powerful.

She carries 210 pounds of muscle and grit on her 5’9” frame, which does not go unnoticed. She refers to herself as “farm girl strong.”

“My look definitely sets me apart. In school they call me Wonder Woman,” she said. “I look bigger than the average lady, and I do get a few looks.”

Good health is her top priority.

Protein and amino acids are keys to building and repairing muscles, but after months of training and competing, Middleswarth longs to become a vegetarian.

She needs up to 170 grams of protein a day, which she gets from protein shakes, chicken and steak.

Lots of chicken and steak.

“My jaws get tired from chewing, and I could go six months without touching another piece of chicken,” she said, and laughed.

Middleswarth acknowledges that many women avoid weightlifting because they are afraid of becoming large.

“Most women don’t get big; they get toned,” Middleswarth said. “You can lift like a man, but you don’t have to look like one.”

Anyone can be a power lifter. The secret is to take it slow.

“Definitely be patient. Long term gains mean taking baby steps,” Middleswarth advises, adding that any kind of weight training is good weight training.

Middleswarth hopes she will be setting goals and lifting weight well into her 70s, as long as she stays healthy and has fun.

Even as a state record holder, she wants to keep improving. In the short term, she’s chasing a 500-pound dead lift and has her eye on a 225-pound bench press.

And she’ll get there, even if she has to do it one pound at a time.