Aack! I am so jealous! I read all these weightlifting blogs and these women are in the gym 18 times a week throwing around incredible amounts of metal, and I'm struggling to do 6 pull ups. I'm struggling to get to the gym twice a week. I usually go when my girls have their swim lessons, in the evenings, during peak hours, in a small gym with a pathetic lack of floor space, and usually no spotter. Pity me!
Back when I was lifting seriously in the 80s and early 90s, we didn't have anywhere to post butt photos or brag about our incredible workouts and ridiculous diets or berate readers with our groupthink approach to lifting big. That's what really irks me. There are more women lifting and the community is so much better but so much of what I read is more about denigrating other people at the gym than engaging in an open discussion on all things lifting. There is no discussion.
If you read one weight lifter's blog, you've read them all. Really. Where's the curiosity? Where's the recognition that maybe we haven't figured out everything there is to know on getting bigger/stronger/better or that different approaches work for different people? Not on any blog I can find. It's just goose stepping all over the gym while mocking the people on the ellipticals.
Why should I let this upset me, you ask? Because I want to be part of a shared experience. I want to find like minded souls to talk with about lifting weights. But today that means I have to buy into pre-packaged assumptions about what lifting hard is. I could pay my way into a Crossfit community, but I don't like to workout like that. But I can't make myself hate on others who do or on those who use machines or eat white rice. I don't really care if other women are skinny fat or if guys are curling too much. I care about what works for me. I care about different ideas on workouts. I like to see what kind of progress other people are making doing similar things as I'm doing. But I don't care to be judged by these same people, especially by people who think they have everything figured out.
I guess I'm still on my own.
Admittedly, a little funny. But mostly smug.
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