Women and Strength

International Women’s Day falls on March 8th. For those of you who don’t know; this year the theme is, “An equal world is an enabled world” with the focus being on the global impact women have in business and as leaders. 

When I sit back and think of how far we still have to go in North America and all over the world to improve women’s equality and parity in business, I have to admit that when I look at my own experience in business I am beyond fortunate to say that I have it pretty good! I have worked at Blended Athletics for the past 6 years as a coach, programmer and head of staff development. I am a part of a team of senior managers in which 50% of us are women. There is NO discrepancy at Blended as far as what the women earn compared to the men. At Blended there is a daily discussion around how we can make our gym a more welcoming place for women, how to program in a way that allows for men AND women to reach their training goals, and what can we do to make the women in our gym feel empowered. It’s not just our job to help women feel empowered while they are at the gym, it is our MISSION for the women at our gym to take that feeling of empowerment and to carry it with them when they go back to their jobs, their homes, back into society. 

At Blended we do all kinds of training; however, I program for (and take part in) Ground Zero training. In Ground Zero we do a functional style of fitness that includes weightlifting, very similar to CrossFit. When you train like this, the goal is obviously to improve your fitness, but we do that by improving your strength and muscular endurance. When you take part in Ground Zero, I am programming specifically for you to get stronger. 

As a woman who has been strength training and weightlifting for the last 10 years, I am fully aware of the negative ways that women with muscle are perceived or talked about; both by men and women. I have heard endless comments from new female members at the gym saying that they want to feel strong, but they don’t want to look “bulky”. In the early days of Blended, I overheard women saying, “I want to move weight like her (pointing at me) but I don’t want to look like her.” Ouch!

 I don’t blame women for having those thoughts or saying those things. Before I started weight training, I used to think the same way. We live in a society where, for women, skinny is desirable. We are bombarded by images of unattainably thin bodies with messages telling us that if you aren’t skinny than you aren’t desirable. To be thick is to be undesirable, to be fat is to be disgusting, and to be muscular means you are trying to look like a man. Nineties Supermodel Kate Moss once famously said, “Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels”, but who is out there telling women how good it feels to be strong? And just so we are clear, you can be skinny and strong, fat and strong, thick and strong or muscular and strong. Well, that’s what we are here for.

 According to www.InternationalWomensDay.com  a performance tracking app called BoxMate surveyed over 500 women regularly taking part in CrossFit and Weight Training to find out their views on how muscular women are perceived.

94% of the women surveyed said CrossFit and lifting made them feel empowered, strong and more body confident. 77% of the women felt that when training in their gym/box, they can be competitive with males without judgement. And 99% of the women surveyed felt there is a need for more education from an early age about the positive impact weight training has for our bodies and cited a need for more positive female role models showing muscle and strength as desirable qualities. 

Representation is so very important for self acceptance. In many ways we are seeing more of ourselves on television and in magazines than ever before. With social media we have the choice of who we will follow as our role models. With women out there like CrossFit Champion Tia-Claire Toomey, tennis superstar Serena Williams, Olympic Weightlifters like Holly Robles or gymnast Simone Biles you can find strong women of every shape, size and color out there smashing stereotypes and loving themselves and their bodies at the same time. If you follow any or all of these women on Instagram (which I highly recommend you do) you will be blown away by their strong bodies, but what I hope is not lost on you is how strong they are mentally. Muscles on their own will not make you feel empowered. The journey towards finding and achieving your physical strength is what makes you feel empowered.

 Getting strong isn’t easy, it’s a journey filled with pain, failure, self doubt and lots of obstacles. Sounds a lot like life, right? That’s because it is a lot like life. While I was in the gym on a daily basis, I was constantly facing my fears, pushing outside of my comfort zone and forcing myself to listen to my body while ignoring the negative self talk in my head. I was teaching myself to believe in myself, to believe in my body. I learned to fail, publicly. I also learned to accept help and encouragement from the people around me who wanted to see me succeed. Strength training at the gym gave me the opportunity to feel comfortable in a traditionally male dominated space. Soon I went from simply feeling comfortable, to feeling like an integral and important presence in that space. I learned how to speak up for myself in a male dominated environment, to see my opinion as valuable and more importantly to demand that those around me see it as well. It wasn’t long before I started attacking obstacles in my everyday life with the same spirit. The equality I demanded at the gym became something I demanded in my everyday life. 

An equal world is an enabled world and an enabled woman can do anything she dreams of. That’s the kind of world we want people to feel a part of when they come to Blended, and it’s the kind of world we want our members to continue to build outside of the gym. We deserve it. 

If you know me, you know I’ve faced some pretty big obstacles in the last few years. If you would like to learn more about my journey and how I credit strength training with helping me overcome the battles I’ve faced you can download The Offseason Podcast (episode 2) where I sit down with Dr. Nicole MacLellan to discuss how strength training prepared me to face breast cancer.