Aqua, of the Questioners (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
aquaeri) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lifting_heavy_things2010-05-07 08:49 am
aquaeri) wrote in lifting_heavy_things2010-05-07 08:49 am
Introduction
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.
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.
no subject
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
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.
no subject
*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.
no subject
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.
no subject
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.