I agree with the Attrice's premise that many fitness activities designed for women focus too much more on the way they look than on their health outcomes. Lots of cardio, weights so light they're almost not worth the gym membership, and lots of focus on so-called "problem" areas (Hate. That. Term.)
It all forms a part of the great societal conspiracy: keep 'em focused on their looks, self-conscious, and lacking confidence, and they won't have time, energy or mental space to take on the world.
But how do we change it? Is it as easy as changing our workouts? Well, yes and no.
Its tempting to suggest that we women start working out "like men" - getting sweaty, liftin heavy, etc. But in reality, that won't solve the problem.
The two biggest problems as I see it are that fitness activities are marketed to women all wrong (problem areas, tight tummies, fat blasting etc), and second, that we women are a bit unimaginative with our goal setting.
The first problem is going to take a lot more work than just one post, so I'll leave off (for now... you're on notice, evil marketeers).
The second problem, however, we can fix, through more appropriate goal setting.
When I help women design their fitness programs, I ask them their goals. What I usually hear is some version of the "lose 5 kilos", "get a flat tummy", "change my bum" or "get less flabby" aim.
These goals are near impossible to meet for many reasons. They aren't generally specific enough, measurable, time limited etc and are likely to take so long to reach (if you do!) that progress will be hard to see, and many of us just don't have the patience and forbearance to keep gong without seeing some result.
Worse than this though, is they all represent a narrow view of fitness and health, and a reveal a woman who is looking at herself as an object, from an other's point of view, rather than from her own, as the inhabitant of that body, one with a lived experience of it.
While it makes sense that many people have a vague reason for being at the gym, or engaged in some other fitness activity, in the first place (lose weight, stay fit etc), we need small, acheivable goals to keep us motivated, help us see progress, and keep us interested.
To keep fitness about function, and begin to change the way women see their bodies through fitness, I encourage women to set goals that are about their physical achievements, not their appearance.
Such goals could include increasing the weight you lift, decreasing your time to run a set distance, working your way up to doing 20 push ups, learning a new physical skill (dance, martial arts, rock climbing), or mastering a tough yoga move.
If you want to feel better about your body, and yourself, and get out from the grasp of those pesky evil marketeers, I challenge you to give up the measuring, and set yourself a physical challenge.
Well.. get to it! And let me know, what are your physical goals?
Next week's goal: remember pants.
P.S. a quick reminder on goal setting. All goals should be SMART. You know, Specific, Measurable, Ambitious (yeah, i changed it), Realistic, and Time bound.
So, for example, if you can't currently run for 3 minutes without getting completely winded, a marathon in a month is not exactly a realistic goal.
Better examples would be "Do 15 real push ups in 8 weeks time", or "Run 1 km in under 7 minutes in 6 weeks" etc, and then train consistently to meet it.
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