New York City Council member Chi Ossé might be a Pisces, but on the day we meet, he’s telling me about what he calls “the other big three outside of astrology”: back squat, bench press, and deadlift.
This past weekend, Ossé competed in his first powerlifting competition, one-piece singlet and all. He fell in love with lifting about a year and a half ago when his CrossFit box began offering classes. “It felt really nice to pick up heavy weights and put them back down,” Ossé says. “It’s very primal, but somehow also meditative and peaceful.”
After that first class, he started training with Anthony Aristy and quickly bulked up. He likens the experience to a real-life version of a video game: “I was just getting stronger and learning new skills and hitting new levels and picking up heavier weights.”
Photo: Lisa Eri
This past weekend, he leveled up by joining his first-ever powerlifting competition. He describes the week leading up to the event as “incredibly hectic at work”—he attended an event tied to the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in DC; on the morning of the competition, he filmed a video with Mayor Zohran Mamdani at Gracie Mansion; and he got arrested while protesting the eviction of one of his constituents. “It’s so funny to be thinking about my protein intake and trying to be consistent with my creatine,” he says, “when I’m also doing my regular politics job.” (For the record, he tries to eat 215 grams of protein a day—essentially one gram per pound of body weight—a rule Aristy taught him.)
The competition itself was big for Ossé. He PRed (set new personal records) twice, and had a lot of fun. “I see exercise as a part of self-care,” he says. “It’s a symbiotic relationship—I have found it essential for me to exercise in order for me to do my job and navigate the world.”
“I was nervous, but [the competition] was an incredibly welcoming space. All week, I had been running on endorphins. Obviously, there were big bro-dudes, but there were other folks there that you wouldn’t really consider to be the powerlifting archetype.” He counts himself as somebody in the latter. “I view powerlifting and getting buff as a leftist, queer person as something really important. It’s political for me to take control of my body and get strong—it’s an act of resistance. The manosphere and the patriarchy seem to think that if you’re not white, straight, and conservative, then you’re weak. Getting buff and shutting them up is just a form of resistance.”
