She Lost Her Arm in a Terrible Car Crash, but What She Can Do With a Barbell Just Might Demoralize Your Next Trip to the Gym

Deadlifting 200 pounds is far from an unheard of feat. But try doing it with one arm.

Fueled by a wildly impressive drive to succeed, Krystal Cantu can pull it off.

Image source: Krystal Cantu/Facebook

But she's operating with what a few folks might call a limitation.

Image source: YouTube

Image source: YouTube

Image source: YouTube

"I feel like I can conquer anything when I'm in the gym," the 25-year-old told Barcroft Media in a video interview. "It's where my superpowers come out."

Last year, Cantu was a passenger in a car that was involved in a terrible accident. The vehicle flipped. And when she looked down at her crushed right arm, she remembers thinking, "OK. That's pretty bad."

The surgeon gave Cantu the bad news: "He's like, 'OK I looked at everything. It needs to come off. So I had a little moment...and I was like, 'If it’s going to save my life, take it off.'"

Image source: Krystal Cantu/Facebook

While such a devastating injury would sideline many in self-pity, Cantu picked things right back up just three weeks later, resuming CrossFit workouts she had commenced only a few months before the accident.

Image source: Krystal Cantu/Facebook

So Cantu got with her coach, designed modified exercises, and then three months after losing most of her right arm, Cantu entered her first CrossFit-style competition, the 2013 Working Wounded Games.

And wouldn't you know that her barbell deadlift of more than 200 pounds exceeds what she could lift before her injury?

But that's not much of surprise given the other thought the San Antonio, Texas, resident entertained immediately after the accident.

“As soon as I saw my arm," she confessed to Refinery 29, "the CrossFit competition was the first thing that ran through my mind."

(H/T: BuzzFeed)