The Women’s Fitness Industry Needs to Work on Inclusion
The truth is, I hate the gym.
Since I was a kid, I was always active. I was involved with sports and dance, and in college, I danced around 16 hours a week outside of my normal dance classes for my curriculum.
Once I graduated, I no longer had the money to take dance classes and had very little motivation for self-practice.
I convinced myself that I could use dance auditions as a form of free exercise, and that working as a cater waiter for 8 hours a day could count as my workout. However, I realized that I could not rationally expect to be stronger than the choreography I was performing when I was barely keeping up, nor could I expect that my only “physical” training through waitressing would help me keep up my stamina.
If you look at the training schedule for any professional athlete, they are training much more then they are actually competing. So, how could I believe that I was doing enough “training” for my dance career?
For women like myself, the gym can be extremely intimidating, especially for those who are not a skinny or particularly fit body shape. Still, it feels that going to the gym or participating in group exercise is the only option for exercise as an adult.
For one thing, I feel that gyms often advertise that they have an accepting community. Yet, they have a community that is extremely tight and rather hard to break into. Take, for example, group classes for biking or pilates. Their community consists of dedicated people who actually have the time, commitment, physical capability and money to take the classes in the first place. Therefore, if you do not qualify with those four factors to begin with, you are already starting with a disadvantage.
Additionally, these group classes meet frequently enough that the people in the classes become friends, and some of them hang out outside of the class. If you are the new person in that class, it almost feels like you are trying to join a new friend group- one with history. It becomes socially isolating and you can feel uncomfortable in the environment.
The gym also hosts the type of gym goer I like to call the “Gym Girl”. The Gym Girl has either worked extremely hard to maintain her well toned body on a professional level, or she is the type of girl that can blend in with the hard working gym athletes because her natural physique is skinny or athletic. Seeing the majority of women in the gym presenting as Gym Girls would make any newcomer feel like she doesn’t belong because she does not look like them. It also gives her an unrealistic expectation of what she should look like with more training, when in reality, she should just be focused on creating a healthy lifestyle, not becoming a body builder or supermodel.
With all of these factors to consider, it is most likely that the average woman who joins the gym will feel isolated, unwelcome, excluded and will continue to feel unmotivated. This is not an environment for someone to begin creating healthy habits and self-confidence. Rather, this creates the perfect environment for someone to become self conscious.
It also may motivate this person to push themselves too far and fast for realistic, healthy habits to actually settle in. Or, it may create the opposite effect, creating a habit that keeps her in her comfort zone as to draw less attention to the group that intimidates her, preventing any risk taking, growth or progress with her goals. It is both mentally and physically exhausting and, eventually, that woman will give up.
But, the whole purpose in going to the gym in the first place was to maintain an active lifestyle! You can’t just give up on health.
This is why I propose “The New Girl Gym”. This gym is meant to attract this type of person; Lets call her J. J is self-conscious about going to the gym because she does not know how to correctly navigate an active and heathy lifestyle as a working professional. She does not have the “Gym Girl” body type. She used to be active and wants to reignite the habit OR she has never been active and needs a place to start.
Here is where The New Girl Gym can help her. The New Girl Gym is a 3–6 month training program of how to use the gym and/or how to enjoy a fitness class. It is meant to empower J, regardless of where she is starting from and regardless of her knowledge base. The program is meant to help get J motivated on her journey by giving her the tools she needs to work independently and create her own schedule for an efficiently active lifestyle.
Specific skills J will learn include;
- How to reduce anger when Gym Girl does a perfectly executed handstand in the beginner level yoga class and states “I swear, I’ve never even tried before, I just got lucky!”
- How to navigate the passive aggressive stares by Gym Girl, when one accidentally puts the dumbbells in the wrong place
- How to learn the art of ignoring, specifically in relation to both Gym Boy and Gym Girl when they work on their gains and show the world just how hard they are working via heavy breathing or groaning
- How to love her body, regardless of its current strength and without comparing it to the body of Gym Girl
J will graduate from the course once she can successfully tune out the BS of the fitness industry, and only focus on the activity her body needs to maintain stamina and feel strong.
In all seriousness, women’s fitness culture needs to change. There needs to be real and active inclusion of non-active women who are just beginning their fitness journey and an end to the artificial, commercialized culture of inclusion.
The pandemic has created an opportunity for leaders in the fitness industry to make these changes and help push for inclusion. I haven’t even touched on the other factors that effect women— and men— and their specific needs and conditions, such as physical challenges. These personal needs and scenarios need to be addressed by the industry as well, in order to be more inclusive.
I personally do not know what this new industry should look like, but it is abundantly clear that healthy living and physical activity are more important then ever for a strong and healthy society. We need to learn how to include everyone in this world of fitness, regardless of gender, body type, race, age, proficiency, physical or mental disability, and the industry needs to recognize its moral duty to its members, rather then its monetary profits and artificial, toxic appearance.
