fitnessprincess’s BodyBlog

A couple posts back I ranted on the way women are depicted as working out in women’s fitness magazines (see entry for 10/20/08 entitled "Intensity").   Reflection and closer inspection merited revisiting this topic of the depiction of women working out in fitness magazines. In my earlier post I commented that in women’s fitness magazines women always look like fashion models smiling demurely holding their 5 lb pink dumbells (only a tiny exaggeration) beautifully coiffed and with no sign of exertion or sweat on their face or brow - God forbid there be sweat on their workout clothes.   On closer inspection I noticed that the depiction of women in men’s fitness magazines is absolutely no different! If there are spreads of women doing workouts in men’s magazines the women are depicted in exactly the same way they are in women’s fitness magazines. Mind you usually if there are women in the men’s fitness magazines they are usually featured in a "swim suit" or "thong" spread. So perhaps I shouldn’t be so hard on the women’s fitness magazines but honestly ALL the fitness magazine should be able to do better than this.  Is it any wonder that women think they should be lifting pink 2 lb dumbells? 

This is an issue that has been bothering me for quite some time. People are always asking me why I read the men’s fitness magazines and not the women’s magazines. Women often ask me how I feel about Oxygen. I have a love/hate relationship with it - I like some Tosca’s column and some of the recipe stuff but I generally don’t read it or the women’s fitness magazines anymore because they are really beauty magazines not fitness magazines. Oxygen which purports to be for the fitness/figure crowd is honestly no different and this bothers me more than I can say. What’s so different? Is it the content? the workouts? the information? Yes, to a certain extent but it is really all about INTENSITY. You see it on every page of the men’s fitness magazine’s etched in the faces of those photographed. They are working out with true intensity using heavy weights - bringing all their heart, soul, and being to the act of working out. You see young men, old men, sweaty men - in short men and sometimes women, too. You won’t find this in the pages of Self, Shape, or Oxygen. There you find photograph after photograph of airbrushed buxomy, young women looking perfectly coffed and relaxed working out with in essence tiny pink dumbells or barbells. God forbid there be any sweat or any sign of physical distress depicted in the actual act of a woman working out! I used to wonder why I wasn’t seeing the changes I wanted in the gym. Then I realized shortly after switching coaches that it was because I wasn’t bringing this intensity into my workouts - and no wonder! My new coach demands that I bring intensity to each and every workout. He (yes, he) doesn’t expect lesser intensity or lesser quality results because I am biologically female. He does expect me to grunt, groan, get nauseated, and sweaty. I began to look more carefully at the role models I had in the pages of the women’s fitness magazines and then it dawned on me that THAT was the problem. I had unconsciously bought what the women’s magazines were selling and what they were selling would never produce the results I wanted.

Yesterday I had another great leg workout - hit a PR on the leg extension and hack squat and increased my load on the leg press. All in all I am amazed. Last time around I was barely able to stand and certainly not hitting PRs this close (less than 2 weeks out) from my comp. I am amazed!

The other thing I wanted to comment on is the value I have found in perusing the men’s fitness magazines while I do my cardio. In particular, I have found a number of nuggets in the men’s fitness magazines. This month there was a great article by Gustavo Badell in which he shared his dirty dozen tips for bodybuilding success. Tip 5 was "breathe correctly." He wrote: "I see guys using a lot off heavy weights and getting stuck. That’s because they don’t keep breathing deeply. All they do is inhale and hold it. Then, when they exert, their body uses up their entire oxygen supply after just a couple of days. When you keep breathing, you continuously feed oxygen to your muscles, enabling you to train longer, heavier, and with more intensity. The most physically demanding exercises - deadlifts, rows, squats, and front squats - require more oxygen than others, in order for you to have the control (strength and endurance) to perform them correctly. A bodybuilder’s excuse is oten "this is too heavy, it’s too hard." It’s not because it’s too hard, it’s because he doesn’t respect the value of breathing. There is no hard exercise, there is only improper breathing."