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| Riordan weightlifts at Cannonball Gym in Pompton Lakes |
But three years ago, the Bloomingdale resident began taking the circuit class at Cannonball Gym in Pompton Lakes. The class, which mixed weight lifting and strength training with more basic exercises like jumping rope, was not only a new challenge, but introduced her to a new world, one where "thin and skinny" took a
back seat to "fit and strong."
Hundreds of workouts later, she can squat 105 pounds — something she never thought she'd do — and has raised her pushup total from around 10 to well over 50. She's gained weight but dropped two clothing sizes, has more muscle definition than ever, and can even keep up with some of the men in Cannonball's lifting class.
"Women are always trained to weigh less, and you think that number on the scale means so much," she said. "But I liked the definition I was getting, I liked getting stronger, I liked being able to wear a tank top and know that my arms look fit. … It was so much more empowering."
These aren't words you would have heard from a woman in the gym just 10 years ago, said Cannonball's 32-year-old owner/operator, Austin Wall, and it's only in the last five that he's seen women trade the "skinny-at-all-costs" mentality for one built on a little more muscle. He attributes this, in part, to the rise in popularity of women's sports — average women are watching those athletes and beginning to look to their bodies for inspiration instead of rail-thin runway models. Not to mention our culture's obsession with health.
"The goal is health, and women are becoming more comfortable with that," Wall said. "And if that means being a little bit thicker than whatever the old standard was, I think they're happy with that, too."
Cris Dobrosielski, author and owner of Monumental Results Inc. in San Diego and a consultant with the American Council on Exercise, agrees. "You have more women coming out of high school and college with experience in weight training, where 20 years ago it was thought to be manly," he said.
And the trend does seem to be catching on: According to the recently published American College of Sports Medicine's annual fitness trend forecast for 2015, three of the top four exercise trends — body-weight training, High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) and strength training — involve strength training to increase lean body mass. (The fourth trend: "consulting with experts.")
The health benefits of weight lifting are well-established. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, research has shown that pumping iron can reduce the symptoms of several diseases and chronic conditions such as diabetes, arthritis, obesity, back pain, depression and osteoporosis (the latter of particular concern to women).
"While aerobic exercise, such as walking, jogging or swimming, has many excellent health benefits … it does not make your muscles strong. Strength training does," the CDC's website notes. It cites a year-long study of postmenopausal women at Tufts University, which found that a group that did progressive strength training just two days a week had 1-percent gains in hip and spine density, 75-percent increases in strength and a 13-percent increase in dynamic balance. The control group showed losses in all of those categories.
Not everyone is convinced that this "movement" is actually happening, however, and there does seem to be a disconnect between what's going on in the gym and what researchers say women believe about their bodies.
Diana Thomas, professor and director of the Center for Quantitative Obesity Research at Montclair State University, believes that the "strong and healthy" idea is more marketing ploy than movement. Recent research still indicates that women overestimate the size of their bodies and then choose the skinniest possible model as their ideal when asked how they'd like to look, she maintained.
Thomas worries that the actual implication is to be both strong and skinny. If there was a concerted effort to change the ideal of what's attractive in order to promote working out for strength instead of vanity, "that would be wonderful," she said.
"Muscle is good, especially for women," Thomas said. "Having lean body mass keeps them from getting osteoporosis. Instead of looking at appearance goals, we should look at health goals."
Sarah Bateman, a Teaneck therapist specializing in eating disorders, said that although she feels the "fit, toned look" has become "very desirable," pursuing one vision as "the ideal" can be dangerous no matter what that vision may be; being in the weight room for inordinate amounts of time can be as disruptive to one's life as skipping dinners to shed pounds.
"There isn't just one healthy body image, there isn't one healthy body type," she said. "And idealizing any one specific type is dangerous because everyone has different bodies."
Tina Thea, a 47-year-old mother of three from Upper Saddle River, began lifting at Fit Club Strength and Conditioning in Allendale about five years ago as she entered middle age. She quickly got hooked; she felt stronger, and people noticed the improvement. Today, she can do seven pull-ups — when she began, she could do only two — and can use 40-pound dumbbells for bench pressing.
"I really kind of love it," she said. "I couldn't imagine not doing it."
Richie Carney, the 33-year-old owner of Fit Club, said that he sees more women than ever in his training sessions; where once his classes were mostly men, today about half his clientele is female.
"At first, they're nervous [about working out with men], but then they realize it's not a competition and they're not being judged," he said. "It's kind of inspiring, and they feed off each other."
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http://www.northjersey.com/news/health-news/buff-is-the-new-skinny-1.1135910?page=all
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