Meet Sister Marluce, a 61-year-old crossfitter who trains in a skirt and encourages evangelicals

“5 Wods, 12 Deadlifts, 100 kg.” For those who don’t practice CrossFit, the exercise sequence can be challenging. But for Marluce Santos, 61, better known as Sister Marluce on the internet, it’s a breeze. She has been successful by showing off her daily workouts on social media.

It wasn’t like that 8 years ago, when the dedicated housewife, mother and grandmother started practicing physical activities to avoid a deterioration in her health. An evangelical, she trains in a skirt and calls herself “sister” because she is called that in the Church, where she is encouraged and also encourages the faithful to take up physical activity.

Resident of Jaboatão dos Guararapes (municipality in the metropolitan region of Recife), the influencer has 189 thousand followers on Instagram and already creates advertising content for clothing and food supplement brands. She participates in podcasts and interviews. In conversation with the F5she said she didn’t imagine any of this, until a friend suggested filming her workouts.

When he started exercising, Marluce was 53 years old, weighed more than 100 kg and had pre-diabetes and hypertension. “I started walking, I walked for half an hour going, half an hour coming back and after a while, my daughter started inviting me to go to a functional gym,” she said.

Now passionate about the sport, she says she didn’t have an easy time accepting her daughter’s invitation: “I was ashamed, I was already 53 years old and I thought the gym was only for fit girls and boys”, she recalls. But, over the years, she understood that it wasn’t quite like that.

Sister Marluce went through functional training and found herself in CrossFit, without leaving her comfort and personality aside, wearing skirts, as is customary among some evangelical denominations. “It’s something that makes me comfortable and doesn’t expose my body, because I’m evangelical,” she explains.

“I’m not that young to be wearing very short shorts, with tight leggings, you know? So I started wearing my skirt, which was already fashionable among evangelicals”, he continues. “Now she’s getting more evidence because of me”, she concludes, proudly.

Her routine, however, is not limited to training: Marluce said that she lives in a “quite big hustle and bustle”, as she takes care of her 4-year-old granddaughter in the morning. In the afternoon, she divides her time between church, where she is leader of a group of elderly people, and training in the box (as the CrossFit training center is called).

Social media is in charge of her son, who was also the one who chose the “very evangelical” name for his mother’s page. “I love this title, you know? It’s something that is part of me, of my person. I’m really Sister Marluce here, in general, in my daily life. Sister there, sister here”, she says.

According to her, her brothers in the Church also encourage her. “The people have always, always, always supported me,” says the influencer. “They saw Marluce from eight years ago and they see it today. How much I’ve changed physically, speaking, in my health, in my disposition. They say: ‘I’m going too, I’m going to follow Marluce’.”

With the new routine, Marluce managed to lower his blood glucose levels and participated in his first competition, instigated by colleagues and family. “The only objective of attending a CrossFit box was my health. Everything else came as a bonus”, she celebrates.