The Respect Ladies Deserve

Happy hump-day all, it's a busy season and then not so much for me. My schedule is pretty much like a roller coaster in terms of number of sessions being trained. I slowly get more and more people on my schedule and then BOOM my numbers drop like a bad habit. Not the worst thing though, gives me a chance to take some personal time and spend it with my family. Something I feel I do not get to do enough of, but it's just how this life goes sometimes.

Today I would like to talk about my experiences with the female gender in the world of strength and conditioning and that proverbial wall that gets thrown up the first time you hand them a weight heavier than their purse. First, a story that goes well with this, I feel. A few months back Catherine and I decided that it would be good for our sanity if I was no longer writing her programs and responsible for her training, it's just one of those things that can be hard for a couple in this line of work. I took it into my hands on where she was going to train, because if I wasn't training her I was sure as hell making sure some asshat wasn't writing her programs and coaching her. She's training at a pretty good place in Hudson Mass now, maybe some of you have heard of it. OK to the point, when doing her initial consult (yeah she was nice enough to let me sit in on it) one of the first goals she gave was she wants to deadlift 300 lbs, I'm pretty sure the coach had to restrain himself from jumping out of his chair in excitement. His eyes did bug out a bit, so I noticed, can't say I blame him.

"Well why is that so damn exciting?" Because it is so damn tough to kick the freakin wall down that females tend to put up when it comes to lifting weights. I know it's been said before but there's nothing I've heard more from this particular brand of lifters than "oh but I don't want to get bulky" my thought becomes....bruh.....really? For Catherine's coach not have to take that step of getting over the notion of lifting gets you bulky, I'd have a hard time containing myself, just a bit too.

Ladies it's been said before, but I'm going to say it again, lifting does NOT make you bulky. There are 100 other things that will, lifting is not one of them. I respect the hell out of you ladies that have gotten beyond this whole mindset because there are so many still stuck on it. With that said there are more and more getting beyond it thanks to some fantastic female strength coaches out there (many of which I wouldn't go toe to toe with). I know there's many a judgment passed on you by other females (for that matter meatheaded males) wondering why you do the things you do. They then comment on how good you look, you try to get them into it for their own good, and then that hand goes up because they don't want to look bulky.  It's also not going to instantly turn you into a fitness model, honestly folks those cover girls are paying people a truck load to help them look like that for 1 or 2 days, and then go back to being a semi-normal human.

I do also understand that you ladies can not train the same as men, but you can still do many of the same things the guys do. Catherine likes to call it playing with the big boys, and she can, many of my friends and clients (former and current) can and they are a great example of ladies that have broken the notion. It makes me jump a little high each time I can knock this wall down with a female, every time a female gets beyond this notion an angel gets it's wings. As I said, the training is quite different in certain areas, different mechanical disadvantages come with the way females are put together, but it doesn't take the surgeon general to figure out how to train around these.

OK before some of you push that send button and get on my case, if you want go to the gym and enjoy your cardio, yoga, pilates, jiu jitsu or break dance fighting, GO NUTS. Really any coach that doesn't have their head completely shoved up in it will tell it's fine to do those things, IF it's not the only modality you use. Believe me just lifting doesn't do you a ton of favors unless you're a lifting athlete, which I'm not, I'm on the other end of the spectrum where I just hate cardio, but I do it. Accept the fact that doing your little quarter squat to dumbbell curl with your 5 lbs. and 10 lbs. weights isn't going to cut it. The sooner you can accept that, the sooner you will see those results you're striving for. Final note, for every time you ladies use the word toned improperly, a puppy gets kicked, so for the love of puppies and all things that are lovable, just don't.

The moral of this, if you go to a trainer and he doesn't just have you do planks and walk on the treadmill for 45 mins, then embrace it. Assuming he's good with technique and coaching you up, embrace it. The barbell will not make your waist line jump out 10 inches I promise.

That's it for today folks, go out there and get after it!