When I bought the groupon, I didn't realize that it was for an all women's gym.
When I think of female gyms, these are the mental images I have:
I digress. When I got to the gym, I entered through the salon, where I was greeted by the receptionist and told to walk into the locker room. From there, I meandered into the gym area. There were two women on their respective treadmills. It was 5 o'clock on Saturday. No one was working at the gym.
I asked one woman about it. She informed me that it was now 24-hour gym, so it was rare to find a manager there, and that I would probably have to call or e-mail to join. But hey, since you were able to get in the building, you might as well work out!
I walked around the gym, which consisted of two small rooms. In the larger room, there were plenty of cardio machines, a disco ball hanging from the ceiling, a few kettlebells ranging from a measly 4 kg to 10 kg, some jump ropes, some free weights, a couple weighted bars that went up to about 50 pounds of weight, and a carafe of lemon water. (Why lemon water? Apparently, the anti-oxidants in lemon are good for you, so this gym has declared if you want to stay hydrated, you're stuck with lemon flavored. Bleh). The second room, which was smaller, was all weight machines.
It was underwhelming and depressing. How would I foam roll? How could I do kettlebell swings? What about deadlifts? The weights were certainly not heavy enough for me. Even when I started working out this summer, I was uses a 14kg kettlebell for kettlebell swings, and 50 pounds for deadlifting. I can now deadlift my body weight! If I had been working out at this "all women's gym," I never would have come close to that! So, like the pictures above, was I expected to truck away at the treadmill for an hour or two, and then do a handful of five pound bicep curls while chatting about celebrity gossip with the woman next to me? How could I ever unleash my physical potential?
It was truly my biggest nightmare, and I left the gym near tears. It certainly got me thinking. This gym certainly would never provide the community I needed to be successful, and the message I got was "you are not capable of being strong and pushing yourself harder." Why do women endorse these "female" gyms? Do we really think we're getting a workout? Why are we afraid of stepping off the treadmill and picking up some weights?
Yes, I once was the girl who was afraid of "bulking up." I hated watching men heaving weights into the air, in part because I was intimidated. But I always despised cardio, and the weight machines seemed unnecessary and cumbersome, so in a way, it was much more natural for me to adapt to CrossFit. But why do we think that workouts like Curves will do that much for our bodies? Why do we let men intimidate us at the gym? Is the rationale of "girl power" and comfort of a female gym really helpful or worth it?
Even the Women's Only CrossFit stresses that the workout includes lots of cardio and not to worry about the weightlifting part. (I'm sure they have great workouts, but clearly, they are trying to appeal to their clientele).
My question is: why are women afraid of stepping off the treadmill and picking up some weights? How can I encourage women to push outside their comfort zone and make a serious commitment to fitness by embracing weight training?
My photo evidence for why everyone should weight train and CrossFit:
Pre CrossFit (June 2010):
January 2011:
I know which photos I like better!
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