Strong is the New Sexy

Regardless of your opinion on the new campaign, geared to empowering woman, I want to talk about why I think this saying and image are so powerful.

For WAY TO LONG woman have gone to the gym, spent 30-45 mins on the treadmill or elliptical 3 days a week and wonder why after a few months they stop seeing changes in their body. The reason this is happening is because these women/ people's (because it happens to men to) body have adapted to the hardest thing they have asked it to do. Our bodies are very smart; once it has adapted it will stop changing.  For even longer men have been getting results by lifting weights and strength training. I cannot say when it happened but someone somewhere told woman, lifting weights and strength training would make them get big, or look manly.  Who ever told woman that should be kicked in the shin. Although I am not a huge fan of the Crossfit movement, since it came in and introduced the "kool-aid", woman have started to realize that this is not the case; not only will they not get big and manly looking but they will start to move better, and feel better than ever before.

This is why I am talking about the "Strong is the New Sexy" campaign, I have adopted this with my clients and with myself. Feeling strong is much more influential in a high self-esteeme than just feeling skinny.  The word strong can have so many different connotations depending on the person interpreting it. Woman in the media are also taking this on, celebrities like Jessica Biel, Scarlett Johannson, Halle Berry, have all embraced and stood behind strength training as an effective way to be strong and look strong while maintaining their curvy and feminine sexiness.

The "Strong is the New Sexy" is especially important with our up coming generations of woman, mostly because of the obesity epidemic with our youth. Encouraging girls to feel strong will only bring up strong woman; woman who not only have high self-esteem, and are physically strong, but also have an emotional strength that has not been seen in past generations.

This picture above shows how body composition can change dramatically. This demonstrates why the weight on the scale should NOT be your goal. The girl above gained 14 lbs and not only is smaller in size but is more muscular while maintaining a feminine figure.

After all is said and done, do what gets the results you want. Never rule something out because you think it will end up a certain way, if you haven't tried it, you don't know how it will end. If you have never lifted weights and don't know what to do or how to do it, I recommend hiring a professional. Try it, if you hate it then at least you know it wasn't for you; but my guess is that when you start in March and can deadlift (with good form) 45 lbs (an olympic bar), and by August you are putting 45 lb plates on either side of the bar, you will be looking better and feeling better than you ever have.