I noticed something really interesting about my weight training class last Sunday morning. The entire class, aside from the two instructors, consisted of all chicks. It’s weird because it’s a technical lifting class. Exercises range from bench press and power cleans to plyo pushups and split squats. There aren’t any pink dumbbells to be found.
I think it’s interesting because a majority of women don’t lift like doctors want them to. Nothing outrageous – just somewhere between a half and a fourth of your body weight – but a lot more than the five pound pink dumbbells marketed towards women. There have been countless studies showing the benefits of this sort of strength training on weight loss and metabolism, bone density, blood pressure, arthritis prevention, and treatment of depression. But regardless, researchers found that most women just kept plodding away on the treadmill.
I was curious as to whether our group of women was inherently different from other women, but my personal experience suggests otherwise – it has something to do with the gym. After taking tumbling classes in middle and high school, I knew the benefits of a little bit of upper body strength and always intended to start a strength training regimen in college. But it never happened. Instead I became one of the treadmill plodders – until I started my membership at Arrichion, my fitness center off campus. But even now that I’ve established a weight training regimen, I feel weird lifting at the UNC gyms. It makes me feel hypersensitive to my femininity. I feel butch. And I don’t like it.
If women’s physical strength is such a public health concern, what mistakes are gyms making that interfere with a regular weight training regimen? Come to find out, it’s an emerging field of interest in sport psychology research. When it comes to the difference between female strength trainers and non-strength trainers, education isn’t a factor – both parties show awareness to the physical and psychological benefits of hitting the weight room. And the notion that lifting heavy weights gives you big, hulking, man muscles? Both groups know it’s just a myth. (Skeptical? Check out Marilou Dozois Prevost, Canada’s professional weight lifter, and tell me she doesn’t look like a girl.)
The issue, however, had to with the gendered nature of gym space. That makes sense. Look at the Student Rec Center on campus. The first floor features weight machines, free weights, and a handful of cardio machines. And upstairs? Two aerobics studios, lots of treadmills, and two racks of dumbbells that top out at 9 pounds. I’ll let you guess where they keep the latest issues of Cosmo and Glamour. So in order for girls to lift more than 10-20% of her body weight – or in other words, get any of those benefits from muscle strengthening listed above – she’s got to venture down to the “boys’ floor” where she’ll try to keep her femininity intact, but without giving off the impression that she’s down there to meet men.
However, at my new gym, gender isn’t an issue. Men and women cycle through the same stations and everyone’s equally coached to go heavier and get stronger.
But I think it goes beyond just that study’s results on how space is appropriated to each gender. It also has to do with training. Most guys are introduced to weight training through high school sports and taught proper technique from their coaches or each other. That didn’t happen much for girls’ teams, and if any of my friends know the proper technique for a hang clean, they’ve kept that to themselves. So it was nice that Arrichion first introduced their strength training class with a required technique course for everyone – male and female, experienced or not. And since workouts are predetermined, I rarely have one of those “Dear God I hope I’m going this right” moments.
It also has to do with gym staff. When Arrichion first promoted their class, the owner urged me to come out – “I think you’d really like it.” Obviously. I’d been taking their circuit training class focused on muscle endurance (lower weight, high reps) for months. It seemed like a natural fit. But the same schpeel was given to some of the ladies who only ever go to yoga classes. And it was the same pitch used for the heavy lifting guys who are former college athletes. So it wasn’t too surprising that all sorts of clients showed up for technique training – and continue to show up for the classes. And I think it’s this same equivalent treatment that makes all the guys feel comfortable coming to yoga. We all end up working on multiple facets of fitness. And even the music used in class doesn’t reflect any gender specification, with selections ranging from Guns and Roses to Rihanna. Come to think of it, the only time I can think of experiencing any gender differential treatment was the first day when they made a point to direct me towards the women’s locker room.
But if undiscriminating treatment is how we get women to lift weights, it makes me question the efficacy of marketing strategies of a lot of the women’s weight training initiatives. They also use gender related marketing tactics – but instead focus on masculine attributes. Their messages seem to say, “Feminine weight training doesn’t get results, so we must invade the guys’ side of the gym, plunder all of their 20 pound dumbbells, and make heavy lifting into a feminine thing.” They display hostility, aggressiveness, competitiveness, and territorialism – all traditionally “male” characteristics – as if acting barbarically will help you fit in with the big boys in the free weights section at the gym or “win back” a form of exercise that they believe that men currently own.
This style of marketing message has even been adopted by leaders in the fitness industry. Nike’s “My butt is big” ad campaign features a woman who’s enlarged her derriere through tons of squats and lunges, and sees her tush as Border collie that “herds skinny women away from the best deals at clothing sales.” If anyone has a problem with her large, round behind, she invites them to kiss it. Charming, right? First of all, I just wish it worked this way, but after six months of front-squats, back-squats, jump squats, and split squats, I’ve gotten significantly stronger, and it’s gotten perkier, but I still have more of a "dink" than a "donk." And secondly, I just don’t get the hostility and animosity. I really don’t think that women respond well to the idea that being tough in the gym coincides with having a tough exterior. Even though women have been reassured that they can’t biologically grow big, bulky muscles, it’s still too masculine for them.
I just wish the gyms and the retailers would stop seeing strength training in such distinct dichotomies. Why can’t we treat it more like running, where everyone tries to get better and get faster, men and women can train together with the same training plans, and the pavement never belonged to one gender or the other. Because I just want to lift. I don’t care about out-squatting your girlfriend. I don’t need to herd other women away from good retail sales. I’m not trying to get all “girl power” up in the gym. I just want to lift to be healthy, to keep up with my brothers on the ski slope or my guy friends on the rock wall, and to feel good about the way I look come bikini season. So I vow to lift and lift heavy, with good form, a good attitude, and good will.
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