Hello, everyone. I’m sorry if I seem edgier than usual but I’m a little angry. One of my main goals as a trainer is to do my best to impart to women how valuable and empowering resistance training is. If you’ve read much of what I’ve written you know that resistance training can help you with an endless list of physical and mental issues. This is important to repeat because mainstream media keeps repeating the same garbage about women not lifting weights because it’s not feminine or you’ll get bulky, or any other ridiculous BS reason.
I do my best to introduce all of my female clients and women in general to the benefits of resistance training and sometimes it’s difficult to break down that wall of “resistance” to this type of training. I can say (please contact me for testimonials) that every woman who has put their trust in me and put all their effort into doing this has seen tremendous results both physically and mentally. My view of the gym is that people are there to get their work in and don’t really care what’s going on around them. When women have told me that they feel intimidated going into the free weight section that’s what I’ve told them and it’s what I’ve always believed. In short, I thought the “guys paying too much attention to women lifting weights” was a little overblown.
A few months ago two of my female clients started training for their first powerlifting meet and, due to some scheduling issues, one of their workouts each week is done together but without me at their local gym. The workouts consist of some combination of heavy deadlifts, good mornings, planks, step ups, and other similar exercises. In other words they’re lifting more than five pounds and they’re doing this in (gasp) the FREE WEIGHT AREA!! Keep in mind that both of these women can deadlift and squat well over 200 pounds. Almost every week they’ve gotten some comment along the lines of “Why are you lifting such heavy weights?” or “What are you doing?” This reached a bit of a head when someone actually took a 55 lb. dumbbell out of one of their hands a few weeks ago and told her that “she shouldn’t be lifting anything that heavy.”
All I want to say is this: If you are the ones who are making comments like this, stop! You are doing women a massive disservice! Many women are, quite simply, doing harm to themselves with the kinds of workouts they do. The hours of cardio. The super high rep sets with virtually no weight. The bizarre diets. They’re setting themselves up for all kinds of metabolic and thyroid disorders, bone density issues and massive mental frustration with how hard they’re working only to feel worse and worse. Let them work in peace and hopefully more women will begin to realize how to get real results in the gym.
Mitch Rothbardt, CPT 510-754-7113 MitchRFitness@gmail.com http://www.mitchrfitness.com/ Discover Your Strength!
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