Gun show (the other kind)

[truepenny]

I've been working with a personal trainer for eleven months. (If you're an equestrian in the Madison area, she's RideTrainElite Rider Fitness Coaching, and she's awesome.) Most of it I, obviously, don't care to talk about, but I did want to post this picture as proof that, yes, people with biologically female bodies, we can have upper body strength. Maybe not as much as a biologically male body, but "not as much" doesn't equal "zero."

I think Gen X women (biological females) were done a great disservice by the Presidential Fitness Tests, which implied strongly that because women didn't have as much upper body strength as men, there was no point in their trying to DEVELOP upper body strength, instead of the logical conclusion that women need to work HARDER at developing upper body strength. Because it's not like we CAN'T.

Hence this picture:

Comments

[redbird]

When I was going to the gym regularly, I occasionally overheard trainers assuring women that they could lift weights without "bulking up" and looking un-feminine. When I started working with a trainer, we discussed this a little, and she said that yes, weight or resistance exercises would give me some visible muscles in my upper arms, but that it would take steroid injections to give a woman the sort of really bulky upper arms some male weightlifters had.

What actually surprised me, because it's just different enough that it wasn't really discussed, was that some of my shirts stopped fitting because my shoulders got broader. Most guides to women's clothing sizes talk about chest size, by which they mostly mean circumference around the breasts, not shoulders. (I'm not doing as much of that sort of exercise now that I just use resistance bands and don't go to the gym, and a t-shirt I had put aside as too small fit again when I tried it on last week.)

[rachelmanija]

If you ever want to share, I for one would love hearing some details of how you got that strong.

[truepenny]

My trainer worked with me very carefully to find an exercise program I could do daily, despite fibromyalgia, depression, etc. We figured out how to remove roadblock after roadblock: I have to be able to do it at home, I have to be able to do it first thing when I get up, it has to be short enough and simple enough that I don't get intimidated, etc. And I stuck to it like grim death. (I'm currently in a little bit of a break, because the month from the third week of September to the third week of October has been hellish & I had nothing left to do workouts with.) A lot of it has been a matter of pushing me to admit it when I can't do something: the idea that the only good workout is the workout that I do has been really helpful.

She also works with a program called Precision Nutrition, which provides a simple and commonsense for balancing what you eat. Once I got the hang of it, I found it both easy to stick to (with occasional backsliding) and a way to remove one set of indecisive/worry factors from my daily life. And because we both knew why I was doing it--to improve my riding--it continued--and continues--to feel like it has a point without having a specific "target" weight or strength.

She gives me a lot of credit for sticking to the plan, but I give her a lot of credit for making a plan I can stick to.

[galeni]

Awesome. Brava.

[heresluck]

ROCK ON.