Introduction

[aquaeri]

I think I must belong here since I already have the icon.

I've never been a big fan of strength work, but I've reached the conclusion I've got to do some to balance out my other fitness activities, particularly as I get older (there is so much osteoporosis in my family it is not funny). My personal preference is for using my own bodyweight, quick sessions (see: not really a fan), and mixing with stretching because I do like that. My current aim is to see if I can actually ever do a pull-up.

On a more personal level: I'm biologically female (regular periods, have been pregnant although I miscarried) but reasonably muscular and the one time I did do a weights workout in a gym, despite the instructor telling me "women don't bulk, they tone" and "you won't see any results for three months at least" I thought I was starting to look like Arnold Schwarzenegger's little sister after a month, and stopped*.

I figure, well, people vary, and I get to be the exception to most women, i.e. looking stronger than I actually am, and wondering what I'll look like if/when I can do a pullup. But it means I can get really touchy about gender policing. It's not that I identify strongly as a woman, but I do identify strongly as "biologically female" and I get touchy about any implication that if you look muscular, that must mean T, either "you're biologically male" or "you want to be (more) male and you're taking T". Please just let me (and anyone else like me) be biologically female who happens to be muscular. I know it's rare, but it's my (and more to the point, my family's) normal.

* Partly 'cos I enjoyed other exercise more, partly because the one reason doing weights was actually somewhat fun - namely that my favourite instructor was happy chatting with me while I did my program, ended because he moved to a different gym. Also another woman in the gym admiring my muscles and wanting to compare programs, discovering we were doing pretty much the same program, only she was doing heavier weights, because she'd been doing it for years, and I'd been there a month.

Comments

[daedala]

I've been bugged by the insistence that women are silly for thinking that they will "bulk up" for lifting weights, because I'm pretty sure there's no standard definition for the term: my "wow nice arms" might be your "ew, that's too much," or vice versa. Particularly when we are talking about people who are into working out and weightlifting, versus people who are really not. It seems like an attempt at education (which is needed) turned into another way to ignore women's voices and individual experience, and too much of a reaction to those who are supplementing. I expect that there is probably a wider range of normal hormones than assumed, as well.

I'd suggest borrowing Rippetoe's Starting Strength from the library; he has a lot of stuff about the research into muscle power, endurance, and hypertrophy, mostly from research on men, but it might be helpful anyway.

ETA: Another idea would be to look into programs for gymnasts, who have to be wicked strong and mostly use bodyweight exercises.

[aquaeri]

Gymnasts' programs - that's an idea. I had an aversion to gymnastics as a child (because I was the opposite of what was expected of girls for gymnastics at least) but that doesn't mean I can't steal ideas and adapt them to my ungymnastic body.

[rydra_wong]

*envies your muscles*

My current aim is to see if I can actually ever do a pull-up.

\o/ This is an awesome goal.

If you want to focus on pure strength without adding extra muscle mass, Stumptuous has a two-part program oriented towards that.

Seconding what daedala said: if you want to do bodyweight work, gymnastics-based programs could be your friend (may I also rec rock-climbing, which tends to work muscles in a rather similar way? I'm writing my 3W4DW post about that right now ...).

If you like mixing bodyweight strength work with stretching, you might also really enjoy Ashtanga yoga and the various forms of "power" yoga or "dynamic" yoga derived from it.

[aquaeri]

Thanks for the ideas!

*envies your muscles*

It can be a mixed blessing, particularly when I was a child. So much misery around my body then, that I understand so much better now (and want to hate all the adults around me who had no clue that children vary). And I have to be eternally grateful to my mother (same build) who sheltered me from the worst of the "make women hate their bodies" industry, and that could have made being me so much more miserable.

[rydra_wong]

More ideas -- Gubernatrix has a whole bodyweight only workout, which is pretty hardcore but might give you some things to work towards.

It can be a mixed blessing, particularly when I was a child.

I can imagine. Okay, I probably can't, because I'm at the opposite end of the spectrum (I really have to fight for any muscle), but, yeah. There are so many different ways in which bodies (and exercises, and sports) can be made into sources of misery for children.

At the moment, I'm all about reclaiming the body to do things, and ruthlessly exploiting whatever advantages your particular body gives you.

[aquaeri]

I'm all about reclaiming the body to do things, and ruthlessly exploiting whatever advantages your particular body gives you.

Yes, this exactly! With each of us as an expert on our own bodies. Because I can't remotely imagine what it might be like if I'd been smaller, lighter, thinner-limbed, whatever.