via Stronger Athletics April 27 2015 This conversation has been coming up quite a bit with friends and also floating around on social media as well. I was scrolling though my instagram feed and got so mad looking at all the rubbish “fitness gurus” that have such a huge following on instagram. I’m not going to name any names but it’s atrocious that this type of training and body type is marketed and successfully so to women. Why is it as women that we are afraid of looking strong? Why is it that this is considered to be unappealing in our culture to be a strong looking woman? Everything that’s marketed to us is about looking more girly, more feminine, skinnier, dainty and generally in my opinion a lot of the time unhealthy. It blows me out some of the women you see on social media that have huge success as personal trainers and fitness figures, you see all the adoring comments and praise for how these women look but to me they just look scary skinny. Why is a wafer thin woman with sports clothes on considered fit? What is wrong with being a STRONG and capable woman? This used to be me. So I can tell you from experience I used to be like most girls and afraid of lifting weights with the fear of getting “bulky”. Once I started strength training, it surprised me how liberating it was. It took the pressure of focusing on being skinny and I could actually focus on my health and wellbeing. I started seeing my body in a positive light, I could see what I was capable of not what I was lacking. I could set positive goals based around things I was doing in the gym and not a stupid number on a scale. Skinny is not necessarily healthy, I was talking about this with a friend the other day, the times in my life whereI have been my skinniest and felt my worst (during periods of extreme stress and unhappiness) was when I got the most comments about how good I was looking. How fucked up is that! We see it all the time at Stronger Athletics, girls come in where they have been yoyo dieting and eating incredibly low calories for an extended period of time. Have tried shake diets, starvation and lemon detox type diets. They are weak, their metabolisms are under functioning and generally feel pretty shit about themselves. Its incredibly rewarding watching these girls blossom from gettingSTRONGER. To see a girl go from not being a to do a push up to deadlifting body weight+ or do a chin up is so exciting! Taking the focus off body composition or numbers on a scale is an obvious relief for so many, and the results happen without all the unhealthy behaviours! Learning that I didn’t have to starve myself or cut out whole food groups to stay lean was literally life changing (sorry but it was). I used to have so much food anxiety when eating “clean”, if I ate something that wasn’t on my very small list of foods I could eat then I felt guilty and would beat myself up about it or do some extreme amount of exercise to counteract it. Yes I was thin, but I had very little muscle tone and very little strength. The most ironic part is I’m probably the leanest I have ever been right now and I haven’t done any “cardio” in over 18 months. I have more so called cheat foods in my diet my calories are 2000 a day and climbing I do no cardio and yet I’m the strongest and leanest I’ve ever been. Weird. Except it’s not weird. We are all just so damn misinformed. And so many girls are worried about getting “big” from doing weights, or it not being a successful form of fat loss because it doesn’t involve 60 minutes of high intensity cardio. Its simply not true. “Girls avoiding weight training “incase they get too big” is like someone refusing to go jogging in case they become an Olympic sprinter.”- Ben Carpenter (body builder)
I can tell you this much, its really hard for a female to grow any substantial amount of muscle- even when your actively trying its really difficult. Women grow muscle 2-3 times slower then men. Hormonally and physically we are not built to grow large amounts of muscle in a small amount of time, so even if you train like your boyfriend you wont end up looking like him. So GET IN THE GYM, don’t be afraid to break the norm, ditch your unhealthy habits and body image issues, lift some shiz and I promise you that you won’t look back. Become a STRONGER girl TODAY!! You can train with Kelly and her coach at Stronger Athletics
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AuthorKelly Mulder is currently training for her first bodybuilding competition. Archives
May 2015
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