Wednesday, May 09 2012
**Stolen Blog**
This stolen blog is for any of the women who are having issues with their new muscles!
P.S. They Look Great!!!
Personal Story about Women and "Putting on Muscle"
This story is from my friend Mo at CrossFit Relentless. Thanks for letting me share it, Mo! -Adam
I just wanted to share a personal story that might help those women in this group who might still struggle with the idea of "putting on muscle" as a result of CrossFit or just confidence in general, as CrossFit has helped me with both.
Those of you that know me well, know that confidence is something that I struggle with, always have. Whether it be confidence in my abilities, or just being comfortable in my own skin. Like many women, I've struggled with the typical image issues, even though I never was overweight, I still could always find something wrong with the way I looked. The lack of confidence in anything was a constant struggle for me. Over the last two years, CrossFit has helped me break down barriers within myself that I never thought I'd be able to break through. I discovered that while finishing a tough WOD you can find out a lot about yourself, and I found that inside, I was a strong individual, and could withstand anything. Although still somewhat shy, I now can say that I am generally a more confident person, and "stand tall" more often than not.
However, one thing I still struggled with was body image, but in a different way. When I first started, I was what Merle so nicely calls "skinny fat". I weighed the same as I do now, but that weight has redistributed, and I actually went down about 2 pants sizes. Anyway, along with this redistribution I obviously notice the muscle definition showing more and more as well. Even though I know that women can't get big, and I am still relatively small, I was still self-conscious of my "man arms" when not in the gym mainly because the vast majority of my friends an family are not CrossFitters so would make some smart comments every now and then. I wasn't confident wearing sleeveless shirts anywhere except the gym. Recently, I had two different instances that showed that strength is indeed beauty.
In the first, I was talking with a someone I met a couple months back. He told me that one of the first times he saw me he remembered I was in an all pink outfit after coaching at the gym, and he couldn't keep his eyes off me. I couldn't figure out why because it was one of my gym outfits, and I didn't think it made me look good at all because it showed off my "man arms". He said that it was because I just looked really good, and the muscles were far from masculine, just beautiful.
The second happened this past Sunday. I was wearing a sleeveless turtleneck sweater, and again was somewhat self-conscious about showing off my arms. I had a woman I don't even know stop me and say, "You have great arms. Do you work out? I can tell, they look great. Keep it up."
I just wanted to share because I know a lot of women struggle with the idea of getting muscle, but this just reinforces that strength is indeed beautiful, and Strong is the New Skinny. I know it was a wake-up call to me that I really have no reason to be self-conscious about it, and really no woman should be.
